Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger notes that part of Trump’s appeal to many of his voters was, at least ostensibly, the idea that he would employ a less hawkish/neocon foreign policy than his opponent Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton.

While it’s still too early to decisively say that Trump will usher in yet another foreign policy disaster for these United States and the world, it’s certainly not looking good.

The lobbing of tomahawk missiles into Syrian based on the fairytale that Assad launched a chemical weapons attack was the first sign that Trump is easily manipulated and impulsive. In fact, the episode bothered me so much I wrote a post detailing the dire ramifications titled, Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire.  I suggest taking a read if you missed it the first time, it’s my most popular post of the year.

While that was bad enough, Trump’s cozying up to the barbaric, terrorist-supporitng leaders of Saudi Arabia has been by far the most concerning aspect of his foreign policy (if you can call it that) so far. This policy has become even more dangerous now that the 30-year old princeling who is leading the Saudis’ increasingly aggressive stance in the region has been named crown prince. It appears Trump is willing to let the Saudis do whatever they want in the region, which is guaranteed to have disastrous implications for America and the Middle East.

But a new Seymour Hersh article is out showing that the US knew there was no Assad chemical attack in April, but President Trump decided to bomb anyway.

And the details are shocking… as TheAntiMedia.org’s Darius Shahtahmasebi details, never one to accept the U.S. government’s official explanation of events without question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has investigated Donald Trump’s decision to strike the al-Shayat Airbase in Syria in April of this year, which the president launched amid widespread allegations that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack.

In a report entitled “Trump’s Red Line,” published Sunday in the daily German newspaper Die Welt, Hersh asserts that President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he made the decision to attack Syria after pictures emerged of dying children in the war-torn country.

For those of us without goldfish memories, Hersh’s recent investigation is reminiscent of his previous examination of the alleged chemical weapons attacks in 2013, detailed in an article entitled “Whose Sarin?” That article was published in the London Review of Books.

The official White House explanation for the events in April of this year was that Donald Trump was moved by the suffering of “beautiful” Syrian babies – the same Syrian babies he doesn’t want to set foot in the United States – and decided to punish the Syrian government for the attack two days after it allegedly occurred. This punishment came in the form of an airstrike despite the lack of a thorough investigation regarding what took place that fateful day in April and who was ultimately culpable (though the Trump administration insisted they were certain that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to blame).

In that context, it should come as no surprise that Trump acted rashly without consideration of the facts on the ground. However, what is most disturbing about Hersh’s account is the fact that, according to his source, Trump was well aware that the U.S. had no solid intelligence linking the Syrian government to a chemical weapons attack — and that’s because, according to Hersh’s article, it’s doubtful a chemical weapons attack occurred at all.

Hersh reports:

“The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack,  including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.”

“None of this makes any sense,” one officer reportedly told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb Syria, according to Hersh. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

According to Hersh, Trump “could not be swayed” by 48 hours worth of intense briefings and decision-making following the initial reports of the alleged chemical weapons attack. Hersh, who reportedly reviewed transcripts of real-time communications, explains that there is a “total disconnect” between the president and his military advisers and intelligence officials.

As is the case with Syrian military operations, Russia gave the U.S. details of the carefully planned attack on a meeting in Khan Sheikhoun, according to Hersh’s  admittedly anonymous sources. The Russians had employed a drone to the area days before the attack to develop the intelligence necessary to coordinate it.

According to Hersh’s sources, the United States and its Russian counterpart routinely share information regarding planned attacks in order to avoid collisions. However, they also permit “coordination,”  a practice that involves giving the other side a “hot tip about a command and control facility,” which then helps the other side carry out their attack.

Therefore, there was no surprise chemical weapons attack, as the Trump administration alleged. In fact, Russia had actually warned its American counterpart on the off-chance that there were any CIA assets on the ground who should have been forewarned of an impending attack.

“They [the Russians] were playing the game right,” a senior adviser told Hersh.

