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April 19, 2006
Q: "You can't say you're challenging the facts and then not say which ones you're challenging." SCOTT McCLELLAN: "Yes, I can. I just did."
Stirling Newberry has a financial update:
It isn't an accident that on the day that the Federal Reserve releases minutes that hint that their rate raising campaign is coming to an end that yield curve kinks back towards inversion, the Dow Jones Industrials rally to near an all time high, which is expected to be the start of a world wide rally for equities - and oil and copper hit all time nominal highs, with oil's peak nearing the peaks set the two great inflationary spikes of the 20th century. The September West Texas Intermediate - an important benchmark contract - briefly hit an eyepopping $74.06 a barrel.
Last year I was told by traders that the over/under number for oil was to close above 70. Even many energy bulls said they would take the "under" side of that number. At this point my same sources are saying that a good Katrina like disruption could bring us over the $80/bbl mark this year. As 70 was the new 60, 80 is the new 70. So what is going on?
Scott McClellan's out as White House press secretary, and Rove's been forced to relinquish his role as policy director, relegated back to the rat warren. He'd been forced to distance himself from his first love for the past few years, as he tried to get Social Security "reform" and energy "reform" passed, but now it's back to dirty politicking for Karl.
Meanwhile, rumors abound about Scotty's replacement. The prime candidate? Fox News anchor Tony Snow. Joshua Micah Marshall provides the witticism: via
Isn't that more like an interdepartmental transfer than a job change?
Coming soon: the "second liberation" of Baghdad. The article also contains some disturbing anecdotes about life in Baghdad: via
Baghdad is a swirling mess of competing Sunni and Shi’ite militias and Al-Qaeda fighters, and the city has been sliding into chaos at an alarming rate.
“My brother was killed by somebody who told us he was paid $10 for the job,” said a Baghdad victim of the violence. “A man met him in the street, pointed to my brother and said he was a bad guy and had to die. He never knew why.”
Kidnappings have risen to 50 a day in Iraq. Abu Ali, whose 12-year-son was kidnapped in Baghdad last month, said he had received a demand for $250,000 for his release. “Sometimes they let me hear him begging or crying for me to help him,” he said. “At other times they threaten me and say his brothers will be next.”
Anybody connected, however remotely, with the administration is seen as a target; 18 traffic police officers have been killed in the past two months. “They were simply doing their duty and trying to prevent traffic jams. There are no traffic lights,” said Major Hussein Khadem of the transport police.
Residents have taken to carrying two ID cards and ostentatiously religious CDs because of fears of sectarian violence. “If you are stopped at a Shi’ite checkpoint, you have to show you have a Shi’ite name, and if it is a Sunni insurgent checkpoint, it is good to show that your name is Omar,” said a Baghdad resident who had recently obtained a new ID.
Posted by Jon Rubin at April 19, 2006 08:05 PM
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