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Five Women Accuse Louis C.K. Of Furious And Unsolicited Masturbation

“He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating.”

Comedian Louis C.K. – whose film premiere was just canceled, along with an appearance on Colbert, has been accused of masturbating in front of, and over the phone, with five women over the span of several years, according to a report in the New York Times.

As soon as they sat down in his room, still wrapped in their winter jackets and hats, Louis C.K. asked if he could take out his penis, the women said.

They thought it was a joke and laughed it off. “And then he really did it,” Ms. Goodman said in an interview with The New York Times.

The rumors about the comedian forcing women to witness him jerking off had been swirling for a while, however this is the first time his victims have come forward.

CK – who describes his penis as “Big, like an old man’s nose” declined to comment on the allegations.

The Times continues:

The stories told by the women raise sharp questions about the anecdotes that Louis C.K. tells in his own comedy. He rose to fame in part by appearing to be candid about his flaws and sexual hang-ups, discussing and miming masturbation extensively in his act — an exaggerated riff that some of the women feel may have served as a cover for real misconduct. He has all but invited comparison between his private life and his onscreen work, too: In “I Love You, Daddy,” which is scheduled to be released next week, a character pretends to masturbate at length in front of other people, and other characters appear to dismiss rumors of sexual predation.
Victims of Louis CK’s penis – Julia Wolov, left, and Dana Min Goodman said they felt “paralyzed” during an incident with him in Aspen, Colo.CreditEmily Berl for The New York Times

At the same time, Louis C.K. has also boosted the careers of women, and is sometimes viewed as a feminist by fans and critics. But Ms. Goodman and Ms. Wolov said that when they told others about the incident in the Colorado hotel room, they heard that Louis C.K.’s manager was upset that they were talking about it openly. The women feared career repercussions. Louis C.K.’s manager, Dave Becky, was adamant in an email that he “never threatened anyone.”

For comedians, the professional environment is informal: profanity and raunch that would be far out of line in most workplaces are common, and personal foibles — the weirder the better — are routinely mined for material. But Louis C.K.’s behavior was abusive, the women said.
“I think the line gets crossed when you take all your clothes off and start masturbating,” Ms. Wolov said.
‘You Want to Believe It’s Not Happening’

Ms. Corry, a comedian, writer and actress, has long felt haunted by her run-in with Louis C.K. In 2005, she was working as a performer and producer on a television pilot — a big step in her career — when Louis C.K., a guest star, approached her as she was walking to the set. “He leaned close to my face and said, ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, ‘Yes,’” Ms. Corry said in a written statement to The New York Times. “He asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me.” Stunned and angry, Ms. Corry said she declined, and pointed out that he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. “His face got red,” she recalled, “and he told me he had issues.”

Word quickly reached the show’s executive producers, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, who both confirmed the incident. “What happened to Rebecca on that set was awful,” Ms. Cox said in an email, adding that she felt “outrage and shock.”

“My concern was to create an environment where Rebecca felt safe, protected and heard,” she said. They discussed curtailing the production. Ms. Corry decided to continue with the show.
“Things were going well for me,” Ms. Corry said in the statement, “and I had no interest in being the person who shut down a production.”

A fifth woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her family’s privacy because she has not been publicly linked to the incident with Louis C.K., also has disturbing memories about an incident with the comedian. In the late ’90s, she was working in production at “The Chris Rock Show” when Louis C.K., a writer and producer there, repeatedly asked her to watch him masturbate, she said. She was in her early 20s and went along with his request, but later questioned his behavior.

“It was something that I knew was wrong,” said the woman, who described sitting in Louis C.K.’s office while he masturbated in his desk chair during a workday, other colleagues just outside the door. “I think the big piece of why I said yes was because of the culture,” she continued. “He abused his power.” A co-worker at “The Chris Rock Show,” who also wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that the woman told him about the experience soon after it happened.

Ms. Schachner, a writer, illustrator and performer, admired Louis C.K.’s work. They had met in the comedy scene; Ms. Schachner’s former boyfriend was a comedy writer who had worked with Louis C.K. In 2003, when she called Louis C.K. with an invitation to her show, he said he was at work in an office as a writer on the series “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” she recalled.
Their conversation quickly moved from the personal — Louis C.K. had seen photos of her on her boyfriend’s desk, he said, and told her he thought she was cute — to “unprofessional and inappropriate,” Ms. Schachner said.

