Truth and Hammer

Author: Truth & Hammer

  • Here’s why Lynne Patton is at today’s hearing, and it could be devastating for Michael Cohen

    Here’s why Lynne Patton is at today’s hearing, and it could be devastating for Michael Cohen

    Lynne Patton, who worked for the Trump Organization before the election and is currently a senior official at HUD, is at today’s Michael Cohen hearing:

    Dear Haters:

    Since so many of you are asking, I am only going to say this ONCE, so please pay attention before any of you start breaking out the champagne:

    1) I will be the first to concede that IF actual physical evidence exists that the President directly instructed Cohen to lie to Congress then, yes, it would be the ONLY accusation made against POTUS over the past three years that would worry me. Otherwise, it remains the word of one person over another with ZERO evidence. Period. One of whom is going to jail for perjury & fraud.

    2) More notably, it should be known that Donald Trump does not use email and never has. Nor (up until his inauguration at least) does he text. Therefore, the likelihood of some “smoking gun” email or text is slim to none. It should also be known that any/all visitors to the West Wing must check their cell phones upon entry in a secure locker before meeting with the President. Omarosa was not a visitor.

    3) Many of you may already know that I considered Michael Cohen to be one of my very best friends. Countless people can confirm that we were virtually inseparable during my employment at Trump – and that he is, single-handedly – responsible for introducing me to the Trump family and effectively changing my entire life. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that my heart still breaks for him and for his family, with whom I had grown extremely close.

    4) What many of you may not be aware of is the fact that I can personally confirm that the ONLY reason Michael Cohen “turned on” the President of the United States is because Mueller threatened to throw his wife in jail for up to 30 years. Period. She is the co-guarantor of a $20M personal loan that Mueller discovered Michael secured back in 2015 by falsely inflating the value of his taxi medallions – effectively making her part & parcel to the federal charge of “Making False Statements to a Financial Institution,” to which Cohen ultimately plead guilty. This is also the reason why Cohen’s longtime taxi medallion partner, Evgeny “Gene” Freidman, was granted immunity.

    5) Michael Cohen also told me (after they raided his apartment) that the reason why he elected to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 by using his home equity loan – effectively committing bank fraud – instead of easily using the over $5M+ cash he has sitting in various stateside bank accounts is because his wife controls their finances and he simply did not want her to notice the missing money, as many husbands wouldn’t considering to whom it went. Period. Moreover, he confessed to me that he never imagined in a million years that Donald Trump would actually win the Presidency and that the misappropriation of his home equity loan would ever be exposed, since thousands of Americans misuse this type line of credit to pay for colleges, boats, cars and vacations every single day.

    6) By Cohen’s own admission, Trump ceased all interest and communication in constructing Trump Tower Moscow in June 2016. Over a month before officially being declared the Republican nominee for President. To that end, it is NOT ILLEGAL for him to explore – nor deny – any “for profit” construction projects during the campaign, as he was still a civilian global real estate mogul.

    7) BuzzFeed, themselves, officially admitted on CNN this morning that they have yet to independently confirm or see ANY evidence that corroborates their story.

    8.) Most significantly, Mueller refused to recommend any leniency, nor lack of jail time (as he did for Michael Flynn), for Michael Cohen when he was sentenced to 3+ years in federal prison just last month. This would lead most legal experts to reasonably conclude that the Special Counsel deems information gleaned from Michael Cohen of little consequence or contribution.

    9) Lastly, given that Michael Cohen is barred from discussing the Russian investigation when he testifies before the House Oversight Committee, it’s safe to conclude that his testimony on February 7th will effectively amount to nothing more than political theater and partisan fodder for late night hosts simply to embarrass a sitting President over past behavior he may or may not have engaged in as a private citizen.

    10) In closing, Michael Cohen always wanted to be famous. Sadly, he has gotten his wish. I personally stopped communicating with Michael when it became known in May 2018 that he was defrauding various companies (from a Korean defense firm to a global pharmaceutical company) for millions of dollars by falsely claiming he could leverage his connection with the President to their favor.

