Market Mayhem: Oil Crashes, U.S. Stock Futures Tank, Bond Yields Plummet, and Trading Curbs Kick in

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Sharp declines in U.S. stock index futures triggered trading curbs meant to slow panicked markets as the price of oil fell by more than 30 percent and bond yields crashed amid heightened worries over the coronavirus.

E-mini futures on the S&P 500 dropped by 5 percent in overnight trading Sunday, triggering automatic trading curbs that kick-in when the price falls below 5 percent of the closing price of the referenced index Friday. As a result, the futures contract cannot trade at a lower price until the cash market opens at 9:30 a.m., although trades may still be made at higher prices.

The last time futures trading hit the overnight limit was election night of 2016, when markets initially sold off following the news that Donald Trump had won the election. That selling pressure quickly subsided and the major indexes closed up by around 1 percent or so the following day.

The E-mini is an electronically traded futures contract based on the underlying S&P 500 index. The contracts are around one-fifth the size of the standard S&P futures contracts, earning them the monicker “mini.” They are considered highly liquid and are widely traded but they have, in a few past episodes, been prone to so-called “flash crashes.” . . .

Oil prices crashed more than 30 percent Sunday night after Saudia Arabia on Saturday slashed official crude prices for April following the collapse of talks between OPEC+, which includes the traditional OPEC nations plus Russia. Oil had fallen sharply on Friday following the news that talks had fallen apart but took an even deeper tumble, falling an additional 20 percent or so, when it became apparent that the once allied oil producers were now engaged in a price war to take market share from each other. (Read more from “Market Mayhem: Oil Crashes, U.S. Stock Futures Tank, Bond Yields Plummet, and Trading Curbs Kick in” HERE)

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Top GOP Lawmaker Accuses Democrats of Intentionally Delaying Coronavirus Bill to Score Political Points

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) alleged Sunday that Democrats intentionally delayed the coronavirus relief bill in order to run Super Tuesday ads.

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an emergency bill providing $8.3 billion for the government’s response to the coronavirus. But McCarthy said Trump could have signed the bill one week earlier. . .

Speaking to Fox News host Laura Ingraham last Tuesday, McCarthy accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of withholding the bill to benefit Democrats on Super Tuesday.

“Look how much politics they want to play. The dirty little secret. We have the coronavirus. We need to fund this. You know what Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, did? She withheld the bill last week. You know why? So the DCCC could run ads against seven Republicans,” he said.

“I don’t know how many ran, but they actually took the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, spent money, went into these seven Republican seats to campaign against them about the coronavirus when she’s the Speaker of the House. Instead of putting America first, she put her politics first and kept the bill from coming to the floor,” McCarthy explained. (Read more from “Top GOP Lawmaker Accuses Democrats of Intentionally Delaying Coronavirus Bill to Score Political Points” HERE)

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Alan Dershowitz Says Barack Obama ‘Conned’ Him and He Would Now Reconsider His 2012 Vote for Him

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Renowned liberal Democratic lawyer and civil liberties advocate Alan Dershowitz accused former President Barack Obama of betraying the state of Israel and personally deceiving him in a recent interview with Ben Shapiro that aired on Sunday.

Dershowitz explained to Shapiro that Obama assured him in a private meeting that he would vigorously defend Israel, but then did the opposite. . .

“I think President Obama, for whom I voted twice, and would now reconsider my second vote for him, he conned me,” he said. “He called me into the Oval Office and he said ‘I have Israel’s back’ and I didn’t realize what he meant is to put a target on it and stab them,” Dershowitz said, referring to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power’s abstention from during a December 2016 vote condemning Israel.

“As he was leaving office, he ordered his representative to the U.N. to not veto a resolution which declared…the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism to be occupied territory,” he continued.

“It was outrageous,” the Harvard Law School professor added while explaining how Obama’s decision “legitimized” anti-Israel activism among the political center-left and the Democratic Party. (Read more from “Alan Dershowitz Says Barack Obama ‘Conned’ Him and He Would Now Reconsider His 2012 Vote for Him” HERE)

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Two Attendees of AIPAC’S DC Conference Test Positive for Coronavirus; Pence, Netanyahu, Hundreds Of Members Of Congress Went To Conference; FBI Employee Diagnosed With Coronavirus, Reports Say

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Pence, Netanyahu, Hundreds of Members of Congress Went to Conference Attended by 2 People Who Tested Positive for Coronavirus

By Daily Caller. Vice President Mike Pence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and hundreds of members of Congress attended a conference last month along with at least two people who have tested positive for a novel strain of coronavirus that has killed more than 3,000 people across the globe. . .

This year’s AIPAC conference featured a who’s who of high-profile politicians, both from the U.S. and Israel. In addition to Pence and Netanyahu, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer also attended the three-day event. . .

AIPAC organizers said Wednesday that a group of attendees had been in contact with an individual who tested positive for the virus, which is called COVID-19.