She said she heard the blinds coming down. Then he slowly started telling her his sexual fantasies, breathing heavily and talking softly. She realized he was masturbating, and was dumbfounded. The call went on for several minutes, even though, Ms. Schachner said, “I definitely wasn’t encouraging it.” But she didn’t know how to end it, either. “You want to believe it’s not happening,” she said. A friend, Stuart Harris, confirmed that Ms. Schachner had described the call to him in 2003.

For years afterward, Ms. Schachner said, she felt angry and betrayed by an artist she looked up to. And she wondered what she could have done differently. “I felt very ashamed,” she said.
A Run-In, Then Fears About Speaking Out

During Ms. Goodman and Ms. Wolov’s surreal visit to Louis C.K.’s Aspen hotel room, they said they were holding onto each other, screaming and laughing in shock, as Louis C.K. masturbated in a chair. “We were paralyzed,” Ms. Goodman said. After he ejaculated on his stomach, they said, they fled. He called after them: “He was like, ‘Which one is Dana and which one is Julia?’” Ms. Goodman recalled.

Afterward, they ran into Charna Halpern, the owner of influential improv theaters in Los Angeles and Chicago, where Ms. Goodman and Ms. Wolov performed, and relayed what had happened. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to tell them to do,” said Ms. Halpern. Ms. Goodman and Ms. Wolov decided against going to the police, unsure whether what happened was criminal, but felt they had to respond in some way “because something crazy happened to us,” Ms. Goodman said.

Hoping that outrage would build against Louis C.K., and also to shame him, they began telling others about the incident the next day. But many people seemed to recoil, they said. “Guys were backing away from us,” Ms. Wolov said. Barely 24 hours after they left Louis C.K.’s hotel, “we could already feel the backlash.”

Soon after, they said they understood from their managers that Mr. Becky, Louis C.K’s manager, wanted them to stop telling people about their encounter with Louis C.K. Lee Kernis, one of the women’s managers at the time, confirmed on Thursday that he had a conversation in which he told Mr. Becky that Louis C.K.’s behavior toward the women had been offensive. Mr. Kernis also said that Mr. Becky was upset that the women were talking openly about the incident.

Mr. Becky denied making any threats toward the women. “I don’t recall the exact specifics of the conversation, but know I never threatened anyone,” he wrote by email on Thursday. Ms. Halpern and Robert Schroeder — Ms. Goodman and Ms. Wolov’s agent at the time — said that the pair told them that they felt they had been warned to stop talking.

Read more here

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DC To Erect 8-Foot Statue Of Crackhead Mayor Marion “The Bitch Set Me Up” Barry

Former DC mayor Marion Barry, who died in 2014 at the age of 78, is set to be memorialized with an 8-foot statue.

In a Tuesday meeting, the DC Council Committee of the While voted unanimously that add the statue to the late mayor in front of the Wilson building.

Barry was notoriously busted on video in January, 1990 smoking crack cocaine with a hooker, though he always maintained his innocence – claiming a racist conspiracy and that “the bitch set me up.”

He was arrested by the FBI on drug charges and ended up serving six months in federal prison.

After his release, DC elected him mayor again for a fourth term from 1995 – 1999 (!?).

While the statue’s approval wasn’t finalized Tuesday, downtrend writes: “The approval is a virtual slam dunk and while Barry may have rehabilitated his image, the honor seems to send a mixed message considering his controversial past but to the left, there are some statues that are acceptable and some that are so racist that they need to be destroyed. It’s a hell of a contradiction in terms of values but that’s just the way that the Democrats roll.”

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Twitter Halts Blue Check Verifications After White Supremacist Organizer Given Preferred Status

After destroying the entire feel of Twitter by expanding character count from 140 to 280:

The company announced today that it’s pausing all account verifications after receiving heat for giving a blue check to Jason Kessler – the organizer of the Charlottesville rally (who used to be a rabid Obama supporter).

Via TechCrunch

Twitter today announced it’s pausing all account verifications – the process that gives public figures on Twitter a blue checkmark next to their names – while it tries to resolve “confusion” around what it means to be verified, the company says. The move comes shortly after a wave of criticism directed against the social network for verifying the account belonging to Jason Kessler, the organizer of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August that left one person dead.

The Daily Beast discovered that Kessler’s Twitter account had been given the preferred status indicated by the blue badge on Tuesday. When reached for comment, Twitter pointed reporters to its policies around account verification which explain the badge is awarded if an account is “of public interest.”

But the coveted blue checkmark is still hard to achieve for many noteworthy figures, and critics claimed that verifying a known white supremacist isn’t something that’s in the public interest.

