Let's Do Popcorn! News & Markets for 2-6-18
CNN reported Trump is expected to sign a national security memorandum on Tuesday establishing a "National Vetting Center" that will help coordinate information between various federal agencies. The order will allow the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies involved in the process six months to establish the center, which administration officials said is intended to streamline vetting and improve the flow of information between various federal agencies.
Ellis Island repeat.
Trump will order the creation of an independent civil liberties panel to oversee the new agency. The center will also be overseen by a board that's expected to include at least one cabinet minister.
Anticipating concerns from civil liberties groups, the memorandum will also establish a standing privacy and civil liberties panel, which will have some oversight over the National Vetting Center's activities. The membership of that panel will also be determined during the six-month period.
The National Vetting Center is part of the Trump administration's broader efforts to tighten immigration screenings, following Trump's calls for "extreme vetting" during his presidential campaign.
Mr. Steele has gone missing. Former British MI-6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele was absent at a London courthouse, reports Fox News. Steele was expected for a long requested deposition in a multi-million dollar civil case brought against Buzzfeed, which published the salacious and unverified "Trump-Russia" dossier.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are accusing him of misleading the FBI about his contacts with journalists at various news outlets during the 2016 election.
"There is substantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele materially misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier efforts, one which bears on his credibility," reads the unredacted document that refers Steele for criminal prosecution in the US.
Steele was paid $168,000 by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was funded in part by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, who used law firm Perkins Coie as an intermediary.
The Senate Judiciary Committee's January 4 criminal referral of Steele reveals that the former British spy was involved in a second anti-Trump opposition research dossier.
This second dossier went from Clinton ally Cody Shearer, who gave it to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, before it was routed to Christopher Steele. It is unknown what happened to the document after that.
Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.
Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign. -Washington Examiner
Shearer's brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, and his late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton’s State Department, according to ProPublica.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) railed against Democrats and the FBI for the "clear link" between Russia and opponents of Donald Trump, who engaged in a literal conspiracy to smear Trump with the cooperation of Russian government officials.
Appearing on Fox News, Nunes traced the path directly from the Clinton campaign to the Kremlin:
“We have a clear link to Russia — you have a campaign who hired a law firm, who hire Fusion GPS, who hired a foreign agent, who then got information from the Russians on the other campaign,” said Nunes, adding “It seems like the counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got ahold of the dossier. But that didn't happen, either.”
Nunes noted that the FBI never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which granted a spy warrant on one-time Trump advisor Carter Page was not informed that the salacious and unverified dossier used as its foundation was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
Nunes then called out the MSM for extreme hypocrisy over the disproportionate standards applied to the left vs. the right;
"I think the bigger problem, challenge here, is that the mainstream media is totally uninterested in this. Can you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot - and Donald Trump or George Bush or Karl Rove had paid for information and then George W Bush's FBI had opened an investigation into the Obama campaign because they were talking to Russians - which, by the way, really did happen; the Obama campaign was talking to Russians back in 2008 - and open up a counterintelligence investigation using dirt dug up and paid for by RNC and George W. Bush supporters?
This town would be on fire. Every reporter would be following around Karl Rove and George W. Bush all over town - yet it's crickets from the media. It's embarrassing. It's absolutely embarrassing, I'm almost flabbergasted. Because I thought at least there would be some ounce of credibility left, but there really is none." -Devin Nunes
Nunes appeared on Fox & Friends where he told them that the four-page "FISA memo" authored by staffers from his office and released last Friday was "just the beginning."
It's a story. It's all a story and they fight for you to believe as they do. They all know you are the only one who chooses what to believe. They all know if you believe as they do then what they want comes to be. Deep down inside we all know this.
The FBI didn’t want the FISA memo released. They didn’t want people to know their investigations are politically motivated. It doesn't fit the story they sold us and they know it.
The Department of Homeland Security pressured CNN into delaying the release of a report until after the Superbowl. DHS was concerned public confidence in Superbowl security would be lost if people found out about an exercise they ran last summer.
