Let's Do Popcorn! News & Markets for 2-22-18
It's political persecution and nothing more. It always has been.
For more than four years Julian Assange has been in a tiny room, policed at great expense to British taxpayers, not because of any allegations in Sweden but because the British authorities wanted him to remain there.
Why? It might have something to do with his work as the head of Wikileaks, publishing information from whistleblowers that has embarrassed the US and the UK.
Assange should have walked free years ago if this was really about an investigation into an alleged sexual assault in Sweden. That was why UN experts argued two years ago that he was being “arbitrarily detained” for political crimes.
According to a new release of emails between officials, the Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, wrote to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service on 18 October 2013, warning that Swedish law would not allow the case for extradition to be continued. This was after Sweden had repeatedly failed to take up an offer from Assange to interview him in London, as had happened in 44 other extradition cases between Sweden and Britain.
Ny wrote to the CPS: “We have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order … and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way.”
Three days later she emailed the CPS again: “I am sorry this came as a [bad] surprise… I hope I didn’t ruin your weekend.”
Proving that this was about politics, not the law, the chief CPS lawyer handling the case in the UK, wrote to the Swedish prosecutors: “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”
In December 2013, the unnamed CPS lawyer wrote to Ny: “I do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter.”
This was at a time when it had been revealed that the policing of Assange’s detention in the embassy had cost Britain at that point £3.8 million. In another email from the CPS, it was noted: “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”
These are only fragments of the email correspondence. Most of it was destroyed by the CPS against its own protocols. The deletions appear to have been carried out to avoid releasing the electronic files to a tribunal that has been considering a freedom of information request.
Other surviving emails, according to a Guardian report last year, have shown that the CPS “advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.”
Assange is still at the embassy even though last year Sweden formally dropped an investigation that in reality it had not actually been pursuing for more than four years.
Now the UK authorities have a new, even less credible pretext for continuing to hold Assange: because he “skipped bail”. The price? Five years of confinement.
London magistrates are due to consider on Tuesday the arguments of Assange’s lawyers that he should be freed.
According to the UK Foreign Office, Ecuador recently notified it that Assange had received diplomatic status following his successful application for Ecuadorean citizenship.
As former British ambassador Craig Murray has explained, the UK has no choice but to accept Assange’s diplomatic immunity. The most it can do is insist that he leave the country yet the UK continues to ignore its obligation to allow Assange his freedom to leave.
So far there has been zero debate in the British corporate media about this fundamental violation of his rights.
In today's New York Post, columnist Rich Lowry highlights how exaggerating the impact that the 13 Russians and 3 Russian entities charged by Mueller had on the election is doing more harm than good. The Post also reported that it couldn’t find any evidence that pro-Trump and anti-Hillary rallies that were purportedly organized by the Russians in New York in June and July of 2016 had ever taken place.
'The Russia campaign was a shockingly cynical violation of our sovereignty. President Trump would do himself and the country a favor by frankly denouncing it.'
The scale of the operation shouldn’t be exaggerated. In the context of a huge expensive, obsessively covered, impossibly dramatic presidential election, the Russian contribution on social media was piddling and often laughable.
The Russians wanted to boost Trump, but as a Facebook executive noted, most of their spending on Facebook ads came after the election. The larger goal was to sow discord, yet we had already primed ourselves for plenty of that all by ourselves. They just provided what we were looking for anyways and not much of it either.
Lowry's column comes at an opportune time. Earlier this week, two interesting stories published this week by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal fleshed out new details of the suspected Putin-linked Russian bots' activities. And in both instances, though the content was salacious, alarmist and crude, almost none of it pertained directly to candidates for American office.
Mueller has said there's no proof the Russians had a material impact on the election.
First, the New York Times published a story about Russia-linked bots spreading misinformation and hysteria following last week's school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Any news event - no matter how tragic has become a way to spread inflammatory messages on the Russians. The disinformation comes in various forms: conspiracy videos on YouTube, fake interest groups on Facebook, and armies of bot accounts that can hijack a topic or discussion on Twitter.
Those automated Twitter accounts have been closely tracked by researchers. Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian influence campaign.
These accounts are meticulously tracked, and, researchers have proven that the vast majority of the content they produce has nothing to do with American politics. They have one trait in common: They are salacious and often include disinformation. But rarely are they political.
The Hill reports that President Trump said he was thinking of pulling federal immigration enforcement officers from California over the state's sanctuary policies.
"Frankly it's a disgrace, the sanctuary city situation," Trump said at a high-level White House meeting on school safety.
Trump discussed the idea of pulling ICE out of California, but said “in two months they would be begging for us to come back,” according to Mark Knoller of CBS News.
“And you know what? I’m thinking about doing it," Trump added.
Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said the agency doesn't conduct raids, but rather "targeted enforcement operations."
"We don't go into neighborhoods, knock on a bunch of doors looking for people different than us. Every person we arrest, we know exactly who we're going to arrest, we know exactly where we're going to arrest them," Homan said on Fox News.
