Report: Captured American Sailors Gave Iranian Interrogators Too Much Info, Failed to Obey Standard Rules of Engagement

I don’t even know want to say after reading this. I remember when those idiot sailors were taken prisoner by the savage Iranians and wondered how was it possible. Fuck that shit, defend your boat and call for backup. These clowns were so interested in ‘not starting a war with Iran” that they acquiesced their vessel, sensitive information about their boat and passwords to their laptop, and ultimately their honor.

They should’ve let the Iranians worry about starting a war, not the other way around.

The report said some of the 10 crew members, detained at gunpoint Jan. 12 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had revealed sensitive information, such as phone and laptop passwords, to the Iranians.

Iran used the detentions for propaganda purposes that kept the incident in the headlines for weeks afterward.

The report cited the instance of one crew member revealing details to the Iranian interrogators such as the top speed of his vessel and that it conducted “presence” missions.

“It is clear that some, if not all, crew members provided at least some information to interrogators beyond name, rank, service number and date of birth,” the report said.

Indeed, some crew members told the Iranians the capabilities of their vessels, and passwords to their personal phones and laptops, the report said.

At one point, the crew members did not realize they were near Farsi Island because they did not zoom into their navigation system’s map.

“Had any crew member zoomed into the purple dot, they would have discovered the purple dot was Farsi Island,” the report said.

Near the island, one of the boats suffered a faulty engine, and the two crafts were approached by two IRGC boats, which pointed their weapons. They were soon after joined by two other IRGC boats.

The boat captains did not direct their gunners to put on protective gear or to man the weapons on the boat.

Under the standard rules of engagement, U.S. military personnel are obligated to defend their units. However, in the hopes of de-escalating the situation, the captains directed their gunners to step away from their weapons.

“I didn’t want to start a war with Iran,” one of the boat captains told investigators. “My thought at the end of the day was that no one had to die for a misunderstanding.”

The Iranians forced the sailors to remove their body armor, kneel, and place their hands behind their heads, and took video and pictures of the crew doing so. At Farsi Island, they interrogated and detained the sailors overnight before releasing them the next day.

Filmed acting happy

The sailors also acquiesced to Iranian demands that they eat and act happy while being filmed in order to be released, and one captain read an apology prepared by the Iranians. Unbeknownst to them, the US government had already negotiated their unconditional release.

In addition to Moses, in May, the U.S. Navy fired Eric Rasch, commander of the squadron that included the sailors.

The report said administrative action had been taken with regard to two personnel, and recommended action be taken regarding six others.

The report also faulted the IRGC for violating international norms. The Iranians replaced an American flag on board with an IRGC one, ransacked the vessels, and damaged equipment, the report said.

Very nice. These asshats surrendered their boat to cavemen, who then planted their flag on it, ransacked it, and went on to humiliate them, all the while Obama was cutting a deal with Iran to release $150 billion to Iran and lifting their sanctions.

What sort of country has this become? Demoralizing.

If you really want to get mad, go google how Iran mocks this incident often with parodies and little parades, depicting our sailors as cowering cry babies.

WSJ is reporting that Mondelez will make an offer to bid for Hershey’s. On that news, shares of HSY have exploded to the upside.

For the love of God, should the Hershey board accept the proposal, please get rid of that awful name–Mondelez. What a wretched name it is indeed. This deal pays for itself, just to change that fucking name. Plus, the execs at MDLZ will get to ride the roller coasters for free at Hershey Park.

What a disgraceful, oppressive, country. The man who was in charge of propaganda in Shanghsi, the equivalent to a MSNBC producer here, has been appointed to control their internet, promising to ban fuckers and delete news stories that are of the fantastical nature.

Additionally, he doesn’t like trolls or haters. Trying to remove haters from the internet is like trying to enforce patent law in China.

Good luck, Xu.

In a brief report, the official Xinhua news agency said Lu Wei will no longer head the Cyberspace Administration of China, naming one of his deputies, Xu Lin, as his replacement.

Xu, 53, was in charge of propaganda in China’s commercial capital Shanghai from 2013-15 before being moved to Beijing to become a deputy to Lu, according to his biography.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post said Xu is regarded as a protege of President Xi Jinping. The two men worked together when Xi was briefly Shanghai’s Communist Party chief in 2007.

In an article about internet management for influential bimonthly party journal Qiushi in October, Xu pledged to uphold party leadership over the Internet and management of the media and public opinion “without any equivocation”.

“There can be no turning deaf ears to or ignoring wrong points of view on the internet, fantastic stories and theories, distortions of facts to create rumors or malicious attacks,” he wrote.

