The Federalist was able to gain a copy of the opening statement delivered to congress by Ambassador Kurt Volker. The statements made by Volker support the outline put forth by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani surrounding the initial contact and purposes.
The statement by Volker directly undercuts the narrative spun by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff and his attempt to create an impeachment narrative. Here’s the statement:
The outline by Volker supports the original story as told by Rudy Giuliani.
Ambassador Kurt Volker on Capitol Hill
The government of Ukraine under both Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and now President Volodymyr Zelensky, had been trying to deliver information about Obama officials and Democrat party officials (DNC on behalf of Hillary Clinton) requesting the government of Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election.
Both Poroshenko and Zelensky administrations had tried, unsuccessfully, to get information to current U.S. officials. U.S. State Department officials in Ukraine were refusing to give visa’s to Ukrainian emissaries because they did not want the damaging information sent to the President Trump administration.
Failing to get help from the U.S. State Department, the Ukranians tried a workaround, and hired a respected U.S. lawyer to hand deliver the documentary evidence directly to the U.S. Department of Justice. The contracted American lawyer hand-delivered the information to the U.S. Department of Justice in New York.
However, after delivering the information and not hearing back from the U.S. government, the Ukrainian government, now led by President Zelensky, interpreted the silence as the Trump administration and U.S. government (writ large) being upset about the Ukraine involvement overall.
Out of concern for a serious diplomatic breakdown, the Zelensky administration made a personal request to the U.S. State Department, Ambassador Volker, for assistance.
The U.S. State Department, via Ambassador Kurt Volker, then reached out to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani; and asked him if he would meet with Zelensky’s top lawyer, Andrei Yermak.
Rudy Giuliani agreed to act as a diplomatic intermediary and met with Yermak in Spain. After the meeting, Mr. Giuliani then contacted the State Department Officials in charge of Ukraine and Europe and debriefed them on the totality of the subject matter as relayed by Andrei Yermak.
All of this activity preceded the phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Here’s the transcript of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy.
[White House] President Donald J. Trump has released a declassified, unredacted transcript of his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from July 25th, 2019. The transcript can be read HERE.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the September jobs report. 136,000 jobs were added to the economy and the unemployment rate falls to 3.5%, the lowest since 1969.
Demand for workers remains strong (Table A-1). Overall employment is very stable across all sectors (Table B-1) and wage growth is strong (+2.9%). Additionally, inflation is low; that means more disposable income. The Main Street economy is strong.
♦Over the month, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 275,000 to 5.8 million. ♦Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs declined by 304,000 to 2.6 million in September. ♦Also, the number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks fell by 339,000. ♦The labor force participation rate held at 63.2 percent in September.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised up by 7,000 from +159,000 to +166,000, and the change for August was revised up by 38,000 from +130,000 to +168,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 45,000 more than previously reported. (BLS Report)
Folks, this “Ukraine Whistleblower” event was a pre-planned event. As we begin to understand the general outline of how the Schiff Dossier was assembled, we are now starting to get into the specifics. First discovered by researcher Stephen McIntyre, there is now evidence surfacing showing the ICIG recently created an entirely new ‘whistleblower complaint form’ that specifically allowed for the filing of complaints “heard from others“.
Prior to the current “whistleblower complaint” the Intelligence Community Inspector General did not accept whistle-blower claims without first hand knowledge. However, the ICIG revised the protocol in August 2019 allowing for the EXACT type of complaint now registered from the CIA whistleblower.
The IGIC revision was made at the same time HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff was tweeting in August about President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and holding back funding pending assistance with political opponents. Note the Date: (link)
The timing here is far too coincidental. This was a set-up.
Sean Davis – Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.
The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”
The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed. (read more)
President Trump announced Joseph Macguire as the Acting ODNI on August 8th, 2019. (link) The CIA operative “whistle-blower” letter to Adam Schiff and Richard Burr was on August 12th (link). Immediately following this letter, the ICIG rules and requirements for “whistle-blowers” was modified, allowing hearsay complaints. On August 28th Adam Schiff begins tweeting about the construct of the complaint.
As Stephen McIntyre notes: “it appears almost certain that, subsequent to the CIA operative “WB” complaint, the DNI introduced a brand new Urgent Disclosure Form which offered a previously unavailable alternative to report allegations with no personal knowledge.”
The CIA whistleblower complaint is likely the VERY FIRST complaint allowed using the new IGIC protocol and standard. Taken in combination with the timeline of the August 12th notification letter to Schiff and Burr and the Schiff tweet of August 28th, there’s little room for doubt this Ukraine whistleblower impeachment effort was pre-planned.
