- Russia To US: No Plans To Install New Missiles Unless You Deploy First
Following the final collapse and formal pull out by both sides of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty earlier this month, which was preceded by months of threats and counter-threats between the US and Russia, Moscow says it will refrain from deploying new missiles previously banned under the treaty so long as Washington shows similar restraint.
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu made the pledge during statements Sunday. “We still stick to that. Unless there are such systems in Europe (deployed by Washington), we won’t do anything there,” he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, as cited by Reuters.
Image source: Sputnik Though both sides accused the other of violating the landmark treaty signed in 1987 between Reagan and Gorbachev, Shoigu said Russia had repeatedly urged to keep the door of dialogue open. “Between February and August 2, we kept on opening doors,” he noted.
“We are keeping the door open. As long as the US doesn’t deploy such systems to Europe, we won’t do the same, and as long as there are no US missiles in Asia, there won’t be our missiles in the region,” the defense minister said.
He also claimed that Russia’s Defense Ministry had issued a formal invitation for US representatives to attend a briefing on the 9M729 missile in Moscow, but that American officials refused to attend.
The Novator 9M729 is precisely the missile that Washington officials have focused their charge that Moscow violated the INF on, given the land-based cruise missile is believed to have a range that falls between 500km and 5,500km – making it illegal under the terms of the treaty.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has recently signaled it’s looking to deploy new mid-range missiles somewhere in Asia or the Pacific. In early August, just a day after the formal end of the INF, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon is looking to deploy intermediate range conventional missiles in the Pacific region “within months”.
This is perhaps why Shoigu specifically mentioned Asia in addition to Europe in his remarks: “…and as long as there are no US missiles in Asia, there won’t be our missiles in the region,” he said.
- The Saudis Learn The Term "Asymmetric Response"
The Saudis just learned that some moments in history show their significance as they unfold. Iran shooting down a U.S. Global Hawk stealth drone and President Trump refusing his war-hawk cabinet in retaliating militarily is one of them.
I said then and still maintain that this was a turning point in the history of the world.
Any retaliation by the U.S. would be catastrophic for the world economy. It would unleash a regional conflict on multiple fronts which would not be any kind of controlled theater…
… That for all the might of the U.S. military and financial empire, its weaknesses are deep enough that even a relatively weak military and economy like Iran’s can stop it all dead cold because of basic things like geography, logistics and simple human resolve.
Many people misinterpreted these statements, and, indeed the entire article, to mean that Iran could stand up to the U.S. in a direct military conflict and prevail. Nonsense.
War today isn’t just fought with soldiers, bombs, guns and drones. It’s fought in all theatres including the commodities futures and forex markets.
And Trump backing down had everything to do with the fragility of the world economy and his own worries over getting re-elected if his military invasion of Iran sent oil to $250 per barrel.
As we move farther downstream from that event things become clearer just how important it was. Sure, Trump et. al. will fulminate and commit provocations, like impounding the Grace 1 oil tanker, but as far as anything substantive it’s all rearguard actions as the U.S.’s opposition in the Middle East counter-attack.
And the Saudis are the natural weak link in the U.S./Saudi/Israeli alliance pushing for the balkanization of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran; the ultimate goal of all U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.
Since then Iran has been busy, taking diplomatic meetings with the UAE, who were the Saudis’ main ally on the Arabian peninsula in its war on Yemen. And then, last week taking one with the Houthis in which Ayatollah Khamenei recognized them and officially outed Iran as supporting their resistance to Saudi rule.
And with the Gibraltar court demanding the release of the Grace 1 oil tanker, the next step had to be from the U.S. whose frankly pathetic response was to issue an arrest warrant for the crew of the Grace 1 oil tanker.
Was that the moment Iran and the Houthis decided to launch a drone attack on a major Saudi oilfield far north of where the Houthis had struck previously that changed the game in Yemen?
At some point escalation can only go so far. The U.S. tries to intimidate anyone from ghosting their ships to ship Iranian oil and Iran says, “Look, we’re serious. If we can’t ship oil, no one can.”
This is the official policy of Iran at this point.
Bernard at Moon of Alabama does a great job of breaking down events in Saudi Arabia. He is convinced the was is effectively over. That the Houthis gaining official Iranian support as well as showing off capabilities far in excess of what anyone thought they had signals that there is no rational defense of its infrastructure in a wider conflict.
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.
The drones and missiles the Houthi use are copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen with the help of Hizbullah experts from Lebanon.
The Houthis attacked the Shaybah oilfield and refinery complex which produces more than 1 million barrels of oil per day. This is a direct attack on the Saudis’ ability to function as a somewhat sustainable economic and political power.
Bernard may be overstating the significance of this attack in the short-run as it is very possible that there will not be any suing for peace next week or anything. But the threat is real and if it is as indefensible as he suggests then it will be only a matter of time before the operation in Yemen comes to a close.
More importantly this incident plays back into what myself and others have said since the June 20th incident with the U.S. drone. If President Trump is going to pursue war with Iran and continue to pressure their exports to zero then Iran will have no choice but to asymmetrically attack assets across the region and destabilize not only the oil markets but the political futures of major allies of the U.S. in the region.
Think about this for one second (I know this is hard for the impulsive Trump) using the U.S. Navy to impound oil tankers in International waters will only ensure chaos on the Arabian peninsula. It will result in a conflict that will engulf the entire region and destroy what’s left of Trump’s image as the guy who will stop us being the policeman of the world.
