The Housing Bubble

CNBC dot com
Oil keeps sliding, leaving Saudis’ currency peg in balance
Dawn Kissi
14 Hours AgoCNBC.com
The sun sets over an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia.
Pete Turner | Riser | Getty Images

Plunging oil prices, turbulent domestic politics and a troubled domestic economy are all taking a toll on Saudi Arabia. Now add one more item to its list of potential woes: the link of the Saudi currency, the riyal, to the dollar.

For roughly three decades, the world’s largest oil producer has pegged its currency to the greenback. Yet with oil prices mired near $40 per barrel and a budget deficit looming, a few Saudi Arabia watchers have speculated that the kingdom could allow the riyal to float, as a way to alleviate some of the pressure on its domestic economy. Already, Saudi Arabia has been selling its reserves to plug a hole in its budget and shore up its flagging currency.

That scenario is part of what Bank of America-Merrill Lynch recently referred to as a “black swan” event, whose implications could have far-reaching effects for the already whipsawed oil market.

The combination of a strong U.S. dollar and weak oil prices has been toxic to the Saudi economy. BofA posited that oil’s persistent weakness may tempt the Saudis to break its peg, which would flood markets with dollars and send crude even lower, to $25 per barrel. That could be the kiss of death for an economy where oil accounts for 90 percent of its exports and 40 percent of its growth, and spell more trouble for other commodity-linked emerging markets that have found themselves walloped by the commodity bear market.

Such a scenario remains “highly unlikely but highly impactful,” BofA said, given the growing pressures on the riyal, which languishes near a multi-year low in the forward market.
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CNBC dot com
Crude Realities
Why OPEC’s plan to balance oil markets backfired
Patti Domm
Tue, 1 Dec ‘15 | 8:44 AM ET
OPEC’s ‘market share’ strategy

OPEC’s plan to shake up the world oil market may have backfired for now.

Just a year ago, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to let market forces determine the price of oil, rather than its own production quotas.

Conventional thinking then was that the U.S. oil patch would be littered with bankruptcies, and production would collapse. As for Russia, the world’s largest energy producer would be forced to cut back production by hundreds of thousands of barrels this year due to both the weakness in oil prices and the impact of Western financial sanctions.

But the results have turned out very different. Instead of falling off, production increased from where it was last year, and the world is still swimming in oil. The three biggest producers — Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia — have in fact been adding more than 1 million barrels a day more to the market in the past year.
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Ft.com
Oil glut deepens with 100m barrels at sea
Fuel stored at sea is more than a day’s worth of global consumption
Tanker Glut Signals 25% Slump In Freight Rates This Year…An oil tanker is anchored near the Port of Long Beach, California, U.S., on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009. A surplus of idled oil tankers, which would stretch 26 miles if lined up end to end, may signal a 25 percent slump in freight rates this year. The ships will unload 26 percent of the crude and oil products they are storing in six months, adding to vessel supply and pushing rates for supertankers down to an average of $30,000 a day, compared with $40,212 now.
Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg
November 11, 2015
by: David Sheppard and Neil Hume

More than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea, as a year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land and contributes to port congestion in key hubs.

From China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as the world’s energy infrastructure starts to creak under the weight of near-record inventory levels.

The amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources.

Unlike the last oil price collapse during the financial crisis only half of the oil held on the water has been put there specifically by traders looking to cash in by storing the fuel until prices recover.

Instead, sky-high supertanker rates have prevented them from putting more oil into so-called floating storage, shutting off one of the safety valves that could prevent oil prices from falling further.

JBC Energy, a consultancy, said in many regions onshore oil storage is approaching capacity, arguing oil prices may have to fall to allow more to be stored profitably at sea.

“Onshore storage is not quite full but it is at historically high levels globally,” said David Wech, managing director of JBC Energy.

“As we move closer to capacity that is creating more infrastructure hiccups and delays in the oil market, leading to more oil being backed out on to the water.”

