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Transport Engineer / July 25, 2016 Iveco is extending its Stralis range with a new 8x2 tridem model, available with a Hi-Street, Hi-Road or Hi-Way cab. The tridem conversion is being carried out by System Truck, in Italy – said to be the largest CV converter in Europe. The base vehicle is a 26-tonne Stralis 6x2 rigid, to which System Truck adds a central disc brake axle running on single wheels. The hydraulic system for steering the additional axle is completely independent and autonomous, and does not alter the steering of the original vehicle in any way. Plus, the second and fourth axles can be raised in unladen or partially laden conditions, to reduce tyre wear and rolling resistance. Martin Flach, product director at Iveco, says: “The Stralis tridem is built for carrying uniform loads in applications where manoeuvrability is paramount. It’s ideally suited to fleets which need the capacity of an 8x4, but on jobs where there’s only room for a six-wheeler to deliver.” He adds: “For operators who want the flexibility of being able to pull a drawbar trailer, it affords the ability to run as a 44-tonne combination.” The Stralis tridem is available with a choice of six wheelbase lengths, from 4,200mm to 6,050mm, with the additional axle increasing the vehicle’s tare weight by approximately 900kg, depending on the specification selected. .

Dagens Industri / July 22, 2016 Volvo's CEO Martin Lundstedt on July 22, three days after the company's report for the second quarter, bought 30,000 shares of Volvo Group. The share purchase is clear from transparent reporting to the FSA. The investment amounted to around 2.7 million kronor (US$311,526). Volvo's share has since the report release on Tuesday backed down 0.44 percent. Volvo reported on April 6* that Martin Lundstedt at that time owned 36,447 Series B shares worth 3.26 million kronor (US$376,139). The shares were purchased at the beginning of February. * http://www.volvogroup.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/VGHQ/Volvo Group/Investors/Corporate Governance/AGM 2016/Appendix B Minutes AGM 2016.pdf

Reuters / July 22, 2016 Mexico will adopt stricter Euro-6 emissions standards in 2020, earlier than the truck industry had wanted. After years of heated debate between truckmakers and environmental activists, new heavy trucks will have to meet Euro-6 emission standards in 2020, says Mexico's undersecretary for Environmental Policy and Planning, Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo. New heavy trucks will have to meet a lower emissions standard known as Euro-5 from July 1, 2018, six months later than the date proposed in 2014. Mexico's truck industry had pushed for a three to four-year gap between implementation of Euro-5 and Euro-6. The changes pit truck makers, who argue that new standards will push up prices for consumers, against environmental activists who say that stricter regulations should be implemented even sooner to improve dismal air quality. Mexico currently uses a weaker standard known as Euro-4, which has led to higher ozone concentration levels throughout the country. In March, extreme air pollution in the capital of Mexico City led the municipal government to declare an environmental emergency. Lacy said the implementation date would coincide with greater availability of cleaner ultra-low sulfur fuel in the country. Lacy also said the government would not offer subsidies to consumers who purchase new vehicles. "It is not the responsibility of the state to maintain every market in the automotive industry," he said. The details of the new regulation will be officially published in mid-August, he said.

