In the run-up to the June 8th national election called for by British Prime Minister Theresa May, the local elections are providing strong indicators for a historic level of support.
This outcome is exactly what Prime Minister May wanted as she heads into tough negotiations with the European Union on terms of exit.
Having won the historic Brexit vote and gained victory for the UK to pull out of the Union, most of UKip party supporters are melding back into the traditional Conservative party ranks.
REUTERS – British Prime Minster Theresa May’s Conservative Party is still a strong 16 points ahead of the main opposition Labour Party ahead of a national election on June 8, according to a poll by Opinium on Saturday.
The Conservatives polled 46 percent in an online survey of 2,005 adults, down one point from the last Opinium survey on April 25, while Labour were unchanged on 30 percent.
The survey, carried out before this week’s big Conservative victory in local elections, put the Liberal democrats on 9 percent and the anti-EU UKIP on 7 percent. (link)
More on the local election results from Daily Mail – Prime Minister May is on course for a general election landslide after pummelling Labour and crushing Ukip at the local polls.
The Tories recorded a stunning series of results yesterday, picking up 560 seats in every part of the country – including Labour marginals in the North, the Welsh valleys and even Scotland. (read more)
‘Bilateral Trade’ has a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?
The French election commission and all French media are attempting to keep presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s email and document release from having an impact on the election; even going so far as to warn people that reading the content might be illegal.
With 9.9 gigabytes of data uploaded to Pastebin it sets up a rather unusual issue if Macron happens to win the election and the content of the email and documents show manipulation and coordination of the candidate by interests external to France.
Via Reuters – France sought to keep a computer hack of frontrunner Emmanuel Macron’s campaign emails from influencing the outcome of the country’s presidential election with a warning on Saturday it could be a criminal offence to republish the data.
Macron’s team said a “massive” hack had dumped emails, documents and campaign financing information online just before campaigning ended on Friday and France entered a quiet period which forbids politicians from commenting on the leak.
The data leak emerged as polls predicted Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, was on course for a comfortable victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s election, with the last surveys showing his lead widening to around 62 percent to 38.
“On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot,” the French election commission said in a statement on Saturday.
However, the commission – which supervises the electoral process – may find it difficult to enforce its rules in an era where people get much of their news online, information flows freely across borders and many users are anonymous.
French media covered the hack in various ways, with left-leading Liberation giving it prominence on its website, but television news channels opting not to mention it.
Le Monde newspaper said on its website it would not publish the content of any of the leaked documents before the election, partly because the huge amount of data meant there was not enough time to report on it properly, but also because the dossiers had been published on purpose 48 hours before the election with the clear aim of affecting the vote. (read more)
The hunt for taxes is really getting out of control.
I enjoyed a week of vacation in Italy and on my way back home I had a few hours to kill in Milan.
So i decided to spend some time in the City center of Milan before leaving from Linate airport.
I bought 3 bus tickets Linate – Milan, enjoyed my stay and on my way back I bought again 3 tickets.
On my way back to the airport the bus way half full, many of them tourists like me on their way to the airport.
Halfway 2 public officers got on the bus and started to check for valid bus tickets.
Although I nicely bought my tickets (6 in total) I did get fined because I did not validated my tickets in a machine that was nowhere in site.
Tickets where completely in Italian language, not even the bus driver pointed out to stamp the tickets.
No excuse was taken seriously. The fine had to be payed.
What stroke me was that only the non local persons on the bus got checked (easily identified by caring luggage).
All locals/native Italian where left alone.
After discussing this with Italian friends at the airport, I understood this was just common practice.
The Italian public officers are worse than mafia.
RVL
REPLY: Italy is becoming notorious for extorting tourists. If you rent a car, after one year they will start sending you traffic tickets and never identify where or when you committed some offense. One friend paid the first ticket, then the second, and stopped paying. When they sent me tickets from Rome, I refused to even pay anything. They then turned it over to a collection agency and I blew them off the phone so aggressively they never called again. They cannot legally turn it over to a collection agency with no validation of anything and they can never put it on your credit report. It’s just one giant fraud. The collection agency cannot prove you owe anything.
Use taxis and make sure they turn on the meter. They like to talk and pretend to be friendly to distract you from noticing they never turned on the meter. They then try to get you to pay twice or three time what the trip would have been.
Ah – the pleasures of tourism in Europe these days. France is no better. You have a red target on your forehead and it says sucker.
QUESTION: Martin, I know your computer has a prediction for the French election and I am sure you have an opinion, I am of the opinion that the French deplorables will come out in mass to vote for LePen. Vive la France!!! What is your opinion. This could be the event that crumbles the EU for good. Thoughts?
