Showing posts with label Brookings Institution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brookings Institution. Show all posts

Sunday, December 24, 2017

"These Were The People Investigating Hillary": Trump Escalates War With FBI

It has been a scorched earth weekend in the PR war between Donald Trump and the FBI.


In the aftermath of the report that the FBI’s top lawyer - and suspected FBI leaker - James Baker, had been reassigned, and at the same time as news hit that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was set to retire as a result of the "Trump Insurance Policy" debacle (but only once he becomes eligible for pension benefits), Trump lashed out at top FBI officials on Saturday and Sunday, his latest in a stream of criticism aimed at an agency that has seen a sudden spike in high profile departures after Peter Strzok"s publicly disclosed text message revealed a stunning climate of extreme anti-Trump bias at the FBI - including one still to be determined "Trump Insurance Policy" - just as Trump had suggested all along. 


Trump swiped at multiple agency officials in a string of tweets Saturday afternoon, suggesting that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may have been compromised by political donations and ripping former FBI Director James Comey as a leaker.


"How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?" Trump tweeted.



The tweet was followed moments later by a comment on reports that McCabe is looking to retire from the bureau in the coming months as reported yesterday, in the aftermath of the "Trump Insurance Policy" fiasco. Trump noted that McCabe may seek retirement in March, when he would receive his full pension benefits. Trump wrote that the deputy bureau chief was "racing the clock to retire with full benefits," adding, "90 days to go?!!!"



Rounding off the Saturday tweetstorm was a reference to reports that James Baker, the FBI"s top lawyer, had been reassigned. Trump reacted to that development with a simple "Wow" on Twitter, though news of Baker"s reassignment had surfaced days earlier.



The tweets Saturday from Trump, who has repeatedly jabbed at McCabe by citing his wife"s ties to prominent Democrats, came after the FBI deputy testified for many hours behind closed doors on Capitol Hill this week, responding to questions from lawmakers on three congressional panels probing the Trump campaign"s ties to Russia and the bureau"s work. As we reported, Congressional investigators said that McCabe dodged questions on the "Trump-Russia" dossier, and his testimony "contained numerous conflicts with the testimony of previous witnesses" so much that the House Intelligence Committee is planning to issue new subpoenas next week to Justice Department and FBI Personnel.


“It’s hard to know who’s telling us the truth,” said one House investigator after McCabe’s questioning - which was reportedly spearheaded by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC).  When asked about funding for the "Trump dossier", McCabe claimed he could not recall whether or not the Clinton campaign and the DNC funded the report - despite the alleged existence of documents which McCabe signed establishing his knowledge of its financing and provenance.  Curiously, ahead of McCabe"s Thursday appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee for a "transcribed interview," the DOJ announced that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe "will not be in a position to discuss matters that are within the scope of the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III."


On Sunday, Trump"s feud with the FBI resumed, when the president used a tweet to quote Fox, stating that that FBI’s Andrew McCabe, “in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.”



To be sure, Democrats argue that the Republican criticisms of McCabe and the FBI are an effort to undermine Mueller as his investigation ramps up, and to give Trump cover should he try to remove Mueller, a step the White House insists is not on the table. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, responded to Trump"s criticisms Saturday afternoon. "FBI would set a dangerous precedent if it forced out dedicated career public servants in capitulation to Trump and (White House) pressure," Schiff tweeted. "President has already removed one top FBI leader — Comey — over Russia; McCabe would be another."


None other than James Comey, now in active marketing mode for his upcoming book, tweeted that "Sadly, we are now at a point in our political life when anyone can be attacked for partisan gain. James Baker, who is stepping down as FBI General Counsel, served our country incredibly well for 25 years & deserves better. He is what we should all want our public servants to be" to which some twitter commentators had a sarcastic response...



As a reminder, what really happened according to the Washington Post, Baker, the FBI"s general counsel, communicated with Mother Jones reporter David Corn in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 election. Corn was then the first to report the existence of the Trump dossier on Oct. 31.


Meanwhile, some Republicans have called for McCabe"s ouster, accusing him of political bias, particularly over the fact that his wife received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to her 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign from a super PAC led by a Clinton ally. At the same time, Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and friend of Comey, cautioned in a tweet on Saturday that the deputy director"s exit from the FBI may not be part of any kind of larger "purge" at the bureau. Then again, if more evidence of FBI collusion against Trump emerges, the "purge" - or the draining of the FBI/DOJ swamp as some have dubbed it - may just be getting started.


Further stoking the PR war between Trump and the FBI, a number of Republican lawmakers have questioned the FBI"s objectivity and fairness in recent months, particularly regarding McCabe"s work at the agency, while recent revelations that FBI Peter Strzok - who was in charge of the FBI"s probe into Hillary"s email server and was leading the investigation into Trump"s Russian collusion - had sent text messages critical of Trump during the presidential race, only served to undescore speculation that the FBI may have been the critical cog in the "deep state"s" plan to avoid a Trump presidency.









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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Exodus Starts: Millennials Ditch City Life

The urban revival of America’s core inner cities has been a decades-long failed experiment, as deindustrialization coupled with failed liberal policies have created a growing problem of inequality and violent crime. Middle-class advancement was once localized in the core of America’s cities, but that is not so much the case today, as those areas are labeled a “barbell economy,” divided between highly-paid professionals and low-skill service workers.


Brookings Institution notes as early as the 1970s, middle-class income in the inner cities started to shrink more than anywhere else. Today, in most US inner cities, the cores are more unequal than their surrounding suburbs, noted geographer Daniel Herz.


As the failed American inner city experiment nears the latter stages before a collapsing point, a new report from Time could be the final nail in the coffin for some American inner cities, as the article suggests “cities have already reached ‘Peak Millennial’ as young people begin to leave.” 



According to the latest Census data, after years of growth, the population of millennials in Boston and Los Angeles have declined since 2015, as a mass exodus from city life starts to take shape. Other cities such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C., are experiencing similar issues but not as severe while growth rates of millennials plateau.


Dowell Myers, professor of demography at the University of Southern California, called the peak of the millennial population in major U.S. cities back in 2015, with the largest birth group of the cohort turning 27 this year. To note, Myers could be a far better forecaster than Dennis Gartman, but we’ll leave that for another conversation.


Myers said at the critical age of 27 and above, that is the time when the millennial generation will participate in, what we call, ‘millennial flight’ to the suburbs. Such a trend could be the final nail in the coffin for some American inner cities, who were expecting the millennial generation to lead the charge in the revival process, as what we’ve learned from Myers– that may not be the case.


The Times explains how Myers coined the term— ‘peak millennial’. Interesting, the plateauing of millennial populations are occurring in East Coast cities, while the West Coast is still drawing in young people.




To see which cities have reached “peak millennial” — a term Myers coined —we analyzed a decade of Census data through 2016. We found that while tech hubs like San Francisco and Seattle are still drawing young people, large East Coast cities, like New York and D.C., are fast approaching peak millennial, with plateauing populations of those born between 1980 and 1996.


