CRYPTO: Whistleblower Details Big Swedish Bank’s Plans to Prohibit Employees Owning Bitcoin.

According to memorandums obtained by News.Bitcoin.com, a decision by Nordea’s board was made 13 December 2017. The message’s import was to affirm no employees of the bank were allowed to trade bitcoin nor other cryptocurrencies. When queried about what to do with crypto already held by employees, an answer was not immediately forthcoming.

The memos were pulled from Yammer, a social networking site used by some businesses for private communication. Its network is open by invite only.

A second communication from the bank further outlined coming policy: The ban will be effective late February due to “its highly speculative nature, including high investment/volatility risk, and the related tax evasion and money laundering risks,” the source details. New rules also include how unless “otherwise stated, the rules set forth in this section apply to all transactions. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether they are carried out on [a personal] account, on behalf of a Closely Related Person, a customer, the Group, or on behalf of another party within or outside the scope of work,” the memo reads.

Furthermore, “No Employee, Service Provider or Tied Agent at the Group may: Conduct trading in Bitcoins and other Cryptocurrencies.”

There are a few exceptions listed, but if true, these new rules make it look as though at least one bank is a little spooked by cryptocurrencies.

KIDS THESE DAYS: Teens Are Eating Laundry Detergent in ‘Tide Pod Challenge.’

Even if it weren’t stupid and dangerous, have you seen the price of those things?

PROCUREMENT: Navy Says It Can Buy Frigate For Under $800M.

“The follow-on objective cost for FFG(X) is $800 million. We think we can get below that,” Rear Adm. John Neagley told the conference. Once conceptual design contracts are awarded — no later than March — “we’re going to use the next 16 months to work with our industry partners to really understand those details.”

The $800 million figure is the Navy’s target (“objective”) for the average cost of frigates No. 2 through 20 (the “follow-on” ships). The $950 million figure widely reported this week is the maximum average cost the Navy will accept for those same ships. Neither number includes the very first frigate, since the lead ship of a class has lots of extra costs: the initial development and design, setting up manufacturing facilities, and working out all sorts of teething troubles.

That seems more reasonable that yesterday’s report.

S***HOLE: Censure Resolution Planned Against Trump ‘for His Racist Statements.’

This writeup is from Bridget Johnson, whose unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

FRESH BLOOD: Trump names David Schenker new Middle East head at State Department.

David Schenker, a director at the prestigious Washington Institute for Near East policy, is to be assigned the top Middle East post at the State Department, as part of the ongoing shakeup ordered by President Donald Trump. DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that Schenker, a friend of Israel and expert on Syria, Lebanon, Hizballah, Jordan and Islamist terror, is a former senior adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, when he served as defense secretary in the George W. Bush administration. He is the second non-diplomat to receive a high State Department appointment since Trump entered the White House. As assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, he will follow Andrew Peek, a former military intelligence officer, who was named deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran.

More turnover at State, please.

DAMORE SUIT: Google Caters to Furries, Transgenderism, and ‘A Yellow-Scaled Wingless Dragonkin.’

THE NEW NORMAL: Feds Collect Record Income Taxes Through December; Still Run $225 Billion Deficit.

It’s the entitlements, stupid.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Top 10 Shi*holes I Never Want to Visit.

WELL, GOOD: Mira Sorvino, Allegedly Blacklisted from Hollywood by Weinstein, Is ‘Getting Offers’ Again.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: If “$#!+hole” Rings True, It May or May Not Be True.

FLASHBACK: Rolling Stone, defending Presidential vulgarity.

It’s different when Obama does it, because shut up.

WOW: Watch Chris Matthews Joke About His ‘Bill Cosby Pill’ Before Interviewing Hillary Clinton.

You just never know what will send a thrill running up Chris’ leg.

FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN SIOUX CITY, IOWA: The Top 10 Most Obsequious Comments Letterman Made to Obama During Their Netflix Interview.

TONI AIRAKSINEN: Feminist Prof Recommends Dangerous Drug to Make Men ‘Breastfeed.’

No.

REPORT: Senate targeted by hackers linked to DNC breach.

SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Terry McAuliffe says he’d punch Trump: ‘You’d have to pick him up off the floor.’

AN IMPORTANT REMINDER:

MIA LOVE: President ‘Must Apologize’ to ‘Nations He So Wantonly Maligned’ with ‘Shithole’ Comment.

This writeup is by Bridget Johnson, whose unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s how, and why, the Spectre and Meltdown patches will hurt performance.