Patrick Rodgers, the chief executive of Euronav, one of the world’s biggest listed tanker companies, said oil glut was so severe traders were asking ships to go slow to help them manage storage levels.

“Tanker shipping has never been a delay business and all of a sudden there are delays everywhere,” said Mr Rodgers

“We are being kept at relatively low speeds. The owners of the oil are not in a hurry to get their cargoes. They are managing their storage capacity by keeping ships at a certain speed.”

Traders looking to make money by storing oil at sea faces a number of challenges. The average daily hire rate for a very large crude carrier has been close to $60,000 a day this year and briefly hit $108,000 last month as producing have scrambled to find customers further afield because of a supply glut estimated at up 2m barrels a day.

The difference in price between a barrel of North Sea Brent today and six months’ time means the most traders could earn is roughly $9.5m versus costs of about $11m for a vessel capable of carrying 2.2m barrels of oil.

“The tanker market got turbocharged by Opec’s decision not to cut production,” said Svein Moxnes Harfjeld, chief executive of DH Tankers, referring to the cartel’s decision in November last year to keep pumping flat out in an attempt to defend its market share.
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Ft.com
Oil
Oil glut to swamp demand until 2020
IEA says cleaner fuels and greater efficiency will hit consumption and depress prices
Santos operations in Moomba, South Australia
November 10, 2015
by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent

The oil market will remain oversupplied until the end of the decade as the push for cleaner fuels and greater efficiency offsets the effect of lower prices, the world’s leading energy forecaster said.

In its annual outlook, the International Energy Agency said oil demand would rise by less than 1 per cent a year between now and 2020, slower than necessary to quickly mop up an oil glut that has driven prices to multiyear lows.

The slowdown in oil demand growth follows a near 15-year surge in consumption, driven by the rapid industrialisation of China and other emerging market economies. But Beijing is now moving away from dirtier fuels and to less energy-intensive growth as it heads towards a more consumer-led economy. “We are approaching the end of the single largest demand growth story in energy history,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, told the Financial Times. Mr Birol was appointed IEA head in September after 20 years with the west’s energy watchdog.

“Demand is not as strong as we have seen in the past as a result of efficiency [and climate] policies [globally],” he added, saying the growth in renewables will further restrict demand for oil.

The IEA does not expect crude oil to reach $80 a barrel until 2020 under its “central scenario”, as excess supplies are slowly soaked up. After 2020, oil demand growth is expected to grind almost to a halt, increasing just 5 per cent over the next 20 years, the IEA said.

The IEA forecasts oil demand will not hit 103.5m b/d until 2040 — it is currently 94.5m b/d. Growth will be “moderated” by a return to higher prices, efforts to phase out subsidies and the switch to alternative fuels — especially in developed markets. “Collectively, the United States, EU and Japan see their oil demand drop by around 10m b/d by 2040,” the report said.

Pledges made in advance of the Paris climate talks in December, Mr Birol said, would be a further catalyst in the move towards a low carbon and energy efficient future.
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I remember buying oil stocks in 2010 or so thinking I can’t lose! The value did nothing thing for a couple of years and I moved on, surprised by the lack of movement.

Marketwatch dot com
Home
Markets
U.S. & Canada
U.S. stocks open lower as oil slump hits energy shares
By Anora Mahmudova
Published: Dec 7, 2015 9:33 a.m. ET

U.S. stocks opened lower on Monday, weighed down by losses in energy shares following a sharp drop in oil prices. Oil futures fell more than 3% to below $39 a barrel, once again hitting shares of energy companies. The main indexes retreated after sharp gains on Friday. Among big early morning movers, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc (GMCR, +73.98%) soared 74% after it agreed to get bought by an investor group led by JAB Holding Co. The S&P 500 (SPX, -0.47%) opened 7 points, or 0.4%, lower at 2,083. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, -0.44%) slipped 69 points, or 0.4%, to 17,771. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP, -0.48%) began the session 11 points, or 0.2%, lower at 5,130.
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Where’s dumbass when you need someone to explain why oil isn’t above $80 / bbl today?