Hersh continues:

“Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. ‘It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,’ the senior adviser told me. ‘Every operations officer in the region’ – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – ‘had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.’ The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community.”

Hersh confirms Russia’s account of the incident, in which Russian authorities alleged that the Syrian Air Force bombed a “terrorist warehouse,” and that secondary bombings dispersed dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere.

Strangely, if Hersh’s reporting is accurate, it is not clear why Russia didn’t give the detailed account at the time — and why the Russians didn’t emphasize that they had shared information with the U.S. military well in advance of the attack, as this would have cast further doubt on the official U.S. narrative. In that context, Russia could have provided proof of any prior communications that took place within the so-called deconfliction channel. It also doesn’t explain why Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, appeared to endorse two competing theories behind the events at Khan Sheikhoun.

However, Hersh continues:

“A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that ‘eight patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.’ MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there ‘smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.’ In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.”

Hersh is not the first high-profile investigator to cast major doubts on the Trump administration’s official narrative regarding the events at Khan Sheikhoun. MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol, who previously worked as a former scientific advisor to the U.S. military’s Chief of Naval Operations, poked major holes in the claims that the Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhoun, noting the “politicization” of intelligence findings (you can access all of his reports here). Postol argued that there was no possible way U.S. government officials could have been sure Assad was behind the attack before they launched their strike, even though they claimed to be certain. Postol took the conversation even further, asserting that the available evidence pointed to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter had similar concerns regarding the White House’s conclusions, as did former U.K. ambassador to Syria Peter Ford. The mainstream media paid almost zero attention to these reports, a slight that exposes the media’s complicity in allowing these acts of war to go ahead unquestioned.

“This was not a chemical weapons strike,” the adviser said. “That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon – you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500-pound conventional bomb – would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?”

According to Hersh’s source, within hours of viewing the footage of the ‘attack’ and its aftermath, Trump ordered his national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against the Syrian government. Hersh explains that despite the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) having no evidence that Syria even had sarin, let alone that they used it on the battlefield, Trump was not easily persuaded once he had made up his mind.

“Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts,” the adviser told Hersh. “He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: ‘Do it.”’ [emphasis added]

At a meeting on April 6, 2017, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump spoke with his national security officials regarding the best way to move forward. The meeting was not to decide what to do, Hersh explains, but how best to do it (and how to keep Trump as happy as possible).

Trump was given four options. The first one was dismissed at the outset because it involved doing nothing. The second one was the one that was decided upon: a minimal show of force (with advance warning to Russia). The third option was the strike package that Obama was unable to implement in 2013 in the face of mounting public opposition and Russia’s threats of intervention. This plan was Hillary Clinton’s ultimate fantasy considering she was encouraging it moments before Trump’s lone strike actually took place. However, this would have involved extensive air strikes on Assad’s airfields and would have drawn in the Russian military to a point of no return. The fourth option involved the direct assassination of the Syrian president by bombing his palaces, as well as his underground bunkers. This was not considered, either.

As we all witnessed in April, the second option was adopted, and the airbase Trump struck was up and running again in less than 24 hours, making it a very symbolic and empty show of force.

Hersh’s insight into the way Trump is conducting his foreign policy does not bode well for the future of the Syrian conflict (or anywhere else in the world, for that matter). Trump was not interested in the intelligence or the facts on the ground — if he had been, he would have waited until an investigation had determined culpability before ordering a strike.

Missing from Hersh’s account, however, is the fact that it was newly appointed national security advisor General H.R. McMaster who laid out the military strike proposals to the president at his resort on April 6. McMaster replaced former national security advisor Michael Flynn after the latter was forced to resign due to leaks from within the intelligence community. Due to Flynn’s alleged ties to Russia, it seems unlikely he would have proposed such a strike on Russia’s close ally to begin with.

It is unclear whether McMaster proposed the strikes in order to appease Trump or because McMaster ultimately wants Trump to adopt a tougher stance against Syria and Russia; McMaster has a history of pro-interventionism and anti-Russian sentiment.

