The Fed Is Now A Top 5 Holder Of The Biggest Corporate Bond ETFs

For much of the past decade, the Bank of Japan - which owns about 80% of all ETFs in Japan…

… was the butt of capital markets jokes, or rather jokes involving central planning, of which the Japanese central bank had become the "new normal" poster child. Alas, the joke is now on the US, where Jerome Powell is now boldly going where Haru Kuroda has gone so many times before, and bought anything that is not nailed down. Of course, for now the Fed is "only" buying corporate bond ETFs (while waiting for the next crash before buying stock ETFs), but even here its footprint is already massive.

While the Fed's own disclosure of which ETFs it owns is minimal on its own H.4.1 weekly filing, Bloomberg has been kind enough to compile the Fed's bond ETF holdings. What it has found is the following: the Fed now owns $6.8 billion market value in corporate bond ETF, of which LQD, VCSH, VCIT, and IGSB are the top holdings. In total, the Fed now has a stake in no less than 16 ETFs (that Bloomberg is aware of).

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-now-top-5-holder-biggest-corporate-bond-etfs

Virginia Democrats propose lowering criminal penalty for assaulting police officers

Proposal reduces penalty from felony to misdemeanor

Democrats in the Virginia state Senate have proposed reducing the charge for assaulting a police officer from a felony to a misdemeanor as a part of a broader police reform agenda, according to the Fort Hunt Herald.

Currently, assaulting a police officer is a Class 6 felony that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of six months of confinement. The Democrats' proposal would "defelonize" the offense and make it only a misdemeanor.

"The deaths of Floyd, [Ahmaud] Arbery and [Breonna] Taylor have awoken Americans and Virginians to long-standing problems in policing in America," Virginia Senate Democrats said in a statement. "After people are arrested, additional damage is done by a criminal justice system that has been streamlined to produce convictions and punishment instead of rehabilitation and justice."

Virginia Democrats have a long list of police reform proposals, many of which have already been presented as legislation but which has not been passed. Some other priorities include banning no-knock warrants, banning chokeholds, requiring police to warn before shooting, and creating a "duty to intervene" for officers who see other officers committing acts of misconduct.

According to statistics released by the Virginia State Police, there were nearly 2,000 assaults on police officers in 2019. One officer was killed, and hundreds of other officers sustained minor-to-severe injuries during assaults.

Democrats control the state House, the state Senate, and the governorship in Virginia. The police reform proposals will be considered ruing a special work session scheduled for August 2020. Gov. Ralph Northam is reportedly supportive of police reform. From WRIC:

The governor said police reform is necessary and that he's already been talking about it with legislators. According to Northam, a fairly ambitions agenda will be introduced during a special session in August.

Ahead of their special session, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus called for immediate action to reform the police.

"The Commonwealth is past the point for studies on policing and law enforcement—immediate action must be taken to eliminate law enforcement abuse, prevent and punish racist behaviors, weed out institutional discrimination, and increase accountability at all levels of law enforcement" VLBC said in a statement Wednesday.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/virginia-democrats-criminal-penalty-assaulting-cops

If My Kid Did This I'd Disinherit Her: Kellyanne Conway's Daughter Publicly Shames Her on TikTok

There’s a growing trend of leftist, brainwashed kids turning on their Republican parents in public. What on earth has happened that has caused grown adults to allow the kind of disrespect that is going on directed at them by their ungrateful offspring without opening a can of whoop-ass?

Did you see what the fifteen-year-old daughter of Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, is up to? Let’s forget for a moment that I would have guessed Claudia Conway was twenty-five with a string of failed relationships behind her based on her e-THOT presentation, but she’s taken to the Chinese spy app, TikTok, to express her disdain for her mother’s job. She’s also hanging out with New York Times writers, which should be a red flag of warning to her parents that she’s off the rails.

More

https://pjmedia.com/columns/megan-fox/2020/06/30/if-my-kid-did-this-id-disinherit-her-prominent-kids-of-republicans-publicly-shame-parents-n589538

NY Gov. Cuomo's mandatory quarantine travel order now applies to 16 states, 157 million Americans

The states affected doubled

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in an effort to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in his state, expanded New York's mandatory quarantine order Tuesday to include eight additional states experiencing a spike in confirmed cases.