“I definitely don’t see this as a bullish thing for foreign internet companies,” said Duncan Clark, chairman and managing director at BDA China, a Beijing-based investment consultancy.

He looks like a Chinese Goebbels.

Soros went in front of parliament today and talked extreme shit, telling them they were encumbered by a thick skulled and wrong German orthodoxy that has stymied growth and ‘trapped’ all of Europe in a deflationary vortex. He furthered that the BREXIT vote is set to unleash a world of pain, a stark financial crisis that rivals 2008.

Moreover, he contended that the refugee crisis caused BREXIT and if the people of Europe begin to feel as if the EU doesn’t improve their way of life, hampered by asshole Germans, then the whole of EU will blow apart.

“This has been unfolding in slow motion, but Brexit will accelerate it. It is likely to reinforce the deflationary trends that were already prevalent,” the billionaire investor said on Thursday.

He has warned that a hard landing in China is “practically unavoidable,” arguing that its debt-fueled economy resembles the U.S. at the onset of the financial crisis.

Continental Europe’s banking system hasn’t recovered from the financial crisis and will now be “severely tested,” Soros said. “We know what needs to be done. Unfortunately, political and ideological disagreements within the euro zone have stood in the way” of using the European Stability Mechanism as a backstop, he said.

The U.K.’s decision meant “the hypothetical became very real,” Soros said on Thursday. “Sterling plunged, Scotland threatened to break away, and some of the working people who supported the ‘Leave’ campaign have started to realize the bleak future that both the country and they personally face. Even the champions of Leave are retracting their dishonest pre-referendum claims about Brexit.”

The euro region has lagged behind other regions in the global recovery, following the last financial crisis, “because of restrictive fiscal policies; now it has to contend with an impending slowdown,” Soros said. “The orthodoxy of German policy makers stands in the way of the only effective response: having a euro-zone budget that could adopt counter-cyclical policies.”

Describing the actions of former Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke during the financial crisis as the “right approach,” Soros said Europe is in a “deflationary trap.”

“Here you are caught in this unfortunate misconception about government debt,” he said. “You need growth and then everything falls into place.”

Soros urged the EU not to “penalize” British voters while ignoring their legitimate concerns about the shortcomings of the bloc. “European leaders should recognize their own mistakes and acknowledge the democratic deficit in the current institutional arrangements,” he said.

“Will disaffected voters in France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Poland and everywhere else see the EU benefiting their lives?” Soros asked. “If the answer is yes, the EU will emerge stronger. If the answer is no, it will eventually blow apart.”

Soros said that when he was invited to speak at the parliament, “the refugee crisis was the greatest problem Europe faced. Since then, it has played a crucial role in bringing about what may prove to be an even greater calamity — Brexit.”

What is sneaky George up to? This is all refreshingly honest advice.

Any thoughts on driverless cars? Imagine being able to summon your car from your watch, just like Michael Knight from the epic 80s show Knight Rider. You could drink beers while kit does all the heavy lifting. Hell, you could take a nap while on a road trip to New England. The downside is, naturally, humans will lose the skill to drive. The cars will all be outfitted to obey the speed limits. And, lastly, there’s always the outside chance the computer goes ‘bad kit’ on you (epic episode) and drives you into a fucking ravine.

Then there’s the upside of not having 30,000 people killed in automobile accidents per annum and better traffic flow, as the computers work in sync with one another–driving us all to FEMA reeducation camps for organ harvestation.

Speaking at a William Blair investor conference in mid-June, Mobileye Chief Financial Officer Ofer Maharshak said his company would have more customers for these new systems to announce in coming months.

“You know three are already engaged, Nissan, VW, and GM. We are going to have four or five – between four to five others in the next months, up to the beginning of 2017,” he said.

“First full autonomous car on the roads, 2021 timeframe. It’s going to be probably announced in the coming weeks,” Maharshak declared.

Shares of MBLY are popping this morning on news that they’re working with INTC to develop chips for driverless car technology for BMW. Personally, I never use the parktronic tech in my Benz, but I love the haptic sensors and lane assist. It has saved me on more than one occasion, as I rage throughout the streets of Princeton in search of food.

China’s yuan dropped 2.9% for the quarter, the worst sell off on record–dating back to when they unified the market rates in 1994.  The deviant currency of China, most readily used to manipulate advantages over trading competitors, is at 5 year lows.

China is dealing with all sorts of capital flight problems, which has forced them to impose a sundry of regulations designed to dissuade and/or stop citizens from moving cash out of the country.

