Sunday, August 25, 2019

AMERICA HEADS FOR RECESSION - TRUMP CAN'T KEEP HIS MOUTH CLOSED


LETTER FROM WASHINGTON Trump’s working against the global economic order As the world slips toward recession, he’s making it worse by lashing out DOYLE MCMANUS Warning flags are flying: The world economy is heading into a slowdown, and possibly a recession. 


FRENCH LEADER Emmanuel Macron, right, and President Trump are joined by their wives at the G-7 on Saturday. Macron says “it’s pointless” for members to do a consensus statement; Trump disavowed last year’s. (Francois Mori AFP/Getty Images) 8/25/2019 Los Angeles Times - eNewspaper https://enewspaper.latimes.com/desktop/latimes/default.aspx?edid=f3e8e57b-807b-425d-9582-8d288eff1c11 2/3 Germany, normally the engine of Europe, has seen its growth rate fall below zero. Britain is steeling for a potentially chaotic exit from the European Union this fall. Trade wars are buffeting China, Japan and South Korea. U.S. growth has slowed, too — partly because of the same damaging trade battles. Before Donald Trump was president, leaders of the world’s biggest economies would react to those worrisome signals with a flurry of meetings and announcements. They’d promise to make their economic policies reinforce one another and reassure financial markets that someone was in charge. That’s what happened amid the financial crisis of 2008, and in earlier recessions and financial crises as well. But it’s not happening this time — and Trump is one of the reasons. Case in point: this weekend’s Group of 7 summit in Biarritz, France. The G-7 was organized in 1975 for this kind of situation: joint action to head off a recession. (In that case, the recession was already underway.) Its members are the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. A normal G-7 meeting produces a long, often boring declaration in which the leaders list everything they agreed on, beginning with efforts to bolster growth and resist trade protectionism. This year, there probably won’t be a joint communique for the first time since 1975. “It’s pointless,” French President Emmanuel Macron, the unlucky host, shrugged last week. After all, Trump disavowed the consensus statement last year. The main roadblock is trade — specifically, Trump’s decision to make punitive tariffs a central part of his economic strategy. He’s embroiled in a full-scale trade war with China, and he’s threatened to escalate the battle in Europe, with tariffs aimed at German automobiles and French wines. On Friday, Trump and China fired tariffs at each other, sending stock markets plummeting. In a Twitter tirade, the president also “ordered” U.S. businesses to stop doing business with China, although he has no legal authority to do so. On Sunday, the president plans to lecture the other G-7 leaders on why they should accede to his demands. It sounds more like a campaign stunt than a serious attempt to stave off a recession. Let’s get real: Economists say Trump’s tariff wars have made a recession more likely. They include his own appointee as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, who said Friday that trade battles appear to be hurting U.S. manufacturing and capital spending. “Who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” a furious Trump responded on Twitter, comparing his Fed chief to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Neither presumably enjoyed being labeled an “enemy.” But the obstacles to international action run deeper than the president’s trade policies. 8/25/2019 Los Angeles Times - eNewspaper https://enewspaper.latimes.com/desktop/latimes/default.aspx?edid=f3e8e57b-807b-425d-9582-8d288eff1c11 3/3 Trump believes that the United States, as the world’s most powerful country, is usually better off acting alone, seeking one-on-one deals with other nations. In his view, politics — like business — is a zero-sum game. Every encounter has a winner and loser. Other countries, including those who claim to be your allies, are generally plotting to steal you blind. “Our allies take advantage of us far greater than our enemies,” Trump recently declared. That doesn’t leave much room for cooperative efforts. And it doesn’t engender confidence among smaller countries that the United States might look after their interest as well as its own. This isn’t only about the G-7. There are other ways major powers can work together to confront an economic crisis. Central banks and the International Monetary Fund can act, too. But in recent history, those efforts have worked only when the United States has stepped up to lead. No other country has the wherewithal. The European Union is too disunited, China too widely mistrusted. Trump doesn’t appear interested in assuming that leadership role — not, at least, when it means accommodating others who don’t always agree with his views. “In the last financial crisis, both George W. Bush and Barack Obama were able to persuade the rest of the world that everybody in the lifeboat should row in the same direction,” Stewart M. Patrick, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “With Trump the message might be ‘Every man for himself.’ ” “You need a president who engenders confidence that he has the best interest of everyone in mind,” Patrick added. “Trump hasn’t done that.” If a recession arrives, international cooperation could — with luck — make it shorter and milder. But what happens if the United States no longer wants to lead in that effort? Under Trump, we may find out. Doyle McManus’ column appears on Wednesday and Sunday

ARKANCIDE - THE MANY DEATHS OF THOSE WHO SERVED THE HILLARY AND BILLARY GRAFT MACHINES

Jeffrey Epstein: Another Clinton-related 'suicide'