    To me, that was the moment I knew our character, principles & loyalty to one another had finally diverged.

    Much like the moment I ultimately realized that Omarosa Manigault Newman was lying to me about the existence of an “N-word” tape.

    Like Cohen, it is no secret that Omarosa was one of my of very best friends. She and I developed the closest relationship out of everyone during the campaign, transition and newfound Administration.

    From sharing hotel rooms to texting and speaking up to 80 times per day, I considered her to be like a sister. Michael Cohen was like my family.

    While both of them often declared their loyalty to this President and his family in public, I realize now that neither of them FULLY understood the definition.

    You don’t give loyalty to get loyalty in return.

    You do it simply because it’s the right thing to do.

    I am not a rich person. Nor am I poor.

    People who have known the Trump family for less than a year are now signing multi-million dollar book deals. I have known them for 10. I know what’s written in their pre-nups & in their wills. I know what they think of certain people, the details of their family lives – good or bad. I know their medical histories & even the passcodes to their emails, credit cards, computers and homes.

    NOT ONCE has it EVER crossed my mind to share that information in exchange for monetary gain. Not even in the multiple millions. Nor will it ever.

    Feel free to call me either the dumbest loyalist on the face of the earth, or the poorest member of their inner circle.

    I, on the other hand, simply choose to call myself a NORMAL FRIEND. 🙏🏽

  • Jenna Bush replaces Kathie Lee Gifford on the “Today” show!

    Jenna Bush replaces Kathie Lee Gifford on the “Today” show!

    When Kathie Lee Gifford announced that she was leaving the “Today” show in April, people were stunned. What would become of Kathie Lee and Hoda?

    Well, it seems a new co-host has been announced and it’s Jenna Bush Hager! Hager is the younger of the twin daughters of the 43rd U.S. president George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush. After her father’s presidency, she became an author, an editor-at-large for Southern Living magazine, and a television personality.

    source:  http://www.ks95.com

  • China opposes sanctions against Venezuela, says US will be responsible for consequences

    China opposes sanctions against Venezuela, says US will be responsible for consequences

    President Maduro, who is attempting to bring the lingering turmoil under control and resist the US-led pressure, has received a new sign of support from Beijing. Asked if China is sticking with Maduro, Geng Shuang, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: “We have sent President Xi Jinping’s special envoy to attend the inauguration ceremony of President Maduro.”

    “If we didn’t recognize him, why did we need to attend it?” he asked rhetorically. The comment came only a day after the US slapped Venezuela with a package of sanctions targeting state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).

    China believes the US restrictions will do more harm to ordinary people’s lives than the government, Geng argued. In all, Washington “should bear responsibility for the serious consequences [stemming] from this.”

    Announcing the sanctions, the White House officially declared that they would serve to prevent the elected government from using oil revenues to cement power. However, there might be another, more robust rationale behind escalating the Venezuelan crisis.

    CIA World Factbook says Venezuela has the world’s biggest proven crude oil reserves leaving behind Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq. And as Bush-era arch-hawk John Bolton put it, the US had “a lot at stake” in Venezuela’s affairs.

    “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela,” he told Fox Business host Trish Regan.

    China, for its part, has also much to lose if events in Venezuela get out of control. Beijing has lent more than $50 billion to Caracas through loan agreements over the past ten years, securing energy supplies for its economy. Just last year, Venezuela received a hefty Chinese loan worth $5bn and joined Beijing’s New Silk Road Initiative.

    The Asian power is one of Venezuela’s biggest trading partners and political allies, but its previous response to the crisis was quite reserved. As the crisis unfolded, it continuously called outside actors to observe Venezuelan sovereignty and not to meddle with its domestic affairs.

    The confrontation between government and opposition forces in Venezuela escalated when opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself to be interim president after calls for regime change from Washington. The 35-year-old was largely unknown outside Venezuela until the beginning of this year, but he now enjoys the backing of the US, Israel, Canada, Australia and a number of South American countries.

