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Monthly Archives: August 2017

Get Ready To $MAGA With New Pro-Trump, Pro-Republican ETF

Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:39pm EST 13

Texas investment firm Point Bridge Capital will be launching a pro-GOP / Pro-Trump ETF under the symbol $MAGA, available for purchase September 7. Per the Daily Caller, the fund will “invest in stocks that are highly supportive of federal Republican candidates including President Donald Trump.”

Founder Hal Lambert, CFA is a former Director at Credit Suisse, and was a Portfolio Manager at J.P. Morgan before that. He’s currently managing over $1 billion at Point Bridge.

During the 2016 election, he was a huge fundraiser for the Republican Party, throwing his support behind Ted Cruz as his finance co-chair – though he was reluctant to get behind Trump, who he hated, until later in the campaign.

So, he may have appropriated “MAGA” despite his former(?) status as a Never-Trumper, but Hal wants to make YOU money!

Via Daily Caller:

The ETF strategy starts with stocks in the S&P 500 and analyzes the political contributions of the employees and the company PACs. The top 150 Republican stocks based on their contribution data are then included in the ETF. Lambert, a major Texas Republican fundraiser, refers to the approach as “politically responsible investing.”

Lambert told TheDC the top five Republican contributors in the past two election cycles were: AT&T, Marathon Petroleum, Home Depot, Exxon Mobil, and Altria. “All of those stocks will be in the ETF,” Lambert said.

The top five Democrat contributors were: Alphabet (Google), Time Warner, Walt Disney, Apple, and Dish Network.

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Comey Cleared Hillary Mid-Way Through Investigation, Mueller Enlists IRS To Tackle Trump

Thu Aug 31, 2017 7:08pm EST 4

Two stories are really grinding my gears today…

First, we learn that former FBI Director James Comey decided he wasn’t going to refer Hillary Clinton for prosecution long before the FBI’s investigation into her emails was over.

Via TownHall: 

“According to the unredacted portions of the transcripts, it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton.  That was long before FBI agents finished their work.  Mr. Comey even circulated an early draft statement to select members of senior FBI leadership.  The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts,” the letter, signed by Chairman Chuck Grassley and Committee member Lindsey Graham states. “Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation.  The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy.”

Second, Special Counsel Robert Mueller – who takes vacations and picnics with Comey, is apparently enlisting the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Unit as part of his Trump-Russia investigation. As if the Obama IRS hadn’t already poured through Trump’s tax returns and would have, by now, leaked anything incriminating.

Via the Daily Beast, Satan’s rag:

According to sources familiar with his investigation into alleged Russian election interference, his probe has enlisted the help of agents from the IRS’ Criminal Investigations unit.

This unit—known as CI—is one of the federal government’s most tight-knit, specialized, and secretive investigative entities. Its 2,500 agents focus exclusively on financial crime, including tax evasion and money laundering. A former colleague of Mueller’s said he always liked working with IRS’ special agents, especially when he was a U.S. Attorney.

These witch-hunting motherfuckers are destroying the country. Let’s not pretend the NSA hasn’t been recording the United States for nearly two decades – according to 30 year NSA veteran-turned-whistleblower Bill Binney.

High profile individuals, like Trump, have gotten extra electronic anal probing.

So – given the extensive capabilities of the NSA, and the fact that the Obama IRS is on record as a politicized tool of the last administration – anything incriminating regarding Trump and his businesses would have already been leaked before Hillary lost – given the sieve-like nature of U.S. intelligence agencies in their efforts to bring Trump down.

This is nothing more than Neo-McCarthyist bullshit designed to undermine a sitting U.S. President, by a criminal cadre of elitists who would burn the constitution down before releasing their grip on power.

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Rohrabacher on Russian Hacking: ‘I Think It’s About 99% That It’s A Total Lie”

Thu Aug 31, 2017 4:18am EST 5

Fresh off his meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) told Fox News host Sean Hannity that when it comes to the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, he’s “about 99% that it’s a total lie.”

Hannity: Do you believe that this Trump-Russian collusion narrative will be proven false and do you believe he holds the key?