ANSWER: This is the craziest election because the computer projected Le Pen would beat both the socialists and the conservatives back in 2015. I gave that forecast back then when it really sounded nuts. It’s my job to say what the computer is forecasting. I have learned over the years that my opinion comes in second-place.
So strangely, the computer is correct even if Macron wins because all mainstream parties were defeated by Le Pen in the first round.
I really hope Le Pen wins because that will force Brussels to look in a mirror just once. If Macron wins, we are looking at a very hard landing for the EU next year. This will probably rise up even violently and places Europe at risk of civil war from the standpoint that Brussels has federalized Europe behind everyone’s back.
The French polls being reported put Macron at 63% and Le Pen at 37%. Her followers will be more passionate about voting and the polls are making a serious mistake as they did in BREXIT. They are trying to manipulate the election. Even Brussels is desperately trying to hand out huge bills to leave. They want €100 billion from Britain and they have threatened Italy and France if they try to leave. How do they enforce their demands? Invade with the federal army they are trying to build? Or will Germany, Netherlands and others lend troops to invade Italy or France? Oh, let’s see. The reason to federalize Europe was to eliminate European War. Hm!
The CAC40 has finally broken the Downtrend Line on the Monthly Chart. This has not been because of bullishness for the French Economy – this is capital fleeing the government sectors and running into private assets. With BREXIT, the bankers support the government ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even HSBC said they would leave Britain if BREXIT passed and move to Paris. Hm. The European banking system is in serious danger of crumbling. A good stiff wind can blow it over. ANY bank that were to be stupid enough to move to the EU is a MAJOR SHORT for the long-term.
The media gnats, and somedoofus conservative punditry, quip about President Trump talking to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Duterte is also the rotational President of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Meanwhile, President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson remain keenly focused on the BIGGER PICTURE in Asia and how ASEAN policy relates to N-Korea.
Thankfully the grow-ups are in charge.
STATE DEPT – Secretary of State Tillerson hosted the Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for a special U.S.-ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting, reinforcing the Strategic Partnership between the United States and ASEAN and commemorating the 40th anniversary of U.S.-ASEAN relations.
Secretary Tillerson underscored that the Asia-Pacific region is a top priority for the Trump Administration and that ASEAN is an essential partner. ASEAN Ministers welcomed the continued commitment by the United States to ASEAN, including the Association’s community-building and regional integration efforts.
They jointly took note of the 30th ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue, held on May 3, in which senior officials of the United States, ASEAN member states, and the ASEAN Secretariat discussed cooperation on political, security, and economic issues. The Secretary and the Ministers stressed their shared commitment to advance peace, security, and prosperity in the region.
Secretary Tillerson and the ASEAN Foreign Ministers discussed the tensions on the Korean Peninsula caused by the DPRK’s nuclear tests and missile launches, and the grave threat posed to regional stability. They recognized the need for full implementation of all relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
Secretary Tillerson and the Foreign Ministers reaffirmed their adherence to a rules-based order in the Asia-Pacific and to the common principles articulated in the 2016 Joint Statement of the U.S.-ASEAN Special Leaders’ Summit, including the peaceful resolution of disputes, with full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, and in accordance with international law.
The Secretary noted shared concerns by many in the region regarding militarization and land reclamation in the South China Sea. The Secretary and the Ministers stressed the need for ASEAN Member States and China to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in its entirety, and took note of efforts towards the early conclusion of a meaningful Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
Secretary Tillerson and his counterparts discussed economic partnership through U.S.-ASEAN Connect, the Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement, and the ASEAN Connectivity through Trade and Investment program.
The Secretary noted his intent to represent the United States at the ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit Ministerial, and U.S.-ASEAN Ministerial meetings in August in the Philippines. (link)
Well this is stunning to say the least. After initial denials the campaign of French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is now confirming the authenticity of a massive upload of emails from his account.
The 9.9 Gigs of emails, outlining some very sketchy deals by the presidential candidate, were uploaded to Pastebin a document sharing site – SEE HERE – Initially no-one was able to confirm the authenticity, and the campaign of Macron denied. WikiLeaks began an attempt to authenticate the release.
However, the authentication is no longer necessarily warranted as the campaign is admitting they were hacked, and the content appears to be directly from the accounts of Emmanuel Macron:
The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron condemns “massive hacking attack” after document leak(link)
A large trove of emails purporting to be from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday, 1-1/2 days before voters go to the polls to choose the country’s next president in a run-off with Marine Le Pen.
Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. (read more)
Italy is increasingly dependent on the ECB to hold down bond yields as foreign investors dump Italian bonds like mad.
Eurointelligence bills this as “Further Evidence of Capital Flight in Italy“.
In a column earlier this week, Federico Fubini notes that, according to the Bank of International Settlements, in 2016 international banks reduced their exposure to Italy by 15%, or over $100bn, half of it in the last quarter of the year. The counterpart to this exposure reduction is the increase in the negative Target2 balance of Italy, which the ECB has already attributed to foreign investors selling into its asset purchase programs, and reinvesting the proceeds away from Italy. As a result of all this, Italy’s financial stability is increasingly dependent on the ECB.
The Capital Flight article by Federico Fubini is in Italian. Here is an unmodified snip from the article.
Distrust Widespread
Clearly, therefore, there is a conspiracy, but a widespread distrust of the direction being taken in the third euro area economy. Especially the banking system in Germany seems to have developed a deep-seated distrust. His exposure to the country late last year is worth little more than a quarter of that of the French banks, and now has dropped so much that is 30% below that that German institutions had on Italy at Euro 1999 debut. No other major banking system has implemented a retreat of these proportions, as if the integration of the single currency had never even begun.
The loss of one hundred billion dollars by large foreign banking investors would be a blow, not for purchases of Italian bonds by the European Central Bank. Throughout 2016 we continued at the rate of about ten billion Euros per month, on corporate bonds and especially on sovereign bonds. In fact the release of foreign banks is linked to the ECB intervention, because those have the opportunity to sell at the Institute of Frankfurt good part of their Roma government bonds. It is no coincidence if the public debt held abroad fell by 42 billion in just the first nine months of 2016, according to Bruegel. The irruption of the ECB in the market and the withdrawal of foreign banks are thus two sides of the same coin. The result is that the Italian financial stability is becoming more and more dependent on the support of an international institution, that next year will almost certainly cease.
We are entirely clear-eyed as to the scope of the challenge. No-one amid our association is naive to the seemingly impossible scale against the backdrop of history. It may be that their task is impossible. Yet, if they do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if they do not try, it most certainly won’t be done…
There is absolutely no doubt of the work that has been going on for months, quietly, mostly under the radar. National media are completely deficient for not covering the ongoing events and the diplomacy that has been taking place all year.
We have a front row seat to what President Trump has been assembling, and I would never bet against the ability of President Trump and the people now aligned in consequence.
.
The Diplomatic Timeline below:
♦ Immediately following his inauguration, President Trump spoke to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and gained his ideological and financial support for building a safe zone for Syrian’s as they rebuild.
♦ A week later, President Trump spoke at length to Egypt’s Fattah al-Sisi about their efforts.
♦ At the beginning of February – King Abdullah III of Jordan traveled to Washington to meet with Vice-President Mike Pence and discuss aid and assistance for regional security. Previously, in November 2016, King Abdullah spoke to President-elect Trump
♦ A week later – Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington DC for a very warm and optimistic meeting with President Trump for talks on regional security.
♦ At the beginning of March – Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukryvisited Washington, met with members of Congress and held a long discussion with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,
♦ Mid-March Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with an envoy from President Trump and told him that a peace deal is possible under the new president.
♦ April 3rd (Monday) – Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to Washington for an official White House state visit and spent the day with President Trump.
♦ April 5th (Wednesday) – Jordan’s King Abdullah III came back to Washington for an official visit to the White House.
♦ May 3rd – Palestinian Authority Leader President Mahmoud Abbas visits the White House for an official visit including the entire PA delegation.
Egyptian President el-Sisi has already secured most of the Sinai border region. The current challenge is to keep the extremist elements in check and undermine their destabilizing efforts. A big part of that stability includes Syria, Russia and the U.S. defeating the remnants of ISIS.
Under-reported in Western media, during the fall/winter of 2014 and spring/summer of 2015 al-Sisi removed every Hamas tunnel and relocated thousands of homes to create a miles-wide buffer zone no longer useful by terrorists.
The scope of what Egypt did to secure the Southern and Eastern border of Israel/Gaza is quite remarkable, and they have paid a high price battling extremists every inch of the way.
Simultaneously, as his Egyptian forces were removing the most significant security threat, al-Sisi brokered a peace deal between Abbas and Netanyahu and forced the Palestinian Authority to speak with one voice. That’s why Egypt was so furious when John Kerry insisted on poking his nose into the agreement.
After the peace deal, and after he constructed the border security zone, Fattah al-Sisi then set up the construct for a Joint Arab Intervention Force.