The most damaging information in the DNC’s leaked emails The Washington Post / July 24, 2016 Thousands of leaked emails have sealed the fate of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's uneven five-plus-year tenure as DNC chair. Wasserman Schultz's resignation announcement Sunday afternoon comes as a bad situation just keeps getting worse -- and appears as though it might continue to do so. That's because {veil lifter}WikiLeaks has so far released nearly 20,000 emails, new details are still being discovered, and there is still the prospect of additional, damaging emails coming to light. Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically all of these examples came late in the primary -- after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory -- but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage. Below is a running list of the most troublesome findings for Wasserman Schultz and her party. As new revelations come out, we'll update it. 1) Targeting Sanders's religion? On May 5, DNC officials appeared to conspire to raise Sanders's faith as an issue and press on whether he was an atheist -- apparently in hopes of steering religious voters in Kentucky and West Virginia to Clinton. Sanders is Jewish but has previously indicated that he's not religious. One email from DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall read: “It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist." Marshall added in a later email: “It’s these Jesus thing.” In response, CEO Amy Dacey said: "Amen." 2) Wasserman Schultz calls top Sanders aide a "damn liar"... On May 17, after controversy erupted over the Nevada state Democratic convention and how fair the process was there, Wasserman Schultz herself took exception to Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver's defense of his candidate's supporters. "Damn liar," she wrote. "Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred." 3) ... and says Sanders has "no understanding" of the party That wasn't the only time Wasserman Schultz offered an unvarnished opinion about the Sanders operation. And in one late-April email, she even questioned Sanders's connection to the party. "Spoken like someone who has never been a member of the Democratic Party and has no understanding of what we do," she said in response to a Politico story about Sanders saying the party hadn't been fair to him. Sanders, for what it's worth, wasn't a Democrat before entering the Democratic primary. He caucused with the party but has long been an independent. In that way, Wasserman Schultz's comments could be read simply as her defending her party; Sanders was attacking the party, after all. But her comment also suggests a particularly dim view of Sanders that she didn't feel the need to obscure in conversations with other DNC staff. 4) A Clinton lawyer gives DNC strategy advice on Sanders When the Sanders campaign alleged that the Clinton campaign was improperly using its joint fundraising committee with the DNC to benefit itself, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias offered the DNC guidance on how to respond. "My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true," Elias said May 3 in response to an email about the issue sent by communications director Luis Miranda to other DNC stuff that copied Elias and another lawyer at his firm, Perkins Coie. Elias continued: "The fact that CNN notes that you aren’t getting between the two campaigns is the problem. Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over 'rigged system', the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful the the Democratic party." Elias's guidance isn't perhaps all that shocking; he's Clinton's lawyer, after all. But the fact that he was talking to the DNC about how to respond would appear to suggest coordination between the DNC and Clinton campaign against Sanders in this particular case. 5) Plotting a narrative about how Sanders's campaign failed On May 21, DNC national press secretary Mark Pautenbach suggested pushing a narrative that Sanders "never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess." After detailing several arguments that could be made to push that narrative, Paustenbach concludes: "It's not a DNC conspiracy, it's because they never had their act together." Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing negative information about one of its candidates. 6) Mocking Sanders for his California debate push One of the chief complaints from Sanders and his supporters was a lack of debates. They said the fact that there were so few was intended to help Clinton by reducing her opponents' exposure and their chances to knock her down. After the Sanders campaign presumptuously declared that an agreement for an additional debate in California had been reached, Miranda responded to the Sanders campaign's release on May 18 simply: "lol" As noted, the release from the Sanders campaign was presumptuous in declaring that an agreement had been reached. Miranda could simply have been responding to the somewhat-silly tactic. But The debate never actually happened, as the Clinton campaign later opted not to participate. 7) Wishing Sanders would just end it Many of these emails came as it was clear Clinton was going to win -- which makes the apparent favoritism perhaps less offensive (though Sanders supporters would certainly disagree). But it's also clear that there was plenty of cheerleading for the race to simply be over -- for Sanders to throw in the towel so that Clinton could be named the presumptive nominee. The party, of course, was still supposed to be neutral even though the odds and delegate deficit for Sanders looked insurmountable. On May 1, in response to Sanders again saying he would push for a contested convention, Wasserman Schultz said, "So much for a traditional presumptive nominee." 8) Calling an alleged Sanders sympathizer a "Bernie bro" The term "Bernie bro" -- or "Berniebro," depending on your style -- over the course of the campaign became a kind of shorthand for the worst kind of Sanders supporter. These were the supporters who couldn't be reasoned with and verbally assaulted opponents, sometimes in very nasty ways. Some in the DNC apparently used the pejorative to refer to one particular radio host seen as overly sympathetic to Sanders, Sirius XM's Mark Thompson. "Wait, this is a [expletive] topic," Miranda wrote on May 4 after Thompson's program director, David Guggenheim, requested an interview on a Clinton fundraising controversy. "Where is Guggenheim? Is he a Bernie Bro?" "Must be a Bernie Bro," DNC broadcast booker Pablo Manriquez responds. "Per Mark’s sage, I turned him down flat (and politely) and inquired into opportunities next week to talk about something else. 9) Flippant chatter about donors While the Sanders emails have gained the most attention, some of the more interesting emails involve a peek behind to curtain of how party officials talk about major donors. In a May 16 exchange about where to seat a top Florida donor, national finance director Jordan Kaplan declared that "he doesn’t sit next to POTUS!" -- referring to President Obama. “Bittel will be sitting in the sh---iest corner I can find,” responded Kaplan's deputy, Alexandra Shapiro. She also referred to other donors as "clowns." Here are some other things Kaplan and Shapiro said about donors, via Karen Tumulty and Tom Hamburger: Kaplan directed Shapiro to put New York philanthropist Philip Munger in the prime spot, switching out Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu. He noted that Munger was one of the largest donors to Organizing for America, a nonprofit that advocates for Obama’s policies. “It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side,” Kaplan wrote. Shapiro pushed back, noting that Munger had given only $100,600 to the party, while the Potarazu family had contributed $332,250. In one email attachment from Erik Stowe, the finance director for Northern California, to Tammy Paster, a fundraising consultant, he lists the benefits given to different tiers of donors to the Democratic National Convention, which starts next week in Philadelphia. The tiers range from a direct donation of $66,800 to one of $467,600 to the DNC. The documents also show party officials discussing how to reward people who bundle between $250,000 to $1.25 million.

