National Security Adviser John Bolton holds a press availability to discuss the crisis in Venezuela following a briefing with President Trump. Mr. Bolton said “we are seeing the Venezuelan people strive to get a government that they control, not an authoritarian military regime”, adding “this is a very serious situation. The president has been monitoring it minute-by-minute throughout the day.”
Bolton emphasized “this is clearly not a coup. We recognize Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela.” He called it a “potentially dispositive moment” for Venezuelans to regain their freedom”, later referencing “a very delicate moment.” If this effort fails, they will sink into a dictatorship from which there are very few possible alternatives.”
U.S. Secretary of State calls it “Operation Liberty” and supports opposition leader Juan Guaido. The Venezuela regime of Nicolas Maduro calls it a “coup attempt” and has help from Russia and Cuba to put down the uprising. The regular Venezuelan military, and the ordinary people of the country appear to be caught in the middle.
Perhaps this is the last effort of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to shift the balance of power. The White House is supportive but cautious. Everything is tenuous as Venezuela appears to be on the brink of extreme political violence.
CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Tuesday made his strongest call yet to the military to help him oust President Nicolas Maduro, and violence broke out at anti-government protests as the country hit a new crisis point after years of political and economic chaos.
Several dozen armed troops accompanying Guaido clashed with soldiers supporting Maduro at a rally outside the La Carlota air base in Caracas, but the incident fizzled out and did not appear to be part of an immediate attempt by the opposition to take power through military force.
Guaido, in Twitter posts, wrote that he had begun the “final phase” of his campaign to topple Maduro, calling on Venezuelans and the armed forces to back him ahead of May Day mass street protests planned for Wednesday.
“The moment is now!” he wrote. “The future is ours: the people and Armed Forces united to put an end” to Maduro’s time in office.
Tens of thousands of people were marching in Caracas in support of Guaido on Tuesday, clashing with riot police along the main Francisco Fajardo thoroughfare. A National Guard armored car slammed into protesters who were throwing stones and hitting the vehicle.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino called the latest instability a “coup movement” but several hours after Guaido’s announcement there was no sign of any other anti-Maduro military activity. Guaido later left a rally he was holding with military supporters at the air base. (read more)
Angus Berwick@AABerwick
Caracas’ Francisco de Miranda avenue after Venezuelans flooded streets today to support Guaido.
Venezuela foreign minister denies a military coup is underway, accuses opposition leader Guaido of operating under orders from Washington https://reut.rs/2ZIXOkw
This looks like a no-retreat proposition. Those in the military who make a decision to support Juan Guaido can never return to life before the inflection point and will be targets of the Maduro regime. A terrible crisis with few good options.
Our prayers for the Venezuelan people who are caught up in this political nightmare.
#OperacionLibertad is underway in #Venezuela & the world is watching. @jguaido’s safety must be guaranteed. The Venezuelan people are demanding change, a peaceful democratic transition, & return to prosperity. It’s time for the illegitimate regime to step aside. #EstamosUnidosVE
#OperacionLibertad is underway in #Venezuela & the world is watching. @jguaido’s safety must be guaranteed. The Venezuelan people are demanding change, a peaceful democratic transition, & return to prosperity. It’s time for the illegitimate regime to step aside. #EstamosUnidosVE
Secretary Pompeo
✔@SecPompeo
What we are seeing today in #Venezuela is the will of the people to peacefully change the course of their country from one of despair to one of freedom and democracy. The U.S. stands with them and @jguaido now and always. #EstamosUnidosVE
QUESTION: Martin you appear to be very bearish on the British pound when comparing with the Us Dollar. Does the outcome of Brexit make any difference to your view.?
SB
ANSWER: The British Parliament under the direction of Prime Minister May has been a disaster. She was a “Remainer” in her heart and the performance of the negotiations reflects that reluctance to leave the EU. The forecast our system has been making on the pound is based upon the performance of the market – not fundamentals.
Still, the fundamentals are reflected through confidence which then shows up in the price action of markets. The decline in the pound has reflected May’s inability to make a deal. Her strategy appears to be one who is on the payroll of Brussels – not the British people. It appears she refuses to negotiate and hopes that it will come down to a hard exit of her deal. This is what she is counting on and there can be a no-confidence vote until December to boot her out.
