Friday, February 24, 2017

AMUSE TETE



Kim Jong Nam poisoned:

                The elder brother of  Kim Jong Un ,the "Great Leader" of North Korea--think The Donald in a tunic--has been murdered in Kuala Lumpur.

  The "Great Leader"  tweeted  " this repudiates the Bigest lie of Yanki Imoerialist  Propaganda, that the Peoples Republic of Korea  is a Big Brother State."   and  "I won 98% of the vote at last election--Three times  Trumpf's share--and the PRK is the best at Maths too!"

                                           Kim Applauds Trumpf Electoral Triumph


Swedish official proposes "workers shag break":

Per-Erik Muskos a  councilman from  Overtornea, northern Sweden wants  the municipality’s 550 employees to have a new perk to improve their work-life balance. He has proposed giving municipal employees an hour long paid break each week to go home and have sex.  https://boingboing.net/2017/02/24/swedish-town-official-proposes.html

 “sex is a great form of exercise and has documented positive effects on well-being,”employees could use an hour of the workweek already allotted for fitness activities to go home and have sex with their spouses or partners instead."I believe that sex is often in short supply. Everyday life is stressful and the children are at home,”

Given the commuting time to/from home and the municipal offices, the current proposal of a one hour break once a week with spouse or partner  seems a bit parsimonious.Especially for older employees.

An amendment to the proposal to allow for two hours twice a week for sex with someone else's spouse  or partner seems to have majority support.The local employee union is pushing to double this allocation in cases where the coupling is between two--or more--municipal employees.

HR has  been  mandated to look into the health and safety aspects of the  using the tables in the members' chamber.

  Trumpf tweeted:'Greeeat Idea,delighted Swedes followed my advice after terrible events of last week" I am having Ivanka  organise an executive order to be drafted immediately to make this benefit available to all Federal Employees"  "this could become a States's Rights issue" It could also become part of his planned improvement to Obamacare.

 It is thought that this system already exists in Pyongyang but that it is a state secret.











Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Well that Worked Well--OPEC PRODUCTION CUTS




  NYTimes  :OPEC Reaches Deal to Limit Production, Sending Prices Soaring                                                                  By and 2016

                                        https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/business/international/opec-energy-oil-saudi-iran.html

OPEC confounded its doubters and sent crude oil prices soaring by agreeing to its first production cuts in eight years.      Bloomberg ‎November‎ ‎30‎, ‎2016‎                                                                                                   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-said-to-agree-oil-production-cuts-as-saudis-soften-on-iran

                            OPEC, Russia Agree On Method To Monitor Oil Production Cuts 
Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on January 22 that producers had already cut supply by 1.5 million barrels a day -- more than 80 percent of the total target.
Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak was equally jubilant.
"The deal is a success," he said. "All countries are sticking to the deal ... results are above expectations."

                            Multiple Articles much Jubilation and Sage Punditry Followed.


November 30 2016  Price of WTI  $49/bbl         Brent  $51.6/bbl

January 22  2107                              $53.2/bbl                  $55.3/bbl

This morning at 9 am                         $51.22                       $53.2

Change Since  OPEC Agreement     + 4.4%                      +$4.4%

Change Since OPEC/RUSSIA 
AGREEMENT                                    -3.8 %                      -  3.9%      

                                            
                                                         Well that Worked Well   

                                                      WTI  back under $50/bbl by mid March ?



Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Head of the Sovereign State of Exxon----Rex Tillerson.


                                             February  1st

 Good day looming for the recent head of the Sovereign State of  Exxon----Rex Tillerson.

 His Senate confirmation as Secretary of State,reporting to white supremacist Steve Bannon, is scheduled for tomorrow.




Then:   "Exxon Set for Early Victory as Congress to Rescind Payments Rule "                                                                                                                                Bloomberg News

  • The  House and Senate is set to vote on the same day to kill an SEC edict that requires publication of overseas payments by oil, natural gas and mining companies listed on US Stock exchanges. Part of the Dodd-Frank reforms.
  • Republican house leader Kevin McCarthy pledged in the Wall Street Journal , to "take the ax" to the SEC rule "an unreasonable compliance burden."
  • In the Senate Jim Inhofe, Mitch McConnell and Mike Rounds are proposing the matching resolution on the same day.