Let's say, for example, that safety advocates wanted to keep highway speeds at 55mph, but you feel the speed limit should be 70mph. If you win, they lose. If they win, you lose. Everyone can't have it their way. In order for one or more groups to "have it their way", one or more other groups will NOT have it their way. It's all taught in Reality 101.

Cummins unveils X15 and X12 engines Fleet Owner / July 23, 2016 OEM adds that over-the-air updates will be a standard feature on its new engines. Cummins Inc. unveiled three all-new 2017-compliant truck engines here during a media event at the 4,500-acre Transportation Research Center (TRC) proving grounds just outside Columbus, OH; the new X15 efficiency and X15 performance series engines, along with the new X12 "medium bore" displacement engine. Jim Fier, VP of EBU engineering, said during the event that changing the OEM’s familiar “ISX” engine nomenclature to simply “X” is “not just a rebranding effort, but signifies a new era for Cummins, one focused on delivering more “finely tuned” products to truck customers: The X15 efficiency series is “tuned” to provide maximum fuel economy, Fier said, noting that it delivers 3% better fuel economy versus 2016 equivalent models and an over 10% improvement versus 2010 equivalent displacements. The X15 efficiency series is rated at 400 to 500 hp, delivering 1,450 to 1,850 lbs.-ft. of torque. By contrast, the X15 performance series is focused on providing more power, especially for heavy loads. It’s rated between 485 and 605 hp, delivering 1,650 to 2,050 lbs.-ft. of torque. The new 2017 X12 medium displacement engine from Cummins weighs in at just 2,050 lbs., cranking out 350 to 475 hp and delivering 1,250 to 1,700 lbs.-ft. of torque. “It’s been designed from the ground up to reduce weight be maintain durability and reliability,” Fier said. The X15 efficiency and performance series engines are expected to begin a “limited production run” in the fourth quarter this year of some 1,400 units, noted Mario Sanchez-Lara, director of on-highway marketing for Cummins. “That’s about four times the volume we’ve done before [with limited production runs] which reflects solid [order] volumes from the truck OEMs,” he said. Based on current truck market trends, Cummins expects sales of the X15 performance series to comprise between 10% and 30% of overall X15 model volumes at least initially. Full production of the X15 efficiency and performance series engines is expected to begin in January 2017, with full production of the X12 medium-displacement model expected to start in 2018. Cummins is also offering three telematics services with its new engines: Connected Diagnostics, which is already in use on 45,000 customer trucks; Connected Calibrations, the OEM’s over-the-air (OTA) engine calibration service, which will be a standard feature for all X15 electronic control modules (ECMs); and Connected Tuning, which will allow truck owners to adjust calibration packages to meet precise day-to-day operating needs, such as if a truck moves from highway routes to more localized delivery patterns. Cummins is also offering a “look forward” cruise control feature on all of its X15 efficiency models that will enable the engine to “read” the road ahead for up to 2 miles so as to plan for more fuel efficient acceleration and coasting. The OEM also plans to offer an oil analysis service dubbed “Oil Guard” to customers with the new X15 engines to help extend oil drains beyond the initial 50,000 mile service interval. The company explained that trucks achieving 6.5 mpg could see oil drains extended out to 80,000 miles through the new testing service. Fier added that all three engines represent four years of work by Cummins and are backed by 9 million miles of field testing. “That’s the largest ever field test by Cummins, with some of our test trucks going over 500,000 miles,” he noted. Photo gallery: Day 1 - http://fleetowner.com/equipment/cummins-engine-rollout-day-1#slide-0-field_images-196731 Day 2 - http://fleetowner.com/equipment/cummins-engine-rollout-day-2#slide-0-field_images-196741 Day 3 - http://fleetowner.com/equipment/cummins-engine-rollout-day-3#slide-0-field_images-196881

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Battelle (http://www.battelle.org/) is one of those U.S. military contract parasite entities that submits bids for work that they have no actual self-ability. If they win the bid, they’ll contract out the work, and the U.S. taxpayer ends up paying at least twice what the end result is worth. This atmosphere of government procurement is where the $1,200 toilet seats originate.