It’s all an elaborate bluff.
The Saudis have already lost so much in their botched attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the blockade of Qatar and to force a political realignment in Lebanon. None of Mohammed bin Salman’s strong arm tactics have succeeded in doing anything other than alienate more members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and put his benefactors in Washington in very hot water, politically.
Remember, the war in Yemen is deeply unpopular here in the U.S. And our continued support of it is now wholly owned by President Trump who vetoed a bill to withdraw U.S. support of the Saudis’ efforts there. He did this to support Israel and the Jared Kushner/Bibi Netanyahu plan to coerce a surrender of the Palestinians.
So, make no mistake, Iran knows where the fulcrums are. They know which of Trump’s buttons to push. And the Houthis just pushed a big one.
The Saudis have money and the ear of the U.S. political elite and not much else. They are living on borrowed time as they still run big budget deficits thanks to low oil prices, which will continue to go lower, because of this attack.
Why? Because, the markets will again trade on the lack of response from the U.S. not the incident itself. It will further hasten the collapse in the global oil price as the end of the Yemeni war will take that threat of war with Iran further off the table in the long run.
This is especially true as we approach the end of the grace period Iran gave the European Union to get back into compliance with the JCPOA. Because once they are done legally withdrawing from the agreement per its terms, then Iran will be free to pursue Russia’s offer to buy and resell up to 1 million barrels of Iranian oil per day, stabilizing exports.
Trump has already proven he’s unwilling to blow up the oil markets, and, by extension, the larger financial markets to bring Iran to heel. Everyone has their price. And the price of these low-tech drones from from Iran create the ultimate in asymmetric warfare. A few thousand bucks to paralyze trillions in capital.
Now that’s the Art of the Deal.
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- La Danse Mossad: Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein
Authored by Jennifer Matsui via Counterpunch,org,
Media tycoon and former Labour MP Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime) was given a state funeral in Jerusalem after *accidentally* falling off his yacht – the unluckily named “Lady Ghislaine”.
Later it was revealed Maxwell Sr was a Mossad asset who used his vast network of connections and publishing platforms to run editorial interference over his purchased assets to influence enemies and friends alike, ensuring their fealty to the foreign government that had enlisted him for its espionage work.
His tabloid empire was the piss-colored propaganda organ of the interests he served, overseeing its rapid growth and tentacled reach across the globe. More ominously, he was behind the spy agency’s successful attempt to install a trapdoor in software intended for government use, allowing the Israelis a direct pipeline into a vast network of computers installed with undectable malware.
At the time of his death, the disgraced magnate was under investigation for raiding his companies’ pension funds to cover the losses incurred from his multiple and reckless takeovers, and finance a luxury lifestyle he enjoyed sharing with high profile pals like Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters. Curiously, many of these fossilized specimens from Robert Maxwell’s roster of friends from the Reagan era would circle around Epstein, most notably Donald Trump whose Mar-a-Lago resort would later become a recruiting center for employer Epstein’s underage “massage therapists”.
Fast forward a couple of decades since the days a casino mogul was gobbling down canapés with the old guard denizens of the ‘swamp’. Notice a similar, if not identical MO in both Maxwell and Epstein’s role in procuring technology for the Israelis, who in turn sold it with undisclosed add-ons, providing an open window into its users’ databases.
Like his predecessor, Epstein had a financial stake in a startup (headed by former Israeli Defense Minister and later Prime Minister Ehud Barak) connected to Israel’s defense industry that provides infrastructure for emergency services as a call handling platform. Considering the company’s connection to military intelligence, it wouldn’t be a stretch to speculate on some of this software’s other ‘special’ features. A variation of the early technology that Maxwell was able to procure for his Israeli bosses was later sold to the Saudis, who leveraged its sophisticated tracking features to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi.
Epstein, like Maxwell, was laying the groundwork for Israeli espionage activities through his interests in companies with a political agenda concealed in products intended for international export. If true, the playboy philanthropist feted and flattered his high profile friends to ensnare them as complicit partners in what amounts to the legal definition of treason. Epstein’s covert activities have undiminished real world consequences for anyone on Israel’s international radar, especially those challenging the status quo policies in place that prioritize “The Jewish State’s” political and financial objectives over actual justice and global stability.
If you have ever asked yourself why Israel’s war crimes and settlement expansion go unchallenged by US lawmakers, consider the career-destroying consequences contained within those dossiers compiled by the braintrust behind Epstein’s ’suicide’.
“We’ll trade you one US Embassy in Jerusalem for 10 minutes of hidden camera footage of you . . . let’s say ‘enjoying’ a rolled up Forbes magazine”.
Were the surveillance apparatuses installed throughout Epstein’s properties merely a voyeur’s tools, or did he use them to leverage the moral failings of his former friends for purposes that might have risked exposure of more than the nether regions of wealthy pedo-punters? Considering his connections to Israeli defense industries and his own Achilles penis that required, by his own admission, “three orgasms a day”, the answer points to an unslakable addiction that dovetailed conveniently with his state-sponsored sex crimes.
Did Epstein make the same mistake of Maxwell (who had asked for nearly half a billion dollar in “loans” from his Israeli backers to relieve him of his mounting debts) believing the dirt he had in his possession would prove radioactive if released? By this time, the corpulent tycoon was nicknamed the ