Mar 19 2017

Melting Snowflakes?

Its going to be hard but the budget does need to be cut down.

Mar 19 2017

KOMMONSENTSJANE – IS JUDGE AND OBAMA IN THE SAME HAYSTACK #2

It is strange how things work out with Obama isn’t it.

OBAMA WENT JUDGE SHOPPING AND IS STILL WORKING TO HURT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Obama and his shadow government rushes to Hawaii and guess what – his judge roommate at Harvard – who lives in Hawaii – rules against the American people’s order by President Trump to keep our country safe. He did not rule by the Constitution but by Obama, the shadow government, and the judge’s ideology and working against the American people.

Again, as I stated – we have found that Obama and this judge in Hawaii were friends and room mates at Harvard. This judge and the judge in Maryland need to be impeached. Their ruling WAS NOT based on the four corners of President Trump’s order but HEARSAY FROM THE CAMPAIGN AND on Obama’s urging and complicit backing to hurt the American people.

It is time for Congress to do their job and impeach these to two…

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Mar 19 2017

Ann Coulter on The Mark Simone Show (3/17/2017) – YouTube

Mar 18 2017

KOMONSENTSJANE – REALLY?

Obama’s KGB is real.

kommonsentsjane

March 15, 2017

All of this does not make any sense! Did I miss something? Did Comey really admit that?

OH MY GOD!! FBI DIRECTOR “WE WIRETAPPED DONALD TRUMP”

kommonsentsjane

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Mar 18 2017

KOMMONSENTSJANE – IT’S TIME FOR THE FED TO SHRINK ITS BALANCE SHEET

It’s very rare when any government agency actually does anything that make sense.

kommonsentsjane

It’s Time For The Fed To Shrink Its Balance Sheet

Mar 12, 2017

Norbert Michel , Contributor

I follow the evolution and devolution of monetary and financial policy .

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

A new debate is heating up over whether the Federal Reserve should continue holding on to all those assets it purchased after the 2008 crisis.

Last year, at the Fed’s annual fly-fishing conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., central bankers debated “the optimal long-run size of the Fed’s balance sheet.” Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sided with those who want to keep the Fed’s balance sheet abnormally large, relative to its pre-crisis size.

Last month, St. Louis Federal Reserve Vice President David Andolfatto added his own reasons for keeping the larger balance sheet.

But Professor Larry White, blogging at Alt-M, has two excellent posts making the counter arguments. As he points out: “We cannot…

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Mar 18 2017

KOMMONSENTSJANE – WHAT THE MEDIA WON’T TELL YOU ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

Many if not most are either criminals or in the welfare system and both are a significant drag on economic growth.

kommonsentsjane

What the media won’t tell you about illegal immigration and criminal activity
By: Hans von Spakovsky & Grant Strobl

March 10, 2017

Normally, the ACLU promotes transparency in government and the ability of the public to access public records. But apparently that changes when transparency might reveal damaging information that hurts their opposition to President Trump’s common-sense, revised executive order temporarily suspending entry from six terrorist safe havens in the Middle East and Africa.

How else can one explain the ACLU’s criticism of a little-noticed provision in the executive order that requires the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to, among other things, report on the “number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women” in the U.S., like the “honor” killings committed by foreign nationals? That provision will also require public reporting on the number of foreign nationals charged/convicted of “terrorism-related offenses” or removed from the…

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Mar 18 2017

Trump Wins: G-20 Drops ‘Anti-Protectionist, Free-Trade, & Climate-Change Funding’ Pledge

by Tyler Durden

Re-Posted From ZERO HEDGE Mar 18, 2017 10:25 AM

After delays and hours of discussions amid tensions over ‘trade’ comments between the United States and the rest of The G-20, it appears President Trump has ‘won’. While China was “adamantly against” protectionism, the finance ministers end talks without renewing their long-standing commitment to free trade and rejection of protectionism after US opposition.

The world’s financial leaders are unlikely to endorse free trade and reject protectionism in their communique on Saturday because they have been unable to find a wording that would suit a more protectionist United States, G20 officials said.

This would break with a decade-old tradition among the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 top economies (G20), who over the years have repeatedly rejected protectionism and endorsed free trade.

But the new administration in the United States is considering trade measures to curb imports with a border tax and would not agree to repeat the formulations used by previous G20 communiques, clashing with China and Europe, the officials said.

“Unless there is a last minute miracle, there is no agreement on trade,” one official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. “This is not a good outcome of the meeting,” a G20 delegate quoted Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann as saying.

In a partial face-saving move, as The FT details, G20 finance ministers meeting in the German resort town of Baden-Baden noted the importance of trade to the global economy, but dropped tougher language from last year that vowed to “resist all forms of protectionism”.

The new communique said: “We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies. We will strive to reduce excessive global imbalances, promote greater inclusiveness and fairness and reduce inequality in our pursuit of economic growth.”

The watered-down commitments on free trade reflected the anti-globalisation mood that Donald Trump has brought to Washington and came in the first G20 meetings between Steven Mnuchin, the new US Treasury Secretary, and his foreign counterparts.

US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin spoke to reporters after the meeting:

*MNUCHIN: LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING CLOSELY W/ G-20 COLLEAGUES
*MNUCHIN: CONFIDENT U.S. CAN WORK CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH PARTNERS
*MNUCHIN: U.S. BELIEVES IN FREE, BALANCED TRADE
*MNUCHIN SAYS WILL LOOK AT TRADE SURPLUSES WITH VIEW TO CORRECT
*MNUCHIN SAYS MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS HAVE VERY IMPORTANT PLACE
*MNUCHIN SAYS U.S. WANTS TO RE-EXAMINE TRADE DEALS INCL. NAFTA
*MNUCHIN: U.S. BELIEVES IN APPROPRIATE REGULATION
*MNUCHIN SAYS IMPORTANT BANKS CAN PROVIDE LIQUIDITY IN MARKETS

Reuters also points out another potential win for Trump as the communique will also drop a reference, used by the G20 last year, on the readiness to finance climate change as agreed in Paris in 2015 because of opposition from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Trump has called global warming a “hoax” concocted by China to hurt U.S. industry and vowed to scrap the Paris climate accord aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump’s administration on Thursday proposed a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget as the White House seeks to eliminate climate change programs and trim initiatives to protect air and water quality.

Asked about climate change funding, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said on Thursday, “We consider that to be a waste of money.”

The G20 do agree, however, to show continuity in their foreign exchange policies, using phrases from the past on foreign exchange markets.

As we noted earlier, needless to say, such an acrimonous end to the weekend’s summit would likely result in a surge in FX volatility when markets open for trading late on Sunday, reflecting the new state of global trade flux, in which the future of the US Dollar is completely unknown, and reflecting the emerging chaos over the future parameters of trade.

Mar 18 2017

Russian Parliament Launches Investigation Of “CNN And Other American Media”

by Tyler Durden

Re-Posted From ZERO Hedge Mar 18, 2017 8:18 PM

A few days ago Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic Senator from New Hampshire, introduced a piece of legislation that would give the Department of Justice “new authority” to investigate potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by the ‘Russian Times’. Among other things, Shaheen said the legislation was necessary to determine whether “RT News is coordinating with the Russian government to spread misinformation and undermine our democratic process.” We won’t even bother to touch on the inherent hypocrisy of such a statement, but here is the press release from Shaheen’s website:

Following intelligence reports that RT News operates as a propaganda outlet for the Russian government, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has introduced legislation that gives the Department of Justice new authority to investigate potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by RT America.

“We have good reason to believe that RT News is coordinating with the Russian government to spread misinformation and undermine our democratic process,” said Shaheen. “The American public has a right to know if this is the case. RT News has made public statements boasting that it can dodge our laws with shell corporations, and it’s time for the Department of Justice to investigate. My bill provides the authority needed to request documentation of RT News and find out who they’re accountable to.”

The Director of National Intelligence’s recent report titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections concluded that RT News officials have structured their affiliate organizations to deliberately circumvent U.S. reporting and disclosure requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Senator Shaheen’s Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act gives the Department of Justice new authority to compel organizations like RT America to produce documentation on funding sources and foreign connections.

Well, as it turns out, Russian officials have the power to launch meaningless witch hunts in their country as well and have decided to demonstrate that power with the announcement today that they’ll launch a similar investigation into all U.S. media currently operating in Russia. Per Reuters:

The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has approved a proposal to launch an investigation into U.S. media organizations that operate in Russia, it said in a statement posted on its web site late on Friday.

The investigation, which will be conducted by the Duma’s information policy, technologies and communications committee, will check whether CNN, the Voice of America, Radio Liberty and “other American media” are complying with Russian law.

Deputy Konstantin Zatulin, who initiated the move, calls it “a response to the actions of American politicians who have systematically accused Russian news media of interference in U.S. internal affairs,” according to the Friday statement.

Putin

Shaheen’s legislation, of course, drew wide criticism from Russian agencies including the Russian Foreign Ministry whose spokesperson mocked the bill saying it should have included a clause defining a list of books that should be collected for burning.

The statement said the Duma backed the move on Friday evening after Konstantin Zatulin, an MP from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, proposed an investigation to retaliate for what he called a “repressive” U.S. move against Russian state-funded broadcaster RT.

He said he was referring to an initiative by U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who has introduced a bill to empower the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by RT.

Foreign media in Russia are overseen by the Russian Foreign Ministry, whose spokeswoman Maria Zakharova this week singled out Shaheen’s demarche for criticism, quipping ironically that the senator should have included a clause drawing up a list of books for burning.

The U.S. move also solicited the ire of Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, who on Wednesday told the daily Izvestia it had echoes of the activities of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who oversaw a campaign to expose people he regarded as communists in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, all of this comes even as top Democrats admitted on Friday that their investigation into Trump’s campaign was unlikely to yield any evidence of collusion with Russia (see “The Democrats’ Trump-Russia Conspiracy Campaign Collapses“). Of course, not many politicians are willing to let facts get in the way of a good narrative.