Even Twitter doesn’t seem to understand its own rules on the matter, as it has withheld the checkmark before for controversial but influential accounts, including Julian Assange. It also has punished Twitter users by stripping them of verification, as it did with right-winger Milo Yiannopoulos last year, ahead of permanently banning him.

Kessler had previously deleted his Twitter account after insulting the slain protester at the Charlottesville, Heather Heyer, in crude terms and linking to the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer’s coverage of her death.

He later returned to the network and received account verification only 26 days after Twitter’s promise it would crack down on the online abuse, harassment, and hate taking place on its platform, noted The Daily Caller’s report on Wednesday. Those promises included one recent commitment to create new rules around how it will handle hateful imagery and hate symbols, as well as violent groups using its service.

According to Twitter, its verification process is meant to “authenticate identify and voice” but is today interpreted as ” an endorsement or an indicator of importance.”

It says it’s pausing all general verifications while the company tries to resolve the matter and will update when it has something new to report.

The announcement, delivered via tweet from the @TwitterSupport account, is below:

Related tweets from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Ed Ho, GM of Twitter’s consumer product, add that Twitter has known account verification is broken because people believe it’s related to endorsement.

Ho also admitted the current process should have been stopped at the beginning of the year.

And he put the following question to Twitter users:

“Should it ever appear that Twitter is endorsing anyone with something as prominent as a blue check mark or should we only authenticate info in a profile?”

Responses are already flowing in, with some of the noteworthy suggestions including:

  • A better way to distinguish between real and parody accounts:

  • Decoupling verification from status:

  • Never using verification as reward or punishment:

  • Reviewing accounts for verification through a democratic peer-to-peer review process:

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Wisconsin Natl Guard Stages Drill For Total Power-Grid Failure

The Wisconsin National Guard will be staging a two-day military drill to simulate a total power grid collapse Nov. 15-16, according to the Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs Office.

In order to calm down concerned residents, officials caution that “the public should not be alarmed or concerned if they notice an increased law enforcement presence and military personnel, as well as vehicles and equipment, including non-military unmanned aerial vehicles”

The exercise will be staged in conjunction with a national exercise called GridEx – which tests local, county and state emergency management officials as well as the national guard from threats to the power grid.

“November’s exercise will involve local, county and state law enforcement and first responders, Soldiers and Airmen from the Wisconsin National Guard and Alliant Energy partners who graciously offered the use of their Columbia County facility as a training site,” the Press release states.

“GridEx is a great opportunity for our emergency management officials, the National Guard, local first responders and our private industry partners to train together so we are ready to respond if a threat impacted our power grid,” Maj. Gen. Don Dunbar, Wisconsin’s adjutant general said. “While we simply can’t train for every possible scenario, building relationships now makes us all better prepared if we had to respond to a real-world situation.”

“GridEx will help all participants continue to build and refine processes to better prepare for the Dark Sky exercise as well as real-world scenarios.”

Participants in the exercise include:

  • State Emergency Operations Center
  • Business Emergency Operations Center
  • Utilities and transmission providers
  • 65 Soldiers from the National Guard Reaction Force
  • FBI
  • FEMA Region V
  • other Federal agencies

And as ZeroHedge reports:

In July, we warned about the US government quietly preparing for a total grid collapse with the passage of an Executive Order – “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events”.

Here is snippet of section 1 of the executive order:

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly, some with measurable effects on critical infrastructure systems and technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite operations and communication, aviation, and the electrical power grid.

Extreme space weather events — those that could significantly degrade critical infrastructure — could disable large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation. Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.

Just days ago, the Department of Defense wrapped up a national drill from November 04-06 simulating a total grid collapse across the United States.

The bottom line: The United States government is quietly preparing for a major power grid collapse. At this point there are many conflicting sources of what could cause such of an event, such as aging infrastructure, cyber or physical attack, EMP, and or a geomagnetic storm. As a citizen, you’re not allowed to know this knowledge and frankly you will not be prepared- only the government will be. The writing is on the wall, as the government continues to drill for the big day, coined in the report: “Dark Sky”.

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Stocks Slammed, Volatility Spikes On 2019 Tax Cut Delay $SPY $VIX

U.S. equities are being hammered right now – with the Dow down over 200 points and the other indices following suit. There isn’t a lot of green on the map right now outside of select names such as AT&T, Disney, Comcast, Medtronic – and of course, Roku – which crushed estimates.

Meanwhile, the VIX is spiking – up around 10%.

The Washington Post reported today that a senate Republican plan could delay tax reform until 2019.