It is beside me why British politicians do not simply look at their own data and the facts. The UK has experience lower economic growth ever since it joined the EU. It loses just about every argument in the European court. Here is a clip from the Guardian on December 30, 1998, which showed even back then that 58.5% of trade in Britain was outside the EU. Britain cannot enter any trade deals with anyone without the approval of all 28 members of the EU. If just one objects, the deal is dead.
Perhaps PM May sings Frank Sinatra’s song My Way in the shower every morning to boost her spirits. BREXIT has been turned into a joke.
Mark Steven Domingo, 26, a veteran and recent convert to Islam, was arrested by federal authorities for his plan to detonate an improvised explosive device in/around San Fernando Valley California. His targets for the attack included “Jews, police officers, churches, and a military facility.” Thankfully the FBI intercepted him.
(From the DOJ) LOS ANGELES – A San Fernando Valley man was arrested Friday night after he received what he thought was a live bomb, but in fact was an inert explosive device that was delivered by an undercover law enforcement officer as part of an investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Mark Steven Domingo, 26, of Reseda, a former U.S. Army infantryman with combat experience in Afghanistan, faces federal charges in a terrorist plot in which he planned to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) for the purpose of causing mass casualties.
In a criminal complaint filed Saturday by federal prosecutors and unsealed earlier today, Domingo was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Domingo, who has been in federal custody since his arrest, is expected to make his initial appearance this afternoon in United States District Court.
According to a 30-page affidavit in support of the complaint, since early March, Domingo “planned and took steps to manufacture and use a weapon of mass destruction in order to commit mass murder.”
“This investigation successfully disrupted a very real threat posed by a trained combat soldier who repeatedly stated he wanted to cause the maximum number of casualties,” said United States Attorney Nick Hanna. “Protecting Americans from terror attacks is the number one priority of the Justice Department, and anyone who plots to use a weapon of mass destruction will be held to account.” (read more details of plot)
The U.S. economic numbers continue to gain strength. Ahead of his departure to China for ongoing trade negotiations, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discusses the current state of the economy with Maria Bartiromo.
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Secretary Mnuchin and USTR Lighthizer arrive in China tomorrow. This meeting will determine their recommendations to President Trump as to whether a deal can be reached. If no, the potential to re-institute delayed round-two tariffs is possible.
The professional financial punditry can’t explain it. Flummoxed academics run around bumping into walls amid economic numbers that continue to defy expectations. All caused by a simple return to common sense ‘America First’ MAGAnomics.
Low unemployment (3.8%); wages growing (+3.2%); inflation stable (1.6%). These measures all have a cumulative impact on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans. Prices for durable goods are stable and wage growth is exceeding inflation. That means more disposable income in the middle-class…DUH. Which, when combined with the increased pay from lower middle-class tax rates, is exactly the intended outcome of MAGAnomics.
Today the BEA is out with consumer spending results for the first quarter that defy expectations. Consumer spending on goods increases 1.7%. Overall spending +.09 in March, reaches highest gain in ten years. The deplorables are spending their higher wages. Go figure. Meanwhile core inflation drops to 1.6%. The pundits are shocked.
(Reuters Headline) “U.S. consumer spending roars back, but inflation tame” – WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending increased by the most in more than 9-1/2 years in March as households stepped up purchases of motor vehicles, but price pressures remained muted, with a key inflation measure posting its smallest annual gain in 14 months.
[…] “The economy is in a sweet spot for now with not enough inflation to cause the Fed to raise rates, and with inflation not low enough to worry Fed officials that economic demand is weakening, which could require rate cuts,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, surged 0.9 percent. That was the biggest rise since August 2009 and was also driven by increased healthcare expenditures. Spending rose 0.1 percent in February.
Data for January was revised up to show consumer spending rising 0.3 percent instead of the previously reported 0.1 percent gain.
[…] In March, spending on goods rebounded 1.7 percent, with outlays on long-lasting manufactured goods such as cars shooting up 2.3 percent. Spending on goods fell 0.5 percent in February. Outlays on services increased 0.5 percent last month, driven by healthcare spending, after rising 0.4 percent in February.
