#I LITERALLY REPORTED THIS AS POTENTIAL FRAUD AND NONE OF YOU PEOPLE CARED TO INVESTIGATE | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jurgan · 8 years ago

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My father received this editorial from a friend of his, and I feel the need to respond to it. Originally, I was just going to post a link and write a response, but there’s just so much wrong that I feel the need to go through it line-by-line. So, enjoy!

“This is a first: Donald Trump is guilty of an understatement, of making a molehill out of a mountain. He called the Washington furor over Russian hacking a “witch hunt” when it is actually far more sinister and dangerous.

Witch hunts end. The Washington mob aims to make sure the election never ends and that Trump can never govern.

There are no modern precedents to the scandalous attempts to smear and undermine the president-elect.”

I literally burst out laughing at this line. Only a partisan hack or someone who’s been asleep for eight years could say it with a straight face. Let us not forget that the president-elect spent years peddling the racist assertion that the first black president was not a natural born citizen and needed to show his papers to prove his legitimacy. Even when Barack Obama ultimately did release his long form birth certificate (a redundant step, since the regular certificate would be accepted for anyone else), the conspiracy theorists immediately declared it a fraud. This was not a high-minded attempt to find the truth; no one could honestly believe that so many people in Hawaii were involved in such a conspiracy and none of them talked. At this point, someone usually says that Hillary Clinton started the birther smear. In case facts still matter, let’s point out that this is false. It was promoted early on by a Clinton supporter, but there’s no record of Clinton or any of her top people saying anything positive about this lie. No candidate can be responsible for all of their supporters; the best they can do is denounce the smear publicly, which she did. Trump actively championed it for years.

However, I wouldn’t even point to birtherism as the worst example of undermining the Obama administration. That honor goes to Mitch McConnell’s January 20, 2009 meeting. Literally the day Obama was inaugurated, McConnell met with top Republicans and launched a strategy of unceasing obstruction. In particular, the Senate filibustered every significant piece of legislation. The filibuster was once a rare tool, used only in the most drastic of situations, but McConnell made it standard operating procedure. The Democrats did not have an unstoppable supermajority. Thanks to the delayed Franken election and the death of Ted Kennedy they had sixty votes for about five months, and that’s including wishy-washy supporters like Joe Lieberman. They didn’t all vote in lockstep, and so they needed to peel off a Republican or two to break a filibuster. This all happened in tandem with the Tea Party movement that refused to accept any compromise and launched primary challenges against Republicans who were deemed insufficiently pure. Obama proposed some fairly moderate but significant laws, like a stimulus package to save the economy through a mix of direct spending and tax cuts, and a market-based plan to give everyone health care. In return, Republicans filibustered non-stop, shut down the government to attempt to prevent the health care law from taking effect, and even threatened to default on U.S. debt if they didn’t get the spending cuts they wanted. There was a time when people would work together between elections, but the constant attacks from the right killed that. All through Obama’s presidency, the Republicans attempted to “make sure the election never ends and that Obama can never govern.” That’s your modern precedent. At some point, I’d like to go back further, maybe looking through the endless attempt to smear Clinton over things as trivial as a haircut, or the insistence that cities aren’t part of the “real America,” only rural areas are, but I need to move on. There’s a lot to deal with here.

“Nearly nine weeks after his victory and less than two weeks before he takes the oath, the voter-nullification plot is growing more vile.

It began when the Clinton campaign and her donors tried to overturn results in key states, then tried to steal the election outright by intimidating electors of the Electoral College.”

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Some groups demanded recounts, most of which were spearheaded by Jill Stein. I’m not fond of Stein, and I think that whole scheme was basically a trick to gather potential donors for her mailing list, but there’s nothing illegitimate about asking for votes to be accurately counted. You’d think the party that constantly talks about “voter fraud” would be happy to support an accurate count of votes. Likewise, if Mr. Trump wants to sound off on Twitter about “millions of illegal voters,” then he should be thrilled that they’re getting to the bottom of what happened. As for intimidating electors, once again we seem to be attributing everything a candidate’s supporters do to that candidate. I saw a bunch of people trying to get the electors to switch their votes. I was never a supporter of that idea, but voters have the right to free speech. They don’t have the right to threaten people, but unless someone can show me proof that such was organized or directed or even encouraged by Clinton, who formally conceded on election night, then this is an irrelevant fact.