U.S. health officials have scrambled to ramp up the ability to test for possible cases of the virus. As of Friday, 299 Americans have tested positive for the virus. Fourteen of those have succumbed to the illness. Thirteen of the fatalities have occurred in the state of Washington, and all of the victims have been either elderly or had underlying health issues. (Read more from “Pence, Netanyahu, Hundreds of Members of Congress Went to Conference Attended by 2 People Who Tested Positive for Coronavirus” HERE)

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Two Attendees of AIPAC’S DC Conference Test Positive for Coronavirus

By The Blaze. The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee confirmed Friday that two people who attended its Washington, D.C., conference earlier this week have tested positive for coronavirus.

AIPAC announced on Twitter that it emailed a statement “to Policy Conference attendees, participants, speakers, administration and Hill offices” informing them that “at least two Policy Conference attendees from New York have tested positive for the Coronavirus.”

The pro-Israel group held its gathering March 1-3, hosting more than 18,000 attendees from across the country along with roughly two-thirds of the members of Congress.

USA Today reported that “attendees and speakers at the conference included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Sen. Tec Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), former 2020 Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg, former candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and several other lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.”

The exposure reinforces the fears of conference organizers across the country amid efforts to stop the spread of infection, as major gatherings are increasingly being canceled or postponed amid outbreaks of the coronavirus known as COVID-19. (Read more from “Two Attendees of AIPAC’S DC Conference Test Positive for Coronavirus” HERE)

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San Francisco FBI Employee Diagnosed With Coronavirus, Reports Say

By New York Post. An FBI employee at a small satellite office in San Francisco has tested positive for coronavirus, multiple reports said Friday.

FBI officials said that the agency has notified every person known to have come in contact with the infected employee about possible exposure, KTVU reported. . .

The FBI took “preemptive measures” in February to help contain the deadly virus — ordering $40,000 of masks and hand sanitizer for use across the country in case the outbreak were to become a pandemic in the US.

(Read more from “San Francisco FBI Employee Diagnosed With Coronavirus, Reports Say” HERE)

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REPORT: Loaded Gun Discovered in the Jail Jeffrey Epstein Died In

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By Daily Caller. Investigators confirmed that a loaded handgun was found in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, the same jail that sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in, according to a new report.

After a lockdown lasting a week, a loaded gun was discovered to be smuggled into the jail, according to AP News.

AP further described the discovery of the gun as a “massive breach of protocol” that “raised serious questions about the security practices.”

Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire who has been convicted of sex crimes, was arrested again in 2019 and later found dead from an apparent suicide in his cell in MCC. (Read more from “REPORT: Loaded Gun Discovered in the Jail Jeffrey Epstein Died In” HERE)

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Feds Uncover Stash of Contraband in Manhattan Prison Where Jeffrey Epstein Died

By New York Post. The search of the Manhattan jail where Jeffrey Epstein killed himself last summer turned up a trove of contraband in addition to a smuggled loaded gun that forced a week-long lockdown of the facility, authorities said Friday.

Staff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center recovered homemade weapons, narcotics and cellphones while searching for the gun at the troubled jail, the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.

“All of these items pose a significant threat to the safety and security of the facility as well as the public,” they said.

Staff found the loaded gun in a housing unit of the jail Thursday after freezing inmates’ legal and family visits for a week. The facility will remain on lockdown as staff conduct follow-up searches for additional contraband. (Read more from “Feds Uncover Stash of Contraband in Manhattan Prison Where Jeffrey Epstein Died” HERE)

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Democrats Aren’t Going to Like Trump’s New Job Growth and Unemployment Numbers

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America’s strong job growth is surprising even the experts. They predicted that there would be 175,000 new jobs in February. Instead, the economy created 273,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent.

What’s more, December and January’s job numbers were adjusted upward by 243,000. And if you can stand it, here’s more.

CNBC:

The previous two months’ estimates were revised higher by a total of 85,000. December moved up from 147,000 to 184,000, while January went from 225,000 to 273,000. Those revisions brought the three-month average up to a robust 243,000 while the average monthly gain in 2019 was 178,000.

But before you pop the champagne corks and celebrate Trump’s re-election, there are storm clouds on the horizon. It looks like we’re in for some rough weather.

“While it’s too early to see the impact of the coronavirus on the labor market, we can say the labor market was in a good place before the virus began to spread,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director at job placement firm Indeed. “But the next few months will be a test of just how resilient this labor market is.”

(Read more from “Democrats Aren’t Going to Like Trump’s New Job Growth and Unemployment Numbers” HERE)

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Trump Campaign Sues CNN Over ‘False and Defamatory’ Statements, Seeks Millions in Damages

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President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against CNN on Friday for publishing “false and defamatory” statements about seeking Russia’s help in the 2020 election.

“The complaint alleges CNN was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign while misleading its own readers in the process… the campaign filed this lawsuit against CNN and the preceding suits against The New York Times and The Washington Post to hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth,” Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis told Fox News.

Fox News obtained the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia where CNN is located. It states in part that CNN claimed Trump’s campaign “assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table.”

The complaint said that CNN was well aware the statements were false “because there was an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the administration expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance” but promoted the claim anyway.