The DHS program manager of Biowatch left sensitive documents on an airplane. They revealed confusion and vulnerabilities in the exercises meant to test government response to a biological terror threat at the Superbowl.
“The biggest consequence of this mistake may have less to do with terrorists knowing our vulnerabilities and more to do with confidence in the Department of Homeland Security,” Kayyem [a former DHS official] said. “In the end, confidence in the federal government at a time of crisis is what the American public deserves.”
Even if it is not true, the most important thing for government is keeping up public confidence. Gotta believe the story, narrative whatever you wish to call it.
The TSA is a perfect example. The TSA failed 80% of tests last year when undercover officials snuck through weapons and explosive materials. But this was an improvement from two years earlier when they failed 95% of tests.
LOL and they wonder why people are upset? Why do we have these behemoths that only eat up capital and produce nothing?
No one can keep you safe but you. No one. You either believe you are safe and secure or you believe you can be hurt. You will get what you believe. Every time.
They don’t deserve our confidence aka belief because they haven’t earned it.
This is what happens when you bow to another. When you buy what they are selling without thinking about it just Oh XXX said it so it must be true.
The government derives its power from people who abandon their personal responsibility. When people don’t see it as their own job to look into their food and medicine, you get the USDA and FDA. When people allow themselves to be controlled by fear, you get the DHS, NSA, CIA and so on. When parents don’t know how to raise their kids, they let the government diagnose them with fake diseases like ADHD and fill them full of drugs.
The government shows there is no reason to trust them. They have no incentive to deliver on their promises.
Food suppliers, manufacturers, and marketers already use private companies to test their products for safety and label accuracy. They use the government guidelines as a minimum standard. Most of the USDA protection is a myth, and it is actually the market for quality products that drive companies to deliver safe foods with accurate labels.
The Bureau of Land Management and FBI withheld evidence on the Bundy case which showed vast corruption in the agencies.
The government admits Social Security accounts will be depleted in 2034. Again.
The vast increase in overdose deaths since the beginning of the War on Drugs.
The U.S. government hires agents to “troll” online to divide and confuse.
The IRS targetted tax-exempt organizations for more scrutiny based on Tea Party affiliation.
The ATF “lost track” of over 2000 guns in Operation Fast and Furious, some later used in government agents’ murders.
New York City processing fake property deeds.
Daddy Yankee kept food bank generators running in Puerto Rico when FEMA couldn’t.
Police arrested a nurse when she refused to break the law and give them patient information.
The EPA botched a cleanup, contaminating an entire river.
Flint Michigan delivers poison water to residents.
The list goes on.
So don't buy what they are selling. You choose what to believe. Make your own story. Imagine all have plenty and all are doing their best and are wonderful. I assure you. The ones who do not act like that will go away and the rest will rise to your belief or new ones will come to prove your belief.
We jaded ourselves and now is the time to rise up. We can continue the bully/victim mentality loop or break out of it.
Confidence in yourself. Believing in you. That is all that matters.
Who is the most important being in your life?
The answer should be I AM.
Yoo Oooh! Ride 'em cowboy!
Not to get too deep into it but certain ETPs that sell volatility went belly up. This in turn produced a margin call and that created extreme selling this morning.
We had a lower VIX and a lower low in the market so the buy signal was hit.
From that point on the market rallied.
S&P 500 Resistance – 2785, 2811, 2842, 2876, 2905
S&P 500 Support – 2759, 2750, 2730, 2715, 2682, 2655, 2638, 2607, 2575
Short term target - 2580 I believe this support will hold. That would give us the 10% drop we have been needing to the scare back in there and shake the speculators out. Gotta have those doom and gloomers so we can rally!
Target 3200 remains
Cryptos - Bitcoin
Bounced. Still searching for a bottom.
A sophisticated group of hackers tied to North Korea is suspected of being behind the last month's $500 million hack of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange CoinCheck.
Take care,
Rita
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