Fed Chair Powell Has Millions Invested with BlackRock, the Firm that Will Manage a $750 Billion Corporate Bond Bailout Program for the Fed

Most Americans likely assume that Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is an economist, like the prior chairs of the Fed over the past 40 years. He’s not. Powell is a former investment banker at the Wall Street firm, Dillon Read; a former partner at the controversial private equity and leveraged buyout firm, the Carlyle Group, which has spent over $1 billion over the past decade lobbying the federal government; and a former lawyer at Davis Polk, a Big Law firm that played a key role advising the government and Treasury in the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

Powell’s background would be strange enough but now consider this. The Vice Chairman for Supervision at the Fed, Randal Quarles, who is in charge of supervising the largest and most dangerous Wall Street bank holding companies in the U.S., has an uncannily similar background to Powell. Quarles also worked previously at Davis Polk and the Carlyle Group. (Powell and Quarles are also good friends, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren.)

Both men were well schooled in leveraged buyouts before coming to the Fed. Both men are now involved in what is effectively levering up $454 billion of taxpayers’ money provided to the Fed under the recently passed CARES Act into a $4.5 trillion leveraged buyout fund of toxic debt from Wall Street banks. After taxpayers’ take the first $454 billion in losses on those purchases, the remainder may be sold off to private investors. If this sounds to you like a set-up on behalf of the one percent, it should.

Powell is a member of that one percent class. According to his 2019 financial disclosure, his net worth could run as high as $55 million. Much of his investments are with Goldman Sachs (a Wall Street bank that is supervised by the Fed) or with BlackRock and its iShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). The government mandated financial disclosures report investment values in a range. The upper value of Powell’s holdings with BlackRock is $11.6 million. The upper range of Powell’s holdings with Goldman Sachs is $16.55 million. The name Goldman Sachs has been shortened to “GS” in the disclosure document.

These would appear to be large conflicts of interest. BlackRock has been selected to manage the unprecedented buying of both investment grade and junk bonds on behalf of the Fed to the tune of approximately $750 billion according to the most recent term sheet from the Fed. Even more conflicted, the Fed will allow BlackRock to buy up its own sinking junk bond ETFs using taxpayer and Fed money.

https://riggedgame.blog/2020/05/06/fed-chair-powell-has-millions-invested-with-blackrock-the-firm-that-will-manage-a-750-billion-corporate-bond-bailout-program-for-the-fed/

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/05/fed-chair-powell-has-upwards-of-11-6-million-invested-with-blackrock-the-firm-that-will-manage-a-750-billion-corporate-bond-bailout-program-for-the-fed/

Lockdown Protester Describes Arrest

Ryan was one of the first of the 32 arrested in Sacramento, CA last Friday, for defending his

Constitutional rights.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." – Benjamin Franklin

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." –Thomas Jefferson

by Ryan Messano

The rally at the Capitol against Communist tyranny last Friday was a remarkable feat.

Governor Gavin Newsom, a Communist tyrant, said that only 500 people had a 'permit' to assemble at the State Capitol. First of all, the First Amendment gives American's five rights.

Those rights are:

Right to Grieve; Right to Religion; Right to Assemble; Right to Free Speech; Right to Free Press.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There are no exceptions for when those rights are granted. No government is permitted to limit the number or place where Americans can assemble to protest.

We have 40 million Californian's, and less than 1,300, according to Johns Hopkins, have allegedly died from this Coronavirus since December, over four months ago. We are shutting down the state over that? That's ridiculous, and no rational person agrees with it. The poor in America, along with the middle class, are being viciously forced into slavery, and that is evil and wicked!

Newsom alleged that the CHP (California Highway Patrol) gave an order for the crowd to back down. I was on the top steps of the Capitol, letting CHP know that they had a duty to uphold the Constitution. They must choose, do they defend the Constitution or tyranny, and for those who choose wrong, woe to them. I never heard the order.

https://www.henrymakow.com/2020/06/lockdown-protester-describes-arrest.html

COVID-19, LOKIN-20 and the Death of Statistical Sense

Today we’re joined by Iain Davis of In-This-Together.com for an update on how Britain is reacting to the coronavirus madness that is sweeping the globe. We talk about COVID-19, the Coronavirus Act and other legislative nightmares, the statistical chicanery that is perpetuating this crisis, and how people across the UK and around the world are reacting to the new normal.

SHOW NOTES:

In-This-Together.com

COVID 19 Is A Statistical Nonsense

LOKIN-20 The Lockdown Regime Causes Increasing Health Concerns

Coronavirus Lockdown And What You Are Not Being Told – Part 1 & Part 2

Coronavirus Act 2020

Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984

Youth Strike For Globalist Propaganda

The global response: Working together to help the world get better

Coronavirus: Could biometric ID cards offer the UK a lockdown exit strategy?