For now, Jeffrey Epstein's death is officially a suicide, but something still smells fishy, as Dr. Marc Siegel noted on  Fox News recently.  Based on the evidence and autopsy, he doesn't rule out foul play.  It could be a suicide that was allowed to happen or even encouraged, what with guards falling asleep, guard logs being falsified, cellmates being removed.  As BizPacReview reports:
A Fox News medical correspondent believes the latest autopsy reports on Jeffrey Epstein "increase the chances" that his death was "a murder rather than a suicide."
Dr. Marc Siegel, in an interview with Fox Business Network, discussed the developing reports on the death of the 66-year-old billionaire and convicted sex offender who died by apparent suicide last week at the federal prison in New York where he was being held without bond while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. ...
"In his case, the autopsy is now revealing that multiple bones were broken in his neck including the hyoid," Siegel said Thursday.
"The hyoid bone might break in strangulation about one-third to one-half of the time. In suicide, hanging, it might break 6–10 percent of the time, depending on which study you look at[.] ... Much less percentage," he explained. ...
"Something in this situation really smells," Siegel replied, noting that the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein was being held, has not had a suicide in decades.  He noted that while suicide is a problem in jails around the nation "especially among sexual predators," it was not an issue at the Manhattan lockup.
"I don't know what happened here, but I don't like the way it's being put together," he said.  "There's too many convenient excuses, there's too many people — as you say — looking the other way."
The question to ask in crimes or suspicious deaths is always who would benefit from this individual's death.  It was mere coincidence, of course, that a day after a federal appeals court released formerly sealed records in a defamation suit linked to accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's "madam" revealing names and a Bill Clinton party on Epstein's sexual fantasy island, Jeffrey Epstein, on suicide watch after a previous attempt, is found dead of an apparent "suicide" in a secure facility that once safely housed Mexico drug lord "El Chapo" Guzmán.
On Friday, a federal appeals court released what has been described as the "first batch of thousands of pages of sealed records" linked to a defamation suit filed against convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's "madam," Ghislaine Maxwell.
Contained within the nearly 2,000 pages of documents are allegations from Epstein's alleged "sex slave," Virginia Roberts Giuffre, regarding the powerful men whom she'd  been forced to have sex with, along with the powerful men whom she'd sometimes seen in Epstein's presence. ...
One set of pages specifically contain a deposition from Giuffre.  Within the deposition, she describes being flown "to the Caribbean" when she was 17 and then tagging along as Maxwell took "a huge black helicopter" to pick up Clinton.
"Epstein did invite two young brunettes to a dinner which he gave on his Caribbean island for Mr. Clinton shortly after he left office," it reads.  "I'd have been about 17 at the time.  I flew to the Caribbean with Jeffrey and then Ghislaine Maxwell went to pick up Bill in a huge black helicopter that Jeffrey had bought her."
Bill Clinton had a habit of ditching his Secret Service protection when flyingwith child predator Epstein on the latter's "Lolita Express":
Fox News reported Friday that records show Mr. Clinton declined Secret Service protection on at least five flights.
The network's investigation reveals Mr. Clinton flew on the Boeing 727 "Lolita Express" 26 times, more than doubling the previously reported 11 trips.
"Bill Clinton ... associated with a man like Jeffrey Epstein, who everyone in New York, certainly within his inner circles, knew was a pedophile.  Why would a former president associate with a man like that?" said Conchita Sarnoff of the Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, Fox reported.  Ms. Conchita also authored a book on Mr. Epstein titled "TrafficKing."
Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2005 and signed a plea agreement in 2007 with the U.S. Attorney's Office, accepting a single charge of soliciting prostitution. He agreed to a 30-month sentence, registered as a "Tier 1" sex offender with the U.S. Virgin Islands and paid dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse.
A Clinton spokesperson did not return the network's emails requesting comment.  Martin Weinberg, Mr. Epstein's attorney, declined multiple inquiries into the flights.
It is not known how many times Bill Clinton had his seat and tray table in the upright and locked position when flying with Jeffrey Epstein or whether their conversations revolved around golf and grandchildren.  It is not known why Clinton flew so many times with a child sex predator.  Given Bill Clinton's track record and Epstein's expertise on procurement, one doubts that it was to solicit donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Gilligan's island this was not, and on these flights, there was more amenities available than a beverage cart and a bag of peanuts, as the Daily Caller notes:
On one trip Clinton also traveled with actor Kevin Spacey, who is now accused of hav[ing] sex [sic] with an underage boy.
Clinton traveled aboard the "Lolita Express" with a soft core porn actress and traveled on 11 flights with Epstein's assistant Sarah Kellen, who allegedly procured underage girls for men, according to Gawker.
Gawker reported Kellam was "accused in court filings of acting as pimps for him (Epstein), recruiting and grooming young girls into their network of child sex workers, and frequently participating in sex acts with them."
It is amazing that every time the Clintons face incarceration, someone who has incriminating evidence dies.  Before there was the Hillary email scandal, there was Whitewater, there was Travelgate, and there was the hiding of records from Vince Foster's office after his apparent suicide.
William Safire described Hillary Clinton in a 1996 essay in the New York Times.  Safire observed:
Again, the lying was not irrational.  Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster's White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years —- in Hillary's closet, in Web Hubbell's basement before his felony conviction, in the President's secretary's personal files —- before some were forced out last week.
Why the White House concealment?  For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell's father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.
There is a joke going around that former FBI director James Comey decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton  because he found his suicide note in her files.  It doesn't seem so funny anymore.   
Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
Image: CBS Evening News via YouTube.