Nunes Calls Comey, Rogers For "Closed Session" After Finding "Concerning Info" In Intel Reports

"The lack of a leak investigation is quite concerning. We need to make sure that these leaks are being tracked down...There are just questions that we have for Dir. Comey and Adm. Rogers probably that they couldn't answer in a public setting..."

Paul Ryan: "We Don't Have The Votes"

"After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan!"

Report: Whistleblower has Proof of Mass Obama Spying, 156 Judges and Prominent Businessmen Such as Donald Trump Targeted

by Alex Thomas, Intellihub:
Former NSA and CIA contractor Dennis Montgomery has direct evidence of massive Obama era spying that targeted prominent Americans throughout the country, according to a report by Freedom Watch founder Larry Klayman.
According to Klayman, as well as multiple other sources, Montgomery left the intelligence community with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information which he then sought to come forward with in a legal manner before being stonewalled at all levels of the government.
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US Crude Production Hits 13-Month Highs As Oil Rig Count Doubles Off May 2016 Lows

With crude production at 13-month highs, the trend of rising rig counts (now up 10 weeks in a row) suggests OPEC remains anything but in control as the global inventory glut deepens. The last week saw the oil rig count rise by 21 (the most since January) to 652 - the highest since September 2015.

Odds Of Healthcare Bill Passing Today Plunge To 13%

Buy the dip?

Stocks, Dollar, Bond Yields Tumble As GOP Leaders 'Not Confident" They Have Votes

House leaders are reportedly mulling next steps if the health bill does not pas as GOP leaders are not confident that they have the votes to pass. The reaction in stocks, VIX, and bonds was very fast...

An Obama Plot To Sabotage Trump?

We need to know who colluded with the Russians, if anyone did. But more critically, we need to unearth the deep state conspiracy to sabotage a presidency. So far, the Russia-connection investigation has proven a dry hole. But an investigation into who in the FBI, CIA or NSA is unmasking U.S. citizens and criminally leaking information to a Trump-hating press to destroy a president they are sworn to serve could prove to be a gusher.

Plan B: Trump To Blame Ryan, Priebus If Vote Fails

"Trump’s core supporters regarded Ryan as at best unimportant during the presidential campaign and at worst a poster child for the sort of establishment, scripted politician they loathed."

Venezuela In Dire Straits As Oil Production Falls Further

“If you can see a country’s economic decline from space, you know it’s in big trouble,”

"Germany’s Dumbest Bank" Makes $5.4 Billion Transfer In Error

“The mistake was rapidly identified and eliminated, and the amounts overpaid were successfully demanded back. We regret that during works on the systems, this incident could happen due to human error owing to a configuration mistake.”

Ignore This Chart

"It's different this time..."

Why The French Election Will Decide Europe's Future

Nearly half of all French voters have yet to decide who they want to be president with only a month to go until the election, an opinion poll showed on Friday, as scandal-hit conservative candidate Francois Fillon launched an extraordinary attack on Socialist President Francois Hollande, accusing him of orchestrating a plot against him. The big question therefore remains - Is a “European Spring” in the making?

Trump Wins: Virginia Judge Refuses To Block Revised Travel Ban

On a day when all eyes are on Washington and the healthcare vote, President Trump just won an important victory as a Virginia judge refused to block his revised travel ban against six predominantly Muslim countries (even though, as Bloomberg reports, the directive remains on hold because of court orders in two other states).

NJ Transit Service Suspended At Penn Station After Train Derailment

Passengers on an NJ Transit train said their train bumped into an Amtrak train in Penn Station at the height of Friday's morning commute, damaging the side of the NJ Transit train and possibly knocking the Amtrak one slightly off the tracks, NBC New York reports.

'Soft' Data Slammed: US Services, Manufacturing PMIs Plunge To 6-Month Lows

Following Europe's surging PMIs (to six year highs), US data was extremely disappointing. Both Services and Manufacturing PMI disappointed, tumbling to the lowest levels since before the election. Simply put, the 'soft' data is converging back lower to the dismal reality of the 'hard' data.

Healthcare Vote Timing: 3:45 pm - 4:45 pm; "Hard No's" Drop To 18

For those curious if today's healthcare vote will take place during market hours, the answer is: it will be dicey. An email from the majority whip Steve Scalise notes that the tentative timing of today's vote will be sometime between 3:45pm and 4:45pm, with a walk off the Floor expected between 4:30pm and 5:30pm.

The Deep State's Dominant Narratives And Authority Are Crumbling

This is why the Deep State is fracturing: its narratives no longer align with the evidence.

Putin Meets Marine Le Pen, Vows "Not To Influence" French Election In Any Way

"Of course I know that the election campaign in France is actively developing," said Putin during his meeting with Le Pen. "We do not want to influence events in any way, but we reserve the right to talk to representatives of all the country's political forces."

More 'Hard' Data Disappointment: Core Durable Goods Order Growth Slows, Capital Goods Decline

Core Durable Goods Orders have risen YoY for 3 straight months (after 21 months of decline) but February saw growth slow dramatically (from 4.0% to 2.5%) as the 0.4% MoM gain missed expectations. Even more concerning is Capital Goods New Orders (non-defense, ex-aircraft) declined 0.1% MoM - the first drop since September.

At Least One Freedom Caucus Member Revolts After Trump Ultimatum

"If Exec branch tells Legislative branch "when 2 vote" "how 2 vote" & "what it will b allowed 2 work on if vote fails," is that a republic?"

 

"Wrong Way Gartman"...

Gartman: "We Covered Our Short"

"Considering that the passage or non-passage of the health care legislation was a veritable coin toss circumstance we moved to cover those short derivatives positions early in the day and took to the sidelines. We remain there this morning."