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/05/covid-19-lokin-20-and-the-death-of-statistical-sense.html

Trump and Some Top Aides Question Accuracy of US Coronavirus Death Totals

Another 3,700 new deaths were added to the revised death count, according to a report from The New York Times.

But New York was not alone.

Michigan also announced in April that they were adding another 65 “presumed” cases to their total coronavirus tally.

In late April the Wolf administration in Pennsylvania was caught adding up to 269 fake deaths to the state totals on Tuesday. Unfortunately for the Democrat governor he got caught.

This seems to be happening a lot lately.

On Tuesday New York State dumped another 1,700 nursing home deaths into their state totals.

Experts have pushed inaccurate models and conflicting advice.

It’s not a surprise that the American public would question these fickle elites.

On Wednesday Axios reported that President Trump and some of his top aides are questioning the US coronavirus totals.

Via Axios:

President Trump has complained to advisers about the way coronavirus deaths are being calculated, suggesting the real numbers are actually lower — and a number of his senior aides share this view, according to sources with direct knowledge.

What’s next: A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically.

The U.S. death toll has surpassed 71,000, with more than 1.2 million confirmed cases, according to the latest figures.

Trump’s engagement could amplify a partisan gulf we saw in this week’s Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index over believing the death statistics.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/breaking-trump-top-aides-question-accuracy-us-coronavirus-death-totals/

Belgium Accuses China Of Bio-Espionage; Targeted Biological Warfare Program And Vaccine Experts

Belgian intelligence suspects Chinese spies of targeting biological warfare and vaccine experts, according to Belgium's security service, which also believes Beijing is targeting the Belgium office of British pharmaceutical giant and vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as well as domestic high-tech firms, according to EU Observer.

The suspicions were detailed in confidential Belgian reports dated from 2010 to 2016, seen by EUobserver.

They were meant to alert Belgian authorities to the threat of Chinese military, scientific, and medical espionage.

But the Belgian suspicions have no direct link to the current coronavirus pandemic, which started in China in December 2019 due to natural causes, according to the scientific consensus.

And the reports, which were written by Belgium's homeland security service, the Veiligheid van de Staat (VSSE), nowhere accused China of having a covert biological weapons programme. -EU Observer

China's EU mission has denied any wrongdoing, and said that they've always acted "in accordance with local laws."

That said, one of the 2016 reports reads: "This area [biological warfare and vaccines] is of great interest to Chinese [intelligence] services. Both defensively, because China, due to its overpopulation, is very exposed to epidemics, as well as offensively, since it has studied Ebola as an offensive vector."

The Belgian intelligence reports used multiple human informants, while the security service also says that China wasn't the only country showing interest in the subject. Top Belgian bioweapons expert Jean-Luc Gala reportedly had a "suspicious" Russian assistant.

Former Belgian bioweapons expert and inspector for the military, Martin Zizi, told EU Observer "I was as much a target from the US, Russian, Chinese, or even African sides." The VSSE report says that Zizi was targeted by Chinese spies in 2010 when he was a science professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

He was very friendly with a Chinese scientist, whom he had "introduced into the scientific and medical milieu" in Belgium, the VSSE said.

But the Chinese scientist used to be a military doctor in the Chinese army, the VSSE noted, and "she might keep too-close ties with her country in general and her former employer in particular", it added.

"She was obviously MSS," the Belgian security source told EUobserver, referring to China's Ministry of State Security (MSS). -EU Observer

Jean-Luc Gala - a retired colonel and current the head of the Centre de Technologies Moléculaires Appliquées (CTMA), a Belgian military-private joint venture that does bioweapons research - was also targeted by China when he was using mobile laboratories deployed in remote areas of Guinea testing Japanese anti-viral drug Avigan, which is now being researched as a potential coronavirus treatment.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/belgium-accuses-china-bio-espionage

Governor Cuomo Says Medical Workers Who Voluntarily Traveled To New York Must Pay State Income Tax

Health care workers that traveled from across the country to volunteer to help fight New York’s coronavirus outbreak will have to pay state taxes, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced according to PIX 11.

In a Tuesday news conference, Cuomo said the state isn’t “in a position to provide any subsidies right now because we have a $13 billion deficit,” PIX 11 reported.

“So there’s a lot of good things I’d like to do, and if we get federal funding, we can do, but it would be irresponsible for me to sit here looking at a $13 billion deficit and say I’m gonna spend more money, when I can’t even pay the essential services,” he added.

New York City, the national epicenter of the virus outbreak, was in dire need of additional medical workers due to the influx of coronavirus patients at hospitals.