Crude Oil - Electronic (NYMEX) Jan 2016
Market closed
$37.72
Change -$2.25 -5.63%
Volume 565,384
Dec 7, 2015, 4:02 p.m.
Quotes are delayed by 10 min
Previous close $39.97
Day low $37.50
Day high $40.15
Open: $40.10
52 week low $37.50
52 week high $67.84

The Wall Street Journal
Abreast of the Market
The Stock Market Is Missing the Warning From Junk
Declines in high-yield bonds are worrying Wall Street, as such moves can presage economic downturns
By Matt Wirz
Updated Dec. 6, 2015 1:40 p.m. ET

Junk bonds are headed for their first annual loss since the credit crisis, reflecting concerns among investors that a six-year U.S. economic expansion and accompanying stock-market boom are on borrowed time.

U.S. corporate high-yield bonds are down 2% this year, including interest payments, according to Barclays PLC data. Junk bonds have posted only four annual losses on a total-return basis since 1995.

The declines are worrying Wall Street because junk-market declines have a reputation for foreshadowing economic downturns. Junk bonds are lagging behind U.S. stocks following a debt selloff in the past month. The S&P 500 has returned 3.6% on the year, including dividends.

Adding to the worries are signs that the selling has spread beyond firms hit by the energy bust to encompass much of the lowest-rated debt across the market, potentially snarling some takeovers and making it difficult for all kinds of companies to borrow new funds.

In the fourth quarter of the year, there has been a “meaningful disconnect between equities and high yield,” said George Bory, head of credit strategy at Wells Fargo Securities. “It’s a warning sign about the potential challenges in the economy.”
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The Wall Street Journal
Markets
Commodities Slump Hammers Sector’s Junk Bonds
Some investors are cutting their exposure to debt issued by mining and energy companies
The Chesapeake Energy campus in Oklahoma City. Chesapeake bonds are down 60% this year.
Photo: Brett Deering for The Wall Street Journal
By Mike Cherney
Updated Dec. 6, 2015 3:16 p.m. ET

Deep losses on bonds from junk-rated U.S. energy and mining firms are rattling even seasoned investors, underscoring the challenges facing these companies amid a prolonged slump in commodity prices.

Many bond prices are down 60% or more this year. Oil prices are still low due to a global supply glut, and metals prices are declining as China’s economic growth slows. The moves are prompting worries that defaults could increase in the coming months, potentially sparking a fresh bout of selling that could spread to other parts of the junk-bond market.

Among this year’s worst performers: some Linn Energy LLC bonds have fallen nearly 80%, Penn Virginia Corp. bonds are down 75% and Chesapeake Energy Corp. bonds are down 60%, according to figures from MarketAxess Holdings Inc. All three firms produce oil and natural gas in the U.S.
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Post-Gazette dot com
China’s economy shows major signs of shakiness
December 7, 2015 12:00 AM

Your Dec. 2 editorial on the Chinese yuan (“The Rising Yuan: China’s Currency Gets a Global Upgrade”) did not mention several important facts about China’s current economy, which is shaky at best.

While American debt stands at about 73 percent of its GDP, China’s debt has soared to 282 percent of its GDP. Several industries have seen deep cutbacks in production, such as mining, metal refining and production — especially steel — and cement. Exports have fallen off as has China’s economic growth rate, and millions of workers now face layoffs. China’s stock market has seen sharp declines. And the yuan has been devalued.

All is not as well as might be reasoned from your editorial.

TODAY online
Home-building slump to weigh heavily on China’s GDP: StanChart
Meanwhile, residential prices in Hong Kong and Singapore forecast to fall 10%
Published: 4:16 AM, December 4, 2015

BEIJING — The slump in house building in China has driven half of the slowdown in the country’s economic growth since 2010 and is poised to weigh even more heavily next year, according to analysts at Standard Chartered bank.