Those commentators who can review these startling revelations but still condone Trump’s actions with a lazy ‘Assad is still a bad guy and must be overthrown’ mindset argument are being intellectually dishonest, with themselves and others. As was the case in 2013, there is still very little evidence that Assad has ever used chemical weapons — particularly in the attacks that the U.S. has tried to pin on him — yet this is the standard by which the corporate media and our respective governments have instructed us to judge Assad. Even without this conclusive evidence, shortly after the April events, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley stated Assad will fall from power.

Hersh’s investigation bolsters many claims that the U.S. acted rashly without first conducting or ordering an impartial inquiry regarding what happened in April of this year. Hersh’s report also serves as a reminder to the world of the warpath we are continuing down, spearheaded by an impulsive and reckless megalomaniac who has no interest in ascertaining fact from fiction.

*  *  *

Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger also notes that just as interesting as the information above, is the fact that Hersh had to turn to a German newspaper to publish it. This makes perfect sense, because the one area where U.S. corporate press maintains unassailable consistency is when it comes to cheerleading for an interventionist, imperial foreign policy based on unverified claims and outright lies. Trump’s little fireworks display checked all those boxes, which is why the corporate media drooled all over the bombing, celebrating Trump for the first time of his Presidency. As Hersh notes:

After the meeting, with the Tomahawks on their way, Trump spoke to the nation from Mar-a-Lago, and accused Assad of using nerve gas to choke out “the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many … No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

The next few days were his most successful as president. America rallied around its commander in chief, as it always does in times of war.

Trump, who had campaigned as someone who advocated making peace with Assad, was bombing Syria 11 weeks after taking office, and was hailed for doing so by Republicans, Democrats and the media alike. One prominent TV anchorman, Brian Williams of MSNBC, used the word “beautiful” to describe the images of the Tomahawks being launched at sea. Speaking on CNN, Fareed Zakaria said: “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States.” 

A review of the top 100 American newspapers showed that 39 of them published editorials supporting the bombing in its aftermath, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Which once again goes to show just how worthless, irresponsible and downright dangerous U.S. corporate media really is.

Finally, as Ron Paul rages below, Republicans cannot let go of “regime change” for Syria and new Cold War with Russia — even as the Democrats are starting to back away. Will the mainstream media stick with the narrative as well? Or is it all about to come crashing down?

The Syrian government dismissed the White House’s unsubstantiated, and bizarrely ominous late Monday night allegations that it was preparing a new chemical weapons attack. According to AP, Ali Haidar, the Syrian minister for national reconciliation, dismissed the White House’s warning and said it foreshadowed a diplomatic campaign against Syria at the U.N., according to the AP. Or maybe military campaign.

The Kremlin also dismissed the White House statement, which had warned that Assad and his military would “pay a heavy price” if it goes ahead with the attack. Russian  President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “such threats to Syria’s legitimate leaders are unacceptable.”

Peskov also criticized the Trump administration for using the phrase “another chemical weapons attack,” arguing that an independent investigation into the April attack was never conducted despite Russia’s calls for one. The US has so far not explained why it is against an impartial third party determining all the facts.

A senior Russian lawmaker dismissed the U.S. warning as “provocation.” Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, accused the United States of “preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces.” The U.S. strike in April was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump’s most dramatic military order since becoming president. Trump said at the time that the chemical attack crossed “many, many lines,” and called on “all civilized nations” to join the U.S. in seeking an end to the carnage in Syria.

Syria denied using chemical weapons. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory.

* * *

As reported earlier, the statement by White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the U.S. had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.” He said the activities were similar to preparations taken before the attack in April, but provided no evidence or further explanation.

Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said they were caught completely off guard by the warning, which didn’t appear to have been discussed in advance with other national security agencies. Typically, the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies would all be consulted before the White House issued a declaration sure to ricochet across foreign capitals. The officials weren’t authorized to discuss national security planning publicly and requested anonymity.