What is CrowdStrike? Firm Hired by DNC has Ties to Hillary Clinton, a Ukrainian Billionaire and Google

by Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkrieg:
As usual, the rabbit hole gets much deeper the more you look.
In yesterday’s post, Credibility of Cyber Firm that Claimed Russia Hacked the DNC Comes Under Serious Question, I examined how CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to look into its hacking breach, had been exposed as being completely wrong about a separate attack it claimed originated from the same group it claimed broke into DNC systems, and supposedly works for Russia’s military intelligence unit, GRU. Here’s some of what we learned:
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India: The next Pakistan?

by Jayant Bhandari, Acting Man:
India’s Rapid Degradation
This is Part XI of a series of articles (the most recent of which is linked here) in which I have provided regular updates on what started as the demonetization of 86% of India’s currency. The story of demonetization and the ensuing developments were merely a vehicle for me to explore Indian institutions, culture and society.
Tribal cultures face an inherent contradiction. They create poison from within to grow more collectivist, controlling and tyrannical — members of the populace looks for nannies, and they readily find sociopaths to exploit that need. Their lack of organizational skills, their inability to engage in economic calculation and their irrationality lead to massive internal stresses and the ultimate devolution of such an unnatural society.
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“Fake Scholarship” and the Future of America’s University

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research:
Harvard University has established a modern version of the Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of prohibited online publications which are tagged as “fake” and “false”, broadly following the politically tainted “List” of censored independent and alternative media. As we recall the Catholic Church’s Index was a list of books “deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious”.1
Ex Cathedra, Harvard has decided in one fell swoop that virtually the entire US based “Alternative Media” pertaining to tens of thousands of authors would be categorized not only as fake news, but fake science, knowledge and analysis.
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The Doomsday Clock: 2.5 Minutes to the End of the World

by Jim Rickards, DailyReckoning:
As I noted above, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently moved the Doomsday Clock forward to “two and a half minutes to midnight.”
The Bulletin gave the following reasons for this latest, extraordinary increase in their estimate of world destruction:
North Korea conducted two more nuclear weapons tests, the second, in September, yielding about twice the explosive power of the first, in January. Pyongyang also relentlessly tested missiles, achieving a rate of about two launches per month in 2016. In his 2017 New Year’s statement, Kim Jong-un declared he would soon test a missile with an intercontinental range.
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Member Of Congress Warns Of A 1,000 Point Stock Market Crash If Obamacare Lite Does Not Pass

by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
Are we going to see a dramatic stock market plunge if the effort to get “Obamacare Lite” through the U.S. House of Representatives ultimately fails? On Thursday, a vote on the Republican healthcare bill was postponed once it became clear that there would not be enough votes for it to pass. House Republican leaders are still optimistic that there will still be a vote on Friday, but that is far from certain. Many strong conservatives in the House are balking at supporting this bill because while it does eliminate a few of the most troublesome provisions of Obamacare, it keeps many of the elements of Obama’s signature healthcare law that have proven to be popular with the American people. In other words, this bill is much more about “tweaking” Obamacare than “repealing” it.
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The West Is Collapsing As The East Ascends

by Dave Kranzler, Investment Research Dynamics:
The 24 Mega Green City infrastructure project in India will connect Delhi with Mumbai, creating a commerce corridor incorporating 21st century technologies and amenities. – Interview with ZincOne Resources’ Jim Walchuck, The Daily Coin
It seems absurd that Asia is willing and able to build high-speed “bullet” trains to connect large population centers while the United States struggles with an antiquated Amtrak rail system often beset with service interruptions and lethal accidents. The truth of the matter is that the major U.S. metropolitan areas are beset with massive loads of debt, including a ticking-time debt-bomb in the form of several trillion dollars in unfunded public pension funds.
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ECB Hands Banks $250 Bn Today, Floats all Markets – um, Briefly

by Wolf Richter, Wolf Street:
Gusto for US stocks and bonds dies down quickly.
Thursday morning, 474 European banks grabbed with “greater than expected” gusto €233 billion ($251 billion) in totally free (and possibly even better) money that the ECB held out to them within its Longer Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO), one of the special programs with which it douses the markets with liquidity to perform miracles.
The amount that banks took today was more than double than what had been expected. This money is a four-year loan from the ECB that carries 0% interest. If certain lending growth targets are met – because this money is supposed to be lent out – the interest rates can become negative and drop as low as -0.4%. In other words, under these conditions, the ECB would pay the banks to take this money and lend it out.
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Dead Men Walking? – Ted Butler

by Ted Butler, Silver Seek:
The narrative thus far – after decades of allowing themselves to be led in and out of COMEX silver futures contracts by their commercial counterparties, several managed money traders appear to have woken up to the fact they’ve been duped all along. A key component of the silver manipulation for the past 30 years has been the knee-jerk and mechanical reaction of the managed money traders to collectively sell whenever the commercials rigged prices lower beyond certain moving averages. Ditto for buying on rising prices.
The dependability of the managed money technical funds to obey commercially rigged price signals made the funds the true enablers of the manipulation. The commercials, mostly domestic and foreign banks, made their profits by getting the technical funds to buy high and sell low. Without the technical funds to maneuver at will, the commercials would have little reason to prolong the silver manipulation.
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NSA To Provide “Smoking Gun” Proof Obama Spied On Trump

from ZeroHedge:
Yesterday, Republican Devin Nunez Nunes held an explosive press conference outside the White House in which he told reporters that communications from the Trump team were picked up and disseminated within the government during the 2016 campaign.
Not surprisingly, the comments ruffled some liberal feathers and the mainstream media launched an immediate smear campaign calling for Nunes to resign his post immediately.
Now, according to Fox News sources, congressional investigators expect that a potential “smoking gun” from the NSA establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee as early as tomorrow.
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