Inflation was benign, with the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index excluding the volatile food and energy components unchanged in March after edging up 0.1 percent in February. That lowered the year-on-year increase in the so-called core PCE price index to 1.6 percent, the smallest increase since January 2018, from 1.7 percent in February. (more)
It really is quite funny to watch the professional financial class try to wrap their arms around what is happening. Cue the audio visual:
The “Vhobbles”
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Dr. Rajeev Dhawan, it just ain’t that complex. The U.S. is where the growth is. We are in the period where exporting U.S. wealth (globalist policies) has been slowed/halted. We are confronting protectionist tariffs abroad which impede our exports, and simultaneously applying reciprocal tariffs toward those who want access to our U.S. market. As a consequence, capital investment is returning to Main Street USA (nationalist policy).
This is the heart of MAGAnomic policy.
Low unemployment; rising wages; stable inflation and resurging U.S. blue-collar manufacturing is the key (steel/aluminum tariffs assisting).
This internal dynamic means the U.S. consumer can fuel the the U.S. economy while President Trump, Secretary Ross, Secretary Mnuchin and Ambassador Robert Lighthizer utilize the leverage of tariffs, to negotiate better America-First trade deals.
CTH 2016[…] Understanding the distance between the real Main Street economic engine and the false Wall Street economic engine will help all of us to understand the scope of an upcoming economic lag; which, rather remarkably I would add, is a very interesting dynamic.
Think about these engines doing a turn about and beginning a rapid reverse. GDP can, and in my opinion, will, expand quickly. However, any interest rate hikes (fiscal policy) intended to cool down that expansion -fearful of inflation- will take a long time to traverse the divide.
Additionally, inflation on durable goods will be insignificant – even as international trade agreements are renegotiated. Why? Simply because the originating nations of those products are going to go through the same type of economic detachment described above. [What the USA previously went through]
Those global manufacturing economies will first respond to any increases in export costs (tariffs etc.), by driving their own productivity higher as an initial offset, in the same manner American workers went through in the past two decades. The manufacturing enterprise and the financial sector remain focused on the pricing.
♦ Inflation on imported durable goods sold in America, while necessary, will ultimately be minimal during this initial period; and expand more significantly as time progresses and off-shored manufacturing finds less and less ways to be productive. Over time, durable good prices will increase – but it will come much later. [By that time, U.S. manufacturing will have reestablished position and offset any import pressure.]
♦ Inflation on domestic consumable goods ‘may‘ indeed rise at a faster pace. However, it can be expected that U.S. wage rates will respond faster, naturally faster, than any fiscal policy influence because inflation on fast-turn consumable goods becomes re-coupled to the ability of wage rates to afford them.
The fiscal policy impact lag, caused by the distance between federal fiscal action and the domestic Main Street economy, will now work in our favor. That is, in favor of the middle-class. (full outline)
We have not had the benefit of this economic success in the past 40 years because corrupt multinational interests were paying and bribing -via lobbyists- politicians and public officials within the administrative state to block independent U.S. wealth.
Historian-author-pundit Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Case for Trump, opened the Freedom Center’s annual West Coast Retreat at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes (April 5-7, 2019) with a wide-ranging and stirring keynote address.
President Donald Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf today, while First Lady Melania Trump hosts Madame Akie Abe in DC.
The relationship between the Trump’s and the Abe’s goes back quite a while and is rooted in a genuine friendship. The president and prime minister are strong competitors on trade and economic policy; however, the competition is founded on respect.
Prime Minister Abe’s economic policies are rooted in the growth process taught by Edwards Demming. If you follow their professional business ideology, it is easy to see how President Trump and Prime Minister Abe would face-off around a standard of excellence.
When combined the economies of the United States and Japan account for approximately 30 percent of all global gross domestic product.
This is really old-school business stuff. Each leader, is essentially an economic policy coach for his country; creating strategies and championing growth in a challenge to see who can succeed the most. They respect each-other, but this is old school. PM Abe isn’t about to concede to a deal where Japanese growth is ceded; however, he will not cheat to achieve success (unlike Xi). So friendly adversarial negotiations continue. Good stuff.
Meanwhile First-Lady Melania Trump and Madame Akie Abe toured some of the historic sites in the capital, including the Washington Monument and US National Arboretum.
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
Agent Applebutt
Centinel2012 