The global Ford Ranger pickup, Toyota Hilux pickup and Toyota 70-Series Land Cruiser are coming to the United States. But you'll need to enlist in the Army and pass a grueling special operations course to get behind the wheel. http://www.toyota.co.za/ranges/land-cruiser-76 http://www3.toyota.com.au/landcruiser-70 http://www.toyota.co.za/ranges/hilux-double-cab http://www3.toyota.com.au/hilux The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has agreed to a deal with the Battelle Memorial Institute, worth up to $170 million over five years – with the option for two more years – to take off-the-shelf Ford Ranger pickups, Toyota Hilux pickups and Toyota 70-Series Land Cruisers and fit them with armor, heavy-duty suspension components, upgraded brakes, run-flat tires, new wheels, and sophisticated communications and observation equipment. The overall idea is to build a truck with inconspicuous looks to protect and allow communications between troops while blending into traffic in potentially hostile countries. According to Military Aerospace, Battelle is going to provide "all materials, equipment, hard tooling, personnel, and facilities necessary to manufacture, fabricate, integrate, produce, and test the up-armored trucks and SUVs with Special Operations communications gear aboard." That makes it sound like a lot of the work is going to be out of the military's hands. The contract is for 556 vehicles, over two-thirds of which Battelle would fit with armor. Mostly, Uncle Sam is mostly interested in the 70-Series Land Cruiser. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Unqualified contractor] Battelle to build armored trucks and SUVs for US Special Forces U.S. unconventional warfare experts are developing armored sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and trucks that look like ordinary stock vehicles, but that have military-grade vetronics, communications, night vision, ballistic protection, mobility, and tires designed to survive enemy small-arms fire. Military vehicles experts at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., are looking to the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, for the five-year potential $170 million Non-Standard Commercial Vehicles (NSCV) program. SOCOM announced the NSCV contract (H92222-16-D-0043) to Battelle on Wednesday. The company will manufacture modified commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs, Toyota Hilux crew-cab pickup trucks, and Ford Ranger light pickup trucks that retain the original equipment manufacturer's profile while supporting new armor, heavy-duty suspension and brakes, run-flat tires and wheels, vetronics, and communications equipment. The contract is for as many as 556 vehicles -- 396 armored and 160 unarmored -- with most of them consisting of the Toyota Land Cruiser models 76 and 79, officials say. SOCOM officials may order fewer of these modified vehicles if they choose. SOCOM experts are ordering trucks and SUVs that offer low risk in system survivability, system-level maturity, manufacture, supportability, and life cycle costs. Battelle will provide all materials, equipment, hard tooling, personnel, and facilities necessary to manufacture, fabricate, integrate, produce, and test the up-armored trucks and SUVs with Special Operations communications gear aboard. The Toyota and Ford SUVs and pickup trucks will have various levels of enhanced crew protection, mobility, and operational capabilities. Vehicles will have special armor, suspension, brakes, frames and body reinforcements, as well as infrared lighting, blackout mode, and Special Operations command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) equipment. The Battelle-modified trucks and SUVs will go through a design review process and approval after the Special Operations upgrades are completed, and then will be integrated into an initial vehicle lot. The modified vehicles then will go through a contractor and government production qualification test. After testing, the government may issue delivery orders for production. This indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity NSCV contract has a five-year potential $170 million ordering period with a potential $60 million two-year option. On this contract Battelle will do most of the work in Columbus, Ohio, and should be finished by July 2023. For more information contact Battelle online at www.battelle.org, or SOCOM at www.socom.mil.

