Venezuela’s Constitutional Clock: Update

Following up on Venezuela’s constitutional clock starts ticking:

We are approaching the end of the 90‑day period that began on January 4, when Delcy Rodríguez was made acting president following the Constitutional Court’s declaration of Maduro’s “forced absence”. The most likely move is a 90‑day extension, which would keep the temporary‑absence framework in place until July 3. If so, the key question becomes what happens after July 3. That’s when the constitutional situation becomes much murkier.

Venezuela’s constitutional clock starts ticking

In a ruling issued Sunday, the country's rubber-stamp Supreme Tribunal of Justice decided to treat Maduro's current absence as a temporary forced absence. This means the current government stays in place, but a constitutional clock starts ticking until elections are held.

Under this plan,

The institutional Grift in US Politics is a Disgrace

These Four Democratic Firms Raked in $600 Million Running Ads for Kamala's Failed Campaign

Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign directed nearly $600 million to just four media consulting firms with deep ties to the Democratic establishment, Federal Election Commission records show.— Harris campaign exceeded $880 million in total spending as of October 16, though that number is expected to balloon to $1.5 billion after the Harris campaign files its post-election FEC report on December 5. 

70% of the campaign's known total spending flowed through four firms: Media Buying & Analytics, Gambit Strategies, Bully Pulpit Interactive, and Dupont Circle Strategies.

Here's a rundown of these four professional grifting outlets…

The ‘Barbenheimer’ Election | Niall Ferguson

Exactly! 

Niall Ferguson says, While Kamala Harris runs a campaign of unsurpassed vacuousness, on the other screen we have the dark, fissile energy of Donald Trump.

Niall FergusonWednesday, August 21, 2024

Barbie and Oppenheimer exemplify the twin poles of America's mood swings. Who knows what next week's vibe shift will be? (Photo illustration by The Free Press, images via Getty)

I am sorry. I've seen this movie before. Or rather, both of these movies. Last year.

On one side, it's:

I'm a Barbie girl in a Barbie world

Life in plastic, it's fantastic

. . . Imagination, life is your creation

Come on Barbie, let's go party.

And on the other, it's:

Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Except that this isn't Barbie versus Oppenheimer, the great moviegoers' dilemma of 2023. It's the presidential election of 2024, the nationwide executive search for the leader of what we once called the free world. 

Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for the presidency, the architects of the Harris campaign have managed to create their own Dream House. This one isn't bubblegum pink, but it has the policy equivalents of a pool party.

What Happened in Virginia?

It's the day after Election Day, and Democrats are casting about—as they did in 2016, as they have so many times before—for an explanation for what just happened. 

Batya Ungar-Sargon gives us the rundown.

What Happened Last Night in Virginia

Glenn Youngkin speaks during a campaign rally on November 1, 2021, in Leesburg, Virginia. (Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images)

It's the day after Election Day, and Democrats are casting about—as they did in 2016, as they have so many times before—for an explanation for what just happened. 

Niall Ferguson warns, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,”—Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

Niall Ferguson warns, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," aka, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

Here are some excerpts from his piece on Bloomberg this week.

Joe Biden Could End Up Being a Wartime President

Notwithstanding his pledges of uplift and healing, history suggests post-pandemic peace is rare, and Democratic wars are not.

Successful Democratic candidates for the presidency of the United States invariably campaign with promises of domestic largesse and moral uplift. They nearly always end up taking their country to war. Can Joe Biden be a rare exception to that rule, if he succeeds in defeating Donald Trump on November 3? That will depend not just on how well he and his national security team conduct U.S. foreign policy. It will also depend on how stable the world around them is. The bad news is that post-pandemic peace is another historical rarity.

...

Joe Biden's speech on Thursday night was the continuation of a very long tradition in lofty Democratic rhetoric, traceable all the way back to Thomas Jefferson. "If you entrust me with the presidency," declared Biden, "I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness. It's time for us, for We the People, to come together. For make no mistake. United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America. We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege." Whoever wrote that speech had done their homework.  At times I wondered if an algorithm had mashed it up on the basis of all previous Democratic acceptance speeches.

...

One disaster begets another.

#Trump Reelection #Campaign #Ads Is "A Supercar Racing A Little VW Bug." Guess Who's The Volkswagen...

PhotoCredit: Brian Stauffer

Great article from The NY Times on how Democrats don't seem to have gotten the memo on online advertising. 

As a prime example, upon an onslaught of targeted online ads ("Learn the truth. Watch Now!") about former VP and Ukraine, Biden campaign proceeded to slash its online advertising budget in favor of more television ads.!!!  

Talk about clueless!!  

Trump Campaign Floods Web With Ads, Raking In Cash as Democrats Struggle

By Matthew Rosenberg and Kevin Roose

"That campaigns are now being fought largely online is hardly a revelation, yet only one political party seems to have gotten the message."