In late March, Cuomo made a plea to the nation’s health care workers to “please come help us in New York right now. We need relief,” NPR reported.

Cuomo said Tuesday that he needs help from Washington to cover the budget deficit created by the pandemic, and subsidizing state income tax for the health care workers that heeded his call isn’t feasible, according to PIX 11.

“If we don’t get more money from Washington, we can’t fund schools, right, so at the rate we want to fund them. We are in dire financial need,” he said.

Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian humanitarian aid organization that sent volunteers to New York to set up a temporary hospital, wasn’t aware that their organization would have to pay the state income tax.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/06/new-york-governor-andrew-cuomo-health-care-volunteers-pay-state-income-tax-coronavirus-pandemic/

Trump: China 'May or May Not' Keep Trade Deal With US

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House the future of the US-China trade deal was uncertain amid questions of whether Beijing has lived up to its promises in the January agreement. He added the relevant data would be available in the coming weeks.

Trump has previously threatened to terminate the trade deal with China if it doesn't live up to the Phase 1 promise to buy an additional $200 billion worth of US-made goods and services over the next two years, including $40 billion agricultural goods.

"We’re going to have to see what’s going on because of what happened," Trump said at a virtual town hall hosted from Washington, DC's Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. He noted China promised they were "going to buy $250 billion worth of our product. Two hundred and fifty billion. They didn’t buy two cents. They didn’t want to buy from us. They took advantage of our country. Now they have to buy, and if they don’t buy, we’ll terminate the deal. Very simple."

MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW…

https://sputniknews.com/world/202005061079221578-trump-china-may-or-may-not-keep-trade-deal-with-us/

House Dems drafting new 'multitrillion-dollar' coronavirus relief bill

House Democrats are pushing forward with a massive fifth round of coronavirus relief legislation that could be their most far-reaching effort yet to address the economic fallout of the pandemic – and come with another price tag in the trillions.

While the House is still technically on recess, Democratic leadership and committee chairs have been drafting their legislative laundry lists for the relief package that could rival the cost of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that passed in March, or exceed it.

"We're looking at a multitrillion-dollar bill," one House Democratic aide told Fox News.

While the text of the legislation may not be available until next week, it's clear the centerpiece of the House response will be funding for state and local governments. Their tax revenues have dried up during the pandemic and governors and mayors have warned they'll have to cut essential services and public workers, like police and firefighters, if the federal government doesn't help with their coronavirus expenses.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week telegraphed that just the aid alone to hard-hit states and local governments could reach nearly $1 trillion. She framed the legislation as targeted to help health care providers, first responders, postal workers and teachers. "It honors our heroes," Pelosi said of the effort.

This comes, however, as some GOP leaders are looking to pump the brakes on spending, with prior relief bills already prompting the U.S. Treasury to borrow a record $3 trillion this quarter.

Skeptics of yet another round of historic spending are sure to chafe at the behind-the-scenes lobbying surrounding this bill – as many other types of businesses and workers are trying to cash in, including museums, theaters and performing arts centers.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City (the Met) started an online petition last month asking for $4 billion in relief for America's cultural institutions and nonprofit museums. The Met has an endowment of $3.6 billion alone.

The effort has a champion in powerful Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is determined to fight for funding for New York City cultural institutions that have been reeling from prolonged closures.

Nadler penned a letter to House leadership on April 30 with members of the New York congressional delegation, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to implement a sizable bailout of the arts and cultural industry that account for about 4.5 percent of the nation's GDP in 2017, they cite.

Without the money, the curtain could close on these landmarks permanently, they argue.

"They are hemorrhaging revenue, and we have to help them," Nadler told WNYC radio this week, "so that…we don't come out of [this pandemic] without our theaters and museums and our libraries, which is a major factor in the economy, but also a major factor in civilization."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-pushes-forward-with-massive-coronavirus-relief-bill

Elon Musk’s Twitter’s Avatar Is From a Video Game Where “Global Pandemic Is Orchestrated To Control The Population By a Secret Society”

Elon Musk has been getting a lot of attention in the past few weeks for his social media posts about the coronavirus pandemic. In the past week, his posts on Twitter have become especially interesting. In addition to rants about re-opening the country, Musk has also made strange posts about the stock price for his company, Tesla, being too high, and even claimed that he was prepared to sell all of his possessions. After the posts were made, the stock price for Tesla dropped significantly.

Tesla stock price is too high imo

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020

I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020

Many of his supporters felt that he was just joking about selling his possessions or being weird on social media as he often is, but it appears that Musk has begun selling off some of his high-value assets in the days after making the post. According to CNBC, Musk put two of his Los Angeles mansions up for sale after the posts were made.

