07/24/18

The Fascinating Facts Behind the Release of Otto Warmbier

By: Denise Simon | Founders Code

Hat tip to GQ for this summary. While this publication for the most part is all things anti-Trump, the author does provide to the reader the back channel steps in the mission to get Otto home. They do give some praise to President Trump for his aggressive and immediate authorization to fly that plane to Pyongyang. It also does prove that when all lanes are going the same direction, government does not move slowly.

Oh and by the way, shame on Obama and John Kerry as you read this long, but compelling summary.

ITAR-TASS News Agency / Alamy Stock Photo

The Untold Story of Otto Warmbier, American Hostage

President Trump hailed him as a catalyst of the summit with Kim Jong-Un. But what happened to Warmbier—the American college student who was sent home brain-damaged from North Korea—is even more shocking than anyone knew.

By

1. Homecoming

On a humid morning in June 2017, in a suburb outside Cincinnati, Fred and Cindy Warmbier waited in agony. They had not spoken to their son Otto for a year and a half, since he had been arrested during a budget tour of North Korea. One of their last glimpses of him had been from a televised news conference in Pyongyang, during which their boy—a sweet, brainy 21-year-old scholarship student at the University of Virginia—confessed to undermining the regime at the behest of the unlikely triumvirate of an Ohio church, a university secret society, and the American government by stealing a propaganda poster. He sobbed to his captors, “I have made the single worst decision of my life. But I am only human.… I beg that you find it in your hearts to give me forgiveness and allow me to return home to my family.” Despite his pleas, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and vanished into the dictatorship’s prison system.

Fred and Cindy had so despaired during their long vigil that at one point they allegedly told friends that Otto had probably been killed. On her son’s 22nd birthday, Cindy lit Chinese-style lanterns and let the winter winds loft the flame-buoyed balloons toward North Korea, dreaming they might bear her message to her son. “I love you, Otto,” she said, then sang “Happy Birthday.”

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07/24/18

PBS, The Un-American Classroom

By: Tabitha Korol

Soon after the horrific bombing of the World Trade Center, I happened upon a television production of the history of Islam presented by PBS, an American public broadcaster and television program distributor, self-declared as “America’s largest classroom.”  This trusted provider of television programming reaches 350 member-television stations, educational institutions, non-profit groups tied to public schools, college educational institutions, and state-government-owned or -related entities.  The narrator of the History of Islam, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, was already recognized for his outrageous proposal to establish a triumphal rabat-style mosque on Ground Zero. He’d hoped to name it Córdoba to echo Islam’s conquest of Spain in 711 AD.

Rauf presented the spread of Islam as the color of butter spread across the pastel map, as though untold thousands had not been enslaved or slaughtered by the ferocious and determined warlord, Mohammed.  Conquest was achieved by the merciless decapitation of 800 Jewish men, the rape and sexual enslavement of their women and children, the pillaging of the metalworks and crafts of the town’s Jews, Christians, and pagans who had been living in harmony. PBS was permitting itself to be used to promote a false narrative that concealed the true purpose of Islam and its continued bloody methods of conquest.

Christian Action Network, in 2017, revealed the introduction of the Islamic indoctrination program, “Access Islam,” by the U.S. Department of Education to public schools, when no similar material for Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism exists.  PBS provides “the largest classroom” for teaching these “educational” resources to schools and libraries, replacing the term “Religion of Peace” with “Empire of Faith.”  Americans for Peace and Tolerance has investigated and reported the world studies and history books in use today, and confirms that they embrace radical social activism, ideological indoctrination, and coerced conformity.  The textbooks and PBS’s films are replete with erroneous information, demonize Israel and America while glorifying Islam, and encourage fealty to Islam and identification with radical jihadists.  This is brazen-faced stealth jihad against our own country done without fear of negative consequence.

The social studies lesson plan for grades 5 – 12 begins with the Five Pillars of Islam, enhanced by the BBC’s supplemental visual material for easy memorization and scrupulous study.  This is total immersion into Islamic vocabulary with intense thought and discussion, acting out and reciting prayer, learning and performing customs along with changes of dress, and comparing superficial information of Judaism and Christianity with the favored Islam.  In addition to the books, papers, computer, and visual aids, students “fulfill their duty” with “impromptu” visits into the Islamic community, without parental consent.  Thus, they learn to feel like a Muslim (assuming the false victimization), view the world from a Muslim perspective (that all the world is Muslim and must be retrieved), think like a Muslim (lay blame elsewhere and justify abuse on women and the west), and to BE a Muslim (be a jihadi warrior).

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07/24/18

Nikki Haley Goes To War At The UN: ‘Every Day I Feel Like I Put Body Armor On’

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Nikki Haley could arguably be president one day. She’s absolutely fearless and I admire her a great deal. One the best things President Trump ever did was appoint her as the ambassador to the feckless United Nations. Haley was a lioness in her stance in defense of Israel and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. She was also unstoppable over North Korea and she has more than once put Iran back on their heels. She is a sight to behold and a powerful force to be reckoned with.