 


And then there are cities like Boston, which already appear to have reached their peak. Boston lost roughly 7,000 millennials in 2016, after a record high of 259,000 the previous year.




In the explanation of millennial flight from America’s inner cities, Jim Rooney, president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce said, “they’re doing what every generation does — they get married, start a family and think about having a backyard and looking at school systems” in the suburbs.


While that is definitely true, and what we’ve mentioned above, millennials tend to live in core inner cities, where inequality and violent crime are sometimes out of control. Also, many millennials are becoming priced out of real estate in these areas, as wage stagnation is drowning many millennials into more and more debt, on top of their already ballooning balance sheet of liabilities. Think student loans….


In Boston, the millennial peak was confirmed in 2014 through 2015, as it appears it’s all downside from here. Rooney’s findings conclude millennials in the region are being priced out of homes with the median home in Boston around $561,000, according to Zillow.



In Chicago, the millennial plateau occurred in 2014 through 2015, hitting a high of 814,000 millennials in 2015 and falling by a few hundred in 2016. Jack Lavin, president of the area’s Chamber of Commerce said millennials are moving to the suburbs to start a family— ditching urban areas. Nevertheless, the article does not mention— the out of control homicides adding to the fear of city life.



In Los Angeles, the millennial peak was confirmed in 2015, which saw a decline of about 2,500 millennials in 2016. “It’s hard for millennials to achieve a middle-class lifestyle that they think they deserve”, said Myers. With that being said, millennials are moving out.



Bottomline: The ruling elite and their inner-city playground planners who were expecting the millennial generation to revive their decades-long failed experiment are about to come to harsh terms with the reality of a millennial exodus.









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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Israel Launches Air Strikes On Syrian Military Facility Near Damascus

Just days after Israel launched a combined air and surface-to-surface missile attack against what it claims is an Iranian military base south of Damascus, Israel has again attacked targets inside Syria, this time striking closer to the Syrian capital in the Jamraya area according to early reports. 


Jamraya is an area well-known for multiple government facilities, including a branch of Syria"s Scientific Studies and Research Center, which was the site of a major 2013 attack by Israel, but also has sprawling civilian residential areas. It lies on the other side of Mt. Qasioun, against which the Damascus city center is nestled. 



Screenshot of first footage to emerge of tonight"s Israeli strikes outside of Damascus


“Our air defenses are confronting an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed,” state news agency SANA said, adding the attacks happened at 11:30 p.m. Monday. Beirut-based Al-Masdar confirmed that the strikes occurred during the evening (Middle East time):


At least two massive explosions ripped through the Syrian capital moments ago as battles for two rebel-held bastions in eastern Damascus continue.


 


While the reasons for the explosions are still unidentified, some local activists spoke of an Israeli airstrikes that hit Jamraya area (located 3 miles to the northwest of Damascus) where the facility of a very important government-run facility – namely the Scientific Research – is located.



Two witnesses told Reuters late on Monday three strong explosions were heard from the direction of Jamraya. While details are still unclear and unconfirmed, it appears that Israeli jets once again attacked while over Lebanese airspace in order to avoid Syria"s sophisticated Russian supplied anti-air defense systems.


First footage of tonight"s Israeli airstrikes near Damascus is below:





According to a follow-up report by Al-Masdar News, Syria intercepted some of the missiles, while others appear to have hit a military site in rural Damascus:


For the second time in 72 hours, the Israeli military has targeted the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) positions in rural Damascus. According to a military report, the Israeli forces fired at least seven missiles from Lebanon, scoring a direct hit with at least three of the missiles.


 


The remaining four missiles were intercepted by the Syrian Air Defense above the West Ghouta region of Damascus.



The tempo of Israeli attacks on Syria have intensified over the past months - this as mortar shells fired on Damascus have significantly increased in the last three weeks from the dwindling anti-Assad insurgent stronghold"s around the capital. Israel has long sought to weaken and ultimately topple the Syrian government, which it sees as an extension of perceived Iranian hegemony, a years long endeavor which has further involved covert assistance to anti-Assad militants - many of them linked to al-Qaeda.


Though still rarely acknowledged in international reports, Israel has engaged in open acts of war in Syria since at least 2013, when it initially launched a massive missile attack against a Syrian defense technology facility in Jamraya outside of Damascus - the unconfirmed area of tonight"s attack.


In 2016 Israel went so far as to target Damascus International Airport, killing a well-known Hezbollah commander. In total the head of Israel"s air force has previously acknowledged nearly one hundred IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) attacks on convoys and sites inside Syria over the course of the past 5 years. 


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been more frequent and aggressive in his rhetoric toward both Syria and Iran of late. On Sunday, he told an annual gathering of American and Israeli leaders in Washington hosted by the Brookings Institution (the Saban Forum), “We will not allow a regime hell bent on the annihilation of the Jewish state to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not allow that regime to entrench itself militarily in Syria, as it seeks to do, for the express purpose of eradicating our state.”









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Monday, October 23, 2017

This Secretive Japanese Company Is Driving The Global Boom In Industrial Automation

As we’ve reported in the past, skyrocketing wages in mainland China have caused the adoption of robot workers by the country’s manufacturers to accelerate rapidly in recent years, cementing the country’s position as a world leader in industrial automation.



But while that trend has been widely cited and is widely known, particularly as the US plays catch up with one of its most prominent economic rivals despite President Donald Trump’s promises to bring back manufacturing jobs, what many don’t know is the worldwide boom in industrial automation has largely been driven by one press-shy Japanese company called Fanuc.


Fanuc, as Bloomberg Businessweek reports, manufacturers robots that can perform all manner of functions. From constructing complex motors to making injection-molded parts and electrical components. At pharmaceutical companies, Fanuc’s sorting robots categorize and package pills. At food-packaging facilities, they slice, squirt, and wrap edibles.



Sales of industrial robots in the US soared during the first quarter of 2017 as manufacturers spent more than half a billion dollars on new products bound for auto manufacturing centers in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio - and the overwhelming majority of these robots are being manufactured by Fanuc.


In the first quarter of 2017, North American manufacturers spent $516 million on industrial robots, a 32 percent jump from the same period a year earlier. A study published by the Brookings Institution shows many of them are ending up in steel and auto manufacturing centers such as Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. According to the report, there are about nine industrial robots for every 1,000 workers in Toledo and Detroit—three times the figure for 2010. Many of these robots are Fanuc’s. Its machines are also in Tesla Inc.’s Gigafactory, in Nevada, lifting heavy chassis and delicately assembling battery trays, among other tasks. Its sorting robots, meanwhile, are ubiquitous at Amazon.com Inc.’s massive warehousing and shipping facilities.



But US sales are dwarfed by sales in China—which purchased some 90,000 units, almost a third of the world’s total industrial robot orders last year. Sales to China amounted to about 55 percent of the $5 billion that Fanuc’s automation unit generated in the fiscal year ended March 2017.