We have continued to express optimism for a confluence of events, people and activity that is happening quietly, and could stun the geo-political world. The timing is right, because we view these activities through a different prism.
We review current events against the backdrop of President Obama’s mid-east failure, equitable misery.
The reality of President Obama’s expressed foreign policy of regime change -regardless of cost or consequence- has left millions of Mid-East communities in peril; far worse off today than they were nine years ago. In an odd and accidental way, President Obama created equitable misery.
• The Egyptian people, in no way a populist entity favorable to Israel, suffered through two years of brutal dictatorship from the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsi. Their very survival only due to a successful return of cultural and economic stability at the hands of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
• The Syrian people, again holding no favorable disposition toward Israel writ large, only just now coming out of the shadows of a horrific five-year civil war and seeing sunlight for the first time in half a decade. Breathing room.
• The Libyan people, caught amid an ongoing crisis of regional and tribal strife suffering through ongoing extremist violence that has taken them into the depths of economic and social chaos. And before the fighting is even over, Europe is outlining demands of the North African gates.
• The Jordanian people, again a tenuous and precarious Muslim nation, who has watched the most barbaric and horrific consequences from extremist violence in their lifetimes.
The end result of almost all far-left policies when carried out to their natural conclusion is equitable misery. At no moment in recent history has the choking consequence of a decade-long ideological war left a larger population of people so exhausted than at this very moment.
Think of the nationalist possibility. ♦ Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), ♦ King Abdullah III (Jordan), ♦ Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), ♦ Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian Authority), ♦ King Salman and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia), and ♦ U.S. President Donald Trump. Together theyhave a remarkable canvas.
QUESTION: Martin You said the turning point will be on monday 8th may. Could it be in connection with the result of the french election on may 7th? If it isMacron, the turning point will be up. If it is Le Pen, it will be down. Or?
Thanks. Regards.
ANSWER: The French media is portraying Macron as a centrist. It is expected that Macron should be able to attract a wider spectrum of second-round voters than Le Pen, pulling in left-leaning voters from Hamon and Mélenchon as well as those leaning to the right that voted Fillon in the first round. The polls put him at 65%.
Our computer projected that the “populist” vote would win. Indeed, for the first time in modern French history, the runoff vote will not feature a single presidential candidate from a mainstream party. The Conservative and Socialists all lost.
The elite want Macron to win but this will be the nail in the coffin for the EU. Brussels will assume they defeated the “populist” simply if Le Pen loses. However, the mainstream parties all lost already. Macron will simply mean that Brussels will not reform and that suggests that we are looking at the collapse of the Euro moving forward into 2018. Our Yearly models have had three Directional Changes 2017 into 2019. Our Monthly Models have been targeting May 2017 for about one year.
A Macron victory should help the Euro hold for now. The key resistance stands in the 113-114 zone. The press will try to manipulate the people to save the EU. That is the agenda of the press in Europe, so they will cheer Macron and do their best to destroy Le Pen and in doing so, they are condemning the EU to utter failure. All they can see is keep the EU together even if that leads to internal civil war within Europe. The only thing holding the EU together is France and Germa
Poland represents a major threat to the EU. The entire idea of the EU was the propaganda that Member States would successively grow into a real Union through a longer integration process. GDP was supposed to grow, not decline, and the threat of war would vanish by surrendering sovereignty to Brussels. In reality, the exact opposite has unfolded. GDP has progressively declined and the risk of a European war has been increased with the idea of surrendering sovereignty to Brussels.
Throughout Europe, there is a growing “populist” movement especially ignited with the attempt to force member states to accept refugees when this was an unilateral decision exclusive made by Merkel to save her public image after being hard on Greece.
Even the data from the British Government clearly shows how their GDP has declined ever since joining the EU in 1973. Obviously, the exact opposite trend determines reality – not political propaganda. The movements that promotes the sovereignty of the national states and demand a weakening of the central institutions are on the rise all over Europe. This is what Brussels calls the “populist” movement.
Poland is questioning the current situation of the EU in its current form and is not finding it agreeable especially when it goes against their religious foundation. Many are alarmed because there were more Mosques built in Britain during 2016 than churches. Churches are on the decline and even synagogues are being converted to Mosques.
Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU payments receiving an annual net of just €10 billion. Nevertheless, Poland represents a huge risk to the EU for the independence and sovereignty of Poland has become a top priority in the face of forced refugees. Poland is actually more linked to the USA and Britain than to Brussels.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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
In the run-up to the June 8th national election called for by British Prime Minister Theresa May, the local elections are providing strong indicators for a historic level of support.
Centinel2012 