Now, travelers from 16 different states will be required to self-quarantine upon traveling to New York.

The sixteen states now under the quarantine order are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.

The states listed have a combined total population of more than 157 million, or nearly half of the population of the entire country.

If you're traveling to New York from the following states you must self-quarantine for 14 days. The states are: AL… https://t.co/jRmPb0uHFm

— Andrew Cuomo (@Andrew Cuomo)1593530929.0

Last week, Gov. Cuomo, along with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D), announced a joint incoming travel advisory requiring a 14-day self-quarantine for travelers arriving from states with "a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average."

At the time that order applied to incoming travelers from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, and Texas.

According to the Hill, as far as enforcement of the order goes, Cuomo said that violators may be subject to fines, but that police would not be patrolling the state's borders.

New York was once the epicenter of the coronavirus in America and, during that time, several states around the country imposed travel restrictions on individuals arriving from the Empire State.

But in recent days and weeks, the tables have turned. As New York appears to have the outbreak under some level of control, several Sun Belt states are reporting surges in confirmed cases.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/cuomo-expands-quarantine-travel-order

Biden accuses Trump of ‘dereliction of duty' over Russia bounty reports in first press briefing in nearly 3 months

The former vice president slammed the current White House occupant for his response to reports that Russian intelligence operatives offered to pay bounties to Taliban-linked militants who killed U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden pulled no punches in going after President Trump on Tuesday during his first press conference in 89 days, while also saying some statues across the country should be removed and teasing his forthcoming announcement about a running mate.

While Biden’s press conference in Delaware was ostensibly about how he would respond to the coronavirus pandemic, the former vice president slammed the current White House occupant for his response to reports that Russian intelligence operatives offered to pay bounties to Taliban-linked militants who killed U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Trump on Sunday denied that he had been briefed about the matter before the New York Times reported on it over the weekend.

“The idea that somehow he didn’t know is a dereliction of duty if that’s the case,” Biden said while taking questions from reporters. “And if he was briefed and he didn’t do anything about it that is a dereliction of duty.”

Also during the press conference, Biden said that he has not been tested yet for coronavirus as he's "had no symptoms" and that he doesn't want to "take anybody else’s place in the process." He added that Secret Service is being regularly tested and that he will get tested "relatively soon."

Asked about the debate over the removal of certain statues across the country, Biden said: "I think those statues belong in museums, they don’t belong in public places.” But he drew a distinction between figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, and Confederate leaders who fought to maintain slavery.

Biden also said that he is also putting together a list of African American women who could serve on the Supreme Court though he is not prepared to publicly release though names and said he intends to announce his vice presidential nominee several weeks before The Democratic National Convention in August.

As for the Russian bounty reports, Biden on Tuesday said it was unimaginable that Trump would not have known about the intelligence and called into question the president’s cognitive abilities.

"The president talks about cognitive capability, but he is not cognitively aware of what’s going on,” Biden said, reversing a hit the president has used against him.

Then, pressed by Fox News' reporter Doug McKelway, Biden defended his own abilities: “I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive ability to the cognitive ability of the man I’m running against."

News that Moscow allegedly offered bounties to Afghan militants who killed U.S. soldiers was first reported over the weekend in the New York Times.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-accuses-trump-of-dereliction-of-duty-over-russia-bounty-reports-in-first-press-briefing-in-nearly-3-months

Media Are Playing Games Yet Again With Anonymous Russia Leaks

Watch nearly the entire corporate media establishment run wild with claims from completely anonymous sources in the intelligence community this week.

Much of the case for the Iraq War was based on the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When the United States declared an end to the war late in 2011, more than 4,400 American military members had been killed and nearly 32,000 wounded. No weapons of mass destruction had been found.

It’s one of the most significant and catastrophic intelligence errors in U.S. history. A bipartisan commission found that U.S. intelligence “seriously misjudged” Iraq’s weapons program because of their “heavy reliance on a human source–codenamed ‘Curveball’–whose information later proved to be unreliable.” The commission wrote, “Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of time–in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB)” and other reports that were “more alarmist” and “less nuanced.”

Curveball was Germany’s codename for Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, an Iraqi defector who claimed to have built mobile weapons laboratories. President George W. Bush highlighted the claims in his 2003 State of the Union address.

