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Democrats Pass Bill to Provide Free College to Illegal Immigrants

New York Democrats have passed a bill that will use millions in taxpayer money to fund college tuition fees for illegal immigrants.

The Democratic-controlled New York state Legislature on Wednesday passed the Dream Act, legislation that makes thousands of “Dreamers” eligible for government money to attend colleges in the state.

Dailysignal.com reports: The bill, which has attracted praise from Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, would cost $27 million.

The measure is “a slap in the face for all the hardworking taxpayers who play the rules and struggle for the costs of a college education,” Republican state Sen. Daphne Jordan said of the bill.

Jordan was joined by other Republican state legislators in criticism of the Dream Act, who argued it would unfairly take money away from legal residents who struggle to pay their college tuition.

The bill had been introduced in the New York Legislature before, but Republican control of the state Senate had prevented it from moving forward—until Democrats gained control of both chambers after the 2018 midterms.

“We do this as a symbol that you will be guaranteed an education and that the door to higher education is open to all children of New York State,” stated De La Rosa, sponsor of the bill and immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

While Cuomo has not yet signed the bill into law, he has expressed support for tuition for illegal immigrants and he has already included his own version in the state budget plan.

Passage of the Dream Act came one day after New York legislators passed a bill dramatically expanding access to abortion. The bill, which was promptly signed into law by Cuomo, allows women to have abortions after 24 weeks in situations where “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.”

New York Democrats say they have just begun.

Supporters of the Dream Act say they will also consider allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and give them better housing protections. Cuomo has also expressed interest in forcing insurance companies to provide free contraceptive care.

Billionaire Miami Beach Developer Dismisses Rising Sea Levels as ‘Paranoia’

(Bloomberg) — A South Florida developer is questioning the well-established facts of climate change, and is putting his money where his mouth is, investing millions to build residential projects in highly exposed Miami Beach.

Brazilian billionaire Jose Isaac Peres is hosting an inaugural party Thursday for the sales center of his planned 81-unit 57 Ocean, where the penthouse will cost $31 million. He’s also seeking permission to build another condo project, a four-story development on Ocean Drive.

The real estate magnate and chief executive officer of shopping-center developer Multiplan Empreendimentos Imobiliarios SA said he isn’t factoring in the financial risk of rising sea levels. Asked about the threat, he told a story about his youth in Brazil in the 1950s, when seawater sometimes encroached on buildings, suggesting ocean levels have risen and receded forever.

“It’s funny, that’s the last concern that I have here in Miami, that global-warming issue,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

Peres, who’s making significant investments in Miami Beach for the first time in almost two decades, said climate change has never come up with the banks and insurance companies he’s dealt with in Brazil.

“You’re leaning toward paranoia, you know?” he said, suggesting that Americans are more fixated on the study of climate change than Brazilians are. “You see a ghost, and you run after it as if it were real.” Still, Peres didn’t fully discount global warming, instead saying he didn’t think it was going to occur “as quickly as people imagine.”

‘Wouldn’t Be Bad’

Peres’ climate-change skepticism follows similar statements by a number of high-profile politicians and business leaders, most of them not scientists themselves. Over the weekend, as much of the U.S. coped with freezing temperatures, President Donald Trump tweeted, “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!” (Trump’s statement erroneously confused short-term weather fluctuations with climate, a long-term aggregate, adding to his history of distorting climate-related facts.) Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has also questioned climate change.

It’s not the first time a Florida developer has downplayed the threats of climate change. Jorge Perez, the billionaire CEO of Related Group, told Jeff Goodell, author of “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Civilized World,” at an art-museum gala that he needn’t worry: “In 20 or 30 years, someone is going to find a solution for this. Besides, by that time, I’ll be dead, so what does it matter?”

Perez later said in an interview with the Miami Herald, “Maybe I had too many drinks,” and that he had no recollection of the conversation. He apologized for the quote, and said he was encouraging the active pursuit of climate solutions.

South Florida officials, meanwhile, aren’t ignoring the threats posed by climate change. Miami Beach has committed to spending $500 million for seawalls and raised roads, and City of Miami voters have approved $400 million in bonds partly to combat issues related to rising sea levels.

Hacker Group Could Blow Lid Off 9/11

“Dark Overlord” is threatening to publish thousands of confidential, damning documents unless suspect parties pay up. What might be contained in those documents? We may learn the answer to that question soon, as the hackers have already started publishing materials online.

By John Friend

A notorious international hacking group known as Dark Overlord has threatened to publish thousands of confidential documents purportedly hacked and stolen from a number of insurance, real estate, and law firms that were directly involved with the events and aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, unless a multi-million-dollar ransom is met, it was recently reported at the web site “Vice Motherboard.”