Additionally, this coordinated effort ties back-in Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael K Atkinson.
The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016 operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson. ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay ‘whistle-blower‘ complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was “blowing-the-whistle” based on second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie ‘hearsay‘.
Michael K Atkinsonwas previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.
[Irony Reminder: The DOJ-NSD was purposefully under no IG oversight. In 2015 the OIG requested oversight and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the NSD.]
Put another way, Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.
Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.
Immediately after the Carter Page FISA warrant is approved, in the period where DOJ-NSD head John Carlin has given his notice of intent to leave but not yet left, inside those specific two weeks, the National Security Division of the DOJ tells the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) they have been breaking the law. The NSD specifically inform the court they are aware of contractors who have been using FISA 702(16)(17) database search queries to extract information on political candidates.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has looked into the FISA application used against U.S. Person Carter Page. Additionally, U.S. Attorney John Durham is said to be looking at the intelligence communities’ use of systems for spying and surveillance.
If the DOJ-NSD exploitation of the NSA database, and/or DOJ-NSD FISA abuse, and/or DOJ-NSD FARA corruption were ever to reach sunlight, current ICIG Atkinson -as the lawyer for the process- would be under a lot of scrutiny for his involvement.
Yes, that gives current ICIG Michael Atkinson a strong and corrupt motive to participate with the Schiff/Lawfare impeachment objective.
Atkinson’s conflict-of-self-interest, and/or possible blackmail upon him by deep state actors who most certainly know his compromise, likely influenced his approach to this whistleblower complaint. That would explain why the Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel so strongly rebuked Atkinson’s interpretation of his responsibility with the complaint.
In the Justice Department’s OLC opinion, they point out that Atkinson’s internal justification for accepting the whistleblower complaint was poor legal judgement. [See Here] I would say Atkinson’s decision is directly related to his own risk exposure:
Within a heavy propaganda report from the New York Times there are also details about the Intelligence Community Inspector General that show the tell-tale fingerprints of the ICIG supportive intent (emphasis mine):
[…] Mr. Atkinson, a Trump appointee, nevertheless concluded that the allegations appeared to be credible and identified two layers of concern.
The first involved a possible violation of criminal law. Mr. Trump’s comments to Mr. Zelensky “could be viewed as soliciting a foreign campaign contribution in violation of the campaign-finance laws,” Mr. Atkinson wrote, according to the Justice Department memo. (read more)
Does the “foreign campaign contribution” angle sound familiar? It should, because that argument was used in the narrative around the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian Lobbyist Natalia Veselnitskaya. More specifically, just like FARA violations the overused “campaign contribution” narrative belongs to a specific network of characters, Lawfare.
The “Schiff Dossier”, aka “whistle-blower” complaint was a constructed effort of allied members within congress and the intelligence apparatus to renew the impeachment effort. The intelligence team, including the ICIG, changed the whistleblower form to allow the CIA to insert the Schiff Dossier, written by Lawfare.
Today, President Donald J. Trump met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Republic of India at the United Nations General Assembly. The leaders discussed progress on different aspects of their strategic partnership and upcoming opportunities to ensure it remains strong. The President reaffirmed the importance of greatly increasing trade between the United States and India, and highlighted the need for resolving barriers to free, fair, and reciprocal trade, which includes improving United Statescompanies’ market access in India. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor, as you know, to be with — because we were together just the other day in front of 59,000 people in the stadium, and that was a great day — Prime Minister Modi of India.
And we have many things to discuss. One of them — and perhaps in our case, one of the biggest ones is trade. We do a lot of trade together and we’re working on that.
We’ll also be discussing Kashmir. I imagine it’ll be brought up. And other things. But we have plenty to discuss. And the relationship has never been better, I say, than it is right now, between the Prime Minister, myself, India, and the United States. So, it’s a great honor to have you. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER MODI: (As interpreted.) First of all, I would like express my gratitude to President Trump that he was with me in Houston, day before yesterday. He took out time from his busy schedule to go to Houston. And he spent a lot of time with us.
And I think for the Indian community, people of Indian origin in the United States, this was an occasion of great pride. And for this, once again, let me thank President Trump from the bottom of my heart.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER MODI: (As interpreted.) After the formation of the new government, we haven’t even completed four months, but during this period of time I’ve had the occasion to meet President Trump three times now. And we’ve had very detailed and fruitful discussions on many issues.