The housing market is in even worse shape in Hong Kong, where residential property prices will fall by 10 to 20 per cent in the next two to three years, the emerging markets-focused bank forecasts, and Singapore, where prices are already falling and are likely to decline by a further 5 to 10 per cent.

“China’s volatile housing sector may be the single most important sector in the world economy at present,” says Mr Enam Ahmed, senior economist, thematic research at StanChart.

“Home building has slumped in the face of a glut of unsold properties and falling prices, pulling down the country’s gross domestic product growth (GDP) rate and impacting commodity markets globally.”

Mr Ahmed adds: “Expected United States rate increases are hanging over housing markets in Singapore and Hong Kong, compounded by fears that Hong Kong housing is in a bubble. Prices have already peaked in Singapore and are likely peaking in Hong Kong now.”

StanChart calculates that housing and sectors linked to housing, such as the residential component of cement, steel, glass and copper demand, contributed 3 percentage points to China’s GDP growth in 2010, but just 1.1 percentage points this year.

With economic growth having slowed from 10.6 per cent to 6.9 per cent over the same period, this suggests that the ills of the housing market were responsible for half of the slowdown in economic growth.
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“People who paid more than $750,000 for their homes were particularly likely to make a blind bid, with 53 percent of them submitting an offer sight unseen.”

Is it safe to assume these were investors with other people’s printing press money to play with? I have a hard time imagining an end-usere owner-occupant buying a house for nearly a million dollars sight unseen.

If I’m right, then it follows that a high percentage of luxury homes were bought in recent years for speculation, rather than as shelter. Thinga could get very interesting in the next downturn., when high-end speculators try to cash out en masse.

“offer on a home they had never visited,”

Thanks to Zillow and other sites, never visited is not the same as sight unseen. And Millenials are buying identical condo units in mid-rises, so there’s no reason to visit an individual unit.

you can back out during escrow, easy to suddenly not qualify or make demands based on the inception. Putting in and offer is not much of a commitment these days.

Can the big boys use put options to replicate stop loss orders?

sounds like China !
stop loss is old as the hills

Why do I suspect that this will only affect retail investors?

Bullish for platinum & palladuium (used as catalysts for catalytic converters) ??

Don’t need it for a electric car or scooter….

Said in a deep, sheriffy Texas drawl…

“How I’d rain cash on Wall Street”

What Hillaryous really means.

Everything is For Sale… including Hillary. —John Gage

The same dolts who thought a Goldman Sachs-backed bon vivant would bring “hope ‘n change” are gullible enough to buy Hillary’s “champion of the middle class” line of BS.

Sure, a snappy hashtag is the answer to everything.

With cheap oil sticking around, I think the Venezuela is still stuck up the creek without a paddle. Things will still suck, though they might suck less.

Another argument in favor of home solar power.

Maybe we should buy some of Glenn Beck’s doomsday seeds.

Someone looking for money.

Why would it take years to restore power?

Hasn’t Schiff been making the same warnings in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014?

Eventually he’ll be right (that there will be a major market correction), but probably not for the reasons he notes.

I am sure Garcia’s health was starting to become compromised back in the days when the Dead were the house band for Ken Kesey, Stuart Brand and the other acid heads…….

From Wiki:

The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by author Ken Kesey in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, centered entirely around the use of, and advocacy of, the psychedelic drug LSD, also known as “acid.”

The name “Acid Test” was coined by Kesey, after the term “acid test” used by gold miners in the 1850s. He began throwing parties at his farm at La Honda, California.[1] The Merry Pranksters were central to organizing the Acid Tests, including Pranksters such as Lee Quarnstrom and Neal Cassady. Other people such as Tim Scully were involved as well.

Kesey took the parties to public places, and advertised with posters that read, “CAN YOU PASS THE ACID TEST?”, and the name was later popularized in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Musical performances by the Grateful Dead were commonplace, along with black lights, strobe lights, and fluorescent paint. The Acid Tests are notable for their influence on the LSD-based counterculture of the San Francisco area and subsequent transition from the beat generation to the hippie movement. The Jefferson Airplane song “A Song for All Seasons” (from Volunteers) mentions the Acid Tests.

