editor victoria’s comment ~ we know the phrase – “history repeats itself”. johnson/kennedy. pence/trump. this time – history will NOT be repeating itself. … and the mirror effect – as we now know jfk jr went to europe in 1999 to study the Codex (of leonardo da vinci – who studied mirror writing)….
Monday morning and we here we go again for another “dramatic week”. There are going to be monthly PMIs to look at in particular: will we see any further deterioration, or will growth start to pick up as an early Christmas present? And there are of course rate meetings for the Fed, and the BOJ, and the BOC: the former will cut, with the real issue being if they will signal more soon or not given they are already deep in Repo Madness; and will the giant BOJ wake up from slumber like a giant Kaiju and start throwing markets into turmoil again?
Plus there is the Brexit circus. Will the EU grant the UK an extension until end-January 2020, or a more flexible date, or will France veto that and insist on a very short extension? Almost certainly they will insist that the newly reopened Withdrawal Agreement is this time firmly shut – so if the British Parliament then decides to merrily reopen it from its end and unilaterally start ramming amendments into it, it will not be doing so with EU approval. As such, and just as pertinently, will PM BoJo get his December election or not? The greater likelihood is not, as Labour appears to be desperate for an election – just not now – although the Lib Dems may be prepared to allow one given they see this as a way to prevent any further movement towards Brexit in the short term. (Though what do they think the election campaign will be about? The price of cheese?) Note that the latest opinion poll for the Observer has the Tories on 40% (+3 on the week), Labour unchanged on 24%, and the Lib Dems on 15% (-1), with the Brexit Party on 10% (-2).
In Europe, we have just seen the AfD surge to second place in state elections in Germany’s Thuringia with 24% of the vote, double what it got last time, putting it 1ppt ahead of Chancellor Merkel’s CDU, with the Far Left Die Linke in first place. The AfD are nowhere near power as nobody will co-operate with them, but that 24% outcome is all the more remarkable given an attack on a synagogue and neo-Nazi death threats through the campaign.
In China, Chairman Xi Jinping will be presiding over the long-expected Communist Party Plenum, which is usually looked to for policy guidance. Market expectations this time are that all the focus will be on politics and control, and none will be on market-based reforms. Tellingly, this weekend saw China disband a three-year old Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity after nobody has been prepared to cut back on capacity: China is claiming it alone has, but this somehow overlooks that its net steel output is up on three years ago, at a record high, and still growing.
Any wonder President Trump did not inform Democrats?
In 2017 we had a handle and were preparing to take ISIS leader Baghdadi out. Someone leaked to the NY Times and mission planning was aborted. #TheyCannotBeTrustedpic.twitter.com/eAH4BV6mrI
— Lady Liberty-Well Then…War It Is! (@DutyOfAPatriot) October 28, 2019
Audio translation: “I thought it was a reasonable question but the trouble is, you can’t pick up the phone book. There’s no Langley in Israel that you can look up, you know, CIA or, in our case, the Mossad. We thought we should ask, “What shall we call it in English?” We can translate the Hebrew words, and like I said, Mossad is “institute.” But when they write a letter to their friends in the CIA or the British intelligence, what do they call themselves? It took a while. It was a matter of asking the prime minister’s spokesman — the best you could do because officially the Mossad is under the prime minister’s office. And I think he sort of wondered, “Why do you want to know?” and all that, so we explained and he came up with the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. And if it were to have initials it would be ISIS, just simple words like that — interestingly enough, though, kind of a British model. The British don’t really like the names MI5 and MI6 for their foreign service. They prefer SIS, Secret Intelligence Service.”
ISIS spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, considered a potential Abu Bakr al-Baghdadisuccessor, was also killed in Syria, a senior State Department official confirmed to Fox News on Monday.
Al-Muhajir was considered a “number two” to al-Baghdadi, and a potential successor, according to the official.
The senior State Department official said Al-Muhajir was killed in Aleppo province in a separate attack by U.S. forces.
