NATION AND STATE

While the media focused on bashing President Trump for purportedly supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said Russia never interfered in the US election over the findings of his own intelligence agencies, prosecutors in Washington were busy charging yet another Russian national with attempting to tamper in the 2016 race.

Maria Butina, 29, was arrested Sunday in DC and charged in federal court with conspiring to act as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was ordered held without bond, according to the Washington Post.

The charges come days after the DOJ unveiled indictments against 12 Russian intelligence

Maybe hiking monthly fees without providing a quality line up of new shows and movies wasn’t the best idea.

After three consecutive quarters of massive earnings beats and surging subscriber additions, Netflix stock is tumbling, down 13% in response to Q2 earnings, which beat on earnings but missed on revenue, but mostly as a result of sharp miss and slowdown in new subscribers, coupled with Q3 projections that were well below expectations.

Specifically, in Q2, NFLX reported EPS of $0.85, beating expectations of $0.79 but missed modestly on the top line, reporting $3.91BN in revenue, below the $3.94BN expected. Far

Did the machines take a day off? Were they in Helsinki too?

Amid the end-of-the-world – if you believe the media – Trump-Putin press conference, today was The Dow’s lowest intraday range day since Christmas 2017… ...read more

A private equity firm co-founded in 2007 by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young has been accused of covering up a massive fraud at one of its portfolio companies. The accusations, which came in the form of a civil suit filed by the acquirer of the firm where the fraud allegedly took place, have prompted the FBI to investigate, potentially placing Young, his partners and his employees in hot water, per the New York Post.

HGGC, where Young is a managing director, purportedly helped falsify test results at Citadel Plastics, according to the lawsuit, which was brought

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

When I was a little girl I used to end all my nightly prayers with the words, “And please no nuclear war, and peace on earth. Amen.” This was in the early eighties. The knowledge that weapons existed armed and ready which could annihilate all life on earth, including my Mum and my Dad and everyone I loved, kept me up at night.

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San Diego Judge Dana Sabraw has thrown another wrench into the Trump administration’s plans for tightening security at the US border by issuing a temporary halt to deportations of families that were separated under the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.

In his ruling, the judge argues that the families need some additional time to consider whether to pursue requests for asylum. It was made in response to a request from the ACLU, which said it was responding to “persistent and increasing rumors…that mass deportations may be carried out imminently and immediately upon reunification,” according to the Associated Press.

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Two weeks ago, Goldman made a surprising finding: as of July 1, just one stock alone was responsible for more than a third of the market’s YTD performance: Amazon, whose 45% YTD return has contributed to 36% of the S&P 3% total return this year, including dividends. Goldman also calculated that the rest of the Top 10 S&P 500 stocks of 2018 are the who’s who of the tech world, and collectively their total return amounted to 122% of the S&P total return in the first half of the year.

And another striking fact: just the Top 4 stocks, Amazon,

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

The term “deep state” has been so over-used in the past few years that it may seem meaningless. It has become standard practice to label one’s political adversaries as representing the “deep state” as a way of avoiding the defense of one’s positions. President Trump has often blamed the “deep state” for his political troubles. Trump supporters have created big conspiracies involving the “deep state” to explain why the president places neocons in key positions or fails to fulfill his campaign promises.

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By Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley chief US economist, originally published in the NYT.

A protracted, escalating cycle of trade tensions has begun.

In the latest action, the United States has proposed a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in Chinese goods. This follows a tariff on $50 billion of imports from China. Together, the value of targeted goods amounts to nearly half of all American imports from China last year, and countermeasures by China are expected. ...read more

British rescue worker Vern Unsworth, who helped perform a miraculous rescue in Thailand – and who was later labeled a “pedo” on Twitter by Tesla CEO Elon Musk – is examining his legal options and says, regarding responding to Elon Musk’s conduct, “it’s not finished.” He made these statements to The Guardian and to Australian TV when they caught up with him for an in person interview.

Cave diver that Elon called a pedo: “It’s not finished. I think people will realize what kind of guy [Musk] is.” pic.twitter.com/GUMfenpKHG

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) July 16, 2018 ...read more