In the world, between the oldest and the largest democracy, this kind of nearness — this relationship of ease and this continuous engagement — I think our countries coming together, which believe in democratic values, I think that’s a very good sign for the world. For India and the United States, notably, we are very close friends, but this is a friendship that is based on values, and this will continue to strengthen in the times to come.
As far as trade is concerned, I’m very happy that the day before yesterday, in Houston, in my presence there was an agreement signed by the Indian company, Petronet, for an amount of $2.5 billion, which is the amount of investment that the Indian company is going to do in the energy sector. And this will mean that in the years to come, in the decades to come, this will result in trade of an amount of $60 billion and create 50,000 jobs, which I think is a very big initiative taken by India.
President Trump is definitely my friend, but he is also a friend of India. And relations between India and the United States are proceeding at a very good and fast pace.
Once again, let me thank President Trump.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER MODI: Thank you.
Q Mr. President, you’ve mentioned — President Trump, you’ve mentioned trade. You — and Prime Minister Modi had, during the Houston event, said that you know the art of the deal. Can we expect something on a trade deal in talks today? Or what, the U.S. and India, they can do together to boost trade ties going forward?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think very soon. We’re doing very well. And Bob Lighthizer, who’s right here, was negotiating with India and their very capable representatives. And I think very soon we’ll have a trade deal. We’ll have the larger deal down the road a little bit, but we will have a trade deal very soon.
Go ahead.
Q You’ve been talking about, you know, clamping down on terrorism from across the globe. Pakistan has been the global epicenter of terrorism. You spoke about it in Houston. How do you make sure that you clamp down on terrorism from Pakistan? Because that is posing a threat to democracies like the U.S. and India. Even the business interests suffer because of continuing terrorism.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I had a very good meeting with Prime Minister Khan. It was a long meeting and we discussed a lot. And I think he’d like to see something happen that would be very fruitful, very peaceful. And I think that will happen, ultimately. I really believe that these two great gentlemen will get together and work something.
I also — you know, you mentioned Pakistan, but Iran would have to be at the top of the list. Because if you look at terrorist states, that’s been the number one for a long time.
But I really believe that Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Khan, they get along — they will get along when they get to know each other. And I think a lot of good things will come from that meeting.
Q Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan admitted that thirty, forty thousand terrorists are still in Pakistan. And yesterday, at the think-tank event, he again admitted that the Pakistan army and ISI trained al Qaeda. Separately, there are reports that thousands of terrorists are ready to enter through (inaudible) India. In this backdrop, what would you like to give message to Pakistan?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I mean, the message is not for me to give, it’s for Prime Minister Modi to give. And I think he gave that loud and clear on — the other day when we were together. He gave a pretty loud message. And I’m sure he’ll be able to handle that situation.
Yes, sir. Go ahead.
Q President Trump, this is a spectacular show you had with Prime Minister Modi in Houston. What are the significance of this event for India-U.S. relations and your personal chemistry with Prime Minister? Thank you.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, my personal chemistry is as good as it can get. I have great respect. I have great admiration. And I really like him — that’s another thing. And he’s a great gentleman and a great leader.
And I remember India before. Now, not intimately, but I remember India before, and it was very torn. There was a lot of dissension, a lot of fighting. And he brought it all together, like a father would bring it together. Maybe he’s the father of India. We’ll call him “the father of India.” I think that’s not so bad. But he brought things together. And you don’t hear that anymore. So I think he’s done a fantastic job.
But I think that what the event showed is how much I like the country of India and how much I like your Prime Minister.
There was tremendous spirit in that room, too. And they love this gentleman to my right. They really do. Those people went crazy. That was like Elvis. That was like an American — he’s like an American version of Elvis. (Laughter.) It was like we brought in the middle of an all-American deal; Elvis Presley came back. No, he was — that was quite something. They love your Prime Minister. It’s a great thing.
Q Mr. President, in Houston, you said that you stand with India in fight against Islamic radical terrorism. How do you see the statement coming from the Pakistani Prime Minister admitting that the Pakistani state, the ISI trained al Qaeda? How do you see —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I haven’t heard that. I haven’t heard that. And I know this: that your Prime Minister will take care of it. So if there’s a problem, he’ll — if there’s a problem, he’ll take care of it. It would be great if they could work out something on Kashmir. We all want to see that. I’m sure we all want to see it.
