Published on Nov 8, 2018
Something is coming… something delicious. How can we tell? Well, whenever a bombshell is about to drop on the corrupt Intelligence Community, the New York Times does a quick narrative dump to get out ahead of the story.
All the way down, buried deep, in a NYT story about Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA investigation and AG Barr’s review of DOJ and FBI activity… they drop the following two paragraphs (emphasis mine):
[…] The inspector general is also scrutinizing another early source of information for the Russia investigation, the people said: Mr. Horowitz’s investigators have been asking questions about the role of Stefan A. Halper, another F.B.I. informant, and his prior work for the bureau.
Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper, an American academic who teaches in Britain, to gather information on Mr. Page and George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. (read more)
Oh? NYT now saying FBI agents asked help from intelligence asset Stefan Halper to go gather information on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos?
Six months ago the New York Times was calling people ‘conspiracy theorists’ for pointing out how the CIA and FBI were using overseas intelligence officials to run up against the Trump campaign. Now they just drop it in their column as ‘meh‘, all casual like…. running spies into political campaigns, well, it happens all the time… or something. Obviously they are shaping and dumping their narratives and quietly trying walking away.
The bigger question the Times avoids is: “FBI Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper to gather information on Page & Papadopulos” predicated on what?
What’s the underlying evidence that would inspire the FBI to request Stefan Halper to spy on American citizens connected to the Trump campaign? What’s the reason?
These contacts took place prior to July 31st, 2016, when Crossfire Hurricane began; so they are not part of the ‘official‘ FBI investigation… because these requests would have come before the investigation began… so what gives?
What’s the predicate for such a request?
The FBI has a “Brennan” problem. CIA Director John Brennan organized foreign intelligence assets to run against the Trump campaign March through July 2016 to help construct Brennan’s “EC” memo that he gave to James Comey to initiate the official start of the FBI counterintelligence operation.
As soon as The New York Times mentions the name Professor Joseph Mifsud in the same way as Professor Stefan Halper the gig is up.
Attorney General William Barr was questioned today by republican lawmaker Robert Aderholt about potentially fraudulent DOJ and FBI submissions to the FISA court – to gain a Title-One surveillance warrant against U.S. Person Carter Page.
In a deliberate response AG Barr stated: “The Office of the Inspector General has a pending investigation of the FISA process in the Russia investigation. I expect that will be complete in probably May or June, I am told. More generally, I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016.”
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The response would indicate AG Barr is taking personal interest in the events behind the July 31st, 2016, origination of the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation. Additionally, this approach indicates AG Barr’s review is going much further than Inspector General Horowitz; taking the review all the way to the origin of the intelligence community operation.
UPDATE: Bloomberg Reports: Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to review controversial counterintelligence decisions made by Justice Department and FBI officials, including actions taken during the probe of the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This indicates that Barr is looking into allegations that Republican lawmakers have been pursuing for more than a year — that the investigation into President Donald Trump and possible collusion with Russia was tainted at the start by anti-Trump bias in the FBI and Justice Department.
“I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016,” Barr told a House panel on Tuesday.
Barr’s inquiry is separate from a long-running investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. The FBI declined to comment. Barr said he expected the inspector general’s work to be completed by May or June.
The issue came up as Barr testified before a Democratic-controlled House Appropriations subcommittee. Most of the questioning concerned demands for Barr to give lawmakers Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report and the evidence behind it. But the issue is sure to get more attention when Barr appears Wednesday before the panel’s GOP-led Senate counterpart. (read more)
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There’s a term called “zeroing” at the heart of this World Trade Organization decision that supports President Trump, Secretary Ross and USTR Lighthizer.
When an industry product like Canadian softwood lumber is shipped into the U.S. for sale at a lower price than exists in Canada, the U.S. Commerce department calls that“dumping“. If the Canadian product is the same or higher in the U.S. as it is in Canada there is no dumping. No dumping is a “zero” or normal price differential; hence “zeroing”.
The Canadian government is subsidizing their lumber industry by allowing tree removal from federal land at discounted rates so long as the lumber is exported. This made softwood lumber cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada and set up the dumping issue.
[NOTE: This is the same issue with Steel and Aluminum from China]
U.S. lumber mills were going out of business because Canada was dumping subsidized product into the U.S. market at a discounted rate. As a consequence, in 2017 Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross instituted a 20% tariff on Canadian lumber to protect the U.S. lumber industry. The tariff is a countervailing duty to offset the Canadian subsidy. ie. “zeroing”.
With the 20% tariff, Canadian lumber sold into the U.S. was the same price as Canadian lumber sold in Canada. This allows U.S. lumber mills to compete for U.S. market business on an equal basis.
Instead of removing their federal lumber subsidy (which would have removed the tariff) the Canadian government, via Justin Trudeau, went bananas and sued the U.S. at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Trudeau was counting on prior disputes where the WTO did not side with the U.S. position on the calculations for industry “zeroing”.