    However, the Maduro government has China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Belarus and South Africa on its side. These nations have demanded that countries following the US lead drop attempts to interfere in Venezuela’s affairs.

    China has thrown more weight behind embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, stressing that it supports him even despite the perils he faces and making clear that fresh US sanctions will only make life worse for Venezuelans.

    source:  https://www.rt.com

  • Quarks Move Slower in Atoms with More Pairs of Protons and Neutrons

    Quarks Move Slower in Atoms with More Pairs of Protons and Neutrons

    The atomic nucleus is made of protons and neutrons, which are themselves composed of quarks and gluons. The latter two are far smaller and operate at much higher energy levels than the protons and neutrons in which they are found. Physicists have therefore assumed that a quark should be blithely indifferent to the characteristics of the protons and neutrons, and the overall atom. But in 1983, the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) at CERN observed what would become known as the EMC effect: in the nucleus of an iron atom containing many protons and neutrons, quarks move significantly more slowly than quarks in deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen containing a proton and neutron in its nucleus). Now physicists from the CLAS (CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer) Collaboration have found that a quark’s speed depends on the number of protons and neutrons forming short-ranged correlated (SRC) pairs in an atom’s nucleus.

    Schmookler et al develop a universal function that suggests that proton-neutron pairs in the nucleus, shown here, may be responsible for the EMC effect. Image credit: DOE’s Jefferson Lab.

    “There are currently two main models that describe the EMC effect,” said Dr. Douglas Higinbotham, a staff scientist at the Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory and a member of the CLAS Collaboration.

    “One model is that all protons and neutrons in a nucleus [and thus their quarks] are modified and they are all modified the same way.”

    “The other model, which is the one that we focus on in the study, is different. It says that many protons and neutrons are behaving as if they are free, while others are involved in short-range correlations and are highly modified.”

    “An atom’s protons and neutrons can pair up constantly, but only momentarily, before splitting apart and going their separate way,” said Dr. Axel Schmidt, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.

    “During this brief, high-energy interaction, quarks in their respective particles may have a ‘larger space to play’.”

    “In quantum mechanics, anytime you increase the volume over which an object is confined, it slows down. If you tighten up the space, it speeds up. That’s a known fact.”

    The team analyzed data from an experiment that was carried out at Jefferson Lab’s CLAS detector.

    The instrument produced a 5.01 GeV beam of electrons to probe nuclei of carbon, aluminum, iron, and lead as compared to deuterium.

    The experiment ran for several months and in the end amassed billions of interactions between electrons and quarks.

    The physicists calculated the speed of the quark in each interaction, based on the electron’s energy after it scattered, then compared the average quark speed between the various atoms.

    By looking at much smaller scattering angles, corresponding to momentum transfers of a different wavelength, they were able to ‘zoom out’ so that electrons would scatter off the larger protons and neutrons, rather than quarks.

    SRC pairs are typically extremely energetic and would, therefore, scatter electrons at higher energies than unpaired protons and neutrons, which is a distinction the researchers used to detect SRC pairs in each material they studied.

    “We see that these high-momentum pairs are the reason for these slow-moving quarks,” said team member Dr. Or Hen, also from MIT.

    In particular, they found that the quarks in foils with larger atomic nuclei (and more proton-neutron pairs) moved at most 20% slower than deuterium, the material with the least number of pairs.

    “These pairs of protons and neutrons have this crazy high-energy interaction, very quickly, and then dissipate,” Dr. Schmidt said.

    “In that time, the interaction is much stronger than normal and the nucleons have significant spatial overlap. So we think quarks in this state slow down a lot.”

    Their data show for the first time that how much a quark’s speed is slowed depends on the number of SRC pairs in an atomic nucleus.

    Quarks in lead, for instance, were far slower than those in aluminum, which themselves were slower than iron, and so on.

    “Understanding how quarks interact is really the essence of understanding the visible matter in the Universe,” Dr. Hen said.