Q But isn’t there a bigger issue, sir? Pakistan state-sponsored terror — is there a roadmap to deal with Pakistan state-sponsored terror?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Boy, you have great reporters. I wish I had reporters like this. (Laughter.) You’re doing better than anybody I’ve ever heard. Where do you find these reporters? This is a great thing.
No, look, you have a great Prime Minister. He’ll solve the problem. I have no doubt about it.
Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Thank you.
Earlier today President Trump met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (the Asian Obama) to discuss issues of mutual interests. The relationship between Trump and Moon is one of the more interesting geopolitical dynamics. President Moon is consistently flummoxed by the effectiveness of Trump and has learned to respect a strategy he doesn’t understand. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. We’re pleased to be with President Moon of South Korea. We have a long-term friendship, and we are making a lot of progress. We are working on tremendous trade deals. We — as you know, we’ve completed a trade deal, and that’s working out very well for both countries. That deal is completed now, and it’s been in existence for — solidly in existence for six months. And it’s been very good.
And we intend to do some additional things on trade. Of course, we’ll be talking about North Korea. We’ll be talking the purchase of equipment. South Korea is one of our largest purchasers of military equipment. And we’re working together very well.
PRESIDENT MOON: (As interpreted.) Mr. President, it’s a great pleasure to meet you again three months after our last meeting. Your visit to Panmunjom will go down as a historic moment that embodied peace through action. And I have to say that I always marvel at your imagination and bold decision-making.
Thanks to your leadership, we have been able to achieve great progress in terms of inter-Korean relations. And this has also led to a dialogue between the United States and North Korea. And soon, I will be expecting the working-level negotiations between the United States and North Korea to prepare for the third — your third summit with Chairman Kim to resume — to be resumed soon.
And when you have your third summit with Chairman Kim, maybe I hope that this will go down as a truly historic moment in world history. This will be a great achievement that equals a great transformation in terms of a complete denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
During the time I have been working together with you, the ROK-U.S. alliance has been evolving in a great way, especially in the economic field. We have been able to revise a bilateral free trade agreement, and that has been a great success, while many Korean companies are increasing their investment in America.
And during the course of my visit to New York, we’ll be signing the deal to increase the import of LNG from America, while we’ll also be signing a deal regarding a joint venture between a Korean motor company and an automotive vehicle company in America. So I believe that all of this will come to reinforce our already strong alliance.
And furthermore, I do look forward to engaging in candid discussions with you today on how we could truly make great progress in our alliance in other aspects as well.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.
Q What’s it going to take to have a third summit with Chairman Kim, sir?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’ll see. Right now, people would like to see that happen. I want to know what’s going to be coming out of it. We can know a lot before the summit takes place.
We had, really, two very successful summits. There’s been — as you know, there’s been no lessening of the sanctions. There’s only been an increasing of the sanctions. But very importantly, we have our hostages back. And that was a very big deal. And we got our hostages back. We have the remains of our great heroes from the past back — a lot of them. And they’re coming in, and they actually have a lot of them ready to start coming in again.
So, a lot of things have happened. Plus, there’s been no nuclear testing at all for the last quite a long period of time, at least that we can detect. And the relationships have been very good.
So, we’ll see what happens. But we’d like to see if we can do something. And if we can, that would be great. And if we can’t, that’s fine. We’ll see what happens. But there’s been no nuclear testing for a long time. A long time.
Q Mr. President, for guns, do you plan on announcing a gun plan in the coming days? And if so, is it going to include background checks?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’re working very much with the Republicans, and we’re working also with the Democrats. But a lot of the Democrats are wasting their time on nonsense, on pure nonsense. So they don’t have much time to work on guns, unfortunately. If they did, it would be probably pretty easy to do. But we always have to protect our Second Amendment. It’s very important.
I saw where this character from Texas — I can’t imagine he’ll get one vote in Texas. He wants to start confiscating guns. That’s not a good thing. That’s no good. It makes it actually much harder to make a deal when this Beto O’Rourke comes out and starts talking about confiscating guns. When you do that, it makes it much tougher.
But the Democrats are really just wasting so much time on — on nonsense, on junk. And if they focused on this, they could get it done. But we have to protect our Second Amendment. We have to protect people that want and need guns. And we have to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people and sick people. Very simple. It’s not very complicated.
Q Are you considering sanctions — considering actions first before denuclearization as part of your new method for the — in the denuclearization talks?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sanctions where?
Q Sanctions first before denuclearization, as part of your new method in denuclearization talks.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I can’t — you’re going to have to speak up. Say it again. Sanctions. Go ahead. What was —
Q Sanctions — considering action first before denuclearization?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Where?