Rohrabacher: The answer is absolutely ‘yes.’ And I think this Russian narrative that your talking about, this idea that is unrelenting, sinister story about how Trump colluded with the Russians in order to steal the elections is a total con-job. It’s a fraud. And it’s masking a power grab…

On Monday, Rohrabacher said a ‘rendezvous’ between himself and Trump was being arranged so he could convey information proving Russia didn’t hack the DNC during the 2016 election. “It is my understanding from other parties who are trying to arrange the rendezvous, that a rendezvous with myself and the President, it is being arranged for me to give him the firsthand information,” Rohrabacher said on Hannity’s radio show.

Watch here:

Upon his return from London, Rohrabacher said Assange “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails” – a key issue in the Trump-Russia investigation. The WikiLeaks founder is seeking to strike a deal with the Trump administration for his freedom – up to and including White House press passes.

Via the Washington Times:

Mr. Rohrabacher recalled the request after spending roughly three hours Wednesday meeting with the WikiLeaks chief at his residence in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy.

“He hoped that WikiLeaks — an award-winning journalistic operation — might be granted a seat in the White House press corps,” Mr. Rohrabacher told The Hill afterwards. “As a former newsman myself, I can’t see a reason why they shouldn’t be granted news status for official press conferences.”

“It didn’t sound unreasonable to me,” Mr. Rohrabacher told the Washington Examiner in a separate interview published Friday.

Let’s not put the cart before the horse.

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Flooded TX Chemical Plant Evacuates After CEO Says ‘No Way To Prevent Imminent Explosion’

Wed Aug 30, 2017 6:30pm EST 4

A chemical plant in Crosby, TX has evacuated employees due to risk of an explosion, following the loss of primary power while backup generators begin to flood.

French owned Arkema, Inc. said the situation “has become serious,” and is working with the Department of Homeland Security to organize a command post at a suitable location near the site.

CEO of Arkema’s U.S. operations said “the company has no way of preventing chemicals from catching fire or exploding at its heavily flooded plant,” adding that “the company now expects chemicals on site to catch fire or explode within the next six days.”

Via ZeroHedge: 

The plant, which produces explosive organic peroxides and ammonia, was hit by more than 40 inches of rain and has been heavily flooded, running without electricity since Sunday. The plant was closed since Friday but has had a skeleton staff of about a dozen in place. Following the flood surge, the plant’s back-up generators also failed. The threat emerged once the company could no longer maintain refrigeration for chemicals located on site, which have to be stored at low temperatures. The plant lost cooling when backup generators were flooded and then workers transferred products from the warehouses into diesel-powered refrigerated containers.

On Tuesday afternoon, the company released a statement which admitted that “refrigeration on some of our back-up product storage containers has been compromised due to extremely high water, which is unprecedented in the Crosby area.  We are monitoring the temperature of each refrigeration container remotely.” It then warned that “while we do not believe there is any imminent danger, the potential for a chemical reaction leading to a fire and/or explosion within the site confines is real.”

Get the popcorn, there’s gonna be a ‘splosion.

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Armed Antifa Group Declares “Everywhere a Battlefield”

Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:22pm EST 11

Courtesy FarLeftWatch.com

The Austin based Anti-fascists group, Red Guards Austin, has been gaining prominence in the Texas Antifa movement. As we have previously reported, they are a self described autonomous Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collective and their website contains multiple reports on their confrontational and often armed demonstrations.

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Austin Red Guard 3

They also openly advocate for violent revolution against capitalism.

“we must seriously take up the task not only of self-defense on the personal and community level, but we must also struggle to unite all genuine antifascists behind the necessity of revolution.  Revolution means the long fight for communism and nothing less.”

In a recent blog titled “Everywhere a Battlefield“, this trend continues as they claim “The war is not coming—it is here and now” and then discuss the need for weapons training and more “revolutionary violence”.

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“The war is not coming—it is here and now. We must take our historic task seriously. We must accumulate forces and steel them in small-scale street battles. We must respond accordingly to the apocalyptic reality that capitalism-imperialism has forced on us.” 