The mysterious group, which seemingly works as a collective and has targeted and attempted to extort other large corporations and private entities in the past, claimed the secret documents in their possession will provide “many answers about 9/11 conspiracies,” according to a tweet released by the group on New Year’s Eve. The group’s Twitter account has since been suspended.

The group has claimed to have hacked and stolen important, highly sensitive data relating directly to 9/11 and litigation in its aftermath from a number of top insurance companies and law firms, including Lloyds of London, Silverstein Properties, and Hiscox Syndicates.

Larry Silverstein, the chairman of Silverstein Properties, has long been identified as a key suspect in the events of 9/11. Silverstein Properties acquired the World Trade Center complex in a suspicious privatization scheme involving the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey shortly before the 9/11 attacks, and soon thereafter purchased an insurance policy for the complex that included coverage for acts of terrorism. Silverstein has received billions of dollars as a result of insurance settlements in the years since 9/11, yet acquired the complex for the paltry sum of $14 million—as part of the $3.2 billion lease-purchase bid he won.

The Dark Overlord group initially threatened to extort the firms it hacked, demanding payment in bitcoin from the firms in order to keep their documents private.

“If you’re one of the dozens of solicitor firms who was involved in the litigation, a politician who was involved in the case, a law enforcement agency who was involved in the investigations, a property management firm, an investment bank, a client of a client, a reference of a reference, a global insurer, or whoever else, you’re welcome to contact our email below and make a request to formally have your documents and materials withdrawn from any eventual public release of the materials,” the group stated shortly after announcing the hack, providing an anonymous email address for potential inquires. “However, you’ll be paying us.”

The group has since announced that the public can make payments to “unlock” the documents and have them published online, and has apparently received $12,000 worth of bitcoin, resulting in the release of 650 documents that have been published so far.

Conspireality, Victor Thorn — Thorn takes on 9/11 and a lot more in *Conspireality*.

Roughly 18,000 documents are alleged to have been hacked and stolen by the group, according to a report published by RT, Russia’s state-sponsored media platform.

These 650 documents comprise “layer 1” of the mass of confidential data, according to Dark Overlord. They claim to have four more “layers” of hacked data that are still in their possession, and that “each layer contains more secrets, more damaging materials . . . and generally just more truth,” RT reported.

In its latest publicly released statement, addressed to “the nation-state of the United States of America and the greater Deep State,” the group declares, “your censorship and fake news cover-ups won’t silence this organization or its public support.” The statement then goes on to threaten the various parties involved by claiming, “We’re going to burn you down unless you begin to ‘play ball.’ We’re peeling these layers back like an onion. No one can save you except for us.”

John Friend is a freelance writer based in California.

Mucking through the Wall Street Banks’ Earnings This Week

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade: If you’ve ever mucked horse stalls full of smelly manure, you’re better prepared for this week. Yesterday, the inscrutable Citigroup ushered in the week of mind-numbing fourth-quarter earnings reports from the financial supermarkets/commercial banks/insurance companies/brokerage firms/investment banks/derivative warehouses that have combined under one highly combustible […]

The post Mucking through the Wall Street Banks’ Earnings This Week appeared first on SGT Report.

Iran, India Ditch Dollar In Oil Trading To Counter ‘Bullying’ US Sanctions

Authored by Darius Shahtahmasebi, op-ed via RT.com,

In an effort to circumvent US-imposed sanctions, India and Iran have reportedly ditched the US dollar and are trading oil in rupees. The reason becomes clear after considering the dynamics at play in the region.

In mid-February last year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visited India, and the two countries signed nine agreements signalling a strengthening of ties. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared to celebrate the growing relationship, stating that it was “a matter of great pleasure” for India that an Iranian president came to India “after a gap of 10 years.”

Fast-forward a few months later, and then-UN ambassador Nikki Haley was bluntly telling India that they should rethink their relationship with Tehran.

Donald Trump’s decision to rip up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last year, also known as the Iranian nuclear accord, was a particularly significant blow to Iran-India relations. At the time the JCPOA was formulated, Indian officials believed the deal to be the “best deal available.” After the JCPOA’s implementation in 2016, exports of Iranian oil to India increased by more than 110 percent.

Maybe the issue isn’t always that Washington wants to contain its rivals in the Middle East and Asia, but perhaps there is a chance that it also wants to keep a lid on its so-called allies as well. Right now, India is the third largest oil consumer in the world, and is expected to become the largest by the year 2040. As its domestic reserves are not meeting the needs of its rapidly expanding economy, India has been importing 80 percent of its oil supply from overseas, including and especially Iran.

Prior to Washington’s Iran-sanctions regime, Iran was India’s third largest supplier of crude oil (it is now about sixth place). It is no surprise therefore, that India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson responded by saying that Haley had “her views, and our views on Iran are very clear.”He also warned that India would “take all necessary steps, including engagement with relevant stakeholders to ensure our energy security.”