Related: Goldman warned that metal investors are shaking in their boots about a potential drop in the exchange rate.

“We see a rising risk that capital outflows could pick up again causing negative headlines and adding to the fragility of current market sentiment,” said Allan von Mehren, Copenhagan-based chief analyst at Danske Bank A/S. “We expect the depreciation pressure on the Chinese currency to continue over the coming years.”

Nothing to see here. Go buy a Chicom.

Alas, the truth is starting to creep out from underneath Merkel’s stairs. HSBC economist, Fabio Balboni, describes how Germany is completely in the streets once BREXIT takes hold. They have a $50 billion trade surplus with the UK and their designs for a 4th reich is in jeopardy, as the contagion for freedom looms.

Dennis Gartman, sporting some flashy new glasses and especially bearish on stocks, takes on the well known space alien, Tim Seymour, in a battle of the titans. Gartman lays waste to Tim, and his infantile, alien rationale for stocks, suggesting he go read some stats and bear witness to the evidence to the contrary.

Chalk up another win for the Lord of the South, the Commodity King.

This is rich coming from the leader of a failed state whose citizens are routinely raped and tortured in order to be coerced into pleading guilty for crimes they did not commit.

I am sure people of Jewish descent, and family members of loved ones lost in world war 2 will not take offense to these infantile statements, comparing a presumptive nominee for President of the United States to a devil who was responsible for the deaths of 100 million people.

Speaking at a press conference alongside U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, who have gathered in Ottawa for the “Three Amigos” summit, Pena Nieto warned of the dangers of populism in a globalized world.

“Hitler, Mussolini, we all know the result,” he said when asked to explain the comparison. “It was only a call for reflection and for recognition, so that we bear in mind what we have achieved and the great deal still to achieve.”

Then again, maybe he’s offering a compliment to Trump by calling him Hitler, considering that his people never had the courage to stand up to him during world war 2, offering just 300 servicemen to the pacific theater and tallying a grande total of 6 casualties during the great world war 2?

Build the wall.

Out of 33 banks, just three were fucking retarded, according to the capital creators at the Fed. Both DB and SAN were viewed in a disagreeable manner, deplorable even, while Morgan Stanley was asked to resubmit a new plan.

Maybe the Fed doesn’t like Deutsche Bank’s capital structure of $24 billion in market cap and a $1.8 trillion balance sheet? What do you think?

The Federal Reserve objects to capital distribution plans proposed at the U.S. units of Deutsche Bank and Santander, meaning that the banks cannot issue dividends or make share buybacks until they establish a new plan, the central bank said Wednesday.

Further, central bank regulators are requiring Morgan Stanley to submit a new capital plan by the end of the fourth quarter of 2016, but said they did not object to the bank’s capital plan.

The Federal Reserve’s Wednesday announcement of the results of its Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review marks the second and final portion of the annual, two-part stress tests aimed at gauging Wall Street’s ability to adequately respond to an economic crisis.

There were only three objections out of 33 institutions tested.

The Fed’s objections to Santander Holdings USA and Deutsche Bank Trust, the U.S. units of each bank, mark the second consecutive year regulators flagged both banks. Santander’s U.S. unit also saw objections from the Fed in its 2014 stress test, however. A senior Fed official said Wednesday that “serious deficiencies remain in a number of areas” for each of the firms’ U.S. units.

Typically, these stress test results are quickly looked at by traders, then tossed into the circular file. However, considering the recent stresses that Deutsche Bank has been enduring, it’s somewhat possible this might be a market moving event.

On this news, Bank of America has announced a $5 billion buyback and a 50% increase in their dividend.

UPDATE: re Morgan Stanley

The Board of Governors did not object to Morgan Stanley’s capital plan. However, Morgan Stanley exhibited material weaknesses in its capital planning process. These weaknesses warrant further near-term attention but do not undermine the quantitative results of the stress tests for the firm. They include shortcomings in the firm’s scenario design practices, which do not adequately reflect risks and vulnerabilities specific to the firm, weaknesses in some aspects of the firm’s modeling practices, and weaknesses in governance and controls around both scenario design and modeling practices. Accordingly, as a condition of not objecting to Morgan Stanley’s capital plan, the Board of Governors is requiring Morgan Stanley to address these weaknesses and resubmit its capital plan by December 29, 2016. If Morgan Stanley does not satisfactorily address the identified weaknesses in its capital planning process by that time, the Board of Governors would expect to object to the resubmitted capital plan and may restrict Morgan Stanley’s capital distributions.