This is a highly technical article, so I’ll give you the short version.

Normal desktop tasks and even gaming won’t be impacted much or maybe at all. But jobs with lots of input/output calls could face serious performance hits of 20-40%.

I was thinking of replacing my workstation this year, but I’m wondering if it would be smarter to wait the 18-24 months it might take chipmakers to sort out their security issues.

SUMANTRA MAITRA: Trump’s Conservative-Realist Approach Will Outlast Trump.

It is foolish to imagine that the interests of United States will cause her to be aligned with the same countries with whom her interests were aligned in 1945, or even 1989. The European Union, for example, under the leadership of Brussels, Stockholm, and Berlin, consistently clashed with Washington on Iran, mass-migration, Jerusalem, Cuba, the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Russian sanctions, and China to name just a few. This rift will only continue to grow.

The failure to understand the simple fact that Trumpism is purely an effect of a failed imperial foreign policy, and not a cause, in incredible to observe. The United States now stands as a hegemon, and now faces what Great Britain faced during the Suez Canal crisis in 1956: massive debt, a disinterested public that wants to avoid any foreign entanglement, new growing peer rivals and structural realities, a bygone unipolar moment, and a new multipolar great power rivalry. In a way, Trump’s strategy simply reflects these structural changes and aspirations of Americans, who are tired of paying their hard-earned cash for this Wilsonian and imperial foreign policy. Conservative Realism is about strength at home and prudence and restraint abroad.

NATO funding remains a major thorn, and while Trump took credit for some countries increasing their funding for NATO, the strategy still makes it a point that countries should pay for their security. Trump is right about rich European countries living on American taxpayers. But it is not true that Europe is supposed to pay for Trump. That’s not how it works. And there’s no way Trump will be able to make Western European countries pay 2 percent of GDP for NATO, simply because there is no longer a Soviet Union to fear. American foreign policy at this stage is more aligned with East and Central European states, which are traditionally socially conservative and are wary of Russian military designs and EU social engineering. That is unlikely to change, and sooner or later, American policymakers will need to adjust to this new reality.

That last point is one Donald Rumsfeld was mocked for making 15 years ago, with his “Old Europe/New Europe” remarks.

MUST-SEE TV: Tucker’s Epic Satirical Takedown of Chris Cuomo for Calling Himself a ‘Journalist.’

QUESTION ASKED: Was Fusion GPS Allowed to Run Unsupervised FISA-702 Queries?

RESET: Who’s an Oligarch? Rich Russians Fret Over U.S. Sanctions Label.

When Debevoise & Plimpton lawyers held a seminar in Moscow to explain the impact of new U.S. sanctions legislation, they had to rent out a hall in a hotel to hold all the worried clients who signed up.

A big reason for the interest is a provision in the law that gives President Donald Trump’s executive branch until February to identify “oligarchs” close to Vladimir Putin who can be slapped with visa bans and asset freezes as further punishment for Kremlin election meddling.

With the Treasury Department, which is leading the effort, giving little indication of how the list is being compiled, Russia’s billionaire class is in the throes of a kind of helpless anxiety. One of the country’s richest men said it would be stupid to try to lobby against inclusion in Washington because that would only put a bigger target on his back.

It’s collusion, I tells ya.

TOMORROW’S HOT TAKE TODAY: Trump’s so dishonest he won’t even stay bought.

CUE THE WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN: Harvey Weinstein is too broke to pay child support.

DAS IST SCHRECKLICH: German Engineering Yields New Warship That Isn’t Fit for Sea.

Germany’s naval brass in 2005 dreamed up a warship that could ferry marines into combat anywhere in the world, go up against enemy ships and stay away from home ports for two years with a crew half the size of its predecessor’s.

First delivered for sea trials in 2016 after a series of delays, the 7,000-ton Baden-Württemberg frigate was determined last month to have an unexpected design flaw: It doesn’t really work.

Defense experts cite the warship’s buggy software and ill-considered arsenal—as well as what was until recently its noticeable list to starboard—as symptoms of deeper, more intractable problems: Shrinking military expertise and growing confusion among German leaders about what the country’s armed forces are for.

A litany of bungled infrastructure projects has tarred Germany’s reputation for engineering prowess. There is still no opening date for Berlin’s new €6 billion ($7.2 billion) airport, which is already 10 years behind schedule, and the redesign of Stuttgart’s railway station remains stalled more than a decade after work on the project started. Observers have blamed these mishaps on poor planning and project management, which also figured in major setbacks for several big military projects.

Undenkbar.