The (Rupert Murdoch owned) Australian and our old friends at Climate Depot, sponsored by KochExxonMobil. Let me guess: burning oil is good for us and the planet. All is well.

Good for them, reject that climate denier “documentary.” It’s not science, it’s just a paid infomercial produced by fossil fuel lobbyists. That’s like showing “Cigarettes are Good for You” advertisements at a cancer conference.

Man made climate change is the biggest scam pulled on the world since one hour martinizing.

The Goldman Sachs candidate favors looser monetary policy?

Go figure!

Cruz shows his true colors: Gold(man). Don’t be fooled by this charlatan masquerading as a conservative.

Hilarrrrry

Donald Trump…. A superb statesman with a squad of sexy strumpets.

Marketwatch dot com
Energy shares tank, dragging S&P 500 lower amid crude-oil tumble
By Mark DeCambre
Published: Dec 7, 2015 10:17 a.m. ET

Shares of a bevy of energy companies were getting hammered Monday, leading the S&P 500 (SPX, -0.75%) lower as crude-oil prices continued a slide that took them below $39 a barrel Friday. Shares of Williams Companies Inc. (WMB, -11.41%) and CONSOL Energy. (CNX, -13.99%) both tumbled about 12%, while those for Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK, -8.13%) were about 8.4% lower. West Texas Intermediate crude oil was seeing a 4% drop to $38.57 a barrel. That decline follows a 2.7% slide on Friday, which came after a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries resulted in its members deciding to keep crude production running at current levels despite crude oil’s precipitous decline.
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That’s Mein Trumpf!

I don’t remember that at all. If he stomped any politicians, he probably did it by paying them off with campaign contributions.

National Association of Realtors?

LMAO

isn’t there something faintly treasonous about that?

Nah. They’ll end up selling the property back to Americans at a hefty loss.

Other countries are clamping down on foreign (Chinese) buyers by taxing them leaving US open for business

The NY Times did a good recent story on this, complete w/ video starring realtor Ken Deleon of “Million Dollar Shack” fame.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/business/100000004006931/house-hunting-chinese-style.html

Actively selling U.S. land overseas

Luckily for the US citizens, the Chinese don’t seem to be buying much in the way of “land,” except a few 1/4 acre lots near Stanford U. They tend to prefer fooking floating boxes of air, like dumb bunnies.

If I were Chinese, in addition to that Miami condo, I would buy a cheap safe house on a homesteadable plot in the exurbs of state college towns in the lower Midwest/upper South. Example:

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Knoxville-TN/house_type/55214944_zpid/25428_rid/2500-_size/40000-_lot/priced_sort/36.126228,-83.628617,35.789968,-84.221192_rect/10_zm/0_mmm/

+1

Watch and learn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTbIu8Zeqp0

My guess is that Cheney was there, but out-voted.

Frightened giant babies maxing out their credit cards on guns they will never use. America!

Why aren’t the CollapsoCrats talking about balancing the budget?

U.S. has not had one since Jimmy “balanced-budget, no-foreign wars” Carter was in office.

I seem to recall that Bubba had a budget surplus once.

Because the Repubs are the Party of the Deficit. They l-o-v-e deficits. And if you read the platforms of the Repub candidates, they want moar tax cuts.
Yup, all of them want more tax cuts so wealthy people are taxed less, invest more, and money and jobs will trickle down and lift the middle class into prosperity. Same ‘ol sh-t warmed over. Didn’t work then, won’t work now, and will balloon the deficit again. Deficits don’t matter to Repubs as long as their fat cat donors get fatter.

So much for THAT suicide fantasy…

CPD don’t have tasers?!?!!?

Remember….. nothing accelerates the economy like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.

I like falling prices. They are beneficial. The shame in this was that prices ever rose to ridiculous highs on unsustainable demand caused by easy credit. That the bubble is deflating is a pure joy.

Ironically, falling prices will accelerate the collapse of the credit pyramid. This is only getting started.