The International Federation of Robotics estimates that, by 2019, China’s annual industrial robot orders will rise to 160,000 units, suggesting Fanuc  will be insulated from any slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy. Yoshiharu told investors at his most recent Q&A session in April that the company expects demand in China to outstrip supply even after Fanuc opens a factory next August in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture. The facility will be dedicated solely to keeping up with Chinese demand.


Fanuc, whose robots are painted in the company’s signature bright yellow, was founded in the 1950s by Seiuemon Inaba, a Japanese engineer. His son, Yoshiharu, now serves as CEO.



But of the many models of machines produced by Fanuc, none are more representative of the company’s dominance than the Robodrill - a machine used by Apple Inc. suppliers to make the metal casings that have been a feature of every iPhone since the iPhone four.


Analysts even cited Robodrill sales to discount rumors that the Apple 8 and Apple X wouldn’t feature the metal casing.


King of them all is the Robodrill, which plays first violin in one of the great symphonies of modern production: machining the metal casing for Apple Inc.’s iPhones. In the fiscal year surrounding the 2010 introduction of the iPhone 4, the first to use an all-metal casing, Robodrill sales more than doubled.


 


Since then, this relationship has become so chummy that, based solely on strong first-quarter Robodrill sales, analysts discounted early rumors the iPhone 8 would eschew metal casing for front-and-back glass panels. Instead, the recent iPhone 8 release and coming iPhone X launch spurred higher Robodrill sales to Apple’s manufacturers in China, some of which are building new factories to assemble the company’s phones. New iPhones also mean more demand for Robodrills from Chinese smartphone makers such as Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo Electronics, and Huawei Technologies, which often present their own more affordable models in the wake of each fresh offering from Apple.



Indeed, Fanuc’s machines are directly responsible for the return of offshore manufacturing jobs to North America, as companies realize they can achieve more efficient streamlining and less costly economies of scale with “lights out” factories stocked with robots.



The Robodrill


Of course, this trend, as Bloomberg notes, won’t save American manufacturing jobs - if anything it will only slow the decline. Companies are spending more money than ever before on robots. And as academics and even investors like Bill Gross speak up about the potential for automation to reshape the global labor market in fundamental ways, there’s a strong argument that Fanuc is the most important manufacturing company in the world right now.


That this status is held by a Japanese company is hardly surprising. The country’s looming demographic crisis, driven by the lowest birth rate in the developed world, has bolstered domestic demand for machines that can augment or replace human workers.


And as China goes, so goes the rest of the industrial world. Multinationals that are reshoring operations from East Asia to North America and Europe are doing so in part because automation promises sophisticated production methods and labor savings; they, and companies who stayed out of China in the first place, are spending more than ever on industrial robots. The overarching pattern is less a reversal of the 20th century’s offshore manufacturing boom than an unraveling, with jobs vanishing from developing and developed nations alike.


 


Amid the tumult, there’s one clear winner: the $50 billion company that controls most of the world’s market for factory automation and industrial robotics. In fact, Fanuc might just be the single most important manufacturing company in the world right now, because everything Fanuc does is designed to make it part of what every other manufacturing company is doing.



Fanuc reached an important milestone in its conquest of the US market in the early 1980s when the CEO of GM purchased the first Fanuc robots to work on GM assembly lines.


The resulting press coverage caught the attention of Roger Smith, who had recently become president and CEO of General Motors Corp. Smith had joined GM’s accounting division 30 years earlier, after spending the final two years of World War II in the U.S. Navy. He’d risen through the corporate ranks slowly, gaining prominence as GM deftly navigated the gasoline crisis of the 1970s to become America’s top automaker.


 


When Smith took over, GM held 46 percent of the U.S. auto market, but the industry was in decline, and most companies were looking to cut costs and improve efficiency to compete with Japanese automakers. GM was in the enviable position of being flush with cash, and Smith had ideas, most of which sought to restore the company’s focus on technological innovation. Like Fanuc, GM had pioneered early developments in numerical control, including the use of a storage system to record the movements of a human machinist, then mimic them on demand. Such experiments had led Smith to imagine what he called a “lights-out factory of the future,” which would so limit reliance on assembly workers at GM plants that lights and air-conditioning would be unnecessary. The company failed to advance very far in that direction, though, choosing to focus instead on the traditional manufacturing methods that were helping it dominate the U.S. auto market.


 


Fanuc’s robots were unlike anything Smith had seen outside his own dreams, and he soon decided he’d found the way forward for GM. A year after he became CEO, on a humid June afternoon in Troy, Mich., a yellow robot bowed first to Smith and then Inaba before swinging its arm to cut the ribbon for a joint venture called GMFanuc Robotics Corp.



As advances in automation and machine learning continue to accrue, human workers in all but the most-skilled professions will slowly see their jobs lost to an army of robots. But as Bloomberg points out, while an optimist might hope the consequences of automation might be limited to workers enjoying more meaningful pursuits with their free time, whether automation will lead to a higher standard of living for all - or rather further imbalance already lopsided economic inequality remains to be seen.









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Saturday, September 23, 2017

John McCain Kills GOP's Last Ditch Effort To Repeal Obamacare

Third time turned out to be unlucky after all.


Earlier today, Sen. Susan Collins said that she has serious concerns about the latest GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare as Republicans prepare to vote on the legislation next week, adding that she was "leaning against the bill... I’m just trying to do what I believe is the right thing for the people of Maine."  And with Collins voicing against the bill, it meant that GOP leadership would be left with no room for error if they want to get their last-ditch ObamaCare repeal bill through the Senate next week.


The math is simple: Republicans have 52 seats and need 50 senators to support the bill, which would require Vice President Pence to break a tie, under the special budget rules being used to avoid a Democratic filibuster.  Sen. Rand Paul has already said he will vote against the legislation.


Which meant that losing just one more vote would mean the end of this latest attempt to repeal Obamacare.


They lost it moments ago when John McCain said in a statement that "I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal"



The senator added that "I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered by my friends Senators Graham and Cassidy were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. But that has not been the case. Instead, the specter of September 30th budget reconciliation deadline has hung over this entire process. McCain"s statement recalls his dramatic return to Washington in July after a brain-cancer diagnosis, when he cast the decisive “no” vote to send a health plan by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell down to a stunning 49-51 defeat.


Ultimately, McCain demands the Democrats be part of any solution: "A bill of this impact requires a bipartisan approach" as "we should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009."


His full statement below:





STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON HEALTH CARE REFORM



Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on health care reform:



"As I have repeatedly stressed, health care reform legislation ought to be the product of regular order in the Senate. Committees of jurisdiction should mark up legislation with input from all committee members, and send their bill to the floor for debate and amendment. That is the only way we might achieve bipartisan consensus on lasting reform, without which a policy that affects one-fifth of our economy and every single American family will be subject to reversal with every change of administration and congressional majority.