It does seem like the days of foreign states being bullied into adopting a dangerous foreign policy are over. If Washington has any doubt about this, they need only turn to this exclusive Reuters report which revealed that India had begun paying Iran for its oil in rupees, according to a senior bank official, under the guise of a six-month waiver which was given to seven other countries (including China). According to the report, in a previous round of US-imposed sanctions, India settled approximately half of oil payments in rupees and the remainder in euros. However, this time around, all payments are to be made in rupees.

Furthermore, the agreement, worth $1.5 billion, reportedly hands Iran a tax break of $637 million. For its part, Iran will use its rupee supply to fund its imports of pharmaceuticals and other items from India, invest in Indian businesses and pay for Iranian missions and students in India.

Prior to this arrangement, US-led sanctions continued to decimate Iran’s ability to trade freely with its partner. Oilprice explains that in December, Indian oil imports from Iran plunged by 41 percent to just over 300,000 barrels per day (bpd). This is effectively the amount allowed under Washington’s waiver.

Insurance companies are becoming increasingly unwilling to engage in transactions involving Iran, due to the risk that sanctions attract. However, according to a separate Reuters report, Russian and Chinese shipping companies had been pitching to facilitate India-Iran trade.

It seems to me that if enough countries continue to pull together to override Washington’s sanctions, they will at some point be rendered completely ineffective. It also seems as though Washington is pushing these countries to work more closely together, whereas these countries may have been freer to explore their differences and their disagreements had they been left to their own devices.

The blunt truth is that India and Iran have too much in common for India to submit fully to Washington’s strategy of global bullying. There is also a lot of things that Iran can give India which the United States cannot, and not just free shipping, insurance and extended credit. As the Diplomat explains, India and Iran both share an interest in combating Sunni-backed extremism, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They both have an interest in doing what they can to outmanoeuvre China in certain aspects.

In February last year, the two nations came to an agreement involving a lease between Iran’s Port and Maritime Organization and India Ports Global Limited, which allowed India to run part of Chabahar Port for 18 months.

The two countries released a joint statement at the time, describing the port as a “golden gateway” that will help the two countries in reaching out to Afghanistan and Central Asia. This gateway is so golden, it seems, that India has already committed over $500 million to the project, with indications that it could become a multi-billion dollar project.

The idea of the project is to improve “energy, security and regional connectivity” to reach Afghanistan. In reality, it allowsIndia to ship supplies to Afghanistan while bypassing Pakistan. Chabahar Port in southeastern Iran is approximately 90km (56 miles) west of the Pakistani port of Gwadar, the epicentre of an enormous Chinese infrastructure program in Pakistan. This is the same location where it was rumored that China was establishing a military base.

In other words, if India is forced to join the US effort to completely isolate Iran on the world stage, it may risk losing out on a significant chunk of the regional fruits to Pakistan and China. This is not conjecture; Iran has already reached out to Pakistan and China to participate in the Chabahar project. As the all-knowing Atlantic Council summarised, if India bows to the US, it risks losing Iran to China.

India also needs Iran’s ports to complete the so-called International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which would ideally connect India to the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, Russia and even Europe, and would allegedly increase India’s $1 billion trade with Central Asia to a whopping $170 billion.

China already has a direct connection to Central Asia, placing India at a disadvantage by default, and its trade with Central Asian nations is already at $30 billion; well above India’s. In 2000, India, Iran and Russia signed an agreement for the purpose of developing the North-South transport corridor.

India, Iran and Afghanistan held a tripartite meeting in September last year in which they discussed the Afghanistan peace process, cooperation against terrorism, as well as Chabahar Port. It is noticeable, to say the least, that Pakistan and China were not involved in this discussion. Just last week, Iran and India held a similar meeting.

India is also currently developing two gas fields, Farzad-B in Tehran and the South Pars field located between Iran and Qatar (which is the largest gas field in the world). Trump may soon begin to realise how difficult it is to isolate these states from one another after the simple examination of a world atlas.

Even the effect of US sanctions on ordinary people that the United States consider allies appear to not have been taken into account. Most reports allege that the absence of Iranian oil makes oil market prices shoot through the roof, affecting common Indian residents who had been enjoying cheaper oil prices under the JCPOA. Does the US want the people of India to hate Iran, or to hate the enforcer of these sanctions?

Reportedly, a “preferential trade”agreement between Iran and India is also in the works which will come into force in the not-so-distant future. The two nations have also already signed an agreement worth $2 billion on cooperation in the railway sector. At the start of this year, Iran also announced it would invest Rs 1,500 crore to expand a refinery run by Chennai Petroleum Corp, in a move that sees Iran attempting to counter US-imposed sanctions and cement its position in India.

You won’t see this in the mainstream media, but India also quietly allowed an Iranian bank to open a branch in Mumbai just last week.

Despite undue pressure from Washington, at the end of the day India still has indicated it will abide by its sanctions and the waiver that it has been given (as far as possible).