The bizarre sequence of events when it comes to foreign policy and potential military action has prompted some to speculate whether and if Trump is even in control of US foreign policy or if all control has been relinquished to the deep state.

* * *

As AP adds, also on Monday, Trump had dinner with Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other top officials as he hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talked earlier Monday about the need to secure a cease-fire in Syria, fight extremist groups and prevent the use of chemical weapons, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. It looks as if those talks were not particularly fruitful.

A Democratic Party-aligned opposition research firm is stonewalling Congressional investigators who are trying to ascertain exactly who financed the now-debunked “Russia dossier” – remember? The one that claimed germaphobe Trump enjoyed getting urinated on by Russian hookers?

The New York Post’s Paul Sperry is out with another report about Fusion GPS, a “research and strategic intelligence firm” founded by “three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters.” But congressional sources say it’s actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump agenda.”

Fusion has refused to answer Senate investigators’ questions or provide records of communications that might help the panel identify who financed the error-ridden dossier. Now, because of the firm’s intransigence, it looks like the investigators might soon make good on their threats.

“These weren’t mercenaries or hired guns,” a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe said.

“These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary’s chances of winning the White House.”

The firm was founded by Glenn Simpson, Thomas Catan and Peter Fritsch. Two of whom, Fritsch and Catan, have ties to Mexico — with Fritsch, a former Journal bureau chief in Mexico City, married to a Mexican woman who worked for Grupo Dina — a beneficiary of NAFTA. Catan, formerly from Britain, once edited a Mexican business magazine.

Simpson, pictured below, is reported to have shared dark views of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. Before joining Fusion GPS, Simpson did opposition research for a former Clinton White House operative.

Clearly, the research in the dossier – which was used to help justify the launch of Congressional and DOJ probes into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian entities – has had tremendous consequences for the new administration, forcing Trump to beat back baseless claims and insinuations fed to the media by the DOJ and intelligence agencies. Still, after months of this treatment, no evidence of collusion has emerged.

But the question remains: Who, exactly, provided the funding for the organization’s controversial and research? Money that allowed the firm to hire former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, allegedly the source of the dossier’s controversial claims.

The Post has an idea of the profile, if not exactly the identity, of the individual or individuals responsible.

“Fusion GPS was on the payroll of an unidentified Democratic ally of Clinton when it hired a long-retired British spy to dig up dirt on Trump. In 2012, Democrats hired Fusion GPS to uncover dirt on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And in 2015, Democrat ally Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to investigate pro-life activists protesting the abortion group.”

The FBI is also resisting Senate investigators who are zeroing in on the alleged misconduct by former deputy director Andrew McCabe, who’s failure to recuse himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign despite financial and political connections to Clinton through his Democrat activist wife has attracted suspicion.

And unsurprisingly, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch – now the subject of another probe organized by the Senate Judiciary Committee – is somehow involved.

“Senate investigators are demanding to see records of communications between Fusion GPS and the FBI and the Justice Department, including any contacts with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, now under congressional investigation for possibly obstructing the Hillary Clinton email probe, and deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, who is under investigation by the Senate and the Justice inspector general for failing to recuse himself despite financial and political connections to the Clinton campaign through his Democrat activist wife.:

The bureau’s attempts to verify the content in the dossier should alarm anybody in a report that should who’s been following along these past few months, after receiving a copy of the dossier in August, the bureau offered to pay its controversial source to corroborate the information.

“The FBI received a copy of the Democrat-funded dossier in August, during the heat of the campaign, and is said to have contracted in October to pay Steele $50,000 to help corroborate the dirt on Trump — a relationship that “raises substantial questions about the independence” of the bureau in investigating Trump, warned Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.”

As the Post reminds us, Steele has been cited as the source for nearly the entire collusion narrative, from the pro-Trump hackers were working at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the theory that the Russian government might have compromising information about Trump, and the idea that a Trump confidant held a clandestine meeting in Moscow.