However, in a departure from prior WTO opinion; and conceding to the obvious validity of the math while faced with a U.S. president who would not relent; the WTO agreed with President Trump, Secretary Ross and Ambassador Lighthizer and affirmed the 20% tariff as a valid countervailing duty.
The softwood lumber tariff was upheld by the WTO and Canada has lost its case.
This is a major victory for the U.S. with considerable ramifications for all further “anti-dumping” tariffs and/or countervailing duties.
(Reuters) […] U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer welcomed the ruling by a WTO dispute panel, which he said showed the “erroneous”, “unpersuasive” and “flawed reasoning” of Appellate Body rulings in the past.
“The United States commends this panel for doing its own interpretive analysis, and for having the courage to stand up to the undue pressure that the Appellate Body has been putting on panels for many years,” Lighthizer said in a statement.
He said the WTO rules did not prohibit zeroing, and the United States would never have signed up to WTO rules that did prohibit the practice.
“WTO Appellate Body reports to the contrary are wrong, and reflect over-reaching by that body,” he said.
Canada launched the WTO dispute in November 2017, saying it would forcefully defend its lumber industry against “unfair, unwarranted and deeply troubling” U.S. tariffs.
The U.S. Commerce Department had accused Canada of unfairly subsidizing and dumping softwood lumber, which is commonly used in the construction of homes. Its duties affected about $5.66 billion worth of imports.
There was no immediate reaction from Canada’s international trade ministry, which could appeal against the ruling. (more)
This ruling is especially important as USTR Lighthizer engages with China on the current trade discussion. Prior WTO rulings essentially allowed China to subsidize their state-run industries/companies and undermine free-market prices. Globally this put China at a manufacturing advantage; however, moving forward, the U.S. can apply the “zeroing” analysis and offset the Chinese state subsidy with countervailing duties.
In essence this WTO ruling forces the financial principles underlying a free and fair market into the global economy. If China wants to sell industry products into the U.S. they can no long manipulate their price to export at a lower cost than exists in China.
President Trump has a simple economic platform: “Buy American and Hire American“; toward that goal all economic and fiscal policies are now directed to assist U.S. manufacturing companies and retain U.S. workers. This includes free, fair and reciprocal trade agreements. Period.
Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
Attorney General General William Barr told lawmakers today the public can expect to have the redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference “within a week.” AG Barr noted his team is working with the special counsel to provide “explanatory notes” describing the basis for each redaction. WATCH:
Full congressional hearing below:
Representative Doug Collins has released the transcript from former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker during his first day of testimony to congress on October 3rd, 2018. (full pdf below)
Baker was part of the FBI small group who claimed to be somewhat skeptical of the manner in which the FBI investigation was taking place. James Baker told Congress during his testimony the investigation was “highly unusual.”
Rep. Doug Collins✔@RepDougCollins
The transcript of James Baker’s first interview with @JudiciaryGOP is now available to the American public. To read the full transcript, visit https://dougcollins.house.gov/baker .
Earlier today President Trump met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the oval office. President al-Sisi is a key member of the regional alliance for peace.
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[Transcript] – 12:17 P.M. EDT – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with President Al Sisi of Egypt. We have many things to discuss, as you can imagine: military, trade.
And I have to say that a lot of progress has been made in a lot of different ways, in terms of terrorism and others things, with Egypt and within Egypt. It’s really incredible what’s happened, especially in certain respects that we’ve already talked about. But we will be meeting with representatives of the President and of Egypt in a little while.
Again, we have very, very important things, militarily, to talk about. And also about trade. A big trading partner. We do a lot of work together. We work together. And I think we’ve never had a better relationship — Egypt and the United States — than we do right now.
So, I want to thank everybody for being here. And, Mr. President, thank you very much.
PRESIDENT AL SISI: Thank you, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: My friend.
PRESIDENT AL SISI: (As interpreted.) Thank you, Mr. President. Allow me to express my thanks for your kind invitation and for providing me this opportunity to meet and talk about making a quantum leap in the strategic relationship between Egypt and the United States.
Let me emphasize, Mr. President, that the relations have not been better over the years of our bilateral relationship, and that is why I’m extending, Mr. President, to you our thanks, appreciation, and greetings for (inaudible).
All the credit goes to you, Mr. President. Thank you very much for your support on all fronts. This is what we’re seeking to promote our bilateral relations in various fields: political, economic, military, cultural, and others.
Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you. And I just have to say, before we perhaps take a couple of questions, the First Lady was recently in Egypt. She was treated beautifully.
But maybe even more importantly, what she saw with the Pyramids was — you could call it the seventh wonder or the eighth wonder of the world. She thought it was incredible. She thought it was one of the most incredible things she’s seen. And we have lots of pictures, and that was great day and a great moment to see the Pyramids — the Great Pyramids.
So hopefully a lot of people will be going and looking at them. But she’s not easily impressed; she was very impressed.
So thank you very much.
Q Mr. President, you seem to be —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Go ahead, Jeff.