Leaked DNC emails reveal the inner workings of the party’s finance operation The Washington Post / July 24, 2016 In the rush for big donations to pay for this week’s Democratic convention, a party staffer reached out to Tennessee donor Roy Cockrum in May with a special offer: the chance to attend a roundtable discussion with President Obama. Cockrum, already a major Democratic contributor, was in. He gave an additional $33,400. And eight days later, he was assigned a place across the table from Obama at the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Washington, according to a seating chart sent to the White House. The 28-person gathering drew rave reviews from the wealthy party financiers who attended. “Wonderful event yesterday,” New York lawyer Robert Pietrzak wrote to his Democratic National Committee (DNC) contact. “A lot of foreign policy, starting with my question on China. The President was in great form.” The details of the high-dollar event were captured in the trove of internal DNC emails released last week by the site WikiLeaks that has riled the party as delegates gather in Philadelphia to nominate Hillary Clinton. Internal discussions of the May 18 event with Obama and other aggressive efforts to woo major donors reveal how the drive for big money consumes the political parties as they scramble to keep up in the age of super PACs. The DNC emails show how the party has tried to leverage its greatest weapon — the president — as it entices wealthy backers to bankroll the convention and other needs. At times, DNC staffers used language in their pitches to donors that went beyond what lawyers said was permissible under a White House policy designed to prevent any perception that special interests have access to the president. Top White House aides also get involved in wooing contributors, according to the emails. White House political director David Simas, for instance, met in May with a half-dozen top party financiers in Chicago, including Fred Eychaner, one of the top Democratic donors in the country, the documents show. Laws and ethics White House officials said Obama’s attendance at DNC events is well within the law and the administration’s own ethics policies. “As presidents of both parties have done for decades, President Obama takes seriously his role as the head of the Democratic Party,” White House spokeswoman Jennifer Friedman said in a statement. “To this end, the President participates in a range of events to raise awareness and support for the party, and to outline his priorities for making progress for the American people, in line with federal election and ethics laws.” The leaked emails reveal the relentless art of donor maintenance that undergirds the system: the flattery, cajoling and favor-bestowing that goes into winning rich supporters. It’s a practice that the party fundraisers themselves often find dispiriting. “He’s just awful and if I could have him sitting outside of the room, I absolutely would have,” a DNC finance staffer said of one Florida donor attending the May 18 event with Obama. DNC finance officials did not respond to requests for comment. A party spokesman said the DNC had “revolutionized online fundraising and worked to rein in the influence of special interests” during Obama’s time in office. The spokesman said the DNC, while seeking to broaden its donor base to keep up with the Koch brothers and other wealthy conservative interests, had taken steps to “prevent any improper attempt to influence government policy.” The DNC and its Republican counterpart have both stepped up their hunt for huge checks since a series of legal changes in 2014 gave them leeway to collect expansive contributions for new accounts to pay for building, legal and convention expenses. The top-tier donor package for this week’s Democratic National Convention required a donor to raise $1.25 million or give $467,600 since January 2015, according to a document in the emails. In return, a contributor got booking in Philadelphia at a premier hotel, VIP credentials and six slots at “an exclusive roundtable and campaign briefing with high-level Democratic officials,” according to the terms. Those perks were aggressively pushed to donors this spring as DNC staffers worked to try to pay for the party’s share of the convention, a tab that had been covered by public funds in previous years. When Pietrzak, who had already given his annual maximum to the party, expressed interest in attending the May 18 event with Obama, a party staffer responded to her colleague: “No chance of getting more $ out of them, is there? Push the convention packages as an incentive?” Pietrzak and other donors did not respond to requests for comment. The emails also show the intensive efforts to get corporations to sign on as sponsors of the convention’s host committee — a reversal from 2012, when Obama prohibited such donations. Last year, the DNC, in consultation with Clinton’s campaign, also decided to reverse a ban on donations from the PACs of corporations, unions and other groups. After those limits were lifted, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other top party officials showered corporate lobbyists with calls, emails and personal meetings seeking convention support and PAC contributions to the party, according to a spreadsheet logging the contacts. In one May email, a DNC finance staffer asked whether the conglomerate Honeywell could get a hotel room in Philadelphia for a $60,000 donation to the host committee. “This is $60k we definitely wouldn’t get otherwise and Honeywell is the biggest PAC contributor in the country,” she wrote, adding: “They’re definitely a bit pissy about our PAC policy flip flop and that offering this gesture would definitely help our relationships with them for later in the election cycle and for years to come.” The chance to build the event around the president in May set off a race inside the DNC finance office to recruit new donors. “Have at it with Potus. Prefer at a hotel. No pacs and no lobbyists,” finance director Jordan Kaplan wrote to one of his deputies, Alexandra Shapiro, at the beginning of the month, adding: “This will probably be our only event in May. Lot of eyes on this one.” “Wow! Really?” she responded excitedly, adding three applauding emoji. Shapiro passed along the message about the event to her colleagues: “New money is the priority so if you have folks that are sitting on their max out, this may be a way to get them in,” she wrote. Before the invitation was sent, an associate at Perkins Coie, the DNC’s outside law firm, weighed in with a caution on the language. “Let’s remove the word round table on page 2 at the top (‘$33,400 — Round table discussion guest’),” Ruthzee Louijeune emailed Scott Comers, the DNC’s finance chief of staff. “As you know, WH policy restricts the use of language that gives the appearance that contributors can pay for policy access to the President.” A place at the table But the emails show several instances in which DNC fundraisers pitched donors with promises of a “roundtable” chat with Obama. On May 6, the southern finance director emailed ­Cockrum, the Tennessee donor, about packages available for the Philadelphia convention. “If [you] were willing to contribute $33,400 we can bump you up a level to the Fairmont,” he wrote, referring to a luxury hotel. “Additionally, your generous contribution would allow you to attend a small roundtable we are having with President Obama in DC on May 18th or a dinner in NYC on June 8th.” On the afternoon of the event, the place of honor, at Obama’s side, went to New York philanthropist Phil Munger. Kaplan noted to Shapiro in an email that Munger was one of the largest donors to Organizing for Action, a nonprofit group that advocates for Obama’s legislative agenda. “It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side,” Kaplan wrote, adding: “He is looking to give his money in new places and I would like that to be to us.” DNC officials said there are no discussions with the nonprofit organization about its donors, noting that Munger’s support to the group is disclosed online. Before the event, Simas, the White House political director, received a briefing from the DNC on what to expect of the contributors attending. “They are interested in a conversation focused on business and economic concerns but many are also committed to education and social issues,” the memo read. The next day, Shapiro told her colleague that the event had been a success. “Q&A went well, very foreign affairs focused,” she wrote. “Dick got two questions in and Bill Eacho was very pleased with his seat. He seemed very open to the idea of doing something for us in the future, too. Thank you again for your help on this one! We raised a good chunk of change which was nice for a change (sorry for the pun, I had to).”