"Canceling this rule would hurt important initiatives to stop corruption..send a message to corrupt leaders everywhere that their misdeeds are no longer a serious US foreign policy priority"                                                            Human Rights Watch

  •  Tillerson's Exxon lobbied for this change claiming that such disclosures gave an unfair advantage to their foreign competitors who are not listed on US stock exchanges .
  • His lobbyists apparently did not know –or did not disclose-- that oil and mining companies listed in London and elsewhere in Europe have the same obligation of transparency.  
  • Indeed the rule was modeled on that in the UK.




                           But then on the Russian Sanctions Legislation Mr.Tillerson                               was “unaware” on which side Exxon  were  lobbying. 

Straight shooter and lifelong Boy Scout activist  Texas Rex must be taken at his word.        

Should be fun :     Tillerson's and Trumpf's Foreign Policy   c/o Stephen Bannon

                             Still at least he will "Be Prepared" ----    Geddit?                                                


Monday, January 23, 2017

ITS THE OIL .ALWAYS THE OIL

 



         On Woman's March day: 

                           Trumpf To CIA: ''Maybe we'll have another chance" to take Iraq's oil                   

                                                 "TO THE VICTOR GOES THE SPOILS"
                                         " MAYBE WE WILL HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE"
                                                 "We should have kept the oil" 

                                        


                             
          Today :
                  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmed as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson                        the ceo-god -king of the Sovereign State of Exxxon,
                 
                                    Another profile in courage for little Marco!

         Tomorrow:

                   American boys at Mossul go into battle against ISIS.
                   They will fight side by side with Iraqi boys and Kurdish Pesh Murga.
                   Whose oil do you  think those  boys believe should have the oil?

                                                Feel your sons are safer now mom?

                                                  Trumpf's "got your back" guys.

                                 








Sunday, January 22, 2017

The Marches---A Silver Lining?



               The women of the court came back to the princess' Georgetown Palace SO energised.

            New generation has seized the banner of progress. 

                                      The King is Proud

                               NUMBER OF MARCHES: 673        MARCHERS (EST): 4,797,50

Nearly  5 million  world wide.Twice Clinton's plurality in the presidential election.

Women of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chauvinist uncles.

                                    AVANTI   MARCHENT  FORWARD

The scope and scale of these events are probably greater than the Vietnam protests that took place 12 years into the war.After tens of thousands of American boys and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese dead,mutilated or traumatized.

.   

                     DC                                            CHICAGO                                                                  
 
      

                        DUBLIN                                         NY

          
                   SYDNEY                                     BUENOS AIRES

              

                        KOLKOTA                               MOSCOW


    

                         LONDON                                       PARIS

                  

                          LONDON                                          ROME                                                          
                                         

      

                  BELGRADE                                       HONG KONG


                
                                 ANTARTICA                                   WARSAW                                                                                                                            
                   
                                               
                                DC                                            BARCELONA                          

     Trump now lying about the "million"attending his inauguration compared with Obama .

                             Fragile ego does not get close to describing his clinical narcissism.

 
\                                       
                             His press office will have to be apprised of the invention of photograpy.


Particularly for our International subjects we post this  video from Saturday Night Live last night.
   
                       

   The King awaits next weeks  visit of Theresa May to make fealty to King  Donald the Dope.

  She expects a trade deal from Trumpf to help her with her disastrous Brexit negotiations. 

 It seems the British government has yet to get the "AMERICA FIRST" memo.

  One more self imposed delusion.Humiliation to follow.


                                                             

Friday, January 20, 2017

Trumpf Campaign and the Kremlin




   Today's headline:


These follow the the more salacious "golden shower"stuff of two weeks ago.
And the Mystery of  Trump's national security adviser General Flynn's five phone calls to the Russian ambassador on the day the Obama administration expelled 30+ Russian diplomats over the political hacking scandal.

                                        
                             
                                   Flynn at the Senate                  At dinner in the Kremlin with Putin


The page below between the large parentheses, was posted 5 months ago on 17 August 2016,on the same day as the Kremlin stooge Paul Manafort became too toxic for even the Trumpf camapaign.
                                           The Polonium 190 of Presidential Politics. 

He was of course replaced by Kelly Anne Conway who proved to be the most effective campaign manager and strategist this cycle.David Axelrod where were you when we needed you?
       
The point of reposting here is of course To allow the King to crow and preen;and to highlight that beneath his parody and BS,50 years of engagement in such matters has taught him something.

But the crowing and preening is the most important.

In any event the financial links to shady Russian actors were being highlighted in the international press.It was also obvious that Manafort
and others had direct, covert and nefarious contacts with the Kremlin espionage operation.Paul Manafort a long time gun for hire directly linked to Putin.