They are lovely but I will no longer give this organization any attention whatsoever no matter what they do or say.
Using children to get your agenda done is disgusting and reprehensible. This is the lowest of the low and I dislike it intensely. I know who they are and I love them all but I am not going to give this one iota of attention whether it is one the like or dislike side of this coin.
This 'unscripted' show was scripted, hateful, and disgusting. They used and encouraged children to get their message across and attack the other side horribly calling names and not listening or even pretending to try instead of encouraging actual discussion of the issue. They claim it was unscripted. I know a scripted scene when I see one having been an actress for many, many years.
A Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student said he was approached by CNN to ask a question at Wednesday night's town hall, but declined after the network gave him a "scripted question" instead of allowing him to ask his own question.
Colton Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded students while shots rang out, told WPLG Local 10 news that he was going to ask a question about hiring veterans as armed security guards.
"Colton Haab, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded classmates in the midst of terror says he did not get to share his experience," WPLG's Janine Stanwood explained.
"Colton wrote questions about school safety, suggested using veterans as armed school security guards but claims CNN wanted him to ask a scripted question instead so he decided not to go," reported Stanwood.
"CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted," Haab said. "I don't think that it's going get anything accomplished. It's not gonna ask the true questions that all the parents and teachers and students have."
In response CNN released the following statement this morning:
CNN did not, and does not, script any questions for town hall meetings, ever.
Someone is lying and I don't think it is Colton.
CNN is no longer in my world. I wish them the best as well but acknowledging and giving attention to such behavior to me has no place in anyone's world. Using children to get your agenda across indicates no love for self much less anyone else. Giving them attention, good or bad, only feeds the monster. Up to you of course but I will no longer be reporting on CNN.
What are you thinking and imagining Florida? So much conflict within! Hurricanes, shooting tragedies one in 2016 and now this. My goodness I look forward to the good news all is well.
Sooner or later these people are going to start loving each other. You can't have a bad without a good. They are going to see past the cover and know all are are just people doing the best they can and I think they are there. It's a shame CNN is testing them so hard but I know they will come through with flying colors.
They love each other in Florida and it will all work out. They will rise above it all and I do love CNN because currently they play the role of the one who tests the belief.
Florida will now turn away from the likes of CNN and begin to heal from within with love for each other.
It's not a bad idea having vets protecting schools. I like it myself. It let's the children know they are as safe as can be and it let's those who are on a dark road know to take that darkness somewhere else.
A friend of the Cruz brothers describes Nikolas's anger at the fact that almost nobody had shown up for his adopted mother's funeral.
Paul Gold, who lived next door to the Cruz family in Parkland for years, told CNN that he drove Nik Cruz to his mother's funeral. The only people in attendance were the two sons, Gold, and Rocxanne Deschamps, he said.
"The boy was stoic. Not a tear. Not an emotion. I asked him if he was upset. He said: 'I'm upset because nobody came, and nobody cares about my mother,'" Gold recalled.
"I told him that his mother was loved by many, many people and they just couldn't make it, timing and whatnot. It was a complete lie. But I felt horrible. Here's this poor kid, and his mother dies, and not a soul shows up," Gold said.
So there you have it. This is where that imagining began and grew.
If you are going to lie make it a good one. It would have been kinder to tell him she loved you and that is all that matters. No one else matters. Your mom told me that you and your brother were the apple of her eye, the light in the darkness, the wonder of her life. All she ever wanted was for you and your brother to be happy. It's ok to be sad. It's ok to cry. But you have move forward and be happy. Maybe a hug. Maybe a bit of kindness from the heart.
The FBI have taken a lot of criticism, and many have demanded the resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, after it was learned that the bureau had received tips warning them about Cruz, but protocol wasn't followed and Cruz was never investigated.
I am not blaming the FBI but it's like a game. There were a million things that could have happened to change the outcome but that didn't happen.
Markets
Markets were up and reversed. It looks like we have a double bottom at 2690. We are making a wedge so someday up and then down as the wedge is created. Still making that wedge. GE looks like it wants to go up and I expect as a Dow Dog it will make a nice return this year. Flannery is thorough and that is why this stock dove the way it did. He has cleaned house and GE is headed in the right direction. Their Internet of Things alone is worth it. It is flying off the shelf. As they join the new economy they will sell most of the oil & gas in the power sector and look to embrace other technologies - perhaps the very Earth and stars themselves.
That would be the ultimate irony wouldn't it? Edison's company, the company created by the man who hated Tesla, embracing Tesla's work and bringing it to the world. Yes, LOL I can see that and I believe Tesla and Edison would laugh.
S&P 500 Resistance – 2715, 2730, 2759, 2785, 2811, 2842, 2876, 2905
S&P 500 Support – 2682, 2655, 2638, 2607, 2575, 2560, 2530, 2505, 2478, 2422, 2400, 2375
Target 3200 remains
Cryptos - Bitcoin
Looks like we will retest the lows made on Feb 5th. We did close under 10k and so I expect this move down will accelerate.
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