“When all that failed, the establishment forces that opposed Trump all along — the Obama White House, members of both parties, the Democratic media and Big Government activists — switched their goal to thwarting his presidency. One example: They aim to deny confirmation to as many as eight Cabinet picks.”

Have you seen these Cabinet picks? A surgeon running the Department of Housing and Urban Development? A woman with no education experience at Education? The head of Exxon-Mobil running State? None of these people have any real experience in their fields. Yes, denying confirmation to numerous Cabinet picks is unprecedented, but so is such a woefully inexperienced Cabinet. Hey, you know what else is unprecedented, at least since the Civil War? Letting a Supreme Court seat stay open for almost a year and not even holding hearings on the president’s nominee. Tell me again how you’re against obstruction.

“This is not mere politics. This is half the country going rogue in a fit of madness.

Most alarming is the newest recruit to the confederacy. The intelligence community, including leaders of the FBI and CIA, is pushing the Russian hacking narrative in unscrupulous ways.”

By performing an investigation and reporting the results.

“Consider that the same media organizations that led the campaign assault on Trump were leaked details of the hacking report before Trump saw it.”

Let’s dispense with the idea that the media was adamantly against Trump. I know the “liberal media” smear has been around since Nixon, if not earlier, but the truth is Trump got enormous amounts of free press. NBC even allowed him to host Saturday Night Live. Meanwhile, they breathlessly reported every iota of information about Clinton’s emails. Also, compare the suspicion her charitable foundation got to the way Trump was given a pass for his University was being sued for fraud. He even paid Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi $25,000 from his charitable foundation while she was contemplating whether to join a lawsuit against him. Said attorney is rumored to be considered for a job in the Trump administration, by the way.

“The leaks came after Trump expressed doubts about Russia’s role and any election impact. Lest the rookie miss the message, Chuck Schumer, the Dems’ man in the Senate, made like a Soprano in a TV interview: ‘Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’

Is Schumer suggesting CIA analysts would stay silent about a terrorist plot? Would they feed Trump misinformation to get back at him?”

Oh, damn, this is ridiculous. Schumer does not control the CIA. Schumer is warning Trump about the very real power the intelligence community has. Remember the days when J. Edgar Hoover kept blackmail information on politicians at every level? Schumer is saying that it’s not a good idea for the president to fight with the intelligence community; such friction helps no one. But apparently I’m supposed to read this as a threat? I guess if you’re the kind of person who believes the CIA and liberal Democrats are part of a unified conspiracy it makes sense. So who’s not in this conspiracy?

“Going public with classified information, which the leakers did, is a crime, but these days it’s acceptable if it serves the left’s political purpose.”

And this is just lazy. The VERY FIRST SENTENCE of the public report, which is written in the header of every page, is: “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment that has been provided to the President and to recipients approved by the President.

“As for the report itself, there’s not much there there, at least in the version made public.”

Cyber-espionage against both political parties is no big deal. Gotcha.

It is full of assertions that Vladimir Putin wanted to hurt Clinton and help Trump, but zero evidence is offered. I repeat: zero evidence.”

Two sentences ago you were complaining that releasing classified information is bad, but now you should publicly out sources of information? I guess that’s to be expected from the party that brought us the Valerie Plame affair. It is right to be skeptical of the CIA, but there’s a point where skepticism becomes willful stupidity. When 17 intelligence agencies agree, the idea that they’re all conspiring together is ridiculous. Groups like that are territorial, and they won’t just go along with some devious plan.

“Instead, the 25-page document serves up a dog’s stew of innuendo and anecdotes. Examples include that Russian television operating in America said nice things about Occupy Wall Street.

