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That time the almighty dollar tide went back out to sea...

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
planet of the apes
Welcome to the Dollar Rally to end all rallies. This week's action in the U.S. dollar puts paid all of the moves by the Fed and the ECB over the past three months to forestall this from coming.

First it was January's FOMC meeting where the Fed completely reversed course after a very unpopular December rate hike threw equity markets into a tailspin by Christmas.

Of course our Narcissist-in-Chief thought it was all about him and implored the Fed to stop raising rates. It was interfering with his ability to shake down the world at his sanctions and tariffs party.

But it wasn't about him at all. It was about the Fed's need to normalize rates into a coming global slowdown after a central-bank-induced, decade-long recovery of dubious merit.

They'd done their job of recapitalizing the banks, somewhat, and now it was time to start trying to address the massive pension system and municipal bond crisis that was on the horizon.

Or at least that's what they thought.
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Smoking

Illinois bans those under 21 from buying tobacco


Fox5
Mon, 08 Apr 2019 15:36 UTC
Illinois bans under 21 tobacco purchases
© Matt Cardy/Getty Images
The state of Illinois will soon ban anyone under 21 from purchasing tobacco.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed the "Tobacco 21" law on Sunday.

Illinois is the first state in the Midwest to adopt this kind of law. It covers tobacco and vaping products, including cigarettes, chewing tobacco, e-cigarettes and vapes.

The law had been vetoed by the previous governor, Republican Bruce Rauner.

It takes effect on July 1.

The city of Chicago already bans people under age 21 from purchasing tobacco. That change pushed smoking to a "record low" of six percent, the Mayor's office said in a statement, a 50 percent decrease in six years.
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Beer

Aaron Maté Gives (Non-exhaustive) List of Rachel Maddow's Insane Russiagate Conspiracies in Epic Twitter Thread

Doug DiPasquale
Sott.net
Mon, 29 Apr 2019 10:37 UTC
rachel maddow
Last Saturday, Rachel Maddow tweeted an article from the Washington Post decrying the fact that YouTube's algorithm had recommended a video from RT in searches for videos about the Mueller Report. "YouTube recommended one video source hundreds of thousands of times to viewers seeking information, a watchdog says: RT, the global media operation funded by the Russian government." Maddow appended the tweet with the phrase "Death by algorithm".

The 'controversial' video in question is an interview Chris Hedges did with Aaron Maté - so, between two award-winning journalists (Hedges was awarded a Pulitzer, Maté an Izzy Award, specifically for his reporting on 'Russiagate') - whose collective journalistic weight dwarfs Maddow's 'Alex-Jones-of-the-Left conspiracy theories', by several orders of magnitude. The idea that YouTube should not be recommending this kind of high-caliber discussion, 'because Russians', is simplistic and reactionary.

Maté, understandably, took issue with this mischaracterization. In response he provided a "thread offering a sample of the falsehoods, innuendo, and propaganda that [Maddow] has aired on her top-rated cable news show". Strap in, this is epic.

Comment: For more Twitter reactions to Maddow's fear-mongering, see: Rachel Maddow flips out after YouTube allegedly recommends an RT video.

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Magnify

The Mueller Report indicts the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory

Aaron Maté
The Nation
Fri, 26 Apr 2019 00:01 UTC
Robert Mueller
© AP Photo / Cliff Owen
Special Counsel Robert Mueller walks past the White House on March 24, 2019, after closing his long and contentious Russia investigation.
For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that "The Walls Are Closing In" on the traitor/puppet/asset in the White House.

The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative - and the expectations it fueled - to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction. It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton, and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.

Comment: Some past pieces from Aaron Maté on the Russiagate hoax:

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Megaphone

Labour's Thornberry brands Trump a 'threat to OUR world order' before state visit


RT
Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:59 UTC
Trump Queen Elizabeth UK Britain trip
© Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
President Trump meets Britain's Queen Elizabeth on a state visit to the UK, 2018
The Labour Party's shadow foreign secretary got on board with the anti-Trump crowd ahead of the US president's visit to the UK, declaring him a 'threat to our world order." But some commenters took issue with her choice of words.

"Donald Trump's statement on the Arms Trade Treaty is the final confirmation that he is not the Leader of the Free World, he never has been, and he does not deserve the honour of a State Visit to Britain," Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry tweeted on Friday. "He is nothing but a disgrace to his office and a threat to our world order."

Thornberry was responding to Trump's decision to withdraw from the UN's Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty would impose checks and limitations on the export of arms to foreign governments, and according to Trump, would threaten Americans' Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."
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Propaganda

Dodgy Mueller report contains claim Russia taped Bill Clinton having phone sex with Monica Lewinsky

Steven Nelson
Washington Examiner
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 00:00 UTC
Mueller's shill game
© Ohanian
Mueller's Shill Game
Special counsel Robert Mueller's report mentions a claim that Russians recorded President Bill Clinton having phone sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky - but the reference was redacted from the version released to the public.