The Financial Times / July 24, 2016 American companies are increasing their holdings of cash in response to a rise in economic and geopolitical uncertainty, according to a survey of corporate treasurers. The data, which could be a harbinger of a pullback in business investment, come alongside cautious comments from US companies on the outlook for the third quarter. With the reporting season in full swing, Wall Street analysts no longer expect a rise in earnings. The latest survey by the Association for Financial Professionals shows companies are taking their most cautious approach to cash management since mid-2011, when markets were roiled by the eurozone debt crisis and a showdown over the US debt ceiling. “Any likelihood of organisations deploying their cash has been curtailed by the outcome of the Brexit referendum, a tepid domestic economy and continued sluggishness in the global economy,” said Craig Martin, Corporate Treasurers Council executive director. The survey, to be published on Monday, shows companies accumulated cash balances at a far quicker pace in the second quarter than in the first, and expect to do so at a still faster pace in the current quarter. An index of expectations for the current quarter jumped to plus-16 from plus-7 three months ago. The number represents the difference between the percentage of treasurers expecting to increase cash holdings and those who are expecting to decrease them. Martin said business confidence had been subdued through the recovery from the financial crisis. Capital investment and hiring by US multinationals had been held back further this year by swings in currency markets. “Even companies with the most sophisticated currency hedges are finding this one more complicating factor,” he said. Twenty five per cent of companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings for the second quarter and a majority have come in ahead of Wall Street forecasts, but cautious outlook statements have tempered investor enthusiasm. Three quarters of those that have issued earnings forecasts for the current quarter have guided lower. That proportion is typical, but the consequence this quarter is that analysts are now expecting earnings to decline in the three months to the end of September, when last week they were expecting a 0.3 per cent increase. Industrial companies, in particular, have been scaling back their expectations, say analysts. “On March 31, the estimated earnings growth rate for Q3 was 3.3 per cent. By June 30, the estimated growth rate had declined to 0.6 per cent, and today it stands at minus 0.1 per cent.” .