Well, so did President Obama and half the Democratic Party. Is Obama a Russian agent?

Another silly example is that Russian TV runs lots of anti-fracking reports. Well, Gov. Cuomo also opposes fracking. The report cites the fact that Russian TV anchors are required to have social-media accounts as proof of Putin’s evil intent.”

It’s called background information. It’s not the core of the report, which is why it’s in the “annex” at the end.

“Here’s a fact that really matters and it’s not in the report: The FBI concluded that Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee without ever inspecting its computers. The gumshoes say the DNC balked, but party leaders say the FBI never asked. In the end, it let a private firm search the computers for evidence.

None of this is normal. And it’s no excuse that Trump himself often veers outside the lines. He won the election fair and square, period.

Then again, some Democrats can’t bring themselves to admit that. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, was spitting fire after she was briefed on the classified report.

Asked if she believed hacking cost Clinton the election, Pelosi declared to reporters: “You were accomplices in this. Every single day you reported there was an e-mail that was embarrassing to the Clinton operation, without saying we know this because of a disruption by a foreign power of our election system. You knew that.”

Wow, so journalists are “accomplices” when they report embarrassing news. Nothing could be more Putin-like than her view of the media’s job.”

Journalists are accomplices if they aren’t fair or cover up details. “Report embarrassing news?” How about reporting the embarrassing news that Russia is helping Trump? Does the author have basic reading comprehension? “you reported… without saying.” This is blatantly obvious: Pelosi is saying that the journalists didn’t report enough embarrassing news. They reported the part of the story that hurt Clinton and left out the part that hurt Trump. And wait a minute, I thought the media were part of the conspiracy because they hated Trump? Suddenly we’re all concerned about freedom of the press and attacks on brave journalists?

“To be clear, it may be true that Putin ordered that the e-mails of John Podesta and the DNC be stolen and given to WikiLeaks. But officials also admit that Russia hacked our government and industries for years and always pushes negative propaganda about America, including during the 2012 campaign.

So why the sudden DefCon outrage, especially when the intelligence report concludes there was no attempt to change vote tallies?

The furor amounts to sounding five alarms for a dumpster fire. It’s a dumb overreaction, or part of the effort to thwart a president the establishment doesn’t want. Either way, intelligence leaders are proving they are part of the swamp that must be drained.”

Drain the swamp, sure. Trump’s Cabinet is going to be full of billionaires, but they don’t count as part of “the swamp.”

“By all means, America needs better cybersecurity and a retaliation policy to act as a deterrent. The current president has no interest in the issue, so perhaps we’ll get better policies when we get a new president.”

This is perhaps the most outrageous lie in the whole piece. Obama expelled 35 diplomats and imposed Russian sanctions as retaliation for the hacking, and hinted there will be other, less public responses. How in the world can this be interpreted as him having no interest? Meanwhile, Trump is telling us to “move on.”

This whole piece is a bizarre mish-mash. On one hand, the author doubts Russia interfered in the election, but on the other hand he wants stricter responses to hacking. The media are simultaneously victims of Democratic intimidation and colluding with Dems to get Trump. There’s a lot of double-think going on in here.

“Assuming, of course, the man who won the election actually makes it to the Oval Office.”

Don’t worry, he will. But once he does, prepare to be disappointed.

#Donald Trump #politics #blogging #original content

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preciousmetals0 · 5 years ago

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Meatless Macs Meet Missile Attacks

Meatless Macs Meet Missile Attacks:

Less Than Feared

The funny thing about stock market sentiment? It applies to literally everything.

For example, today I find myself discussing the bullish and bearish implications of last night’s Iranian missile attack. According to the financial media, Iran’s retaliation for the U.S. killing Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military official, was deemed “less than feared.”

Less than feared. It reminds me of “less than expected,” as if the Iranian missile strikes on U.S. military bases in Iraq are in some way similar to corporate earnings reports. And honestly, in a cold and calculated way, they are.

Wall Street clearly expected a much larger response from Iran. Stock futures plunged on the initial news. But after President Trump sounded the “All is well!” on Twitter last night, the situation quickly normalized.