As much as Haley hates donning her armor every day at the U.N., she has used them to America’s benefit, eliciting three rounds of tougher sanctions on North Korea last year and forcing them to the table to discuss nuclear weapons. In an interview with Reuters, Haley recalled telling Trump: “We would not be in the situation we are with North Korea without the U.N. because that was the only way to get the international community on the same page.” However, don’t be fooled… I think Haley would love to see us leave the U.N. When Trump took office, he called the U.N. “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” It’s far more nefarious than that unfortunately.

After 17 months of battling animosity at the United Nations and after the U.S. has exited the U.N. Human Rights Council, Trump asked Haley what she thinks of the U.N. She gave him an earful. “Unbelievably bureaucratic, it wastes a lot of money, it has some real biases against Israel, against us at times, it ignores a lot that’s going on that needs attention.” Haley is definitely a leader and she stands out among the communists, dictators, Islamists and politicos at the U.N.

Some diplomats have said they see the former South Carolina governor as the stable face of U.S. foreign policy. When Trump leaves them confused, some say they look to her for interpretation. “My job is to give clarity to everything the administration’s doing so that no one wonders where we are. I always wanted to make sure there was no gray. That it was black and white,” Haley said in the interview during a trip last month to India.

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07/24/18

Former U.S. Officials Sell Out And Now Lobby For Communist China

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

It would seem that it does not take much for one-time U.S. officials to sell out to the highest bidder… this time, it is the Chinese. These individuals are now lobbyists for the communist Chinese — a stone cold enemy of the United States and a threat to our existence. Where does business end and treason begin here? Evidently loyalty ends where their bank accounts begin. As China becomes increasingly wealthy, they have retained D.C. insiders to lobby their interests and do their bidding. Just as China has infiltrated our colleges and businesses, they have insinuated themselves into our halls of power. The best example of that is Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao. She has a powerful family in China and they both have economic interests there, which in my viewpoint, compromises them. But they certainly aren’t alone.

I came across a great article at The Daily Beast by Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian on the subject yesterday. I don’t go there often as a lot of what they put out is very leftist, but this caught my attention: “Meet the U.S. Officials Now in China’s Sphere of Influence.” It covers how the Chinese government and companies are retaining public relations and lobbying firms in D.C. Many times, they are hiring former U.S. officials to work directly for them.

For a company to do business in China, a Chinese government official must sit on the board. If you play by Chinese rules, it opens a multitude of doors for a company there. If you don’t, you are shut out and can’t do business in China, period. This power holds sway over many companies that want to do business in China. This has raised concerns that current U.S. government officials may be considering their future prospects in China even before leaving office. Such people are many times easily compromised by their financial interests. This is not new and in many corners of The Beltway, it is considered ‘normal’. But it’s not and it is alarming. It opens the door to communists buying influence in the American political sphere.

“Nobody in the 1980s would have represented the Russian government. And now you find so many lobbying for the Chinese government,” said Frank Wolf, a retired U.S. representative from Virginia who long served as the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. “I served in Congress for 34 years. I find it shocking.” Wolf, by the way, is a Republican and has long been concerned over human rights in China. Allen-Ebrahimian has come up with a list of a few that are now being influenced by China and some of them are very familiar unfortunately. I am going to excerpt and give you exactly what Bethany wrote as she did a great job. I just want to point out here that you will notice that she left out political affiliation for the most part. These officials come from both sides of the political aisle.

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07/24/18

Is Reality Different Than Perception?

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

Yesterday, I read at least seven articles commenting that the second quarter earnings season is “mixed.” However, the data suggests the complete opposite. According to Bloomberg, at the end of last week a record 95% of the S & P 500 companies that have reported earnings have exceeded expectations. The sample is not small… eighty-six have reported as of yesterday morning.

Moreover, Bloomberg reports 67% of reporting companies have revised guidance upwards, the most in five years.

Wow! Reality is considerably different than the written perception.

I cynically ask is NFLX’s large miss a reason for this narrative? This week, several of the must owned technology companies post results and some are writing the markets cannot withstand further disappointments. Is this the result of the massive amount of wealth concentrated in just a few issues? I think yes.

Radically changing topics, many times I have written about the illiquidity in the bond market. The front page of the WSJ commented about some of the issues, many of which are regulatory induced.

The question at hand is whether or not trading mechanics can be changed before a liquidity crisis unfolds. Unfortunately, it is my first-hand experience that regulations are rewritten only after a crisis unfolds, which is equivalent to going to where the hockey puck was, not to where it is going. Hopefully, today will be different.

Speaking of the bond market, Treasuries rose to the highest yield in a month breaching its 50 day moving average. An obvious catalyst was absent with some pointing to “technical factors” in an illiquid market, a scary comment given the Treasury market is the deepest market in the world.

Last night the foreign markets were up. London was up 0.81%, Paris was up 0.84% and Frankfurt was up 1.34% China was up 1.61%, Japan was up 0.51% and Hang Sang was up 1.44%.

The Dow should open nominally higher on earnings and global economic optimism. GOOG was the inverse of NFLX as its second quarter exceeded in almost all dimensions. The 10-year is up 1/32 to yield 2.95%.