Democratic establishment is "too focused on winning over imagined moderates"

Read the whole article online here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/us/elections/trump-campaign-ads-democrats.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

______________________________

MasterFeeds

@MasterFeed

#SocialMedia being used to manipulate public opinion in more than 70 countries says New report from Oxford Internet Institute

"social networking technologies – algorithms, automation and big data – vastly changes the scale, scope, and precision of how [mis]information is transmitted in the digital age."

• Organized social media manipulation has more than doubled since 2017
•  70 countries using computational propaganda to manipulate public opinion.
• In 45 democracies, politicians and political parties have used computational propaganda tools by amassing fake followers or spreading manipulated media to garner voter support.
• In 26 authoritarian states, government entities have used computational propaganda as a tool of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent.
• Foreign influence operations, primarily over Facebook and Twitter, have been attributed to cyber troop activities in seven countries: China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

"The manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. Government agencies and political parties around the world are using social media to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. Although propaganda has always been a part of politics, the wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raises critical concerns for modern democracy."

Read the excerpt for the report, 'The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation', here: https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news/releases/use-of-social-media-to-manipulate-public-opinion-now-a-global-problem-says-new-report/

Download the Full Report here.

The French election: An inconvenient truth | The Economist

What do you expect when you have not balanced you budget since 1978...

The underlying problem is that, over the past ten years, France has lost competitiveness. In 2000 hourly labour costs in France were 8% lower than those in Germany, its main trading partner; today, they are 10% higher (see chart 2). French exports have stagnated while Germany’s have boomed. An employer today pays twice as much in social charges in France as he does in Germany. France’s unemployment rate is 10% next to 5.8% in Germany—and has not dipped below 7% for nearly 30 years.

This erosion of French competitiveness raises hard questions about the underlying social compact. Frenchmen cherish the notion that everyone has an equal right to decent services in good times and a generous safety net in bad. But what sort of level of support, in sickness, joblessness, infancy or old age, can France really afford to offer its citizens? How can the country justify its massive public administration—a millefeuille of communes, departments, regions and the central state—which employs 90 civil servants per 1,000 population, compared with 50 in Germany? How can France lighten the tax burden, including payroll social charges, so as to encourage entrepreneurship and job creation?

Which Gold Miners Might Be Impacted by Possible Unrest in The Ivory Coast ? (Sales Commentary)

CONCLUSION: The situation in the Ivory Coast continues to simmer after recent elections.  Now the army has closed the Ivory Coast borders and is suspending foreign news organizations from reporting issues.  If tensions continue then mining operations in the country could potentially be negatively impacted.

 For reference, here are the gold miners with operations in the Ivory Coast:

Endeavour Mining (not rated. EVD CN, mkt cap C$320mm) - A development project in the Ivory Coast but producing assets are located in Burkina Faso

Cluff Gold (Market Perform, no target, CLF LN, mkt cap £150mm)- A producing mine in the Ivory Coast that accounts for approx. 25% of our NPV.  Key asset is in Burkina Faso and an exploration play in Sierra Leone

Newcrest (Outperform, A$52.50, NCM AU, mkt cap A$31.1bn) - The Ivory Coast assets are only 4% of our project NPV, but the exploration upset 

La Mancha (not rated. LMA CN, mkt cap C$368mm) - Highly levered to the Ivory Coast, with existing production from the country and many exploration targets.

Perseus (not rated. PRU AU, mkt cap A$1.3bn) -  Main development project is Tengrela in the Ivory Coast, with a feasibility expected by year-end and production possible in late-2012

Randgold (Outperform, target US$125, RRS LN, mkt cap £5.5bn) - Growth asset Tongon is in the Ivory coast and is ramping towards production by the end of the year.  The mine is 30% of our project NPV 

Please see attached map from our West Africa gold analyst, to see locations of each asset in the country.

     ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast,  Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The United Nations
has urged Ivory Coast election rivals to refrain from violence
while officials try to determine who won a presidential runoff.
     The Army sealed borders after Ivory Coast's electoral
commission announced that opposition candidate Alassane
Ouattara defeated incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, the BBC reported.
     However, the Constitutional Council said the announcement
is invalid, alleging voter fraud by Ouattara.
     The army announced it closed Ivory Coast borders. It also
said it would suspend foreign news organizations from reporting
issues.
     The election, the first presidential election in a decade,
was intended to reunify the nation, which was torn by a civil
war in 2002.
     The United Nations received reports of violence in parts
of the west and north during recent voting but said overall the
election seemed peaceful.
     "Our job is to remind them of their promises and
commitments and especially not to use violence," said U.N.
spokesman Hamadoun Toure.
     "They have to abide by electoral law, they have to keep
their promise during the campaigning that they won't use
violence to settle disputes and they also said they'd abide by
the results," Toure said.
     The Constitutional Council has one week to publish
official results of the election.
     Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa.
    
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-0- Dec/03/2010 14:49 GMT

Wyclef files to run for Haiti president

Wyclef files to run for Haiti president

msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines

Singer Wyclef Jean submitted the paperwork Thursday to run for president of Haiti, formally thrusting himself into what is expected to be a highly competitive race and ending years of speculation about his political ambitions.

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