Q You seem to be cleaning house at DHS. What would you like to achieve with the new leadership there?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I never said I’m “cleaning house.” I don’t know who came up with that expression. We have a lot of great people over there. We have bad laws. We have a judge that just ruled, incredibly, that he doesn’t want people staying in Mexico. Figure that one out. Nobody can believe these decisions we’re getting from the Ninth Circuit. It’s a disgrace.
And so we’re fighting the bad laws, the bad — the bad things that are coming out of Congress. You have a Democrat Congress that’s obstructing. You talk about obstruction — the greatest obstruction anyone has ever seen. All they have to do is spend 20 minutes and they can fix this whole problem.
We have the worst laws of any country anywhere in the world, whether it’s catch and release or any one of them. I mean, I could name — I could sit here and name them, but if you got rid of catch and release, chain migration, visa lottery — you have to fix the asylum situation; it’s ridiculous. You have people coming in, claiming asylum. They’re all reading exactly what the lawyer gives them. They have a piece of paper. “Read what that is.” And all of the sudden, you’re entitled to asylum. And some of these people are not people you want in our country.
So we are building a lot of wall. It’s getting built. Some of you saw that last week, when we went — we had a great presentation of a new stretch. But we’re building a lot of wall and we’re being very strong on the border.
But we’re bucking a court system that never, ever rules for us. And we’re bucking really bad things with Congress — with the Democrats in Congress not willing to act. They want to have open borders, which means they want to have crime; they want to have drugs pouring into our country. They don’t want to act. We have to close up the borders. We’re doing it, but we’re doing it — I could do it much faster if they would act.
So it’s a terrible thing. The Democrats in Congress — what they’re doing and the obstruction — they don’t want to fix it. And we have to fix it. They want open borders. They want to have millions of people pouring into our country. They don’t even want to know who they are.
These are people coming into our country with criminal records. We have murderers coming in. We have drug lords coming in. We have gangs coming in. And we’re stopping them. And if we don’t stop them, ICE is throwing them the hell out. We’re getting them out.
But our job could be so much easier. I think Kevin is going to do a fantastic job. He’s Acting, but I think he’s going to do a fantastic job. And we’re not doing anything very big, as far as — what we need: homeland security. That’s exactly what we want. There’s no better term; there’s no better name. We want homeland security and that’s what we’re going to get. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Q Egypt is ordering more fighter jets from Russia. How do you feel about that?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody.
Q Are you considering child separations, sir? Can you rule that out, Mr. President? You wouldn’t start separating the children again, would you, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Obama separated the children, by the way.
Q Would you consider doing it again?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Just so you understand, President Obama separated the children. Those cages that were shown — I think they were very inappropriate — they were built by President Obama’s administration, not by Trump. President Obama had child separation. Take a look. The press knows it. You know it. We all know it. I didn’t have — I’m the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation.
Now, I’ll tell you something: Once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They’re coming like it’s a picnic because “let’s go to Disneyland.” President Obama separated children. They had child separation. I was the one that changed it.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Q But what’s President Trump going to do? Are you going to bring it back is the question. Would you bring it back?
Q Will you bring it back, though?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re not looking to do that. No.
Q You’re not going to bring it back?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re not looking to do that. No.
Thank you very much.
Q You’re not looking to bring it back?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But it — it brings a lot more people to the border. When you don’t do it, it brings a lot more people to the border. We are not looking to do it.
But President Obama had the law. We changed the law. And I think the press should accurately report it. But, of course, they won’t.
Thank you all very much. Thank you.
Q Should the Muslim Brotherhood be a terrorist organization? Muslim Brotherhood?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.
Q (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: It’s a great honor to be with the President. It’s a great honor to be with your President.
Q Do you support his efforts to stay in power longer?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: What?
Q (Inaudible) through 2034?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don’t hear you.
Q Do you support his efforts to stay in power through 2034?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think he’s doing a great job. I don’t know about the effort; I can just tell you he’s doing a great job. Great President.
Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Armstrong,
I have a question that might interest not just me but also other blog Readers:
In your blog Posts you write that you expect that we will have a hard landing going into 2020.
My question is: What does that mean for the Dow? Do you expect the dow to correct into 2020 more that 20%.
Thank you for your work and best Regards,
A
ANSWER: The hard landing is economic and will have its greatest impact outside the USA. While central banks have sold US Treasuries in an attempt to keep the dollar down, the private sector has been pouring assets into the USA and particularly the Dow. Our capital flows have tracked a significant shift in global capital flows into the USA especially from Europe. That should come as no surprise given the chaos in BREXIT as well as the May elections.
We still do not see a major correction in the Dow. We have been undergoing a shift from public to private assets on a global scale. Therefore, the hard landing will be more economically based and central banks will try to do something, as in lowering rates, but they have run out of bullets. The Fed has tried to back off on rates after buying into the problem of a hard landing outside the USA. The ECB has been on its hands and knees, pleading with the Fed not to raise rates when they will have to continue their QE programs or face sovereign debt defaults.
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