Miami billionaire tied to Bush will take on Donald Trump
Patricia Mazzei, Miami Herald
Friday, December 4, 2015 2:58pm

If Republican presidential rivals won’t take on Donald Trump, then a Miami healthcare magnate and multi-million-dollar donor to Jeb Bush will.

Mike Fernandez plans to call Trump a “narcissistic BULLYionaire with a hunger to be adored” in a full-page newspaper ad to run this Sunday in the Miami Herald and Dec. 14 in Des Moines and Las Vegas.

“You have no idea how furious I am with my friends in the Republican Party who have embraced this guy,” Fernandez told the Herald in an interview Friday.

He emailed the advertisement, he added, to “103 friends who are equally frustrated” — with the hopes that they too will take action.

Fernandez didn’t run his plan by the Bush campaign. “They chewed me out” after learning of his efforts, he said.

“My frustration is really with that sector of Republican voters that are so blinded by the demagoguery” of Trump, he said. “I know the campaign — or any other campaign — is not going to say it.”

“This is not about Jeb. This is about us. This is about the voter,” Fernandez added. “We cannot continue to blame Washington. We voted these guys in!”

Fernandez’s ad compares Trump to several dictators: “Look at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Peron in Argentina. When people lose hope, they are susceptible to those who offer to think for them.”
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Donald Trump’s rally carries echoes of Hitler’s rise to power
By Colbert I. King November 23
Trump to black activist: ‘Get him the hell out of here’
At a campaign event in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, Nov. 21, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump demands the removal of a well-known activist Mercutio Southall Jr. after he shouts, “Black lives matter!” (Reuters)

Does Donald Trump know or even care about what he is doing?

During a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama last Saturday, a local black activist, Mercutio Southall Jr., who reportedly has been frequently arrested in protest demonstrations, interrupted the rally with shouts of “Black lives matter!”

Nothing new there. Practically every presidential candidate, Republican and Democrat, has, at one time or another, experienced disruptions at campaign events.

Trump’s Alabama rally was different, however, and he made it so.

“Get him the hell out of here, will you, please” Trump said, referring to Southall. “Get him out of here. Throw him out.”

In an ensuing skirmish, Southall reportedly fell to the ground, was surrounded by several white people who punched and kicked him. As security officers led Southall out of the building, he was repeatedly pushed and shoved by people in the crowd.

Trump, unlike most other candidates, sanctioned the crowd’s behavior.

Said the Republican front-runner on Fox News Channel on Sunday morning about Southall and the assaulting crowd: “Maybe he should have been roughed up.”

That is how the Sturmabteilung, also known as the ‘Storm Troopers’ or Brownshirts got their start. They were the bullies formed by Adolf Hitler in Germany in the 1920s to defend his rallies. They, too, “roughed up” people, push and shoved, and threw out Hitler’s rivals, all with the future German Chancellor’s approval.

Trump’s assigned Secret Service detail apparently isn’t enough for him. Making protesters at his rallies pay with their bodies seems fine with him, too. Does Trump know that his campaign may be modeling a horrible example?

Does he even care?
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December 01, 2015 - 01:13 PM EST
Spike Lee: Trump ‘like Hitler’ toward Muslims
By Mark Hensch

Filmmaker Spike Lee sees parallels between GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“He wants to close down the mosques now,” Lee said Monday in an interview with The Daily Beast, referring to Trump.

“That’s like the Nazis,” Lee continued. “That’s Hitler, [Italian fascist leader Benito] Mussolini, the Axis powers.

“You can’t do that,” he added.

Trump is pushing for closer scrutiny of America’s Islamic communities following last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris. About 130 people died and more than 300 others were wounded during coordinated violence across the French capital on Nov. 13.

Trump has responded by calling for stricter surveillance of the nation’s mosques following the attacks. He has also proposed a national registry of Syrian refugees.

Lee also rejected Trump’s disputed claims that some Muslim Americans in New Jersey celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“That was a bold-faced lie,” he said in The Daily Beast interview. “Muslims were getting their asses kicked in this country when that happened.