Q For North Korea and the denuclearization talks.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m not considering actions. We’re getting along very well with North Korea. I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. And we’re not considering actions at all. There’s no reason for actions.
I will say this: If I weren’t President, you’d be at war with North Korea, in my opinion. If the same group was in that preceded me, you’d be in a war with North Korea.
So we’re not looking at any actions. We have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. We’ll see what happens. Maybe we’ll be able to make a deal. Maybe not.
Q Mr. President, I meant the sanctions first. I beg your pardon.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Go ahead.
Q Mr. President, there is breaking news just now —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: More breaking news?
Q More breaking news, yes.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: There’s always breaking news. It’s usually — it’s usually breaking fake news. Go ahead.
Q Two rockets just landed in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Do you see this as an escalation in the Middle East? And could —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don’t know anything about it. You just told me it’s breaking news, so I’ll have to see it. You know, right now, I’m here. I haven’t heard it.
Q But this is not the first time.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: When did this happen?
Q Just now, but this is not the first time. Many rockets landed before.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, that is not the first time. Nope. We’ll look into it. We’re going to look into it.
Q But are you worried about the U.S. embassy in Baghdad — the security there?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re going to look into it. I know nothing about it. You just told me it’s breaking, so therefore I assume it’s relatively new, like within the last four days.
Q Mr. President, do you plan on discussing the North Korean short-range missile tests with your counterpart?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah. We’re going to discuss that.
Q And, Mr. President, yourself: Do you have any comment —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I will be discussing that.
Q — on the North Korean missile tests?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah. I will be discussing. We didn’t have an agreement on short-range missiles. And a lot of people and a lot of countries test short-range missiles; there’s nothing spectacular about that. But we will be discussing that also. Okay?
Q Can we hear from President Moon if he is troubled by the short-range missiles and if he’d like to see you maybe try to stop it from happening — talk to Chairman Kim?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’ll take a look at it. We’re going to talk about it. But I didn’t really discuss that with Kim Jong Un. That was never a part of our discussion. We did discuss nuclear testing and other things. And, frankly, he’s lived up to his word on those things that we discussed. And we actually signed an agreement in Singapore. We actually had two very good meetings.
You would have been at war right now with North Korea if I weren’t President.
A series of very strong internal economic evaluations today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) show the Main Street economy is perfectly positioned with maximum benefit to the U.S. middle-class.
First, despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, saying Trump tariffs on China would create massive inflation…. It Ain’t Happening! Overall year-over-year inflation is hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; that’s a low inflation rate. Rate has firmed up now with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate remains consistent. [See Below]
A couple of important points. First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative. Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector… Except ‘food at home’.
Which brings us to the second important point. Notice how food prices have very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent. That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:
(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)
For the past twenty years food prices have been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand. The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.
President Trump’s trade reset is disrupting this process. As farm products are less exported, the cost of the food in our supermarket becomes reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle. Food prices drop and our pantry costs are lowered.
Lower gas prices, energy prices and lower food prices again provide greatest benefit to the U.S. middle-class. More MAGAnomics at work. It is critical to understand this dynamic because there are current political candidates like Elizabeth Warren who are openly stating (as a matter of policy) they intend to stop this middle-class price benefit:
Be forewarned, this Warren policy would be devastating to working class Americans.
Back to the good news….
In combination with low inflation on the items that matter, U.S. wage growth is exceeding 3.5 percent. Subtract the inflation of 1.7 percent from the wage growth of 3.5 percent and you get Real Earning Growth of +1.8 percent.
…”From August 2018 to August 2019, real average hourly earnings increased 1.8 percent, seasonally adjusted.”… (BLS Link)
Any time worker earnings grow faster than the rate of inflation the lifestyle of the middle-class improves. People simply have more money to save, spend or upgrade. It’s simply common sense economics.
The last big of extra good news on the internal U.S. economy (not wall street), comes from the number of people who no longer need unemployment benefits. The U.S. Dept. of Labor highlights today that fewer people are claiming unemployment:
Back during the Great Depression, there were people who theorized that gold hoarding was preventing economic recovery. There is always this same theory that people who save hoarding their money and are not spending it results in the lack of a recovery suppressing demand. This theory has been around for a very long time. It assumes a recovery is always blocked by people hoarding their money and saving for a rainy day.