"I would consider supporting legislation similar to that offered by my friends Senators Graham and Cassidy were it the product of extensive hearings, debate and amendment. But that has not been the case. Instead, the specter of September 30th budget reconciliation deadline has hung over this entire process.



"We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009. If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs when the political winds shift, as they regularly do. The issue is too important, and too many lives are at risk, for us to leave the American people guessing from one election to the next whether and how they will acquire health insurance. A bill of this impact requires a bipartisan approach.



"Senators Alexander and Murray have been negotiating in good faith to fix some of the problems with Obamacare. But I fear that the prospect of one last attempt at a strictly Republican bill has left the impression that their efforts cannot succeed. I hope they will resume their work should this last attempt at a partisan solution fail.



"1 cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will effect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it. Without a full CB0 score, which won"t be available by the end of the month, we won"t have reliable answers to any of those questions.



"I take no pleasure in announcing my opposition. Far from it. The bill"s authors are my dear friends, and I think the world of them. I know they are acting consistently with their beliefs and sense of what is best for the country. So am I.



"I hope that in the months ahead, we can join with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to arrive at a compromise solution that is acceptable to most of us, and serves the interests of Americans as best we can."





In response to McCain"s statement, Lindsey Graham, one of the bill"s sponsors, tweeted "My friendship with @SenJohnMcCain is not based on how he votes but respect for how he’s lived his life and the person he is", however he added that "I respectfully disagree with @SenJohnMcCain position not to proceed forward on Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson" and that "I know Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson is the best chance to repeal and replace Obamacare."



* * *


Earlier on Friday, the Brookings Institution estimated Friday that the Graham-Cassidy plan would reduce the number of people with health coverage by about 21 million a year from 2020 through 2026. The number may be larger, it said, because of difficulties in setting up state health systems by 2020 and possible market turmoil in the final years. "What is clear, however, is that the legislation would result in very large reductions in insurance coverage," Brookings said. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Medicaid funding cuts would equal 16 percent of projected state budgets in 2027. "That’s more than what states provide for higher education," it said according to Bloomberg.


McConnell said earlier this week that he intended to hold a Senate vote next week before a Sept. 30 deadline to use a fast-track procedure allowing a simple majority vote. David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about McCain’s decision.


President Donald Trump warned on Twitter on Friday, “Rand Paul, or whoever votes against Hcare Bill, will forever (future political campaigns) be known as ‘the Republican who saved ObamaCare.’” The president is working the phone on the issue and is “open to having face-to-face meetings,” adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News. “The president is leaning in all the way.”


Meanwhile, Democrats denounced the lightning-speed path to a vote, with only one committee hearing on the bill scheduled. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the “dead of night” bill’s spending cuts will cause millions of Americans to lose insurance coverage and burden the finances of his state and many others.





The new proposal would turn Obamacare funds into block grants for the states, which would create their own health-care plans for their residents. States that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare would be hardest hit by spending cuts, losing $180 billion from 2020 to 2026, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. States that rejected the Medicaid expansion would gain $73 billion.



The measure would end the Affordable Care Act’s requirements that individuals have insurance and that most employers provide it.



And with the GOP"s final attempt to pass Obamacare repeal before the end of the month now likely history, the market sighed a collective breath of relief, sending the managed care index soaring as the status quo is now assured to remain indefinitely.



And now we await Donald Trump"s latest angry tweet.

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Thursday, September 21, 2017

1 In 5 Students Endorse Violence To 'Prevent' Controversial Speakers

Authored by Nikita Vladimirov via CampusReform.org,


A new survey published by The Brookings Institution finds that about one-in-five undergraduate students approve of using violence to shut down controversial speakers.



A majority of undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities also agreed with a hypothetical protest in which a group “opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker.”


According to the survey, 51 percent of students agreed that such a demonstration would be acceptable, while 49 percent disagreed. Not surprisingly, the response to the hypothetical scenario was also largely partisan, with 62 percent of Democrats approving of the protest, compared to just 39 percent of Republicans .





“I find the numbers in the above table to be highly concerning, because they show that a very significant fraction of students, across all categories, believe it is acceptable to silence (by shouting) a speaker they find offensive,” wrote John Villasenor, the author of the survey and a Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow.



The study further found that 19 percent of responders said that they approved of using violence “to prevent the speaker from speaking.” An 81 percent majority, on the other hand, did not approve of the violent approach.





“A surprisingly large fraction of students believe it is acceptable to act—including resorting to violence—to shut down expression they consider offensive,” Villasenor wrote.



While 39 percent of responders indicated that hate speech is protected by the First  Amendment, 44 percent said that it is not protected by the document. Another 16 percent remained undecided.


In one survey question, the students were also asked if they prefered a learning environment where certain views are prohibited versus an open learning environment “where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints.”


According to the study, 53 percent of responders said that they prefer the former while only 47 percent chose the latter.





“The survey results establish with data what has been clear anecdotally to anyone who has been observing campus dynamics in recent years: Freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on U.S. campuses,” Villasenor wrote.



“In fact, despite protestations to the contrary (often with statements like ‘we fully support the First Amendment, but…’),” he asserted that “freedom of expression is clearly not, in practice, available on many campuses, including many public campuses that have First Amendment obligations.”



Villasenor surveyed a pool of 1,500 undergraduate students at U.S. four-year colleges and universities between August 17 - 31. The margin of error is between 2-6 percent.

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Monday, August 14, 2017

15,000 Nuclear Weapons In The World - Mapping Who Has What

Between North Korea’s constant nuclear test provocations and the recent “fire and fury” comments by President Trump, concerns about nuclear conflict are re-ignited around the world.


So, how many nuclear weapons are there, and what exactly is happening right now? Let’s launch into it.


WHO HAS ACCESS TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS?




As VisualCapitalist"s map above demonstrates, the United States and Russia still maintain the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, holding 92% of the world’s estimated 15,000 nuclear warheads.


While today’s arsenals seem quite excessive, they are actually quite modest compared to historical totals such as those during the Cold War. In 1986, for example, there were actually 70,300 nuclear weapons globally – but luckily for us, the number of warheads has eased down over time as countries disarm more weapons.


Will this number of warheads continue to slide down as a result of increased international cooperation? The Brookings Institution has grouped the nine countries with nuclear arsenals into categories that identify prospective entrants to the global arms control regime:



Any advancement of multilateral arms control, such as a treaty limiting limiting nuclear weapons, would likely take place between these countries.


MAPPING NUCLEAR SITES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES


Thanks to various arms reduction agreements, thousands of nuclear warheads have been retired. That said, warheads are still stored in a number of sites around the continental United States. The map below also highlights laboratories and interstate shipping routes. (Yes, nuclear weapons are apparently shipped in big rigs.)



THE WILD CARD: NORTH KOREA


The Hermit Kingdom is a relatively minor player in the nuclear weapon ecosystem, but they have been capturing the world’s attention. Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has dramatically ramped up the frequency of missile tests, with 17 confirmed launches so far in 2017.


Here’s a look at the country’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, along with ranges of specific weapons.