Associated Press / July 24, 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose to power last fall on a pledge not to purchase the defective F-35, an aircraft that he has said “does not work,” is too expensive, and is wholly incompatible with Canada’s defense needs pushing his country instead to move towards a deal to acquire Boeing’s Super Hornet – a fighter jet with greater air maneuverability allowing it advanced performance in air-to-air combat. That promise crashed along the shores of political reality this week as Canada reneged from its earlier proposal to acquire Boeing Super Hornet jets on an interim basis to plug the country’s air defense capability gap after Lockheed Martin threatened to pull all of its operations out of the country which would result in a massive layoff of some 10,000 employees and potentially bankrupt portions of Canada’s defense sector that benefits from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The Canadian government issued a request for information from aerospace firms about the types of fighter aircraft they could provide this week, marking the pullout from their arrangement with Boeing, with companies expected to provide initial aircraft data by July 29. The Department of National Defense plans to rewrite its requirements for a new fighter jet, said Harjit Sajjan, the defense minister for the Liberal Party government. However, the existing aircraft requirements left by the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper are designed to favor the F-35 and any attempts to radically alter the criteria will lead to another uproar by Lockheed Martin. A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin confirmed that the company is responding to the Canadian government’s request for information about the F-35, something that it had been reticent to do prior, which signals that the fix is in and that Canada has capitulated to the defense contractor’s threats and extortion. Other contenders do exist in the process including Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, and Saab’s Gripen so Canada may ultimately decide not to purchase the F-35 against their will despite current indications. The much maligned F-35 has already cost American taxpayers upwards of $2 trillion due to its expensive and unreliable 3D-printed design along with repeated testing delays due to software malfunctions and safety hazards that have set the program back by several years. A glitch in the fighter jet’s software causes it to spontaneously shutdown mid-flight raising a host of pilot safety concerns. Those issues are exacerbated by the fact that the F-35's Martin Baker ejection seat has been shown in testing to instantly snap the neck of or decapitate pilots under 135 pounds (61.3kg) while pilots between the weights of 135 and 160 pounds (72.6kg) are believed to also be at an enhanced risk of sudden death upon ejection. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Canada Drops Original Plan to Buy Super Hornets for RCAF Tacairnet / July 21, 2016 The Royal Canadian Air Force might have to wait a little longer to receive a replacement for its rapidly-aging CF-188 Legacy Hornets, thanks to the Justin Trudeau-led government dropping its apparent plan to buy the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet as its successor. In early June, an unnamed source revealed to the National Post that the Canadian government had already selected the Super Hornet in lieu of the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, albeit without initiating the fighter competition it had previously promised. This source, a figure within the government, claimed that all that remained to be done was the drafting of a narrative that would support this decision, so as to protect over $750 million worth of contracts offered to Canada due to the country’s earlier support of the F-35 program. In 2015, during the run-up to the October elections in Canada, Justin Trudeau’s campaign platform included a definite promise to not buy the F-35 Lightning II under any circumstance: We will immediately launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft. The primary mission of our fighter aircraft should remain the defence of North America, not stealth first-strike capability.We will reduce the procurement budget for replacing the CF-18s, and will instead purchase one of the many, lower-priced options that better match Canada’s defence needs. Following the election of Trudeau and the Liberal Party to power, however, the “open and transparent competition” never actually materialized. The party’s stance on the F-35 was softened significantly as well. Defense minister Harjit Sajjan, in a conference call last December remarked: “My focus is about replacing our CF-18, and we’re going through a proper process to make sure we have the right requirements so we have the right capability, not only for our country but for how we relate to NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and our commitments to NATO,” says Sajjan, who assumed the role in November following a change of government … We’re going to do this in a responsible manner.” When news broke in June of this year that the Canadian government was focusing its attention on the Super Hornet, it was thought that the purchase of those F/A-18E/Fs would be classified as an “interim buy”, meaning that it would only temporarily replace the Legacy Hornet until a long-term solution could be discerned and bought, similar to what the Royal Australian Air Force had done with its own Hornet fleet. Now, instead of buying the Super Hornet, the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) is moving to enact their previous plan by opening up that “transparent” competition between defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Dassault, Saab, and Airbus, in order to determine the best aircraft suited towards Canada’s needs going forward. This comes after Lockheed Martin warned the Canadian government that its failure to maintain its previous commitment to the F-35 could potentially result in a retraction of all contracts, and possibly even a very costly lawsuit against the government. It’s extremely possible that, in a competition with other manufacturers, the F-35 will actually come out on top, as it has in Korea, Denmark, and Japan, against fighter offerings from Boeing and Saab, which currently offer the most cost-effective 4.5 generation fighter aircraft on the market today outside of Russia. Sajjan noted that the RCAF, at the moment, suffers a large capability gap which hinders its ability to appropriately maintain its commitments to NATO and to NORAD, the joint American/Canadian air-defense alliance. When asked for a time frame on the matter of procuring new fighters to replace the CF-188, he stated: “It all depends on a lot of the information that we do collect, but it is going to be months, not years, definitely, because of the urgency for this”, which could potentially still point to the F-35 being unable to compete, as the A-model of the F-35, the variant Canada previously decided to procure, will not be fully operational and in mass production until next year. Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Dassault Rafale, and the Saab Gripen, are all in production at this point, and are within Canada’s presumed price range. The Eurofighter Typhoon could be precluded by virtue of its cost alone. The requirements for the new fighter will also be rewritten, as the current government believes that the initial operational requirements were drafted to favor only the F-35 above other possible replacement fighters. Given that Canadian fighters haven’t flown air-to-air operations since the Persian Gulf War (i.e. 1990), and that the vast majority of Canadian military operations over the past twenty years feature air-to-ground operations, the new requirements would necessarily favor an aircraft that is optimized towards flying such missions, but also capable of flying air-to-air, as the RCAF cannot afford a multi-fighter fleet like the US Air Force, or the Royal Air Force. However, the F-35 still fits the bill, as it is designed as a strike fighter from the ground up. The next few months will be pivotal in determining a proper course of action for the RCAF, though a replacement for the CF-188 could be shelved for the time being, given the costly overhaul the Royal Canadian Navy will be undertaking over the course of the next few years, with the retirement of combat vessels and the building of new frigates to supersede them.