    “This EMC effect, even though 10 to 20%, is something so fundamental that we want to understand it.”

    The results appear in the journal Nature.

    source:  http://www.sci-news.com

  • Laura Loomer: ‘The Way Trump Supporters Are Being Treated in This Country Constitutes Human Rights Violations

    Laura Loomer: ‘The Way Trump Supporters Are Being Treated in This Country Constitutes Human Rights Violations

    Right-wing activist Laura Loomer appeared on YourVoice America last night, where she declared that people like her are being abused and tortured simply for supporting President Trump and that such treatment constitutes “severe human rights violations.”

    As Loomer and host Julio Gonzales griped about the cost and ramifications of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Loomer fumed that American “heroes” like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone have suffered financially after being targeted by Mueller’s team simply for being Trump supporters.

    But it isn’t just those who have been ensnared in Mueller’s investigation who are suffering, she said.

    “People like myself and Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes and so many others are being de-platformed simply because we support President Trump and we inspired so many young people and red-pilled so many people to vote for President Trump,” she said. “They’re destroying us financially too.”

    “There are people who really do deserve to have their homes raided by the FBI at six o’clock in the morning and be prosecuted. And the people who don’t deserve it, well, they’re being tortured and they’re being subjected to such abuse,” Loomer added. “I view this as severe human rights violations. I think that the way Trump supporters are being treated in this country constitutes human rights violations.”

    source: http://www.rightwingwatch.org

  • Sunscreen is killing people; scientists now say sunlight deficiency is deadly, reversing decades of propaganda pushed by the toxic sunscreen industry

    Sunscreen is killing people; scientists now say sunlight deficiency is deadly, reversing decades of propaganda pushed by the toxic sunscreen industry

    File this under “long-standing health beliefs we now know are false:” Sunscreen isn’t really that good for you after all. Like eggs and salt, the sun has been given a bad name rather unfairly. Not only is the sun not bad for you – quite the opposite, in fact – but sunscreen isn’t exactly doing your health any favors. Let’s take a look at what we now know.

    After years of avoiding the sun in hopes of preventing skin cancer, doctors and researchers are now seeing just how badly a lack of sunlight can impact your health. One of the biggest problems right now is vitamin D deficiency. This hormone is manufactured by your skin upon exposure to sunlight. Although there are food sources of vitamin D, it’s very difficult to get it from diet alone.

    These days, most people work indoors, and many of us wear sunscreen every time we do go outside because we’ve been told that UV rays can cause skin cancer. The advice from some experts has been to always use sunscreen and get vitamin D supplements, but clinical trials have shown that these supplements are no match for the real deal.

    In fact, a study of nearly 26,000 participants found that taking high doses of vitamin D supplements over five years had essentially no impact on stroke, heart disease, or cancer. This may have added fuel to those who argue that vitamin D isn’t that important, but it overlooks the fact that getting vitamin D from a pill simply isn’t the same thing as inspiring your body to produce its own the way nature always intended.

    Many experts now believe that stepping outside without sunscreen is a healthy lifestyle choice, and it deserves a place right alongside eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly.  Do not forget to protect yourself from the sun by using something as simple as a hat.

    Sunscreen is bad news all around

    If you still can’t shake your reservations about cancer and want to wear sunscreen anyway, consider this: The ingredients in sunscreens actually transform into chemicals that can cause cancer when they are exposed to the chlorine found in swimming pool water. In addition to cancer, such chemicals have also been linked to problems like immune system damage and infertility. The reaction is even worse in pools that use copper salts to enhance the blue color of the water; this causes sunscreen to break down into a substance called bromoform that has been linked to liver and kidney problems as well as nervous system disorders.