More than a decade has passed since North Korea detonated its first nuclear weapon, and the country is now believed to be capable of intercontinental ballistic missile delivery. This, combined with aggressive rhetoric from North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, has forced the Trump administration to take their threats more seriously.



That said, experts suggest that recent provocations aren’t much different from previous periods of tension between the two countries, and that the risk of an actual conflict is overblown.





North Korea’s comments are clearly deterrent in nature, and the Guam ‘threat’ was exactly along those lines.



– David Kang, director, Korean Studies Institute, USC



Either way, while the prospect of an all-out war is unlikely – the war of words between North Korea and the United States is likely destined to continue.

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Friday, July 21, 2017

Turkey Poised To Invade Syria's Idlib Province As Inter-Jihadist Violence Rages

Two Salafi-jihadi factions in Syria"s Idlib province have been engaged in a brutal inter-"rebel" (or rather inter-jihadist) war this week, prompting Turkey to prepare a potential invasion to protect its favored factions on the ground. On Thursday, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS/Al-Qaeda) continued to capture towns in Idlib"s countryside from rival Ahrar al-Sham and Turkish backed FSA groups after an uneasy truce between the rebel factions quickly collapsed days prior, causing the weaker Ahrar al-Sham to call in Turkish support.


Multiple reports coming out of the region indicate that Turkey has been transferring hundreds of jihadists from its former Euphrates Shield forces in northern Aleppo province (the Turkish occupied "Jarabulus pocket") to Turkey"s Hatay border region, where they began entering Idlib through the Ahrar controlled Bab al-Hawa crossing. However, in the early morning hours of Friday HTS reportedly captured part of the Bab al-Hawa crossing in a significant blow that could trigger a bigger Turkish response. A larger force may be awaiting word from Ankara for a full scale invasion involving Turkish Army troops which might come at any moment.



What is certain is that things are about to get even bloodier, and either Turkey will occupy yet more Syrian land, or the Syrian Army will eventually move in to mop up Idlib once the warring groups have depleted and utterly exhausted each other. The latter scenario is a likely possibility given increased Russian leverage over Turkish actions: Turkey would have to seek a nod from Moscow before occupying Idlib overtly. So far, Turkey"s proxy forces are being swallowed up by the more formidable HTS.



Ahrar al-Sham tank/ via jihadi social media.


Dozens of militants from both factions have been killed across the rebel controlled Idlib province in a week that"s seen dramatic shifts in the geopolitical landscape over Syria, including sudden news of the White House"s ending the CIA weapons program, as well as Turkey"s leaking of US forward operating base locations in northern Syria through its state-run news channel, further escalating tensions between Turkey and the US.


On Wednesday Al-Masdar News reported the extent of initial fighting, which even involved tanks and other major weapons systems:


Full-scale war has broken out between a number of major Idlib-based militant factions. Opposition media is indicating that the forces involved are seizing entire townships from each other throughout Idlib and Hama, even going so far as to use heavy weapons (i.e. tanks) to do so.


 ...Ahrar Al-Sham is currently storming HTS bases at the town of Harem in northern Idlib. The two groups are also exchanging fire in the town of Salqin where both have bases. The engagement has thus far left 16 people dead, most of which are Ahrar al-Sham fighters.



Video: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Clashes With Ahrar al-Sham In Idlib Province/Source: SouthFront


Idlib"s in-fighting can be seen as a mini civil war for leadership and land among terrorist factions. Some reports link the cause of this week"s major escalation to a dispute over the presence of FSA and more "nationalist" flags being flown by Ahrar-aligned groups. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which opposes FSA leaning groups, is essentially the current iteration of al-Nusra Front (now calling itself Fateh Al Sham), which is a coalition led by al-Qaeda"s main off-shoot in Syria. While ISIS has been the focus of international headlines over the past years, Nusra has been no less barbaric in unleashing terrorism on civilians, and like ISIS it seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate.


Nusra"s ideology is indistinguishable from that of ISIS, and the two were the same organization as they fought as one in Northern and Eastern Syria throughout much of 2013. More recently Nusra has made multiple attempts to rebrand itself in the hopes of attracting more external support. But rival Ahrar al-Sham has had more success in this area as it"s been a favored so-called "moderate" opposition group of choice among prominent think tanks such as The Brookings Institution (which has a location in Qatar) - this in spite of being more accurately called the "Syrian Taliban" by some prominent experts for its brutal sharia style rule.


Shockingly, the group landed an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in 2015, and made a direct appeal to the American public, defending itself as "moderate" and not "extremist". Even now, Syrian opposition media and friendly political and media allies in the West are championing the cause of Ahrar al-Sham, continuing to claim it represents the true spirit of the "revolution".



Map source: Andrew Illingworth, Oz Analysis


But Ahrar al-Sham also has organizational roots in al-Qaeda, though external patrons - especially Qatar and Turkey - have long seen the group as a viable partner on the ground. Even the US has at times entered into a de facto relationship with both groups now vying for control of Idlib: in 2015 both Nusra and Ahrar were key leading factions of the umbrella organization "Army of Conquest" which captured Idlib City from the Syrian government in March 2015. As was widely reported at the time, US intelligence officers assisted the al-Qaeda stacked Army of Conquest from a US-Turkish led "operations room" in southern Turkey.


This week it was revealed that Trump made the decision earlier this month to shut down the years-long CIA covert program to aid rebel groups in Syria, while the Pentagon continues to support the Kurdish-led SDF as it fights in Raqqa and elsewhere. Various media pundits have immediately begun blaming the renewed Idlib chaos on Trump"s closure of the CIA program. The Daily Beast"s Roy Gutman (who actually believes Assad created ISIS) laments:





As moderate rebel groups in Syria tried to digest the news that the U.S. will soon cease all covert support for them—a sudden revelation they learned from press reports—northern Syria descended into further chaos.



...Now the very existence of moderate local forces backed by the U.S. hangs in the balance.



And more absurdly the usual neocons are using this as an opportunity to call for revived CIA intervention a mere two days after the covert program"s termination was announced: David Ignatius, quickly out with a teary-eyed post mortem on the CIA"s Syria campaign (which he gleefully boasts in its heyday "may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies"), writes:





Contrast the sad demise of the CIA’s anti-Assad program in western Syria with the rampaging campaign against the Islamic State in the east. What’s the difference? In the east, motivated, well-organized Syrian fighters are backed by U.S. warriors on the ground and planes in the sky. In this game, halfway is not the place to be.



Take your pick: Syrian al-Qaeda (HTS) or Syrian Taliban (Ahrar al-Sham)? As the jihadists of Idlib continue kill each other off the weeping and gnashing of teeth in Washington is sure to intensify.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

The Inside Story Of How The Saudi King's Son Plotted To Oust His Rival

Less than a month after the Saudi king stunned the world when on the morning of June 21 he unexpectedly announced a "historic shakeup" in which he removed the existing successor to the royal line, his nephew Mohammed bin Nayef - the country’s counterterrorism czar - and instated his eldest son, the 31-year-old Mohammed bin Salman and de facto "OPEC"s most important man" as Saudi Arabia"s crown prince, and following a surprising report ten days later that the "deposed" Mohammed bin Nayef has been barred from leaving the kingdom and confined to his palace in the coastal city of Jidda, the full story of what really happened in this transition of power has finally emerged.