It is therefore unclear what the US is hoping to achieve through this strategy. Yes, sanctions greatly weaken Iran’s economy and threaten the collapse of its currency, but they also push these adversarial states to consider agreements which circumvent the use of the US dollar, even with Washington’s more traditional allies. If enough countries drop the use of the dollar in bilateral trade, the dollar will no longer have the international use it once had. As of right now, Venezuela, Qatar, China, Russia, India and Iran – just to name a few – are all nations who have considered the use of alternative currencies to counter Washington’s sanctions regime.

If the ultimate aim of the US is to weaken the dollar’s status on the global markets, then it can be my guest.

More 9/11 Documents Released: Attorneys Asked If Bush Knew Of Attacks – Media Silent

As the feds open up the possibility that explosive devices were used in the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings in New York, the Dark Overlord, a group of hackers that obtained documents from a law firm handling 9/11 cases, has released another round of documents. These document reveal how attorneys questioned whether or not President George W. Bush knew about the attacks ahead of time, and as usual, the media is largely silent.

The fact that the media is silent is because it was largely complicity in covering for Islam, as well as putting out the propaganda that the Bush administration and Congress were acting justly to infringe on the rights of the people and violations of the Constitution via the PATRIOT Act.

The Dark Overlord released the following message:

This is the ‘9/11 Papers’ MegaLeak. Keep giving us cyber-cash for cyber-cache.

Hello, world. As you’re well-aware, we designed a compensation plan that would allow for the public crowd-funding of our organisation in order to permit the public disclosure of our “9/11 Papers” in the interest of the public. Part of this plan was to create a tiered escalation plan that would result in multiple layers and milestones (which we’re calling checkpoints) to ensure the powers at be are being properly bent over a barrel. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we’re financially motivated, and you (the public) has spoken to us in our language (internet money, specifically Bitcoin). Remember, continuing to fund our wallet will continue to keep us motivated to help break the truth to the world by open-sourcing what we’re calling the “9/11 Papers”. To create a bit more buzz, we’ve decided to continue forward and release the decryption key for Layer 2. As such, let the leaking continue:

Statistics:
Layer 2 = 7.566 Files
Checkpoint 08 = 50 Files

TOTAL = 7.616 Files

Layer 2
Layer_2.container Decryption Key: 8JYIy&BRIkLi<7mku]nJGRS9YXwXs#udwvCr]MTV02″8@J0c%9ZC/*t7’r&@W

If you still haven’t downloaded all the 9/11 Archive with the Layer containers, the torrent link is below:

9/11 Archive
LINK: https://anonfiles.com/6fx7q6pfb6/911_Archive.zip_torrent
SHA1 HASH: F4C18CF980648E9FBDAC55952F5F3485DBBA95F9

Checkpoint 08
LINK: https://anonfiles.com/ebVdf4q9bf/Checkpoint_08_zip
SHA-1 HASH: C285ACE02A9E046083B4F6149112569EC7CFB769

Instructions to decrypt the containers – Download Veracrypt and use the decryption key above.

Let this serve as more definitive proof that what we’re saying is true, and that we’re doing exactly as we promised you. Continue to keep the bitcoins flowing, and we’ll continue to keep the truth flowing. Remember, Cyber-Cash for Cyber-Cache. We hope that there’ll be more releases. Continue to share these download links and decryption keys on Reddit, 4chan, Steemit, Voat, your siblings, your friends, your pets, and anyone else! We can’t allow the mainstream media to silence the truth any longer. We must ensure they’re propaganda is crushed by the truths we’re dealing today.

We’ll always sign all of our releases for verification of authenticity.

Teaser Statistics:

Layer 3 = 8.279 Files

Your friends,
thedarkoverlord
Professional Adversarial Threat Group
TheDarkOverlord Solutions LLC, World Wide Web, LLC

OFFICIAL BITCOIN ADDRESS:
192ZobzfZxAkacLGmg9oY4M9y8MVTPxh7U

CONTACT AND LOCATION DETAILS:
thedarkoverlord E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Backup1 E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Backup2 E-Mail Address: [email protected]
Make your own at (torbox3uiot6wchz.onion)
KickAss Tor Address: kickassugvgoftuk.onion
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Sputnik reports on the revelations:

The newly released docs largely concern correspondence between insurance companies that were handling the claims stemming from the tragedy. They were discussing who the damages could be claimed for, with options ranging from airlines to the Federal Aviation Authority and terrorists. The litigators were also speculating on whether then-President George W. Bush or the Saudi royal family had foreknowledge of the attacks, but this correspondence fails to provide evidence of government involvement.

The hacking collective claims that they have obtained thousands of documents from a US-based solicitor firm. They have split the treasure trove into five “layers”, with each subsequent layer standing for more sensitive and highly confidential data.

They offered everyone concerned the opportunity to come and get the docs — for a Bitcoin ransom of an unspecified amount. The group has apparently failed to obtain it from government agencies and firms; furthermore, they have been banned from Twitter and Reddit as well as their most recent platform of choice, the open-source blockchain platform Steemit.

Layer 1 mostly included FBI interviews with American Airlines employees and relatives of passengers on the 9/11 planes, as well as confidentiality agreements and insurance pay-outs.

There’s more to come, however, the hackers tease, with Layer 3 containing as many as 8,279 files. In the end, they threatened, their revelation would “bury” the US “deep state” and trump “Snowden’s finest work”.

Clearly, the Saudis were involved and the way has been opened already for 9/11 victims’ families to sue the Muslim country. Iran has already been ordered to pay billions to 9-11 families.

RELATED: Liberal Pundit Doesn’t Think Violence Against Whites Should be Called a “Hate Crime”

While the information is welcome, it doesn’t seem that the group desires anything but money, not justice and not the truth of what occurred on 9/11 or the days leading up to it nor after it.

Millions of people have been slaughtered and trillions have been wasted in the nearly two decades since 9-11, and yet, al-Qaeda is stronger than ever.

In either case, the US media is largely silent on this information, as well as the allegations of explosives demolishing the World Trade Center. Perhaps, it’s time that people started sharing this information because the reality is that we face a greater threat from those in our own government than we do from those outside our own country.

Article posted with permission from Freedom Outpost

S&P Downgrades PG&E To Junk, Launching Countdown To $800 Million Collateral Call

One of the biggest surprises involving the ongoing collapse of troubled California utility PG&E is how it was possible, that with the company reportedly contemplating a DIP loan ahead of a possible bankruptcy filing which sent PCG stock plunging and its bonds cratering to all time lows, that rating agencies still had the company rated as investment grade.

Late on Monday, this question got some closure after S&P became the first rating agency to take a machete to its rating for PG&E, when it downgraded the company by five notches, from BBB- to B, the fifth-highest junk rating; S&P warned that more cuts are imminent.

As we reported previously, PG&E’s shares plunged as much as 25% then as much as another 17% on Tuesday, to their lowest level since 2003, as investors worried about the potential for the company to file for bankruptcy as California investigators have been looking into whether the utility’s equipment ignited the deadliest blaze in state history in 2018 as well as fires in 2017, probes that could leave the company with legal liabilities topping $30 billion.

A spokesman for PG&E said in an email Tuesday the company’s board is “actively assessing” operations, finances, management, structure and governance while maintaining a commitment to improving safety.

As Bloomberg notes, PG&E’s record-low bond prices underscore how much more the company will have to pay to borrow in the future, even if California comes up with a legislative bailout. “It also highlights how vulnerable even highly regulated, traditionally dependable stocks like utilities can be to natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes.”

Meanwhile, as we discussed last Friday, whatever PG&E ultimate fate, it “will ultimately increase costs to California ratepayers and taxpayers, which already face a high cost of living,” S&P analyst Gabriel Petek, who rates the state of California, not PG&E, said in an email Monday. “The important takeaway to me is that these fires and how the ‘fire season’ is virtually a year-round phenomenon now represent a material consequence of climate change.”

In addition to the plunge in the utility’s notes due in 2034, the company’s 3.5% bonds due next year are currently yielding more than 9.9%, far above where most high-yield securities are paying and a level reserved for deeply distressed credits. As shown in the chart below, B-rated debt, the mid-tier of junk bonds, yields on average 7.5% as of Monday’s close, according to Bloomberg index data.

But while S&P took the axes to its ratings of PG&E, Fitch and Moody have yet to slash the company’s investment grade. And when they do, the next major headache will emerge for both management, shareholders and bondholders, as a similar “junking” by Moody’s to high-yield would result in a rerun of the AIG death sprial, as at least once cash collateral call for PG&E of at least $800 million – to guarantee power contracts – will be triggered according to a regulatory filing (according to Bloomberg no other ratings triggers have been disclosed, although as AIG demonstrated, these tend be hidden deep inside ancillary contracts and only a downgrade will reveal just how insolvent the company is).

An $800 million collateral call would be a major problem for PG&E, as the company only had $430 million of cash on its books at the end of September. To preserve liquidity, PG&E suspended its dividend and fully drew its lines of credit, an event which we said is the first flashing red light that a liquidity crisis now appears inevitable. Meanwhile, as reported last Friday, the company is considering filing for bankruptcy as soon as February.

And while state lawmakers and regulators are looking at options including allowing the company to issue bonds to pay its liabilities, or breaking up the utility, no decision had been reached yet.