    Natural sunscreens do exist, but you should only use them after you’ve gotten adequate sun exposure to keep your vitamin D levels healthy. It’s hard to say for sure how much sun you might need as factors like your location, skin tone, time of day, and the weather all play a role, but as a general rule, 20 to 30 minutes without sunscreen three times per week should do the trick.

    source:  https://www.naturalnews.com

  • Soil For Raised Beds: How To Make The Best Raised Bed Soil

    Soil For Raised Beds: How To Make The Best Raised Bed Soil

    Raised bed gardening is an excellent way to garden in a small space. The quality of soil for raised beds gives gardeners one reason they produce bumper crops.

    If you experience trouble stooping, bending and kneeling, raised bed gardens to allow for easy care. You can set up your raised bed garden at a height most comfortable for you.

    With complete control over the soil, you can mix the soil you want and put it in place for the best results.

    You control the type of soil used in for the raised garden beds

    Let’s be clear…

    No specific combination of ingredients will make the perfect all around raised garden soil. What you put into your soil depends very much upon what you plan to plant and your local climate.

    Various plants require different pH levels. For example, blueberries need a more acidic soil.

    Additionally, gear the soil texture toward your local weather conditions. For example, if you live in a very arid and dry climate, you will want a soil mix that will retain moisture with good capillary action.

    On the other hand, if you live in a very rainy and damp area you will want to create soil for a raised garden bed allowing for good drainage.

    Soil Mixture For Raised Beds Begins With A Good Basic Soil Mix

    One good way to start “building” out fertile soil… begins by making a 50-50 mix of high-quality compost and screened topsoil.

    When you blend the compost and screened topsoil together thoroughly, you will have a nice basic soil mixture you can amend to suit your specific climate and plant needs.

    For a more quickly draining blend of compost, create a three-part mix. For this coarse mixture, combine equal parts of:

    As with the 50-50 mix, combine the horticultural vermiculite, compost, and peat moss thoroughly for best results.

    Coco coir makes a great alternative for peat. Additionally, to get a wide variety of plant nutrients for your organic garden source compost from at least five different places.

    Why Not Just Buy Compost?

    If you rely only on bagged compost from the garden center, you’re likely to get a scarcity of organic nutrients. There is really no reason to purchase compost. It is easy to make your own compost at home.

    A well-seasoned compost rich with organic matter, made from yard and garden clippings and kitchen scraps provides a wealth of nutrients for organic gardening.

    If you also keep chickens, equines, rabbits and/or goats you have an excellent source of rich and nourishing compost. If you do not personally keep any livestock, you should look for a local organic farm or gardeners supply where you can purchase some natural compost.

    Raised Garden Bed Soil Does Not Have To Be Deep

    When you have created this kind of high quality raised bed gardening mix, you don’t need to spread it very thickly. This highly nourishing fertile mixture will support a wide variety of plants even if it is only six inches deep.

    Be sure to line the bottom of your raised bed with thick layers of cardboard (sheet mulching) and/or newspaper or landscaping fabric to prevent plant roots from contacting native soil and to prevent weeds from growing up into your rich soil.

    When Should You Amend Soil Used In Your Raised Bed Garden?

    Early in the spring each year, till your raised bed garden soil and replenish it. Remember that friable garden soil is airy, soft and light.

    You should be able to poke your finger into your soil easily all the way up to your topmost knuckle. If you find your soil is hard and unyielding, take steps to till it, amend it and lighten it.

    Experts recommend tilling the native soil first before starting to fill the raised beds.

    How To Amend Soil Mixture For Raised Beds

    Both the 50-50 mix and the three-part mix provide basic building blocks for good soil in the garden. Once you have this in place, you can tweak and amend the soil to suit your particular plant choices.

    One good addition to well-balanced garden soils is organic, slow-release organic fertilizer. Working this into the soil one or two times a year (e.g. early in the spring and/or late in the fall) will help boost the nutritional value of your soil.

    After application, apply a generous layer of mulch or compost to hold the nutrients and moisture into the soil.

    A few other good specialty amendments include:

    Create Soil For Your Raised Garden Bed To Suit Your Purpose

    The texture of your garden soil should be in line with your goals. For example, if you are sowing seeds directly into your bed, you will want to have a finer texture of the soil. Luckily you don’t have to change out all of the soil in the bed to do this.