With their minds now somewhat at ease, investors turned toward the ADP and Moody’s Analytics U.S. private payrolls report. According to the report, the U.S. added 202,000 jobs in December, outstripping the expected 150,000 new payrolls. (No, not that kind of “outstripping,” Elon.)

Gauging expectations on bombs and jobs … what a start to the year.

The Takeaway:

On Monday, I half-joked about entering a new market cycle on Wall Street: the Iran War Cycle. I even made a chart for it.

But I never expected it to actually play out. And yet, that’s exactly what happened this week. Monday was a market sell-off on war fears. Tuesday hinted at a resolution (i.e., Trump’s reassurance that everything would be fine), and the market bounced back by the end of the day.

Last night, we were at the “no progress is made” step — right before the Iranian missile attack. The market sold off … until Trump “hinted at a resolution” by stating: “All is well!”

In less than 48 hours, we completed the entire cycle. I don’t think my blood pressure can take months of this like we saw during the trade war cycle.

Clearly, keeping up with this kind of pace is impossible for all but the nimblest of investors. So, what’s an average Joe to do?

If you’ve got the cash and the nerves of steel required to trade the ups and downs of the “Iran War Cycle,” you could attempt to time this market. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. You’re going to eat a lot of Tums.

So, why put yourself through so much stress when there’s a much simpler answer?

The much simpler answer lies with none other than Banyan Hill’s own Charles Mizrahi.

In his Alpha Investor Report, Charles is upfront about showing you where average Joes and Janes often go wrong when investing. Instead of timing some wiggles and jiggles on a chart, Charles targets sound, well-run companies set to soar — no matter what’s going on in Iraq, Iran or Never-Never Land.

For Charles Mizrahi, investing doesn’t get any more complicated than buying the right stocks at the right time … and simply letting your money work for you.

And if this no-nonsense approach strikes a chord with you, you’ll love the wit (and picks) that Charles and company pack into each issue of Alpha Investor Report.

Click here to find out how you can start with Charles’ very next newsletter!

Good (Grief): Another Boeing Crashes

I’m actually starting to feel kind of bad for Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) at this point. OK, not really…

But my thoughts do go out to the 176 people who died yesterday after a Boeing 737-800 (not a Max) crashed after taking off from Tehran, Iran, on its way to Kyiv, Ukraine.

As of this writing, the cause of the crash is unknown. But the fact that another Boeing aircraft just went down isn’t good for the company’s credibility. Boeing already faces serious production delays for the 737 Max. It’s even considering taking on more debt to pay back both the families and airlines affected by the Max debacle.

If the 800 series is called into question, that puts two of Boeing’s airplanes on the sidelines as its debt levels rise. That’s not a good outlook for any company — I don’t care who you are.

For now, BA shares are down roughly 2%. We’ll have to wait for the investigation on this crash to find out just how severe the ramifications will be this time around.

Better: Drink ’Em If You Got ’Em

Now I need a drink … and apparently most of the country does as well.

Corona importer and wannabe cannabis king Constellation Brands Inc. (NYSE: STZ) reported strong third-quarter results this morning. Earnings topped the consensus estimate by $0.03 per share, and revenue was $50 million better than expected.

Beer was king. Constellation said sales of the adult beverage hit $1.3 billion for the quarter. That’s a lot of beer, and it wasn’t just Corona. The company said that Modelo Especial “grew depletions by almost 15%.” Depletion is brewer jargon for how quickly the beer moves from the distributor to your local retailer.

But beer isn’t the future for Constellation. The company is launching Corona Seltzer later this year to capitalize on the new (and disgusting) “Zima trend” in adult beverages. Apparently White Claw-style drinks are what people want these days, as the company boosted its full-year cash flow expectations and earnings outlook.

Y’all enjoy your alcoholic water. I’m going back to my bourbon now.