Back during the American Civil War, the federal government issued paper currency for the first time after the Revolution. Much of this currency paid interest. Some were in the form of virtually circulating bonds with coupons for the interest payments. Some were backed by gold. Others offered a table on the reverse providing a schedule. The interest baring notes remained valid currency, but the interest expired within a specific time period. Hence, one would redeem the note since it would no longer pay interest beyond a specific date.
The rumbling behind the curtain I am hearing is a growing idea of making the currency in Europe simply expire. I have explained before that in Europe currency routinely expires – even in Britain. The United States has never canceled its currency so a note from the Civil War is still legal tender. But that is not the case in Europe.
Europeans are accustomed to having their money simply expire. This is not limited to paper currency. They also cancel the coins. The proposal being whispered in the dark halls of Europe is that perhaps the way to impose negative rates to force people to spend is to just cancel all the currency and authorize only small notes for pocket change. They want everyone to be forced to use bank cards and this is the new theory to revitalize the economy.
The chart patterns for the Euro are about as long-term bearish as one can imagine. The problem facing the world economy is this idea that they can even FORCE people to spend their savings recklessly as the government does. Canceling the euro may be a drastic and desperate step, but it is being proposed as an alternative to deep negative interest rates which have failed to work for more than 10 years. The middle ground proposes a paper currency with expiration dates.
Either way, the risk of a profound dollar rally remains in the wings. The powers behind the curtain desperately want to defeat Trump for they know he would NEVER cancel the American currency. To pull that off, they need a career politician. Joe Biden would be perfect. He might just sign whatever bill is put before him and then take a nap. It is ironic, but there would be a lot of Americans who would wake up and want Trump bank after that one. Joe would be too tired to tweet.
In the aftermath of the IG report covering the conduct of former FBI Director James Comey, HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes appears on Fox News to discuss the existing legal risk that surrounds Mr. Comey.
QUESTION: Hello Marty,
I have a question about Gold & Silver in other currencies – namely GBP.
Accepting your rational, with evidence I must say, that precious metals are a reflection of the confidence people have in their countries currency, you can see from the price of gold & silver in GBP and EURO that leading up to the Brexit referendum until now confirms this. When you look at the ECM for this period – 2015.75 up to 2020.05 – you can see that there are three main waves to it. One wave down from 2015.75 to 2016.825, then three shorter wave from 2016.825 to 2018.89 – single consolidation wave?, then a third wave down from 2018.89 to 2020.05. Gold & Silver rallied, consolidated, then rallied again within this ECM period. Does Gold & Silver have their own internal cycle? Will your upcoming report include content on Gold & Silver in other currencies? The trade in Gold:GBP since the ECM turning point of 2015.75 has been very lucrative
– thanks for your service and opening up Socrates for us.
Regards,
AJ
England.
ANSWER: When you plot gold in dollars and pounds, you can see the steepness in the pound. This has been the strength in gold in dollars. It has been the hedge, not against fears of inflation in the USA, but it has risen in the face of the fear of a recession OPPOSITE of its previous relationships. This is all because we are approaching a Monetary Crisis Cycle.
Forecasting gold in dollars is pointless for that will be irrelevant to those in different countries. So yes, our report will be in terms of all the major currencies so people can make the appropriate decision in their own currency.
Oh boy… how federal Judge Emmet Sullivan will handle this latest motion from Mike Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell is an unknown; however, the content is delicious.
In an explosive response filing today, which includes the phrase”sunlight is the best disinfectant”, attorney Sidney Powell has outlined the soup-to-nuts construct of the malicious government action taken during their targeting her client Michael Flynn.
In the 19-pages (full pdf below), Ms. Powell walks through the history of the DOJ, FBI and intelligence apparatus weaponization against Mr. Flynn and lays out the background behind everything known to have happened in 2016, 2017 through today.
From the corrupt DOJ lawyers who were working with Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele, including Mr. Weissmann, Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Zainab Ahmad; to the 2015/2016 FISA database search abuses; to the CIA and FBI operation against Flynn including Nellie Ohr; to the schemes behind the use of DOJ official Bruce Ohr; to the corrupt construct of the special counsels office selections; to the specifics within the malicious conspiracy outlined by hiding FBI interview notes of Mike Flynn,… all of it…. Is a stunning filing that many CTH readers are well prepared to understand.
BREAKING: Flynn’s attorneys are going to war with Mueller’s team, claiming in a filing this afternoon that they have acted “more malevolent” than prosecutors who botched Ted Stevens’ prosceution — and are withholding evidence.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Ambassador Kurt Volker on Capitol Hill
Centinel2012 