    Begin with your basic 50-50 or three-part mix and then top it off with a finer textured soil. Good soil for seed starting should be spongy, moist and rich. You can accomplish this by creating a combination of finely sifted, blended compost and peat moss as your seed starting medium.

    Mulch Is Very Important!

    Remember, with fairly shallow soil, garden mulch plays an important role. It helps hold in moisture and protects the soil from damaging rays of the sun. It also helps prevent invasion by weeds.

    Once your seedlings have started, thin them out to allow the hardiest to take hold. Mulch around them to hold nutrients and moisture into the soil to help them thrive.

    You may be surprised to know that modern gardeners believe that a couple of inches of pure compost make the best mulch. It performs all of the protective and moisture holding functions of bark mulch and adds nourishment to the soil.

    The Right Soil Produces Bumper Crops!

    Raise bed gardening is a great choice for small spaces. Properly maintained raised gardens can produce four times the amount of crops or vegetables as a traditional garden patch using compost alone.

    This is great for home vegetable growers with very small yards or even patio and balcony type garden settings. When you put forth the effort to create light, airy, highly nutritious soil mix for your raised-bed gardening project, you can expect to enjoy abundant success.

    Raised bed gardening is an excellent way to garden in a small space. The quality of the garden soil for raised beds gives gardeners one reason they produce bumper crops. Learn how to create a great soil mixture for your raised garden and enjoy increased yields.

    source: https://plantcaretoday.com

  • Trump predicts ‘very big news’ in China trade talks after breakthrough

    Trump predicts ‘very big news’ in China trade talks after breakthrough

    Donald Trump has announced he is delaying plans to increase tariffs on Chinese goods after “significant progress” in talks to end the punishing US-China trade war.

    The US president was planning to ramp up duties on $200bn (£153bn) in Chinese imports this Friday – with tariffs increasing from 10% to 25%.

    But on Twitter, Mr. Trump said a number of breakthroughs have been achieved by Washington and Beijing on contentious areas including intellectual property protection, technology transfers, currency, and agriculture.

    Mr. Trump added that he is prepared to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to conclude an agreement as long as “additional progress” is made by both sides.

    He suggested that the summit could take place at Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, where the two world leaders have held talks in the past.

    And late on Sunday evening, he hinted there could be “very big news over the next week or two” if all goes well in negotiations.

    Speaking to US governors at the White House, the president said: “China has been terrific. We want to make a deal that’s great for both countries and that’s really what we’re going to be doing.”

    Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi have been under immense pressure to resolve the trade dispute, which has unnerved investors and cast a shadow over the global economy.

    The US and China have slapped import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods – rattling financial markets.

    The conflict between the world’s two biggest economies began when the US accused China of stealing technology and forcing foreign companies to hand over trade secrets, in what has been regarded as an aggressive push to challenge America’s technological dominance.

    Reaction to the delayed tariff increases has been mixed.

    While Republican politicians have described the thawing tensions as “encouraging news” that a full-blown trade war can be avoided, critics are claiming that the president may have given up crucial leverage.

    Philip Levy, a White House economist under former president George W Bush, said he can see the odds now tilting in Beijing’s favor – and warned the US has “now lost the advantage of a deadline”.

    In a brief news report, China’s official Xinhua news agency echoed Mr. Trump’s perspective on the latest talks in Washington and said: “substantial progress” has been made.

    Markets have already reacted positively to the news – suggesting that Wall Street will open on a firmer footing on Monday morning.

    Despite the optimism, Trump’s lead trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, warned on Friday that major hurdles between the two countries remain.

    The president says it is “a very good weekend” for the US and China as he abandons plans to impose 25% duties on $200bn of goods.

    source:  https://news.sky.com

  • Russian state TV shows map of potential US nuclear targets

    Russian state TV shows map of potential US nuclear targets

    Russian state television has broadcast a map of the US showing military facilities Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, in a report that was unusual even by its own bellicose standards.