Best: The Battle for Meatless McDonald’s

Shares of Beyond Meat Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND) soared more than 12% yesterday. Apparently, the stock was riding the meatless coattails of chief rival Impossible Foods, which unveiled fake pork at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. I wonder if they’ll make an iPhone out of that?

Today, however, Beyond Meat is making its own way higher. Both Impossible and Beyond were fighting for a coveted spot on McDonald’s Corp.’s (NYSE: MCD) menu. That fight is reportedly all but over.

Impossible has pulled out of the McDonald’s competition. “It would be stupid for us to be vying for them right now. … Having more big customers right now doesn’t do us any good until we scale up production,” CEO Pat Brown told Reuters.

Beyond, however, says that talks “are going well.” Apparently, Beyond Meat believes it’ll be able to keep up with production demands for a McMeatless burger.

By the way, McDonald’s is calling the new fake-meat sandwich a PLT, or plant, lettuce and tomato … which makes my head hurt because tomatoes and lettuce are both plants! So, it’s basically a PPP sandwich. But I digress…

After today’s news, BYND shares added another 5% before coming back to earth. Despite this impressive two-day rally, BYND is still 64% away from its July 26 all-time high.

And now for a break from the market:

“We like oranges!” they said. “We promise we’ll eat them,” they said. The three strange gray orbs in the back of my refrigerator this morning said otherwise. My children, dear readers.

Great Stuff Picks: Strike Hard, Strike Fast

The financial media say you missed your chance to chase the run-up in defense stocks where the U.S. and Iran are concerned. That may be true for Raytheon Co. (NYSE: RTN) and Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC), but this is the digital age.

Defense isn’t only about guns, bombs and airplanes anymore. Future war is digital war.

In 2018, there were 1,244 reported data breaches in the U.S. and 446.5 million records exposed. According to Statista, 2018 also saw “16,128 cases of online identity theft and 65,116 cases of non-payment or non-delivery fraud.”

In that same Statista survey, 32.7% of respondents said their online accounts were hacked, but 80% thought that they were very well protected against such online attacks. Now, I’m no math wizard, but those figures just don’t add up.

That’s a potentially costly math mistake, as Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6 trillion annually by 2021.

Clearly, it’s past time to invest in those combating this global epidemic. There’s one company that’s poised to not only help take a bite out of cybercrime, but grow considerable returns for your portfolio at the same time.

That company is CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: CRWD).

Based out of Sunnyvale, California, CrowdStrike provides a cloud-native endpoint security platform that combines next-gen antivirus, endpoint detection and response, threat intelligence, threat hunting and much more.

That’s a lot of technical jargon that basically means CrowdStrike specializes in cloud-based security threat management, detection and prevention. And, as we all know, the cloud is where everything lives now.

That’s impressive and all, but how are CrowdStrike’s financials? Well, in the past three years, revenue rose more than sixfold. What’s more, since the company’s public-trading debut last year, it’s met Wall Street’s earnings expectations once and beaten twice.

In the most recent quarter, CrowdStrike said subscription revenue surged 98% year over year, with total sales climbing 88%. Now, putting everything on the table, CRWD shares fell in December after the company offered up guidance that was below expectations. But CrowdStrike was being conservative, and it certainly didn’t expect the current situation with Iran.

According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, state agencies have seen a surge in cybersecurity threats originating from Iran. In fact, Abbott reports that more than 10,000 attempted attacks per minute were detected in the 48 hours just after the U.S. airstrike on Qassem Soleimani.

That’s just insane! It underscores the ever-increasing need for CrowdStrike’s services, and I would expect the company to either lift its guidance in the coming months or blow past Wall Street’s earnings and revenue expectations due to increased demand.

Finally, while CRWD shares rallied in the wake of the Iranian situation, they’re still far below their all-time highs — about 45% below. The stock is also about 29% below analysts’ consensus price target of $78.

In short, CrowdStrike stock is cheap … and unlike that rally in defense stocks that you missed out on, CRWD still has room to run.

The bottom line: Buy CRWD.

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Great Stuff Managing Editor, Banyan Hill Publishing

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goldira01 · 5 years ago

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