“That’s what gave us this new leg down,” said Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, on CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.” “There’s also some speculation in Washington circles that when the president finishes his trip and comes back, there may be some more legal troubles for members of the cabinet.”

Of course, the yield curve tightening – as Fly reported at 4AM because he’s potentially not human, is also a factor.

Tech is the best performing sector YTD – up 37 percent in 2017, while all indices are up at least 15 percent on the year.

“The market is digesting its recent gains,” said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. “After a prolonged rally, everyone gets worried that they will be caught off-guard when the music stops.”

CNBC reports:

Also giving investors pause was a decline in risky high-yield bonds. The iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond exchange-traded fund (HYG) fell 0.5 percent Wednesday and has pulled back 1.6 percent over the past month. Wall Street looks at high-yield bonds as a leading indicator for stocks.

“People are wondering if that’s a canary in the coal mine” for stocks, said Janney’s Luschini.

Stocks around the world also declined Thursday. The Stoxx 600 — which tracks a broad swath of European equities — fell 1.1 percent. In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 finished 0.2 percent lower; it briefly rose more than 2 percent to hit its highest level since 1991.

Global equities have risen alongside their U.S. counterparts this year as economic conditions around the world have improved.

On the data front, weekly U.S. jobless claims totaled 239,000 last week, above the expected 232,000. Wholesale trade numbers are slated for release at 10 a.m. in New York.

Later on Thursday, DisneyNvidia, and News Corp. will release their quarterly results. Media stocks have been in the spotlight recently as talks about dealmaking pick up. Earlier this week, CNBC reported that 21st Century Fox has been in talks to sell most of its company to Disney. As for chip maker Nvidia, its stock has been on fire this year, rising 95 percent.

Earnings have been mostly strong this season. According to FactSet, 73 percent of S&P 500 companies that have reported have surpassed earnings expectations.

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Roku Crushes Estimates, Up Over 50 Pct In Morning Session $ROKU

Despite the Dow being hammered to the tune of 120 points, shares in streaming tech company Roku ($ROKU) spiked over 56% in morning trade after the company crushed earnings estimates in its first post-IPO earnings. The stock is currently trading right around $27.50, up 46 percent.

Expectations vs. results

  • Adjusted EPS: 10 cents loss, excluding items, vs. loss of $1.37 expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate.
  • Revenue: $124.8 million vs. estimate of $110.5 million by Thomson Reuters’ consensus.

The company went public in late September, raising $252 million in an IPO before falling nearly 20 percent over the next 5 weeks. The company is focused on a subscription model – offering content from various providers such as HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Starz and others directly on their Roku branded televisions and streaming set top boxes.

“Our business really is about building active accounts,” CEO Anthony Wood told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday. “For us, selling players is just a great way to build up active accounts and we optimize that business around volume of players.”

User Boost

The company saw a 58 percent annual increase in streaming hours, and a 48 percent increase in active accounts – adding DirecTV Now and Hulu Live to the platform. Wood says that a potential deal with Disney and 21st Century Fox is also in the works.

“We are the leading OTT distribution company in the U.S. and so those companies naturally come to Roku for distribution of their content, and we’re just a great partner for them,” Wood said. “Those companies, as they shift to OTT, that is what’s driving our business.”

Roku is also ramping up its advertising model to better monetize viewers – which they’re already doing a great job of, growing revenue per user to around $12.68 per year, up 37 percent year-over-year.

“Everyone over time is going to shift to streaming, and I think importantly, the entire ad business — television ad business, which today is still predominantly on traditional linear TV — is moving to streaming as they follow their viewers to streaming,” Wood said.

Roku predicted it may break even next quarter before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

 

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Boeing Lands $37 Billion China Contract As Part Of $250 Billion Trump Trip

Boeing ($BA) announced that China Aviation Supplies Holiding Co. has agreed to buy 300 aircraft in a deal worth approximately $37 billion as the nation’s airlines scale capacity to meet rising demand.

The deal includes 260 narrowbody planes and 40 widebody aircraft, the Chinese company reported after President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday in Beijing. Boeing has yet to comment on the details of the agreement.

Bloomberg reports:

Chinese airlines have been on a plane-buying spree amid a projection for the country to overtake the U.S. as the largest air-travel market possibly in as soon as in five years. The state has previously placed large orders through a centralized buyer before dividing them up among its airlines and leasing companies, including a $22 billion deal with China Aviation Supplies that was announced in July.