“So what does self-defense mean for the rest of us? What does it mean for enemies of the state? It can only mean that we must develop red physical culture. It means that we must contend for ground that has been ceded to the enemy. That we train in both hand-to-hand combat and in weapons. We must take community self-defense seriously. We must walk away from the comfort zone of the legal left, and by extension it means that those who protect them are sure to attack us. It means that we return to our filthy neighborhoods of cramped apartment complexes and organize right there among our class. It means that we choose the field of combat thoughtfully and not out of uninventive and timid habit. We cannot expect a mass antifascist movement to develop its necessarily revolutionary character unless we move away from the state-ordained protest zones. 

“Reclaiming violence means making revolutionary violence available to be utilized by all types of comrades at all levels and all abilities. It means training physically in flexible ways applied to the specific conditions of specific groups. Everyone, regardless of ability, can improve. This is not to do away all at once with the division of violent labor; the science of revolutionary violence is universal, and it must at the same time be applied with great care to the specific. In this process of trial and error we sharpen and broaden our skillsets. Martial arts, firearms, and sports must be seen as cultural battlefields as well as invaluable tools in our revolutionary toolkit.”

For months, militant antifa groups have been engaging in targeted political violence. They claim they exist to fight racists, bigots, and white supremacists; and their allies in the media often echo these claims. But if the actions from the Red Guards Austin is any indication, this is nothing more than a public relations campaign to recruit moderates. Their end goal is communism, a political ideology responsible for over 94 million deaths in the 20th century.

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Harvey To Hit Mortgages Hard Amid 80% Without Flood Insurance

Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:39pm EST 5

Texans hit hard by flooding in the wake of Harvey have been given 90 days of forbearance by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced Wednesday. The offer may extend up to a year in certain cases.

Under the terms of the forbearance, borrowers would not have to make their monthly payments, and no penalty fees would be charged, though interest would still accrue.

“This is an unprecedented crisis in the region as it relates to housing. We are not even at the point where we can evaluate the total costs, walkaways, insurance coverage, homes uninsured, jobs lost, not being able to make your mortgage payments…” said Dave Stevens, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

With much of South-East Texas focused on surviving and looking for shelter, the forbearance isn’t a surprise.

Via CNBC:

In the Houston area and outlying areas hit by Hurricane Harvey, there are more than twice as many mortgage properties with nearly four times the unpaid principal balance as there were in the Louisiana and Mississippi counties hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. If the impact on homes is similar, more than 75,000 Houston borrowers could become unable to make a mortgage payment within the next two months and 45,000 could become seriously delinquent on their loans in the next four months, according to Black Knight Financial Services.

http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends/foreclosuretrends/tx
Uninsured masses
Complicating matters is the fact that up to 80% of homeowners in affected areas did not carry flood insurance before Harvey hit.

Via USA Today:

All these people taken out in boats, they have a second problem: They have no insurance,” said Robert Hunter, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America.

Harvey made landfall in Texas late Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and has lingered off the coast, dropping heavy rain as a tropical storm. Hunter expects flood damage alone from the storm to cost at least $35 billion, about what Katrina cost. But in that 2005 hurricane about half of flooded homes were covered by flood insurance.

With Harvey, only two of 10 homeowners have coverage, Hunter estimates.

Homeowner’s insurance typically covers wind damage, while floods are generally covered with separate riders. With most of the Houston area falling outside historic flood zones, most homeowners skipped coverage in the nation’s fourth largest city.

About 1.2 million properties in the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown area are at high/moderate risk of flooding but are not in a designated flood zone requiring insurance, research firm CoreLogic estimates. That’s roughly half of all properties — residential and commercial — in that area. –USA Today

“There’s going to be a huge uninsured economic loss here,” said Pete Mills of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

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Houston Bridges And Roads On Verge Of Failure As Mayor Orders Curfew

Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:06pm EST 1

As Tropical Storm Harvey continues to slam southwest Texas with 15-25 inches of rain, officials are reporting that roads and bridges in Houston are beginning to buckle under the tremendous weight of unprecedented flooding. According to Jeff Linder of the Harris County Flood Control District, a bridge has already collapsed and several roads have been damaged.