Many of his supporters also realized that he changed his Twitter profile picture to an image from the video game, Deus Ex, which takes place in a future where wealthy corporations and politicians conspire to use an engineered illness, called “The Gray Death” to control society and enrich themselves in the process.

In the game, the cure for the illness was being withheld from the poor, and kept only for the rich. It appeared that he may have been comparing himself to the game’s protagonist, JC Denton, but some commenters argued that he was more like the game’s billionaire villain, Bob Page. Others have argued that Musk was not comparing himself to either character, but just subtly pointing out the potential similarities to the current global situation.

Musk has since changed his profile picture, but is now making headlines again, this time over pictures of his newborn child, which he claims is named “X Æ A-12.” To make matters even more interesting, when Musk and his girlfriend Grimes posted photos of the baby, they used a Snapchat filter to make it appear that the child had face tattoos.

We really need to see picture of the baby !! Please do share.

— Tesla in the Gong (@TeslaGong) May 5, 2020

A pic of you holding the baby would break the internet … please share one 🤞

— Viv 🐉 (@flcnhvy) May 5, 2020

https://www.wakingtimes.com/2020/05/06/elon-musks-twitters-avatar-is-from-a-video-game-where-global-pandemic-is-orchestrated-to-control-the-population-by-a-secret-society/

Jihadists Blow Up Power Plant In Syria’s Idlib (Video)

On May 6, terrorists of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) blew up the Zayzun thermal power plant in Idlib’s southwestern countryside, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). The state-run agency released a video showing the plant’s giant cooling tower collapsing after the explosion.

According to several sources, TIP terrorists are now planning to scrap and sell the remains of the cooling tower, which is made from steel and other valuable metals.

Established in 1997, the Zayzun thermal power plant used to supply northwestern Syria with up to 384 megawatts. The power plant provided work for more than 250 specialists and engineers.

In 2015, so-called “Jaysh al-Fateh,” a coalition of al-Qaeda groups and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), captured the plant in the course of its large-scale military campaign in Greater Idlib.

The TIP, a Chinese Uyghurs terrorist group, later imposed control of the plant. The terrorist group dismantled the plant’s valuable equipment and sold them, then began to scrap what was left.

The destruction of the Zayzun thermal power plant is without a doubt a war crime. Many other facilities in Greater Idlib were looted and destroyed by militants in the last few years. In most cases, these acts were not widely reported.

https://southfront.org/jihadists-blow-up-power-plant-in-syrias-idlib-video/

With World Distracted by COVID, Netanyahu Bombs Syria, Prepares Seizure of West Bank

Rahm Emanuel, up until recently the mayor of Chicago and before that a top advisor to the president in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses and still earlier a volunteer in the Israeli Army, famously once commented that a good crisis should never be allowed to go to waste. He meant, of course, that a crisis can be exploited to provide cover for other shenanigans involving politicians. It was an observation that was particularly true when one was working for a sexual predator like Bill, who once attacked a “terrorist” pharmaceutical factory in Sudan to divert attention away from the breaking Monica Lewinski scandal.

To be sure, the United States government is focusing its attention on the coronavirus while also using the cover afforded to heighten the pressure on “enemies” near and far. As the coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have increased the ferocity of their sabre rattling, apparently in part to deter Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela. Ironically, of course, none of the countries being intimidated are actually threatening the United States, but we Americans have long since learned that perceptions are more important than facts when it comes to the current occupant of the oval office and his two predecessors.

The latest bit of mendacity coming out of the White House was a presidential tweettargeting the usual punching bag, Iran. Based on an incident that occurred two weeks ago, Trump threatened “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.” Iran’s flying gunboats are clearly a formidable force but it is certainly reassuring to note that naval anti-aircraft fire has been directed to deal with them. The U.S. Navy ships in question are, one might also observe, in a body of water generally referred to as the Persian Gulf, where they are carrying out maneuvers right off of the Iranian coast. Meanwhile, Iranian flying gunboats have not yet been observed off of New Jersey, but they are probably waiting to be transported to the Eastern Seaboard by those huge trans-oceanic gliders that once upon a time were allegedly being constructed by Saddam Hussein.

Given the cover provided by the virus, it should surprise no one that Israel is also playing the same game. The Jewish state has been continuing its lethal bombings of Syria, with hardly any notice in the international media. In a recent missile attack, nine people were killed near the historic city of Palmyra. Three of the dead were Syrians while six others were presumed to be Lebanese Shi’ites supporting the Damascus government. Israel de facto regards any Shi’ite as an “Iranian” or an “Iranian proxy” and therefore a “terrorist” eligible to be killed on sight.

https://russia-insider.com/en/world-distracted-covid-netanyahu-bombs-syria-prepares-seizure-west-bank/ri30076

>>9054906

saw this yesterday but couldn't find a better sauce

interesting af tho