At the end of the day, however, even the $800 million urgent cash need would merely be a milestone on the company roads to assured bankruptcy if PG&E is ultimately held responsible for the Camp Fire, as that would put it on the hook for billions of dollars of potential liabilities, by some calculations far more than the company has access to. Yet because the company has filed for bankruptcy before, it and lawmakers would probably try to avoid a repeat, said Ryan Brist, head of global investment-grade credit and portfolio manager at Western Asset Management, who however likely understands that a bankruptcy may be inevitable.

“That was a disastrous time for all participants involved,” Pasadena, California-based Brist said. “It would be my guess that the same parties would want to pursue a much less volatile solution this go around when faced with the tough problems of statewide wildfires.”

However, with about $18.6 billion of long-term debt as of the end of September, PG&E may be incentivized to file for bankruptcy, CreditSights analyst Andy DeVries said in a report Monday. Such a filing would give the company bargaining power with insurance companies as it tries to settle customer claims at a discount, he said.

But before any possible filing, the next immediate step will be more downgrades by rating agencies, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

Fitch analyst Philip Smyth said that a determination by California regulators that PG&E’s equipment was involved in the Tubbs Fire in 2017 or last year’s Camp Fire would be the strongest impetus to cut the rating.

“Right now, there is no investigation that says with any clarity that has determined that their equipment was the catalyst,” Smyth said in an interview Monday. “Since we downgraded in November, I don’t think things have gotten meaningfully worse since then.”

Finally, the imminent – and aptly called – fall from grace for PG&E is just the harbinger of the mass downgrade wave among investment-grade rated companies, expected to hit once the economic cycle turns, potentially flooding the more than $1.19 trillion high-yield market with new issues (as Jeff Gundlach discussed earlier today). The silver lining here, if any, is that PG&E’s relatively small debt load on its own wouldn’t bring the flood that strategists at Morgan Stanley have warned could exceed $1.1 trillion.

Xerox was the most recent company to join the “fallen angel” ranks, while Altria was downgrade from single A to BBB. Whether PG&E avoids bankruptcy remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the California utility will be the next prominent “Fallen Angel.”

Bernie Sanders Starts Mentioning the Military Budget

Bernie Sanders has added the existence of foreign policy onto the bottom of emails like the one below, after having posted a video of himself quoting the usual Eisenhower quotes on military spending. These changes match the request made when World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org asked 100 prominent people to sign an open letter to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders urging him to address military spending. Over 13,000 more people signed it. Let’s hope that Senator Sanders builds on this progress. Let’s take the same demand to other politicians.

**************************************

Jane and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very healthy and happy new year.

It goes without saying that 2019 will be a pivotal and momentous time for our country and the entire planet. As you know, there is a monumental clash now taking place between two very different political visions. Not to get you too nervous, but the future of our country and the world is dependent upon which side wins that struggle.

The bad news is that in the United States and other parts of the world, the foundations of democracy are under severe attack as demagogues, supported by billionaire oligarchs, work to establish authoritarian type regimes. That is true in Russia. That is true in Saudi Arabia. That is true in the United States. While the very rich get much richer these demagogues seek to move us toward tribalism and set one group against another, deflecting attention from the real crises we face.

The good news is that, all across this country, people are getting politically involved and are fighting back. They are standing up for economic, political, social and racial justice.

In the last year we saw courageous teachers, in some of the most conservative states in the country, win strikes as they fought for adequate funding for education.

We saw low paid workers at Amazon, Disney and elsewhere undertake successful struggles to raise their wages to a living wage – at least $15 an hour.

We saw incredibly courageous young people, who experienced a mass shooting in their school, lead successful efforts for commonsense gun safety legislation.

We saw diverse communities stand together in the fight against mass incarceration and for real criminal justice reform.

We saw tens of thousands of Americans, from every walk of life, take to the streets and demand that politicians respond to the global crisis of climate change.

As we enter 2019, it seems to me that we must mount a two-pronged offensive. First, we must vigorously take on the lies, bigotry and kleptocratic behavior of the most irresponsible president in the modern history of our country. In every way possible, we must stand up to the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and religious intolerance of the Trump administration.

But fighting Trump is not enough.

The truth is that despite relatively low unemployment, tens of millions of Americans struggle daily to keep their heads above water economically as the middle class continues to shrink.

While the rich get richer, 40 million live in poverty, millions of workers are forced to work two or three jobs to pay the bills, 30 million have no health insurance, one in five cannot afford their prescription drugs, almost half of older workers have nothing saved for retirement, young people cannot afford college or leave school deeply in debt, affordable housing is increasingly scarce, and many seniors cut back on basic needs as they live on inadequate Social Security checks.

Our job, therefore, is not only to oppose Trump but to bring forth a progressive and popular agenda that speaks to the real needs of working people. We must tell Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the National Rifle Association and the other powerful special interests that we will not continue to allow their greed to destroy this country and our planet.