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, relied heavily on Curveball’s claims. “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.”

Powell went on to describe Janabi’s claims at length, concluding, “This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.”

Years later, Curveball admitted he had completely fabricated his claims out of a desire to oust Saddam Hussein from power.

The intelligence failure became a widespread media failure when reporters uncritically regurgitated the weapons of mass destruction claims from their intelligence community sources. Academics, pundits, and journalists themselves have decried the media’s performance in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The New York Times and Washington Post even published their regrets about their own coverage, which frequently took the intelligence community’s claims at face value.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/30/media-are-playing-games-yet-again-with-anonymous-russia-leaks/

General Election: Trump vs. Biden

Media lies and centralized control on show,

Illusion of CHOICE

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html

Truly Shameful BBC Israeli Propaganda

In a genuinely outrageous piece of victim blaming, BBC News just blamed Palestinian intransigence in refusing to accept Israeli annexation of the West Bank for the deaths of Palestinian children caused by the Israeli blockade of medical supplies to Gaza.

This is a precise quote from the BBC TV News presenter headline at 10.30am:

“The lives of hundreds of sick Palestinian children are being put at risk because of the latest downturn in relations between their leaders and Israel last month. The Palestinian President said his government was giving up on past peace agreements because of Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank. That decision stopped co-operation on many security and civil matters including medical and travel permits.”

There followed a heart rending piece by BBC Middle East correspondent Yolande Knell featuring Palestinian children in Gaza dying of varous medical conditions and their distraught mothers.

The entire piece very plainly blamed Palestinian officials for the situation.

The BBC did not blame Israel for placing a blockade illegally preventing pharmaceuticals and medical supplies from entering Gaza – the basic reason the children cannot be treated at home.

The BBC did not blame Israel for blockading in illegally the civilian population of Gaza, so that these children cannot freely leave for treatment in Europe without Israeli clearance.

The BBC did not point out that the proposed annexation of the West Bank is illegal, has been condemned by the UN Secretary General and by 95% of the governments of the world, and will precipitate great violence.

No, the BBC blamed the Palestinians.

“Accept the illegal annexation of still more of your land, or small children will die and it will be your fault”.

That is a line the BBC are perfectly happy to push out on behalf of Israel. It is an astonishing moment for the UK state propagandist. It is important we do not ourselves become complacent at this absolutely unacceptable behaviour.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/06/truly-shameful-bbc-israeli-propaganda/

Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood on Negroes

“The mass of Negroes, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear children properly.”

Black Lives Matter will never address that abortion and Planned Parenthood have killed more black babies than police officers could possibly even kill in more than a century.

In fact, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, had initiated a covert ideology called the Negro Project, a pernicious activity which would allow the elite to eliminate what she previously called “the feeble-minded,” the “insane,” the “mentally defective,” the “criminal,” and “the delinquent and the dependent.”[1]Sanger declared:

“The mass of Negroes, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear children properly.”[2]

The mass media—particularly Time magazine, Salon, National Public Radio, and the Washington Post—had to do a lot of mental gymnastics in order wiggle out of Sanger’s pernicious plan. When Sanger declared that “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members,” the Washington Post defended her by saying that this was an “inartfully written” sentence.[3] But there is no doubt that Sanger saw the Negroes as biologically inferior.[4]

What the Washington Post and other Sangerist outlets cannot dispute is that Sanger was heavily influenced by Social Darwinism and the eugenic movement that was in vogue in the 1920s and 30s.[5] Sanger wanted to limit the people who were having children by leaps and bounds, and those people were Catholics and blacks.[6]

Sanger, therefore, wasted no time in attacking the official teaching of the Church with respect to contraception and birth control. Of course, she had to appeal to “science” in order to make her hopeless case. “My own position is that the Catholic doctrine is illogical, not in accord with science, and definitely against social welfare and race improvement,” she wrote way back in 1932.[7]

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/06/30/margaret-sanger-and-planned-parenthood-on-negroes/

Just As Trump Resumes Cooperation with Russia His Rogue Spy Agencies Strike Again With Afghan Lies

The sensational disclosure by the New York Times on June 26 that Russia’s military intelligence agency paid bounties to Afghan militants to kill American and NATO troops in Afghanistan, opens a can of worms.