The Guardian / July 24, 2016 UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson rebuked by British Liberal Democrat Tom Drake for blaming Munich shooting on terrorists. The lone radical Islamist gunmen opened fire in Munich on Friday evening, murdering 9 people and wounding 35. Drake urged the Foreign Secretary to avoid passing “politically sensitive judgments” on world events until he was in full possession of the facts after he allegedly prematurely blamed Islamist terrorists for the killings in Munich on Friday. Johnson made his remarks before the identity of the killer – an 18-year-old German citizen of Iranian descent who was obsessed with mass slaughter – had been known. (So in fact, the Foreign Secretary was spot on with his assessment) Speaking about the attack on Friday while in New York, Johnson told the press that that the “global sickness” of terrorism needed to be tackled at its source in the Middle East. “If, as seems very likely, this is another terrorist incident, then I think it proves once again that we have a global phenomenon and a global sickness that we have to tackle both at the source – in the areas where the cancer is being incubated in the Middle East – and also of course around the world.” He added: “We have to ask ourselves, what is going on? How is the switch being thrown in the minds of these people?”

Regarding the United States' NATO commitments, Trump was unapologetic, repeating that he intended to force allies to shoulder defense costs that the United States has borne for decades. "We have countries within NATO taking advantage of us. With me, I believe they are going to pay," said Trump, who previously warned assistance to allies would depend on whether they "have fulfilled their obligations to us." "Now, a country gets invaded. They haven't paid. Everyone said 'Oh, but we have a treaty'." "If they don't pay -- Chuck -- this isn't 40 years ago. This isn't 50 years ago. It's not 30 years ago. We're a different country today. "We have countries that aren't paying and this goes beyond NATO because we take care of Japan. We take care of Germany and South Korea and Saudi Arabia and we lose on everything. "We can no longer be the stupid country." .

The issue is, apart from Boeing, and Ford and GM, we don't have any leading industry left. Very little of what you purchase at the department store, home improvement store and so forth are made in America. The practicalities of food production require U.S. facilities, but an alarming number of food companies are foreign owned. It's up to your government to "manage" the success of U.S. industry. The Department of Justice, who in 1964 wouldn't allow Chrysler to acquire Mack, was only too glad in 1999-2000 to allow foreign aggressor Volvo to buy Mack Trucks. This isn't "rocket science". The takeover of U.S. industry by foreign aggressors was allowed by your government. And there's little doubt that various entities and individuals were compensated. Much, like NAFTA, was a Bilderberg Group recommendation (the Rockefellers of our time).

She's an awfully good dramatics actor. .

Trump hits a key nail on the head. Speaking of the U.S. Constitution, Trump spoke of how "everybody wants to be protected." Unlike Burger King, it is simply impossible for everybody to have it their way. When you give to one group, you take from another. That's just basic Math 101. But in the year 2016, everybody wants to come out on top with their agendas. .