Politics in a democracy should not be complicated. Government must work for all of the people, not just the wealthy and the powerful. As a new House and Senate convene next week, it is imperative that the American people stand up and demand real solutions to the major economic, social, racial and environmental crises that we face. In the richest country in the history of the world, here are some (far from all) of the issues that I will be focusing on this year. What do you think? How can we best work together?

Protect American democracy: Repeal Citizens United, move to public funding of elections and end voter suppression and gerrymandering. Our goal must be to establish a political system that has the highest voter turnout in the world and is governed by the democratic principle of one person – one vote.

Take on the billionaire class: End oligarchy and the growth of massive income and wealth inequality by demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes. We must rescind Trump’s tax breaks for billionaires and close corporate tax loopholes.

Increase Wages: Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, establish pay equity for women and revitalize the trade union movement. In the United States, if you work 40 hours a week, you should not live in poverty.

Make health care a right: Guarantee health care for everyone through a Medicare-for-all program. We cannot continue a dysfunctional healthcare system which costs us about twice as much per capita as any other major country and leaves 30 million uninsured.

Transform our energy system: Combat the global crisis of climate change which is already causing massive damage to our planet. In the process, we can create millions of good paying jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

Rebuild America: Pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. In the United States we must not continue to have roads, bridges, water systems, rail transport, and airports in disrepair.

Jobs for All: There is an enormous amount of work to be done throughout our country – from building affordable housing and schools to caring for our children and the elderly. 75 years ago, FDR talked about the need to guarantee every able-bodied person in this country a good job as a fundamental right. That was true in 1944. It is true today.

Quality Education: Make public colleges and universities tuition free, lower student debt, adequately fund public education and move to universal childcare. Not so many years ago, the United States had the best education system in the world. We much regain that status again.

Retirement Security: Expand Social Security so that every American can retire with dignity and everyone with a disability can live with security. Too many of our elderly, disabled and veterans are living on inadequate incomes. We must do better for those who built this country.

Women’s rights: It is a woman, not the government, who should control her own body. We must oppose all efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, protect Planned Parenthood and oppose restrictive state laws on abortion.

Justice for All: End mass incarceration and pass serious criminal justice reform. We must no longer spend $80 billion a year locking up more people than any other country. We must invest in education and jobs, not jails and incarceration.

Comprehensive immigration reform: It is absurd and inhumane that millions of hardworking people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, are fearful of deportation. We must provide legal status to those who are in the DACA program, and a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

Social Justice: End discrimination based on race, gender, religion, place of birth or sexual orientation. Trump cannot be allowed to succeed by dividing us up. We must stand together as one people.

A new foreign policy: Let us create a foreign policy based on peace, democracy and human rights. At a time when we spend more on the military than the next ten countries combined, we need to take a serious look at reforming the bloated and wasteful $716 billion annual Pentagon budget.

In the New Year, let us resolve to fight like we have never fought before for a government, a society and an economy that works for all of us, not just those on top.

Wishing you a wonderful new year,

Bernie Sanders

Big Pharma Bribes Linked To Doctors Prescribing Large Quantities Of Opioids

(DCNF) Major pharmaceutical companies heavily influenced doctors to prescribe high rates of opioid medications with lavish spending, new research suggests.

Doctors, who received paid speaking gigs, free lunches and branded merchandise from drug makers, were linked to much high rates of opioid prescriptions, a research letter published Monday in the the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Internal Medicine found. In 2014, every free meal given to a doctor from pharmaceutical companies resulted in a spike of opioid prescriptions from the doctor, the study authors, lead by Dr. Scott Hadland of the Boston University School of Medicine, concluded, according to NBC News.

Insys Therapeutics, a fentanyl manufacturer currently mired in federal investigation, spent the most of any drug maker on various payments to physicians. Opioid prescriptions rose an average of nine percent when a doctor received payments from the pharmaceutical industry, the researchers estimated.

“Amidst national efforts to curb the overprescribing of opioids, our findings suggest that manufacturers should consider a voluntary decrease or complete cessation of marketing to physicians,” Hadland said, according to NBC News. “Federal and state governments should also consider legal limits on the number and amount of payments.”

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which often faces the brunt of criticism over the opioid epidemic, ended their marketing practice of promoting painkillers to health care professionals in February.

Outside of Insys, however, the biggest spenders on promotion to doctors are Teva Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals, according to the researchers.

Insys, which produces a fentanyl patch, Subsys, for cancer patients, is currently facing lawsuits in multiple states for illegally bribing doctors to unnecessarily push the dangerous medication. Seven former Insys executives and managers are battling allegations in Boston. John Kapoor, the billionaire founder of Insys, is also under investigation for allegedly personally directing the company’s bribery schemes.

Insys defrauded insurance companies by giving payouts to doctors who overprescribed Subsys or prescribed it for unapproved conditions, including through fees for fake speaking engagements, the lawsuits claim.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid roughly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, overtook heroin as the deadliest substance in the U.S. in 2016, claiming 19,413 lives in 2017, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016. Opioid overdoses made up a staggering 66 percent of all drug overdose deaths in 2016, surpassing the annual number of lives lost to breast cancer.