It pollutes the air of US-Russian relations with a powerful stench. The ramifications are going to be felt far and wide. The scandal has overnight reached the centre stage of US domestic politics.

A first-rate controversy has erupted in Washington just when President Trump began a determined attempt in the recent weeks, in the final lap of his first term, to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin. No doubt, the scandal puts paid to the Kremlin’s fond hopes of calming down Russia’s tense relations with the US while Trump is still in charge in the White House.

Trump and Putin have lately agreed on the need to balance supply and demand in the world oil market; they have kickstarted the talks on arms control; they are collaborating on Afghanistan. Indeed, the old narrative reappears now — that Russia is a wily, duplicitous and unworthy partner — which would rationalise the NATO’s hostile power projection in the Eurasian theatre and complicate Russia’s relations with the major EU countries.

Yet, the curious part is that the Times story essentially devolves upon an assessment by US spy agencies based on what spooks call ‘raw’ intelligence. No clinching evidence or proof has been presented — at least, so far. The Taliban has called the Times report to be ‘baseless’.

But then, it is one of those situations where evidences and proofs do not really matter. It is the controversy itself that matters, the dust it raises on the political and diplomatic turf. The focus is on whether Trump actually knew months ago about this intelligence assessment of Russian bounty and, equally, why the White House National Security Council didn’t act on it by punishing Russia with more sanctions.

In a second report on June 28, Times has claimed that the intelligence assessment was based on the interrogation of militants and terrorists who were taken into custody in Afghanistan and, specifically, from a large amount of US dollar bills that was found stashed away in a Taliban hideout.

The Afghan security agencies presumably played a key role in the unearthing of the unholy Russia-Taliban nexus. Ashraf Ghani’s government in Kabul was never friendly toward Moscow and had all along resented Russia’s attempts to muzzle its way into the intra-Afghan peace talks.

The Times controversy will ensure that Russia is kept out of the intra-Afghan peace talks, which are due to begin in a near future. Paradoxically, the US-Russia collaboration was fostered by two veteran interlocutors — Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative on Afghan reconciliation, and Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s presidential envoy on Afghanistan.

https://russia-insider.com/en/just-trump-resumes-cooperation-russia-his-rogue-spy-agencies-strike-again-afghan-lies/ri30785

Former Perth councillors could face criminal charges after inquiry into suspension

Former City of Perth councillors and staff could face criminal charges after an inquiry into the dysfunctional local government made hundreds of findings and recommendations.

The probe was launched following a failure by Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi to disclose travel and gifts, reports of infighting between councillors, two chief executives taking stress leave and the suspension of the council in March 2018.

Commissioner Tony Power has delivered his lengthy report, with more than 250 findings and 341 recommendations, after 125 days of hearings involving 104 witnesses.

In total, 39 people were given the opportunity to respond to adverse findings before the report was finalised, with 23 people and one organisation referred for possible prosecution.

"It is not the inquiry's role to make findings of criminal conduct or corruption, but it was inevitable that it would uncover conduct giving rise to reasonable suspicion that laws have been broken," Mr Power said on Tuesday.

"Such conduct has been referred to the appropriate Commonwealth and state authorities."

The WA Police Force confirmed a "number of matters" were being investigated.

Mr Power said some witnesses were obstinate and it was disappointing that many chose to be obstructive during the inquiry.

He found Ms Scaffidi encouraged factionalism, while some councillors and staff engaged in unethical conduct.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/perth-city-council-inquiry-former-mps-dysfunctional-travel-gifts-in-fighting-could-face-criminal-charges-politics-news-wa/388c6a54-d377-484c-8e2e-a17f5852d3d3

Australian swamp now being exposed in NSW Victoria and Perth

NATO’s Appeasement to Turkey Is Pushing France Out of the Alliance

French President Emmanuel Macron created a stir last November when he said that NATO is experiencing a “brain death.” This single comment created a flurry of reactions as Member States attempted to justify the existence of NATO. Macron’s comments must be taken seriously when we consider that France in 1959 withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command and in 1966 the French military left NATO’s integrated military command and demanded all foreign NATO soldiers to leave France. US Secretary of State Dean Rusk attempted to guilt the highly independent French President Charles de Gaulle for his decision to kick out foreign soldiers by asking if “the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries” who died in the two world wars also had to leave.