All of these allegations, as the Post notes, are 100% bullshit. Steele hasn’t traveled to Moscow since the 1990s, and it appears his main source for most of his material was Google. 

“Steele’s most sensational allegations remain unconfirmed. For instance, his claim that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held a “clandestine meeting” on the alleged hacking scheme in Prague with “Kremlin officials” in August 2016 unraveled when Cohen denied ever visiting Prague, his passport showed no stamps showing he left or entered the US at the time, witnesses accounted for his presence here, and Czech authorities found no evidence Cohen went to Prague.

Steele hadn’t worked in Moscow since the 1990s and didn’t actually travel there to gather intelligence on Trump firsthand. He relied on third-hand “friend of friend” sourcing. In fact, most of his claimed Russian sources spoke not directly to him but “in confidence to a trusted compatriot” who, in turn, spoke to Steele — and always anonymously.

But his main source may have been Google. Most of the information branded as “intelligence” was merely rehashed from news headlines or cut and pasted — replete with errors — from Wikipedia.”

But that didn’t stop both Democrats and, before them, anti-Trump Republicans, from accepting Steele’s allegations without scrutiny – and paying him handsomely for his efforts.

“Steele contracted with Fusion GPS to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia starting in June 2016, whereupon he outlandishly claimed that Hillary campaign hackers were “paid by both Trump’s team and the Kremlin” and that the operation was run out of Putin’s office. He also fed Fusion GPS and its Hillary-allied clients incredulous gossip about Trump hating the Obamas so much that he hired hookers to urinate on a bed they slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton, and that Russian intelligence recorded the pee party in case they needed to blackmail Trump.

Never mind that none of the rumors were backed by evidence or even credible sourcing (don’t bother trying to confirm his bed-wetting yarn, Steele advised, as “all direct witnesses have been silenced”). Steele reinforced his paying customers’ worst fears about Trump, and they rewarded him for it with a whopping $250,000 in payments.”

Steele, pictured below, also played a role in maligning former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn by suggesting there was something “untoward” about Flynn’s attending of a dinner to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russia Today – an event that was also attended by former Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

“In the same August report, for example, Steele connected a Moscow trip taken by then-Trump campaign adviser Michael Flynn to “the Russian operation” to hack the election. But there was nothing secret about the trip, which had taken place months earlier and had been widely reported.

And there was nothing untoward about it. It was a dinner celebrating the 10th birthday of Russian TV network RT, and Flynn sat at the same table with Putin as US Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.”

Meanwhile, it appears the founders of Fusion GPS have profited handsomely from their misinformation campaign:

“Property records show that in June 2016, as Clinton allies bankrolled Fusion GPS, Fritsch bought a six-bedroom, five-bathroom home in Bethesda, Md., for $2.3 million.”

Could this be the thread that finally unravels the Trump investigation? We think so. Stay tuned for more information once the inevitable subpoena is served…

The IMF has cut its US GDP forecast to 2.1% in 2017 from 2.3% projected in April and to 2.1% for 2018 from 2.5% previously, it said in a statement following its U.S. Article IV Consultation, and saying it could no longer assume the Trump administration will be able to deliver pledged tax cuts and higher infrastructure spending. Specifically, in giving up on the Trump agenda, the fund said “we have removed the assumed fiscal stimulus from our forecast.”

Worse, the revised US forecast is now expected to peak in 2017, remains flat in 2018, and then continues to decline to 1.7% by 2022, which once upon a time was considered stall speed.

In its annual review of the American economy, the IMF questioned the White House’s plan to accelerate output and said it was skeptical the administration would be able rev up the world’s largest growth engine to a sustained 3% annual rate. Instead, the fund forecasts the growth rate will steadily fall over the next five years to around 1.7%, assuming no major policy changes.

IMF GDP Forecast:

Amusingly, it was only in April that the IMF said President Trump’s tax-overhaul plans and spending stimulus could goose the growth rate to 2.5% next year, up from 2.3% this year. But after talks with administration officials amid still-evolving policy plans, the fund says it can no longer factor such fiscal stimulus into its forecasts. The IMF now says the economy will expand by 2.1% this year and next.

And, as the WSJ notes, Initial optimism about the administration’s ability to get a tax revamp and infrastructure spending has faded in the face of mounting political hurdles. “Meanwhile, buoyant stock prices, one of the longest expansions in U.S. history and a precrisis jobless rate belie an economy facing considerable challenges ahead, the fund warned.”

“All in all, in our judgment, the U.S. economic model is not working as well as it could in generating broadly shared income growth,” said Alejandro Werner, head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department.

The IMF also disagreed with the Trump’s administration’s optimistic economic forecasts, questioning whether the package as proposed will deliver the administration’s long-term growth targets, balance the budget and cut public debt.

“Even with an ideal constellation of progrowth policies, the potential growth dividend is likely to be less than that projected in the budget and will take longer to materialize,” the IMF said. International experience and U.S. history suggest a sustained acceleration in annual growth of more than one percentage point is unlikely, the IMF said.

Of note: the IMF said that given the weaknesses in the economy, the Fed should aim to temporarily overshoot its 2% inflation target by gradually easing into its planned interest rate increases. And some of us are old enough to remember when cutting rates was supposed to boost inflation…

* * *

Some of the highlights from the IMF statement:

• “The outlook is clouded by important medium-term imbalances. The U.S. economic model is not working as well as it could in generating broadly shared income growth”
• “Real GDP is now 12 percent higher than its pre-recession peak, job growth has been persistently strong, and the economy appears to be back at full employment”
• Fed should continue to gradually raise interest rates “in a data dependent way” and it must accept modest, temporary overshoot of its inflation goal
• Fed must well-telegraph balance sheet reduction plans
• U.S. needs lower tax rate, simpler system, fewer exemptions
• “Tax reform should focus on increasing revenues- GDP over the medium term including through a broad-based federal level consumption tax, a carbon tax, and a higher federal gas tax”
• U.S. can improve trade deals like Nafta also to the benefit of its trading partners
• “The U.S. would benefit by remaining open as it pursues new or amended trade agreements”
• Skilled-based immigration to U.S. can boost labor participation and productivity
• Current financial regulation approach should remain intact
• “There is scope to fine-tune some aspects of the system, notably to reduce the compliance burden for smaller banks. However, the current approach to regulation, supervision, and resolution should be preserved.”

Following the drop in UMich confidence preliminary print for June (as Republican hope fell), The Conference Board’s measure of confidence ticked up, handily beating expectations. The present situation index rose sharply but economic expectations tumbled to its lowest since January.

As Bloomberg notes, while consumers are growing weary about the political environment and their chances of obtaining some form of stimulus, conditions in the real economy like low gas prices, rising stock market valuations and a strong labor market remain major confidence boosters.

But economic expectations slumped to Jan lows…

But Gallup notes that, among its respondents, Americans’ confidence in the economy remains barely positive.

From 2008 — when Gallup began tracking economic confidence on a daily basis — through most of 2016, Americans’ assessments of the economy were routinely negative, although they became less negative over time. However, last year’s presidential election proved to be an inflection point for economic confidence.

Last week marked the 32nd straight week the index has been above zero, meaning that many Americans — Republicans above all — continue to feel fundamentally different about the economy now than they did before the election. Still, economic confidence has ebbed and flowed throughout the first half of 2017, with the measure registering an eight-year high of +14 the week after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president and surpassing this in early March with a +16 reading.

But in subsequent months, confidence has declined — largely due to worsening attitudes among Democrats. Since May, however, attitudes have largely stabilized, with weekly averages of the index remaining slightly positive.

Worse still, Gallup notes that while the current conditions are holding positive, expectations for the future are notably negative…