The complaint said that Trump’s legal team sent CNN a request to retract and apologize last month but CNN executives refused. The Trump campaign now seeks “millions of dollars” through litigation. (Read more from “Trump Campaign Sues CNN Over ‘False and Defamatory’ Statements, Seeks Millions in Damages” HERE)

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Former Obama Acting DHS Inspector General Indicted

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A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia has indicted former acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Charles K. Edwards, and his former subordinate, Murali Yamazula Venkata, on 16 counts for their alleged theft of “proprietary software and confidential databases from the U.S. government as part of a scheme to defraud the U.S. government,” according to a press release from the DOJ. Edwards served as acting IG for the Department of Homeland Security from 2011 to 2013. The DOJ announced the charges against Edwards and Venkata on Friday.

According to the allegations in the indictment, from October 2014 to April 2017, Edwards, Venkata, and others executed a scheme to defraud the U.S. government by stealing confidential and proprietary software from DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), along with sensitive government databases containing personal identifying information (PII) of DHS and USPS employees, so that Edwards’s company, Delta Business Solutions, could later sell an enhanced version of DHS-OIG’s software to the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at a profit. Although Edwards had left DHS-OIG in December 2013, he continued to leverage his relationship with Venkata and other DHS-OIG employees to steal the software and the sensitive government databases.

The indictment further alleges that, in addition to stealing DHS-OIG’s software and the sensitive government databases, Venkata and others also assisted Edwards by reconfiguring his laptop so that he could properly upload the stolen software and databases, provided troubleshooting support whenever Edwards required it, and helped him build a testing server at his residence with the stolen software and databases, which contained PII. As further part of the alleged scheme, Edwards retained software developers in India for the purpose of developing his commercial alternative of DHS-OIG’s software.

Venkata is also accused of destroying records. (Read more from “Former Obama Acting DHS Inspector General Indicted” HERE)

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Pentagon Sends Troops to Southern Border as SCOTUS Prepares to Decide on ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy

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By National Review. The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it will send a crisis force of 160 troops to two points on the U.S.–Mexico border as the Supreme Court prepares to decide whether to hear a case that could decide the fate of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy requires asylum seekers to reside in Mexico as they wait to receive an asylum hearing in the U.S. On February 28, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a lower-court decision blocking the policy. A stay of the 9th Circuit’s ruling was issued hours later to give the Supreme Court time to decide whether to hear the case, and the Court is expected to announce its decision on Wednesday. (Read more from “Pentagon Sends Troops to Southern Border as SCOTUS Prepares to Decide on ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy” HERE)

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Troops Forming Crisis Response Forces at U.S.-Mexico Border Checkpoints

By Military Times. About 160 soldiers deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border are forming crisis response teams at two points of entry, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Members of the 687th Engineer Construction Company and the 519th Military Police Battalion, both based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, will move to San Ysidro, California, and El Paso, Texas, to assist Customs and Border Patrol, according to a release.

There they will “emplace temporary barriers to restrict access through ports of entry and provide force protection for CBP personnel as they perform their federal functions,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Christian Mitchell said in a statement.

The soldiers are part of the roughly 5,000 active-duty and National Guard troops who have been rotating to the southern border since late 2018, in response to President Trump’s declaration of emergency due to the flow of migrants illegally crossing the border.

The Texas National Guard will also send members of the 136th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade to Brownsville, Texas, for quick reaction force training, Mitchell said. (Read more from “Troops Forming Crisis Response Forces at U.S.-Mexico Border Checkpoints” HERE)

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Mitt Romney Reluctantly Agrees to Subpoena Information About Hunter Biden’s ‘Work’ in Ukraine

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By Townhall. Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney will vote in favor of subpoenaing documents about Hunter Biden’s work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Biden was on the board of the notoriously corrupt company while his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, was in charge of the Ukraine profile during the Obama administration. He was paid up to $80,000 per month despite having no experience in the oil and gas industry.

Romney’s decision comes after he voted to convict President Trump on one article of impeachment, abuse of power, in February. President Trump was impeached by Democrats over a July 25, 2020 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he mentioned potentially corrupt practices by Joe and Hunter Biden.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me,” Trump said.

(Read more from “Mitt Romney Reluctantly Agrees to Subpoena Information About Hunter Biden’s ‘Work’ in Ukraine” HERE)

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Romney Claims Senate Probe Into Hunter Biden ‘Appears Political’

By National Review. Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) warned Thursday that Senator Ron Johnson’s (R., Wis.) probe into the Bidens and Burisma “appears political,” and would not comment whether he would vote for a subpoena that Johnson is planning.

“There’s no question that the appearance of looking into Burisima and Hunter Biden appears political. I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations,” Romney told reporters, adding that he needs to meet with Johnson to “see what information he has” before deciding on a vote.

But he suggested he was uncomfortable with the probe, implying that it was not within the purview of the Senate Homeland Security Committee — which Johnson chairs and Romney serves on.

“I would hope that there’s something of significance that needs to be evaluated that would be done perhaps the FBI or some other agency, although it’s not as political as perhaps a committee of our body,” he said. “We also have a lot of work to do on matters that are not related to Burisma. We probably ought to focus on those things.” (Read more from “Romney Claims Senate Probe Into Hunter Biden ‘Appears Political’” HERE)

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