During a visit by Xi to Berlin in July, Airbus SE said it won a $22 billion order to supply 140 planes to China, including 40 widebody A350s and 100 of its narrowbody A320-series jets. China Aviation Supplies would allocate the planes to individual airline operators over the next five to six years, Airbus said at the time. Talks were also underway for the planemaker to sell more A380 superjumbo jets to China.

In September, Boeing raised it’s 20 year forecast for Chinese aircraft demand based on growth for the travel habits of China’s growing middle class. The planemaker thinks China needs 7,240 new planes over the next two decades, at a value of around $1.1 trillion – vs. previous estimates of 6,810 planes.

The contract is one of several in a cumulative $250 billion worth of deals President Trump can claim from his maiden trip to Beijing – though it is important to note that most of the quarter-trillion in agreements are MOU’s (Memorandum of Understanding) – which isn’t the same as a contract.

“To me this is an old-style visit when you pile up all the deals so you can to get a big number,” said James McGregor, China chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide. “This was normal when the U.S. and China were just building ties, but now China is a global business power and has very damaging industrial policies and this seems naive. This is all for show for President Trump to demonstrate his deal-making prowess.”

Both Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed the deals on Thursday, calling them examples of “win-win” cooperation between the world’s biggest economies. At the same time, Xi said that China would open its market according to its own “timetable and roadmap” while calling to respect each other’s “differences” — showing that Trump will find it harder to press him for substantive policy changes. –Bloomberg

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Cokehead NY Pension Manager Strikes Plea Deal For Taking Bribes, Faces 25 Years In Prison

A former money manager for New York’s largest pension fund plead guilty Wednesday to directing billions of dollars of trades to various brokers who showered him with cocaine, strippers, hookers and luxury vacations.

Navnoor Kang, 37, wuz engaged in the sordid bribery scheme while managing $50 billion of fixed income funds for the state Common Retirement Fund – the third largest pension in the nation. He copped to two of the six counts against him under a deal struck with Manhattan federal prosecutors just weeks before his Dec. 4 trial was set to begin.

Kang faces up to 25 years in prison at his February 23, 2018 sentencing.

Two brokers primarily involved in Kang’s scheme were Greg Schonhorn of FTN Financial and Deborah Kelley of Sterne Agee & Leach, who doled out lavish bribes in exchange for funds under management.

Kelley, 59, plead guilty in May to a single count of conspiracy for spending more than $19K to entertain Kang. Schonhorn, who pled guilty in December and agreed to cooperate with authorities, was accused of bribing Kang with cocaine, hookers, vacations, and a Panarai watch worth over $17,000.

The New York Post reports:

“Schonhorn, for example, gave Kang “thousands of dollars” for strip clubs, dinners at upscale New York City restaurants, US Open tickets, Broadway shows and cocaine, the feds have said. Kelley, meanwhile, treated Kang to a ski weekend and a trip to New Orleans, as well as Paul McCartney tickets and meals, the feds have said.”

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Real Motive Behind Saudi Purge Emerges: $800 Billion In Confiscated Assets

Originally published by ZeroHedge

From the very beginning, there was something off about Sunday’s unprecedented countercoup purge unleashed by Mohammad bin Salman on alleged political enemies, including some of Saudi Arabia’s richest and most powerful royals and government officials: it was just too brazen to be a simple “power consolidation” move; in fact most commentators were shocked by the sheer audacity, with one question outstanding: why take such a huge gamble? After all, there was little chatter of an imminent coup threat against either the senile Saudi King or the crown prince, MbS, and a crackdown of such proportions would only boost animosity against the current ruling royals further.

Things gradually started to make sense when it emerged that some $33 billion in oligarch net worth was “at risk” among just the 4 wealthiest arrested Saudis, which included the media-friendly prince Alwaleed.

One day later, a Reuters source reported that in a just as dramatic expansion of the original crackdown, bank accounts of over 1,200 individuals had been frozen, a number which was growing by the minute. Commenting on this land cashgrab, we rhetorically asked “So when could the confiscatory process end? As we jokingly suggested yesterday, the ruling Saudi royal family has realized that not only can it crush any potential dissent by arresting dozens of potential coup-plotters, it can also replenish the country’s foreign reserves, which in the past 3 years have declined by over $250 billion, by confiscating some or all of their generous wealth, which is in the tens if not hundreds of billions. If MbS continues going down the list, he just may recoup a substantial enough amount to what it makes a difference on the sovereign account.”