“Here’s the thing: the United States has perfected the science of ‘the boogeyman,’” Lee said. “Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Nazis, Soviets, Chinese and now it is Muslims. They’re the new boogeymen.”
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Thu, Dec 3rd, 2015
CNN’s Sally Kohn Calls Trump a Fascist, Invokes Hitler
By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson

I said back on November 20th that Donald Trump wants to register Muslims like the Nazis registered Jews, and I put Donald Trump in front of a swastika flag to make my point. CNN left off the flag, but yesterday, political commentator Sally Kohn made her point quite clearly nonetheless. She began by saying she was mistaken initially to treat Trump’s campaign as a joke.

“We might be at the point that I might weep on national television,” Kohn told CNN host Ashleigh Banfield. “This is not funny anymore.”

“When you have a candidate that continues to say the same sort of demagogic things he’s saying and his support is maintained, and when you see a Black Lives Matter protester beaten during one of his rallies — and he said maybe he deserved to be roughed up — when a homeless immigrant is beaten by Trump supporters and Trump doesn’t condemn that but says, in fact, ‘Well, my people are passionate,’ there’s a word for this.”

“It’s fascism,” she concluded. “And people need to remember in this country, Adolf Hitler, when he first rose to power, was elected by 36 percent of the German voters.”

Hitler actually lost that 1932 presidential election with 36.8 percent of the vote, finishing second to beloved war hero and incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg, but that was all he needed, being named chancellor on 30 January 1933 and becoming the real power in Germany.

“This is kind of getting deeply disturbing and kind of troublesome, not only for the Republican Party, but for democracy, justice, and liberty,” Kohn continued.
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Donald Trump compared to Hitler in new Republican attack ad
International Business Times
By Taku Dzimwasha | International Business Times – Sun, Nov 29, 2015
Donald Trump compared to Hitler in new Republican attack ad

Republican donors shocked by the rise of Donald Trump have launched a scathing attack ad, which compares the billionaire businessman to Adolf Hitler. Trump, 69, currently leads most polls for the Republican nomination to stand in the presidential elections in 2016.

His campaign has been noted for the controversial things Trump has said, including rounding up illegal migrants and deporting them, making it compulsory that Muslims should be registered with the state, and lauding his supporters as they allegedly beat up a black protestor. However, Trump received the most criticism after he seemingly mimicked a reporter with a disability during a speech.

In the advertisement, Colonel Thomas Moe, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, paraphrases First They Came For… – a famous poem based on a speech given by Martin Niemöller, a prominent German Protestant pastor, which condemned his fellow German citizens for not speaking out against Hitler in 1946.

“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims should register with their ­government, because you’re not one,” says Moe over ominous music, before going on to list other groups targeted by the former The Apprentice presenter.

The colonel concludes: “But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you. And you better hope there’s someone left to help you.”
…

It’s somewhat of a relief that it isn’t just me.

The Buzz
From the staff of the Tampa Bay Times
David Jolly says Trump should leave race after ‘bigoted, hate-filled rhetoric’
Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Tuesday, December 8, 2015 12:34am

Republican U.S. Senate candidate David Jolly says Donald Trump needs to leave the race for president and wants other candidates to join him in that call.

“While ISIS is beheading innocent people for their religious practices, Trump is betraying our freedoms,” Jolly said in a statement. “His brutal, bullying bigotry runs contrary to the very principles our forefathers fought so hard to defend. We are either a party of protecting the constitution and religious liberties or we’re not. America should insist on a security test but never a religious test.”

The Pinellas County Congressman also said Congress should debate and approve a Authorization to use Military Force agreement to more aggressively go after the Islamic State.

“Our national security is the only lens through which we should make decisions regarding the destruction of terror,” Jolly’s statement read. “But we can do so without fundamentally abandoning our most basic tenets of religious freedom. I am a born-again Christian who opposes any religious litmus test that defies everything we believe in.”
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