It was the Anglo-American hegemony that de Gaulle resisted, and it can be argued that Macron is attempting to re-establish France’s independence after former French President Nicolas Sarkozy reintegrated France into NATO in 2009. A clear indicator that Macron is following in the steps of de Gaulle is when he furthered the former president’s famous phrase that Europe stretches “from Lisbon to the Urals” in Russia by saying Europe’s territory stretches all the way to Vladivostok near the Chinese and North Korean borders.

However, Macron’s stinging attacks against NATO did not end with that single comment from November 2019. Last week Macron said that the Franco-Turkish naval incident was “one of the most beautiful demonstrations that there is a brain death” of NATO. A Turkish warship harassed a French navy vessel participating in a NATO mission, prompting France’s defence ministry to say that

“this is an extremely aggressive act that is unacceptable by an ally against a NATO ship. We consider this an extremely grave matter. We cannot accept that an ally behaves this way, that it does this against a NATO ship, under NATO command, carrying out a NATO mission.”

NATO is certainly “brain dead” as it primarily exists to pressurize Russia despite the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly three decades ago. To justify its existence, it has gone on campaigns of aggression by destroying Yugoslavia and Libya, and supporting reactionary forces like jihadist groups in Syria. It is now strongly suggested that France wants to embark on an independent path, especially as a lack of comradery is found within the Alliance.

Turkey, leveraging its large military, geostrategic positioning on the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and controlling the Straits into the Black Sea, is attempting to balance its relations with NATO and Russia to pursue its own ambition to dominant the entire region, including the Eastern Mediterranean. Moscow wants to strengthen relations with Turkey knowing it will antagonize NATO, while NATO continues to tolerate Turkey’s unilateral and aggressive actions. NATO’s tolerance to Turkish aggression is so high that it is always silent on Turkey’s daily violations of Greek maritime and airspace, despite Greece being a fellow NATO member.

The Turkish aggression against France in the Mediterranean a few weeks ago was one that could not be ignored. As Greece is not as geostrategically important to NATO in comparison to Turkey, aggression against it is always ignored and tolerated by NATO. However, Turkish aggression against a nuclear power like France was never going to be sidelined and ignored. Ankara made a blunder thinking that the same aggression it does against Greece would be tolerated by France.

As Turkey is propping up and protecting the Muslim Brotherhood Government of National Accords based in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and their jihadist allies, France is backing its rival, the Libyan National Army. This has been another cause of division between France and Turkey, prompting Macron to say yesterday:

“I think this is a historic and criminal responsibility for someone who claims to be a member of NATO.”

He made the comments after holding talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, considered Turkey’s closest ally in Europe. He added that Turkey’s conduct in Libya is “unacceptable to us” and that Ankara needs to “urgently clarify” its stance.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-appeasement-turkey-pushing-france-out-alliance/5717404

update fucked again

Rapper Lord Jamar: “Black Lives Matter is a Movement Given to Us by George Soros and his F**king Boys”

Rapper Lord Jamar is speaking out on the Black Lives Matter movement and he is not buying the bullsh*t.

Lord Jamar says he doesn’t support Black Lives Matter because it “isn’t our movement.”

News Thud reported:

The 51-year-old music industry veteran, whose group Brand Nubian were popular in hip-hop’s golden era, was asked during a recent interview with Turning Point USA whether he supports the BLM movement, to which he responded: “No. Absolutely not.”

When asked to elaborate on why he doesn’t support the group, Lord Jamar said: “Because this isn’t our movement.

“It’s a movement that was given to us by, you know, George Soros and his f**king boys. Because they saw how things were going and they didn’t want it to go back to the 60s – to where we start having our own, organic movement.”

“That was a big f**king problem for them,” the rapper explains.

“‘So let’s give the people a movement that we can control – we’ll provide them the leaders…’ and all this type of s**t,” he says of the motivation behind controlling such a campaign.

Of course, Lord Jamar is right.

Soros money has been behind the BLM movement for several years now including the early Ferguson riots.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/rapper-lord-jamar-black-lives-matter-movement-given-us-george-soros-fking-boys-video/

PRAY FOR EACH OTHER