Written by Steve Birr. Follow Steve on Twitter

This article was republished with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post Big Pharma Bribes Linked To Doctors Prescribing Large Quantities Of Opioids appeared first on Ben Swann’s Truth In Media.

Institutional Money has a Love-Hate Relationship with Cryptocurrencies

(DFN) Recently, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Charlie Munger spoke negatively of cryptocurrencies, but Gary Cohen spoke somewhat positively and there are other signs that institutional money is becoming more keen on cryptocurrencies.

Buffet called Bitcoin a “non-productive asset” and that the “asset itself is creating nothing” when compared to “productive” assets like gold or farms. Buffet also compared cryptocurrencies to the Dutch Tulip Mania. Gates said that Bitcoin’s price relies on the “greater fool theory” of finding another “fool” to sell to at a higher price. Munger hit below the belt by calling Bitcoin “stupid and immoral” and the equivalent of “rat poison”.

However, another financial titan and former Goldman Sachs President, Gary Cohen, said that he’s “not a big believer in bitcoin”, but is “a believer in blockchain technology”. He added that he thinks there will eventually be a “global cryptocurrency”, but that it won’t be “based on mining costs or cost of electricity or things like that”. In addition, the famous Gemini exchange founder, Tyler Winklevoss, recently called out Bill Gates to “put [his] money where [his] mouth is” and referenced numerous trading outlets where one can short Bitcoin after Bill said he “would short [Bitcoin] if there was an easy way to do it”.

Institutional Money is beginning to venture into cryptocurrencies

Despite the big names in finance and tech speaking against crypto, there are signs that institutional investors are venturing into cryptocurrencies. Dash Force News spoke with Chris Rockwell, founder of RSI Advisors (an investment advisory firm in New Hampshire), about this new trend. Mr. Rockwell said that institutional money has been waiting for two things to happen:

“A way to hedge against crypto holdings and qualified custodians to take custody of their crypto holdings. Bitcoin futures contracts by both the CBOE and CME allow investors to hedge and qualified custodians like Kingdom Trust and Coinbase Custody should allow the doors to open for some institutional investors.”

Not all institutional money is the same and thus there are different players at different levels of entry into the cryptocurrency market. Rockwell mentioned that “[c]rypto only hedge funds are the early adopters and already in this space”, but as hedging and custodian market penetration increases, “standard hedge fund[s] will consider dipping their toe in the water”. He said that investment advisory firms and endowments are the next likely cryptocurrency investors, while pension funds and mutual funds “will probably be the last to enter because of unclear regulatory framework”, but Chris does “expect them to invest in crypto currency eventually”. Chris mentioned that banks and insurance companies are a “wild card”.

Chris also added that “[f]irms will get involved in the crypto space because of client demand, because crypto currency is uncorrelated to any other asset class (very unique in investing) and the potential to boost portfolio returns with little downside risk”. Despite the potential upside and the consumer demand, some establishment firms will nevertheless fall into the classic mistake of becoming lethargic in their innovation. Chris summarized this action very eloquently.

“The largest institutions/names in finance want to stay the largest and like the way things are now. They have little incentive to change how they invest. Radical changes scare them. The smaller and hungry firms/names trying to catch up have a lot of motivation to try new things if it gives them an edge. I also think many just don’t understand crypto currency and instead of saying they don’t know or understand they simply denounce and malign it to sound knowledgeable on the subject”

Dash makes institutional investing easier

As the price of Dash has increased drastically from the beginning of 2017 so has the overall price of masternodes. Consumers and investors wanted to invest in masternodes to receive the payout rewards, but did not have the capital to buy a full masternode. The Dash community has demonstrated its commitment to satisfying consumer desires. So naturally, Neptune Dash soon emerged to accommodate these desires. Neptune Dash went public in Canada this past January and raised over $23 million CAD to buy Dash and masternodes that will generate a respective return to those that own its publicly-traded shares. In April of this past year, Neptune Dash became available to EU and US investors as well.

Dash has demonstrated that it has a robust community to recognize and satisfy consumer desires in a multitude of ways. The mixing pot of ideas that is the Dash community encourages and fosters success for entrepreneurs that find quality methods to accommodate desires of consumers. This process benefits the overall Dash community by involving more users and investors, including institutional investors, by lowing the adoption curve and switching costs, which makes it easier for individuals and firms to use Dash. The Dash community brings Dash to individuals rather than waiting for individuals to discover Dash.

Written by Justin Szilard

This article was republished with permission from Dash Force News.

The post Institutional Money has a Love-Hate Relationship with Cryptocurrencies appeared first on Ben Swann’s Truth In Media.

‘Wouldn’t Be Bad’

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