The redaction is likely to anger Republicans, because the allegation has been known since at least 2001 and the Mueller report's reference to a claim that President Trump watched prostitutes urinating in a Moscow hotel room was not struck out.

Clinton allegedly was recorded by Russia in the 1990s, allowing Russia to learn of the affair before American officials. A reference to the Clinton intercept was redacted from the Mueller report to protect "personal privacy," but sources told the Washington Examiner that the context makes clear what was blacked out.
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Bad Guys

FBI chief calls for united front of government and private entities to 'combat China'

Owen Churchill
South China Morning Post
Sun, 28 Apr 2019 12:42 UTC
Christopher Wray
© Bloomberg
Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), speaks during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
China is determined to "steal its way up the economic ladder" at the United States' expense, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Friday, warning of the "multilayered" counter-intelligence threat posed by Beijing.

"China has pioneered a societal approach to stealing innovation in any way it can, from a wide array of businesses, universities and organisations," said Christopher Wray, who has served as the head of America's principal federal law enforcement agency since 2017.


Comment: And yet, amongst many other achievements unparalleled by other nations, China was able to navigate to the dark side of the moon.


Beijing's campaign to steal US technology and trade secrets was being waged through intelligence services, state-owned enterprises, "ostensibly private companies" and graduate students and researchers, Wray said, calling the intelligence threat posed by China "broader [and] more severe" than that of any other country.

Comment: According to dictionary.com the definition of fascism is as follows:
fascism [ fash-iz-uh m ] noun ( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
And this proposed merger of government and private industry that the FBI chief is calling for, under guise of the 'China threat', could bring the US yet another step closer.

See also:

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Bad Guys

Indian minister: Pakistan can never be treated as a friend to India


NDTV
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 23:42 UTC
General VK Singh

Rajasthan wants to elect a strong, stable government at the Centre:
General VK Singh (retd), Union Minister of State for External Affairs, today said that Pakistan can never be a friend of India.

Addressing a press conference at the state BJP headquarters here, the former Chief of Army Staff said if India ever considered Pakistan as its friend, it would be the biggest weakness of the country.

"I was informed about opposition candidates in the border areas of Rajasthan claiming that Pakistan was not a threat to India and hence it should not be treated as an enemy nation."

"But a country which has been triggering proxy wars against India besides being a terrorist hub can never be treated as a friend. Treating Pakistan as a friend will be the biggest weakness of India," General Singh said.
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UFO

US Navy drafts new guidelines for reporting UFOs to 'destigmatize them'

Bryan Bender
Politico
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:44 UTC

Comment: Wow. It took a while, but we're apparently now in a reality where UFOs are an accepted part of our reality...


meteor shower
© Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
The Navy isn't endorsing the idea that its sailors have encountered alien spacecraft - but it also does not want to dismiss strange aerial sightings by credible military personnel.
The service says it has also 'provided a series of briefings by senior Naval Intelligence officials as well as aviators who reported hazards to aviation safety.'

The U.S. Navy is drafting new guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with "unidentified aircraft," a significant new step in creating a formal process to collect and analyze the unexplained sightings - and destigmatize them.

The previously unreported move is in response to a series of sightings of unknown, highly advanced aircraft intruding on Navy strike groups and other sensitive military formations and facilities, the service says.

"There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years," the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from POLITICO. "For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.

Comment: So, is this move by necessity, or part of a slow drip of disclosure the military is trying to control? For instance, why was this story on the AATIP allowed to be aired at all, even though it negatively characterized Elizondo's funding?


Even Tucker Carlson weighed in on the news:




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Light Saber

UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy meets with Assange in Belmarsh prison: "I will act on the videos of Assange's meetings in the embassy"

Stefania Maurizi
Reppublica
Thu, 25 Apr 2019 23:04 UTC
assange vigil embassy
© WSWS
Protesters at a vigil for Julian Assangeat the Ecuadorian embassy in London, August 16, 2018
He is the first person who has been able to visit Julian Assange at the Belmarsh prison besides Assange's lawyers. In fact, although two weeks have passed since the arrest of the WikiLeaks' founder, no other visitors are allowed apart from his lawyers. The UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy, Professor Joe Cannataci, just visited Julian Assange at the Belmarsh prison, a high security prison marked by the strictest prison regime in the UK, and in fact even visitors have to undergo to intensive controls, including police interviews, and of course meetings are monitored. Repubblica just interviewed the UN Rapporteur Cannataci.

Professor Cannataci, how did Assange seem to be doing?

«My visit went well, Mr Assange was ready to answer my questions. We have already started gathering facts and asked questions of Assange's legal team and of the Ecuadorian ambassador in London».

How is Julian Assange? We were all shocked by his appearance the day of his arrest...

«I am not a physician, and so I am unable to make a medical assessment of him and of course I met him in prison, which is never a pleasant place to meet, however, it seemed to me he was in fairly good condition».

Comment:

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