    The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. A hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes, it said.

    Last week, Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban missile-style” crisis if the US wanted one.

    With tensions rising over Russian fears that the US might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a cold war-era arms-control treaty unravels, Putin has said Russia would be forced to respond by placing hypersonic nuclear missiles on submarines near US waters.

    The US said it had no immediate plans to deploy such missiles in Europe and dismissed Putin’s warnings as disingenuous propaganda. It does not currently have ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles that it could place in Europe.

    However, its decision to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty over an alleged Russian violation, which Moscow denies, has freed it to start developing and deploying such missiles.

    Putin has said Russia does not want a new arms race, but he has dialed up his military rhetoric.

    Some analysts have seen his approach as a tactic to try to re-engage the US in talks about the strategic balance between the two powers, which Moscow has long pushed for, with mixed results.

    In the Sunday evening broadcast, Dmitry Kiselyov, the presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news programme, Vesti Nedeli, showed a map of the US and identified several targets he said Moscow would want to hit in the event of a nuclear war.

    source: https://www.theguardian.com

     

  • Portland median home prices fall for first time in nearly 7 years

    Portland median home prices fall for first time in nearly 7 years

    The year-over-year median home sale price dropped in January for the first time since February 2012 in metro Portland, according to new numbers from the Regional Multiple Listing Service.

    The month’s median sale price of $384,900 represented a 1.3 percent decline from a year earlier. While home prices typically drop in the winter, it’s been nearly seven years since they fell on an annualized basis.

    “The aggressive price increase we saw in the past few years simply became unsustainable as too many potential homeowners were priced out of the market,” said Tim Duy, a University of Oregon economist. “Prices just became too high.”

    Mortgage rates also spiked in the waning months of 2018, which further curbed buying power. And the end of the year also brought a great deal of economic uncertainty, including a tumbling stock market and the shutdown of parts of the federal government.

    The red-hot housing market of two years ago — which saw prices climbing by 10 percent annually — has cooled dramatically. Home price gains have been slowing since 2017, and sales have slowed, too. The listing service said 1,451 homes were sold in January, a 10.9 percent decline from a year earlier.

    And recently homes on the market have been stacking up. There were more than 4,700 homes for sale in January, representing a 3.3-month supply. Though that’s a slim inventory by historic standards and suggests a seller’s market, it’s the highest observed in Portland since 2015.

    Sellers are feeling their power erode, with homes sitting on the market longer and more of them selling for less than the listed price. The typical home sold in January was on the market for 76 days, from listing to the day an offer is accepted.

    The real estate brokerage Redfin reported a dramatic decline in bidding wars over houses over the past year. Its brokers faced competing bids for 19 percent of their homebuyer clients’ offers in January, a decline from 53 percent at the same time last year. (Despite the decline, Portland remained one of the most competitive markets by that metric.)

    Daryl Fairweather, the real estate company’s chief economist, said buyers backed off as homes got too unaffordable, and prices dropped as a result.

    “That’s good because that means buyers might come back to the table, and they’ll have more homes that are affordable to them,” she said.

    New listings continued to hit the market in January, suggesting home sellers haven’t lost faith. (Most have gained tens of thousands of dollars in equity in recent years from price appreciation alone, even with January’s decline.)

    Duy said the price decline is surprising but likely reflects a flattening of price gains rather than a market reversal.

    “We forget how abnormal this market had gotten,” Duy said. “You got very, very low inventory for a couple of years, and it wasn’t the same conditions driving the housing boom of the last decade. There is much more real money flowing in.”

    And unlike the 2008 financial crisis, price declines are unlikely to send the market spiraling into a morass of defaults and foreclosures, Duy said. Most homeowners have a significant amount of equity in their home, and loan qualifications are far more strict.

    The report covers the Oregon side of the metro area, including Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Columbia and Yamhill counties.

    — Elliot Njus

    January saw a 1.3 percent year-over-year decline, the first recorded in the Portland metro since April 2012.

    source: https://www.oregonlive.com