As a reminder, the conventional timeline of this dramatic power transition focused on how "seamless" it was and unopposed:





In response to questions from The Times, a written statement by a senior Saudi official denied that Mohammed bin Nayef had been pressured and said that the Allegiance Council, a body of senior princes, had approved the change in “the best interest of the nation.”



The statement said Mohammed bin Nayef was the first to pledge allegiance to the new crown prince and had insisted that the moment be filmed and broadcast. The former crown prince receives guests daily in his palace in Jidda and has visited the king and the crown prince more than once, the statement said.



As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth of what really happened: as the NYT details, contrary to the widely-accepted narrative it was Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS as he is also called, who orchestrated his succession to power. His motive is clear: a massive power grab, or as the NYT writes, "the collection of so much power by one young royal, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has unsettled a royal family long guided by consensus and deference to elders.





“You may have now such a concentration of power within one branch and within one individual who is also younger than so many of the cousins and sons of former kings that it may begin to create a situation where the family is out of whack,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, who studies Persian Gulf politics.



Furthermore, a different image of the future Saudi ruler is starting to emerge:





Mohammed bin Salman’s supporters praise him as a hard-working visionary who has addressed the kingdom’s challenges with extraordinary directness. His programs, including increasing entertainment opportunities inside the hyperconservative kingdom, have won him fans among the two-thirds of Saudis who are younger than 30.



But his critics call him rash and power-hungry, saying he has entangled the country in a costly and so far failed war in Yemen that has killed many civilians, as well as in a feud with Qatar. Neither has a clear exit



Below are the key highlights from the report:





The young prince’s supporters have lauded his elevation as the seamless empowerment of an ambitious leader. But since he was promoted on June 21, indications have emerged that Mohammed bin Salman plotted the ouster and that the transition was rockier than has been publicly portrayed, according to current and former United States officials and associates of the royal family.



To strengthen support for the sudden change in the line of succession, some senior princes were told that Mohammed bin Nayef was unfit to be king because of a drug problem, according to an associate of the royal family. The decision to oust Mohammed bin Nayef and some of his closest colleagues has spread concern among counterterrorism officials in the United States who saw their most trusted Saudi contacts disappear and have struggled to build new relationships.



The rivalry between the princes began in 2015, when King Salman ascended the throne and bestowed tremendous power on his favorite son. Mohammed bin Salman was named deputy crown prince, or second in line to become king, as well as defense minister; put in charge of a powerful economic council; and given oversight of the state oil monopoly, Saudi Aramco.



Mohammed bin Salman elevated his profile with visits to China, Russia and the United States, where he met with Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, and dined with President Trump in the White House. He has also guided Vision 2030, an ambitious plan for the future of the kingdom that seeks to transform the Saudi economy and improve life for citizens.





Mohammed bin Salman, 31, in June kissing the hand of Mohammed bin Nayef, 57,


* * *


The prince has risen at the expense of his elder relatives, including Mohammed bin Nayef, 57. As the head of the Saudi Interior Ministry, Mohammed bin Nayef led the dismantling of Al Qaeda in the kingdom after a deadly bombing campaign a decade ago. While he kept a low public profile, even after becoming crown prince in 2015, his work won him allies in the United States and other Western and Arab nations.



But while his removal struck many as sudden, it had been planned out.



On the night of June 20, a group of senior princes and security officials gathered at the Safa Palace in Mecca after being informed that King Salman wanted to see them, according to United States officials and associates of the royal family. It was near the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, when Saudis were preoccupied with religious duties and many royals had gathered in Mecca before traveling abroad for the Eid al-Fitr holiday. That made it advantageous for a change, analysts said, like a coup on Christmas Eve.



Before midnight, Mohammed bin Nayef was told he was going to meet the king and was led into another room, where royal court officials took away his phones and pressured him to give up his posts as crown prince and interior minister, according to United States officials and an associate of the royal family. At first, he refused. But as the night wore on, the prince, a diabetic who suffers from the effects of a 2009 assassination attempt by a suicide bomber, grew tired. Meanwhile, royal court officials called members of the Allegiance Council, a body of princes who are supposed to approve changes to the line of succession. Some were told that Mohammed bin Nayef had a drug problem and was unfit to be king, according to an associate of the royal family.



For years, close friends of Mohammed bin Nayef had expressed concern about his health, noting that since the assassination attempt, he had experienced lingering pain and shown signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition led him to take medication that some friends worried he had become addicted to.  “The weight of the evidence I have seen is that he was more injured in the assassination attempt than was admitted and that he then got onto a pain killer routine that was very addictive,” said Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution. “I think that problem got progressively worse.”



One American official and one adviser to a Saudi royal said Mohammed bin Nayef opposed the embargo on Qatar, a stand that probably accelerated his ouster.



Sometime before dawn, Mohammed bin Nayef agreed to resign. A video shot afterward shows Mohammed bin Salman kissing his hand.“We will never dispense with your instructions and advice,” the younger prince says. “Good luck, God willing,” the older prince replies.



Mohammed bin Nayef then returned to his palace in the Red Sea port city of Jidda, and he was barred from leaving it.



Also confined to his home was Gen. Abdulaziz al-Huwairini, a colleague of Mohammed bin Nayef who was crucial to the security relationship with the United States, according to current and former United States officials.



Days later, C.I.A. officials briefed the White House on their concern that the ouster of Mohammed bin Nayef and the possible removal of General Huwairini and other security officers could hamper intelligence sharing, United States officials said.



The senior Saudi official’s statement said General Huwairini was still in his job and had pledged allegiance to Mohammed bin Salman along with senior officers. Mohammed bin Nayef was replaced as interior minister by his 33-year-old nephew, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef, who was an adviser to his uncle and who is believed to be close to Mohammed bin Salman.



* * *


Now that MBS is in charge, the big question is how much support there is for his elevation to Saudi"s ruler-in-waiting: according to the NYT, the answer as of this morning remains unclear. "Saudi state news media reported that 31 of the 34 members of the Allegiance Council supported the change, but analysts said many royals are hesitant to vote against the king’s wishes."


However, in what may be the sign of early trouble, some US officials and well-connected Saudis told the NYT there are rumblings of discontent, and analysts have pointed out hints. "Neither King Salman nor his son attended the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, even though one of the two men had attended each of the last three meetings. Analysts say that family disputes may have kept the men at home or that they did not want to face criticism for the isolation they and three other Arab states imposed on Qatar."





Saudis shocked by the changes say they have a lot to lose if splits within the family spill into the open and destabilize the kingdom.