The fact that FBI director Comey used his resources to constantly investigate a decrepit email server rather than the well-known Russian activities and Trumpf team access is beyond a scandal.

Regardless of whether or not Comey's obsession with the Clinton email server cost her the election or not, it is extraordinary that the head of an agency charged with protecting the US and its citizens from foreign espionage gave this nonsense a higher priority than Manafort's operations within the Trumpf campaign.

If the Republican Congress has the patriotism to prevent the White House closing down these investigations then I have little doubt that Manafort will be charged with treason.Failing a full inquiry he may get away with serving time for tax evasion.

                                                    Al Capone Redux

{
  • Two days ago the Financial Times published a full one page reporting of Trump's business dealings with the Russian Mob. In this case did not mean with the Russian government or Putin directly. According to the FT, the "Trump Soho" development was funded with shady money. It of course, like many of Trump's business initiatives went bankrupt. Apparently 95% of deposits had to be returned to condominium buyers. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/549ddfaa-5fa5-11e6-b38c-7b39cbb1138a.html#axzz4HXkY2D2o
  • There will be much more on TRUMPf's Russian connections http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/
  • Ties to the Italian Mob in New York being held back till closer to the election.


On the same day as the FT article it was revealed that Trump's campaign manager  Paul Manafort had received over $12 million of secret payments from President. Yanukovych  of the Ukraine. He of course denies receiving such "cash" sums.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html?_r=0  Now the fact that Manafort had sold his sold his soul to to the Ukrainian dictator is not news. He has in fact sold it many times over to a series of despots. This is how he makes his living.

Nor is it surprising that Yanukovych so grossly overpaid. It was just the people's money.  Manafort can be bought for much less than this.



It may not be widely known to King Cyclops readers but back in the day the King was the chairman of a large[by Ukrainian standards] commercial bank from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. The area is now now under threat of annexation from that cuddly Mr. Putin.During the period when I was involved with this bank the board had  to deal with a number of irregular loan activities. The original founder of the bank became Minister of Finance.


During this period several journalists were murdered by the Kuchma regime.State assets were plundered by a small group of Oligarchs linked to the then president,including Kuchma's son in law.

These same oligarchs later joined with Putin to fund Yanukovych, then the  governor of Donetsk, to run for President.In 2004 his first opponent VictorYushchenko[a good guy] was subject of  an assassination attempt during the election campaign.Yushchenko was confirmed to have ingested a dioxin contained in Agent orange.                                              
                                                
He suffered disfigurement as a result of the poisoning,but still beat  Yanukovych.
In 2010  following her loss to Yanukovych the second,Yulia Tymoshenko[not such a nice lady]was imprisoned for seven years on trumped up charges--pun intended.
Following a popular uprising, Yanukovych fled the Ukraine in February 2014.Tymoshenko was released a week after his flight to Moscow.Putin gave him asylum and citizenship.Interpol placed issued an arrest warrant in 2015.

                   It seems Manafort left the Ukraine in February 2014


A  favorite story in my time there is of  cooperation between Ukraine and the Bush administration.At the time Ukraine was on an international blacklist as a centre of money laundering.This was very inconvenient for the transfer of money from the then president's clicque.The Bush administration was actively seeking to expand the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. The Kuchma government sent a single antiaircraft battery with 30 troops to join in the occupation.Ukraine was removed from the blacklist. Cost them a lot less than they later paid Paul Manafort.


I thought that nothing would astonish me about Ukrainian off the book payments,corruption or violence.The Manafort revelations/accusations have shocked me .Less about the money but rather what he did for it.http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/08/17/report-paul-manafort-laid-groundwork-russias-invasion-crimea-trump-will-probably-recognize/"The senior Ukrainian prosecutor alleges that in 2006 Mr Manafort orchestrated a series of anti-Nato, anti-Kiev protests in Crimea led by Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Party of Regions — now designated a criminal organisation. The protests forced planned Nato exercises there to be cancelled. No charges were pursued because of a lack of evidence after Crimea was annexed. "

If true--are you betting against it?-then this is Treason.No really it is Treason.


I guess Paul Manafort is looking forward more to his Tax Audit than to the coming National Security Investigation.Probably not good for future assignments.             

BREAKING NEWS--as I edit this, news is breaking of  a Trump campaign shake up sidelining Manafort.                     No doubt more revelations to follow.


Lets hope Kuchma,Yanukovych or the Ukrainian Oligarchs did not make donations to the Clinton Foundation!!   
                                                                           }