Then an article overnight from the WSJ confirmed that fundamentally, the purge may be nothing more than a forced extortion scheme, as the Saudi government – already suffering from soaring budget deficits, sliding oil revenues and plunging reserves – was “aiming to confiscate cash and other assets worth as much as $800 billion in its broadening crackdown on alleged corruption among the kingdom’s elite.

As we reported yesterday, the WSJ writes that the country’s central bank, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, said late Tuesday that it has frozen the bank accounts of “persons of interest” and said the move is “in response to the Attorney General’s request pending the legal cases against them.” But what is more notable, is that while we first suggested – jokingly – on Monday that the ulterior Saudi motive would be to simply “nationalize” the net worth of some of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest individuals, now the WSJ confirms that this is precisely the case, and what’s more notably is that the amount in question is absolutely staggering: nearly 2x Saudi Arabia’s total foreign reserves!

As the WSJ alleges, “the crackdown could also help replenish state coffers. The government has said that assets accumulated through corruption will become state property, and people familiar with the matter say the government estimates the value of assets it can reclaim at up to 3 trillion Saudi riyal, or $800 billion.”

While much of that money remains abroad – and invested in various assets from bonds to stocks to precious metals and real estate – which will complicate efforts to reclaim it, even a portion of that amount would help shore up Saudi Arabia’s finances.

A prolonged period of low oil prices forced the government to borrow money on the international bond market and to draw extensively from the country’s foreign reserves, which dropped from $730 billion at their peak in 2014 to $487.6 billion in August, the latest available government data.

Confirming our speculation was advisory firm Eurasia Group, which in a note said that the crown prince “needs cash to fund the government’s investment plans” adding that “It was becoming increasingly clear that additional revenue is needed to improve the economy’s performance. The government will also strike deals with businessmen and royals to avoid arrest, but only as part of a greater commitment to the local economy.”

Of course, there is a major danger that such a draconian cash grab would result in a violent blowback by everyone who has funds parked in the Kingdom. To assuage fears, Saudi Arabia’s minister of commerce, Majid al Qasabi, on Tuesday sought to reassure the private sector that the corruption investigation wouldn’t interfere with normal business operations. The procedures and investigations undertaken by the anticorruption agency won’t affect ongoing business or projects, he said. Furthermore, the Saudi central bank said that individual accounts had been frozen, not corporate accounts. “It is business as usual for both banks and corporates,” the central bank said.

However, this is problematic: first, not only is the list of names of detained and “frozen” accounts growing by the day…

The government earlier this week vowed that it would arrest more people as part of the corruption investigation, which began around three years ago. As a precautionary measure, authorities have banned a large number of people from traveling outside the country, among them hundreds of royals and people connected to those arrested, according to people familiar with the matter. The government hasn’t officially named the people who were detained.

… but the mere shock of a move that would be more appropriate for the 1950s USSR has prompted crushed any faith and confidence the international community may have had in Saudi governance and business practices.

The biggest irony would be if from this flagrant attmept to shore up the Kingdom’s deteriorating finances, a domestic and international bank run emerged, with locals and foreign individuals and companies quietly, or not so quietly, pulling their assets and capital from confiscation ground zero, in the process precipitating the very economic collapse that the move was meant to avoid.

Judging by the market reaction, which has sent Riyal forward tumbling on rising bets of either a recession, or devaluation, or both, this unorthodox attempt to inject up to $800 billion in assets into the struggling local economy, could soon backfire spectacularly.

Meanwhile, for those still confused about the current political scene in Saudi Arabia, here is an infographic courtesy of the WSJ which explains “Who Has Been Promoted, Who Has Been Detained in Saudi Arabia

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DOJ Cock Blocks ATT Purchase Of Time Warner Over #FakeNews CNN

Shares of Time Warner ($TWX) were hammered to the tune of nearly 7 percent today after AT&T’s CFO John Stephens said the timing of its anticipated merger is “now uncertain.”

Hours later, the Financial Times reported that the Justice Dept. salted up their deal, telling AT&T that CNN – owned by Time warner, would have to be sold in order for the acquisition to go through.

Stephens responded to the news, saying:

“We are in active discussions with the [Department of Justice]. Those are continuing on. I can’t comment on those discussions, but with those discussions, I can now say that the timing of the closing of the deal is now uncertain,” he said, according to a FactSet transcript. “With regards to the transaction, everything continues as we’ve expressed in the past.”

Stephens had previously said the deal was slated to close by the end of the years, noting that the acquisition was a “vertical integration” merger across industries – and that the government has not blocked a “vertical” deal in over 40 years.

Revenge is a dish best served well done and covered in catsup.

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