The hits keep on coming, as ZeroHedge reported yesterday, the Army Corps of engineers began releasing water from two Houston flood-control dams after water levels rose rapidly, flooding over 3,000 homes. Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s primary drainage system appears to be holding steady after recording a record 33 inches of rain – with another 20 expected in the next two days.

Linder told the BBC that the Houston Ship Channel which opens into the Galveston Bay was “at levels we’ve never seen before.”

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner ordered a curfew from Midnight to 5am (originally 10pm, per tweet below). The curfew is intended to discourage looting around the city.

Chief of Police Art Acevedo said earlier that curfew violaters will be stopped, questioned, searched and arrested amid scattered reports of looting in the area.

Ongoing rescue efforts 

Over 13,000 people have been rescued so far from flooding in Houston:

Ignore CNN douche’s stupid voice. This is heartwarming at the end.

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Auto Dealerships Stand To Rip After Hurricane Insurance Payouts Roll In

Tue Aug 29, 2017 6:15pm EST 2

While Texas auto sales will most certainly suffer in the direct aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which carved a path through Texas, leaving several dead and dropping 9 trillion gallons of rain, dealerships stand to profit immensely once insurance checks begin to roll in and people seek to replace their flood-damaged vehicles.

According to Marketwatch, Texas accounts for around 9% of U.S. vehicle sales and is the #1 state for truck sales – accounting for 14% of U.S. full-size truck sales.

 

Via MarketWatch

[D]emand for vehicles “does not disappear,” analysts at B. Riley Research said in a note Tuesday.

A potential dip in auto sales would be a temporary phenomenon, and there could be a “surge in demand from consumers looking to replace flood-impacted vehicles” as people begin to receive insurance checks, they said.

 The analysts examined auto sales data from 2012 in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to corroborate their view. In that instance, car sales dipped in October, “but the recovery was equally swift in November/December,” the analysts said.

“We would be aggressive buyers of TrueCar Inc. TRUE, +1.15%  on any weakness related to news regarding impacted auto sales due to Hurricane Harvey,” they said in a note. They maintained their buy rating on shares of Autobytel Inc. ABTL, -0.39% , but said “the company’s traffic related issues will have a larger impact vs. Harvey.”

Moreover, flooded dealerships stand to benefit as their own flood insurance pays out.

Here are a few more names found in Exodus, sorted by Hybrid score.

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Tampa Professor Fired After Tweeting Hurricane Harvey ‘Instant Karma’ For Trump-Voting Texas

Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:57pm EST 18

A University of Tampa Sociology professor is now unemployed after he tweeted that people in Houston deserve the “instant karma” from hurricane Harvey.

After professor Ken Storey sent his hateful tweet, he was challenged with a reply asking “I guess since we’re a Red state [Florida] we deserve some bad karma too, right?” To which Storey replied “Yep, those who voted for him here deserve it as well.”

Aaaaand you’re fired

Via Mediaite:

Storey went on to apologize for his insensitive remarks and deleted the controversial tweet. However, his apology-tweet was not taken well, as it has over 2000 replies and less than 100 likes — reaching “The Ratio” level of poor Twitter form.

This apology did not prove to be enough to save Storey from his bad-take, as the University of Tampa posted a press release today stating: “We condemn the comments and the sentiment behind them, and understand the pain this irresponsible act has caused. Storey has been relieved of his duties at UT, and his classes will be covered by other sociology faculty.”

 

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Smokin’ Hot Melania Trump Accompanies Some Orange Guy To Assess Hurricane Damage

Tue Aug 29, 2017 2:46pm EST 8

A very hot Melania Trump accompanied the President to assess the damage from Hurricane Harvey – boarding Air Force One in an olive jacket, aviator sunglasses, and high heels, only to emerge in a crisp white shirt, a FLOTUS hat, and sneakers.

This, by the way, is triggering liberals…

BEWARE, SALT MINE

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