“It’s not like people are going to go out on the street and say, ‘We want M.B.N.,’ ” said one associate of the royal family, using Mohammed bin Nayef’s initials. “We want this family. We want to preserve them as best we can.”



For now Saudi Arabia - and mostly the royal family - has managed to keep a calm facade, slamming every report that the crown prince transition was anything but seamless and well-orchestrated. However, it appears that behind the scenes the tensions inside the world"s largest oil producer are rising. Meanwhile, we remind readers of another potential geopolitical shock: as Petromatrix" Olivier Jakob wrote shortly after the Saudi shakeup, "with MBS now having greater control of Saudi Arabia... it is not really a question of if but rather of when a new escalation with Iran starts."

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Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Former DOJ Official: Trump Jr. Didn't Commit a Crime

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com


Unfortunately, the smoking gun evidence of Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer isn"t a crime, according to Robert Driscoll, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice.


This man"s integrity and mastery of the law cannot and will not be repudiated. All of you crackpot internet lawyers need to shut up and take those nooses that were made for Trump Jr. and save them for Comey. More on that in a minute.





"I think people will make hay over the willingness to have the meeting. At the end of the day, it"s still very vague as to what statuary violations there would be. Collusion, in and of itself, isn"t a crime. There would need to be conspiracy to violate another law. And so this notion that there was a meeting, it may be politically unpalatable, but it"s certainly not a crime to say "ok I"ll listen." If you wanted to piece together a legal theory of criminal activity... I haven"t seen anything, other than esoteric campaign finance theories that don"t make a lot of sense."




On the matter of Comey, inquiring minds want to know why he was seen walking into the NY Times building on June 22nd, 2017. The official story was Comey"s attendance of nice charity event. But that easily could"ve been arranged by the Times as a cover to meet with him.



Disgraced Former FBI Head, James Comey, heading into NY Times, most likely in tow with Rod Goldstone emails
 
While everyone is fixated on the contents of the Trump Jr. emails, which of course are important, I think more energy should be directed into finding out who leaked them. After all, these leaks are far more serious than the Wikileaks that the democrats bemoan over. They were used in an effort to derail a reviled and corrupt Presidential candidate, whereas these leaks are meant to destroy and take down a sitting President. The implications of the latter could have profound effects, including loss of life, should the schemes bear any fruit.


Enter Ben Wittes, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a close friend of James Comey.


Shortly after Comey got fired, Wittes told CNN"s Anderson Cooper that Comey "had a story to tell" and that the President should be scared.



I want you to pay attention to the following timeline, illustrated beautifully by Zerohedge.


On May 16th, Wittes tweeted this, just before the contents of Comey"s memo contents were leaked to the NY Times.



He did it again on May 18th, just before a story broke that said Comey asked AG Sessions to not leave him alone with Trump.



Then on June 23rd, just 1 day after Comey was seen entering the NY Times building, Wittes, aka Mr. Tick, tweeted this gem.



Today, following Trump Jr. published the Goldstone emails, Wittes gloated with a "Boom" tweet.



Perhaps he"s just a shitposter and this is all one big odd coincidence. Or, on the maniacal side, he"s a sociopath who cannot help but attract attention to himself by blurting out cryptic messages to his sycophantic fans regarding illegal intelligence leaks.


Your call.

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Friday, June 30, 2017

Comey Friend Unveils "Smoking Gun" Story

For about a week now, Benjamin Wittes, the Brookings Institution senior fellow and noted ally of former FBI Director James Comey, has been taunting the Trump administration with tweets suggesting that another "bombshell" story, presumably related to the Russia investigation, was in the works and set to drop any minute (we covered it all here: "Tick, Tick, Tick" Comey Ally Scrambles To Explain Why "Next Trump Bombshell" Didn"t Arrive Today). 


Of course, people took notice of the warnings because Wittes posted similar tweets just before the New York Times published their now infamous story on Comey"s memos.




So what was the "bombshell" story?  It seems to have come in the form of a rather bizarre, and thoroughly difficult to follow, Wall Street Journal article entitled "GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn."


To summarize the "bombshell", the story is about a long-time Republican opposition researcher, 81-year-old Peter W. Smith, who apparently set out on a mission to find Hillary"s 30,000 emails which the FBI confirmed had gone missing.  In his efforts to find those emails, he scoured hacking chat rooms looking for clues and/or hackers that might be able to help him.  The WSJ alleges that Smith may or may not have been working with Michael Flynn but, in the end, they found absolutely nothing.  To summarize even further, a guy tried to find Hillary"s missing emails and failed...HALT THE PRESSES!


Of course, the goal of the story is to paint some sinister plot that involved Smith and Michael Flynn enlisting the help of some Russians to hack the 2016 election...thus "proving" the collusion angle. 


Unfortunately, the story seems to prove the exact opposite which is, if Flynn was really running around on some wild goose chase looking for Hillary"s missing 30,000 emails by chatting up hackers on a message board then we have to assume that means he wasn"t in any way connected to the original hack which ended up on WikiLeaks.


Flynn



In any event, here is the Wall Street Journal"s take:





Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.



In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.



“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.



Emails written by Mr. Smith and one of his associates show that his small group considered Mr. Flynn and his consulting company, Flynn Intel Group, to be allies in their quest.



Of course, it"s only deeper in the story that the WSJ admits they have no idea if Flynn was even involved with Smith...but no one reads an entire article so it"s fairly irrelevant.





What role, if any, Mr. Flynn may have played in Mr. Smith’s project is unclear. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Smith said he knew Mr. Flynn, but he never stated that Mr. Flynn was involved.



And another irrelevant detail from the WSJ:





Mr. Smith said he worked independently and wasn’t part of the Trump campaign.



Finally, Smith apparently started his search for Hillary"s emails over the Labor Day Weekend in 2016.  His efforts to scour hacker forums ultimately yielded 5 groups who claimed to have the missing emails, 2 of which were Russian.  However, Smith seemingly doubted the authenticity of the intelligence he received and, as a result, never leaked their contents.





His project began over Labor Day weekend 2016 when Mr. Smith, a private-equity executive from Chicago active in Republican politics, said he assembled a group of technology experts, lawyers and a Russian-speaking investigator based in Europe to acquire emails the group theorized might have been stolen from the private server Mrs. Clinton used as secretary of state.



In the interview with the Journal, Mr. Smith said he and his colleagues found five groups of hackers who claimed to possess Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, including two groups he determined were Russians.



Mr. Smith said after vetting batches of emails offered to him by hacker groups last fall, he couldn’t be sure enough of their authenticity to leak them himself. “We told all the groups to give them to WikiLeaks,” he said. WikiLeaks has never published those emails or claimed to have them.



Meanwhile, the WSJ confirms that Smith died last month at the age of 81.


So there you have it...all the makings of another salacious, "bombshell" story with multiple references to Russians, hackers, collusion, shady dealings with Michael Flynn, etc, etc, etc....yet still no evidence of pretty much anything.

