Reuters

Once again Zero Hedge pulls a fast one on the MSM. We highlighted this earlier today, but it bears repeating: in a post yesterday we asked rhetorically: "Are republicans preparing for a push to eliminate the "maximum employment" part of the fed's dual mandate?" As of a few minutes ago, Reuters has answered: "Republicans want Fed focus solely on inflation." Those who have read us will find absolutely nothing new here, but here is the gist of the Reuters piece: "Two U.S. Republican lawmakers said on Tuesday the Federal Reserve should focus solely on inflation and ditch its "dual mandate" to promote both price stability and full employment. The pressure from Senator Bob Corker and Representative Mike Pence adds to the pile of international criticism over the central bank's plan to buy an additional $600 billion in government bonds to try to speed up a sluggish economic recovery." As we stated before, while we ridicule the fact that Bob Corker is suddenly all about curbing the Fed, despite that 5 of his top 15 contributors are banks, and last year did his best to make the Paul-Grayson "Audit the Fed" initiative disappear, the fact that this idea is finally making the rounds should be endorsed by all those who believe that a bankrupt America is a bad America. As the Fed will not cease from doing everything it can to boost banker recoveries, under the guise of stimulating employment, the only way to curb its central planning aspirations is to pass legislation that will make it focus solely trillions of excess dollars creating asset bubbles across the global economy.

Here we go. European bailout #2. Eurozone sources say assistance to Ireland does not foresee any debt restructuring or 'haircuts' for bond holders. In other words, more strikes and riots in store, as taxpayers get stuffed with the full bill. Next up on the bailout wagin: Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, BeNeLux, Austria, and everyone else.

Reuters' Matt Goldstein has completed a special report on foreclosure fraud, asking rhetorically: "foreclosures are rising; lawsuits are flying; banks are beleaguered; there has to be a better way?" Goldstein looks at fraudclosure from the perspective of the fight between junior and senior liens, a topic Zero Hedge discussed a month ago (The Foreclosure Mess MBS Hate Triangle Emerges: Junior Versus Senior Bondholders Versus Servicers) highlighting that $426 billion in loans are second lien, and, as highlighted previously, sit on the balance sheets of BofA, JPM, Wells and Citi in the biggest circle jerk in this whole mortgage crisis fiasco (always remember: one TBTF's mismarked assets always end up being another TBTF's unfudgeable liabilities). As the chart below shows, the banks have no choice but to come up with a compromise: obstinately keeping their heads in the sand is a guaranteed way for the entire financial system to blow up.

His face wracked by age and his voice rasping after decades of chain-smoking coarse tobacco, the former long-time Russian Minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist Viktor Mikhailov knows just how to fix BP's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

"A nuclear explosion over the leak," he says nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. "I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and the problem is solved."

The rumor that pushed the Dow up 200 points from the lows, was, as we expected, completely false and just a pretext to ramp the market into Opex. Of course, the SEC will never investigate into who actually leaked the rumor as the SEC's very existence is contingent on the continuation of that particular ponzi.

In an exclusive report Reuters' Matt Goldstein has uncovered the mystery seller of 75,000 E-Mini contracts during the market melt down. And no, it's not Nassim Taleb as previously reported: the culprit for soaking up ES liquidity (if indeed the selling of 75,000 50x S&P equivalents is enough to throw the market into a 10% tailspin): the "hedging" party is small Kansas-based advisor and asset manager Waddell & Reed (yeah, that was our reaction too). This information is based on an internal CME report which has yet to be disseminated to the general public. Yet the biggest question is not why Waddell trade what it did, when it did, but why did Barclays, which executed the trade for Waddell, stuff the massive order into the pipe, without breaking it up into a thousand child orders first. This is borderline criminal negligence, with Barclays basically begging for their "best executions" practices to be front run by every single algo in existence.

Time for the SEC to take a look at what bets Goldman's prop desk, and material affiliates as well as hedge funds that are close to Goldman's flow traders, were taking on Goldman's stock over the past few days. If indeed Goldman shorted itself, bought SPY puts, bought octuple leveraged negative financial ETFs, or something else of the sort, on material non-public information, it would be time to shut the firm down. 

Banks are busted, all of the big guys were doing the Lehman thing, and it gets worse. I take a look under the hood of the big boys to see what they were hiding. On a side note, as I type this the story is breaking all over the place. Is this the return of true, investigative reporting? I hope so!

Wikileaks has released a classified video leaked by "a number of military whistleblowers" which depicts "the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff." Full video attached - warning: video is very graphic.

Regular readers of Zero Hedge will be keenly aware of our animosity for, if not the mainstream media, the malaise that has gripped the mainstream media's ethos (and a massive swelling of its increasingly corrupt pathos, as it happens).  Our expressions of disgust go back months, even as far back as the birth of Zero Hedge itself.  So, today, when we recognize new manifestations of these illnesses, we are far past the point of outrage.  Our reaction might be better described as a slow, mournful shake of the head indicative of an almost bored (and certainly unsurprised) resignation.  The decline of journalism (and the resultant and pending takeover of yet another broken business model by the Federal Government) is a common theme here at Zero Hedge because it is so common a theme.  This morning it is Reuters that prompts our sad response.

It appears that even "conspiracy-minded, often-disjointed and harmful-only-to-themselves retail day-traders" are capable of not only participating in the content creation effort, but on occassion, making useful contributions to fact-finding. Or so thinks Reuters' Matt Goldstein in his latest piece "Sheila Bair and the black marker"