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Saturday, June 24, 2017

"Tick, Tick, Tick" Comey Ally Hints That Next NYT Bombshell Is In The Works

It’s been a couple of weeks since the New York Times, Washington Post or CNN have published an anonymously sourced bombshell with more salacious details about the ongoing feud between former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald Trump. But the next salvo could arrive soon – possibly as soon as Monday, if a longtime Comey confidant is to be believed.


Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, posted an ominous message on Twitter on Friday: “TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK.”  Wittes’s tweets may verge on ridiculous, but they should be taken seriously: As the Daily Caller pointed out, his tweets of “tick tick tick” have in the recent past preceded major NYT bombshells, including the May 16 report about the Comey memo and its contents. He tweeted a similar message two days later, before the NYT published a report about Comey wanting to keep his distance from Trump.


Wittes did it again shortly before the Times published a story alleging Comey asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to leave him in the room alone with Trump on June 6. Wittes says he has reviewed Comey-related stories before, and was an on-the-record source for the May 18 piece reported by the NYT’s Michael Schmidt, where he recounted to the NYT reporter that Comey had told him at a lunch meeting that he sought to distance himself from Trump. Comey felt that Trump was attempting to cozy up to Comey in hopes of quashing the ongoing Russia probe.












In his latest tweet, he claimed the “fuse length” on the next story is uncertain, and that it could drop as soon as Monday, or some time after.





While Wittes has said that he and Comey have discussed how the White House handled the Russia investigation, he claims they did not discuss the particulars of the investigation, which is looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the election.


Comey began instructing his friends to leak damaging stories about Trump to the Times shortly after he was fired by the president on May 9. During testimony earlier this month, Comey admitted he was angered by Trump’s remarks criticizing his management of the FBI, suggesting that his motives for leaking the stories weren’t exactly altruistic.


Wittes was not the source of the Comey memo, as the Daily Caller recollects. Columbia law school professor Daniel Richman, another friend of Comey’s, shared the document with The Times after being provided a copy by the former FBI chief.


The timing of Wittes message is notable: It follows President Donald Trump’s admission that he was bluffing when he said he might have recorded his conversation with Comey, and Comey"s appearance at The New York Times" offices...



Comey, disguised behind dark sunglasses stared straight ahead as entered the Times Square office building, accompanied by his wife Patrice Failor.



So, what will this next bombshell allege? Has Comey somehow found the smoking gun that will finally prove unequivocally that Trump colluded with the Russians? Maybe he’s been keeping it in his back pocket, refusing to share it with the world because he doesn"t want to unleash another wave of anti-Russia hysteria.


Stay tuned to find out.

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Saturday, June 3, 2017

93% Of All Jobs "Created" Since 2008 Were Added Through The Birth/Death Model

According to the prevailing narrative, job growth in the US, where GDP over the past decade has been on par with that in the 1930s, is one of the otherwise brighter economic indicators in a time when much of the economic data such as capital spending, productivity and especially wage growth (so critical for the Fed"s future plans) has been a chronic disappointment. Today, for example, headlines blast that the US has enjoyed 80 months of continuous jobs growth with unemployment hitting 4.3% – the lowest since 2001. However, there is more to this "strong" number than meets the untrained eye.


As our friends at Morningside Hill calculate, a full 93% of the new jobs reported since 2008 - 6.3 million out of 6.7 million - and 40% of the jobs in 2016 alone were added through the business birth and death model – a highly controversial model which is not supported by the data. On the contrary, all data on establishment births and deaths point to an ongoing decrease in entrepreneurship.



Here are the details of how over 90% of the jobs created in the past decade were nothing more than a "statistical" adjustment in some BLS model.


The controversial birth death adjustments


In order to account for jobs created or lost by new business formations or bankruptcies each month, the BLS introduced the birth/death adjustment. It started during the Reagan administration as Reagan was complaining that the bureau was undercounting the jobs he created. The birth-death model used to have a terrible name – the “bias adjustment factor.” This adjustment is computed using a model based on probability-based sampling methodology.


The table below shows the number of jobs that were added through birth/death adjustments over the past 17 years and the percentage of jobs added through the birth/death model



Let’s analyze the data.


  • Before 2003 few jobs were added through the adjustment, despite the fact that net business formations were much stronger back then (see data below).

  • Then, what strikes us as odd, is that according to the BLS in the depths of the 2007-2009 recession, the birth/death adjustment continued to add a lot of jobs – 904,000 jobs were added in 2009 alone. One would assume that in the nadir of the Great Recession when business defaults skyrocketed, the birth and death adjustment would be a net negative and subtract from the overall jobs number instead of adding to it.

  • Lastly, it turns out that a full 30% of jobs created since 2010 or 4.5 million out of 15 million jobs were added via the birth/death adjustment. It is also interesting to note that 40% of the jobs added in 2016 came through the adjustment.

The reason the BLS wanted to include this adjustment was a perception that they were undercounting jobs created through new start-up business formations (that were too young and too small to show up in the Establishment Survey). Those start-ups would eventually appear in their data, but with a few months’ lag. Therefore, if there was a steady supply of new start-up businesses and no sudden shifts in the trend, no adjustment would be necessary. Logically, it would only make sense to apply the adjustment if there is a significant increase in the rate of start-up formations, which has not materialized. On the contrary, multiple studies track a consistent decline in new business creation. Literally every study we have found documents the consistently deteriorating entrepreneurial environment in the US.


The following charts trace a clear downward trend in both employment gained from private sector births and the number of business births per year. Notice the suppressed level of births after 2008.



Furthermore, self-employed persons as a percentage of the working age population and the number of jobs created by establishments less than one year old are also declining.



A study by Harvard Business School entitled “Problems unsolved and a nation divided” summarizes the findings of its multi-year long project called “The US competitiveness project.” The study is a “fact-based effort to understand the disappointing performance of the American economy.” We found this project to be well worth the read and have selected the following chart (below to the left) depicting the multi-decade slowdown in new business formation. Further supporting the Harvard study findings, a Brookings Institution paper called “Declining business dynamism in the United States: a look at states and metros” shows that business formations slowed down and business deaths accelerated after the crisis of 2008 (below to the right).



Below to the left we have a chart from the Economic Innovation Group showing the net annual change in the number of US firms. Notice the significant slowdown after 2008, including 3 negative years. This is clearly not captured by the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Below to the right we have a few charts from the Wall Street Journal summarizing some data points that confirm these trends.



With the data on new business formations and deaths in mind let us now go back to the BLS’s official birth / death adjustments. We have charted the net jobs added through the BLS model and ran a linear trend line to see if it captures the deteriorating entrepreneurial environment. In the chart below, the upward-trending line representing net jobs added through the adjustment is in complete dissonance with all the other data.



The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) seems to be alone in its belief that the entrepreneurial environment in the US is improving. We believe that the BLS has been artificially inflating the monthly payroll numbers via the birth and death adjustment. This overstatement is not trivial in nature – the adjustment added 30% of all jobs reported since 2010.


h/t Morningside Hill

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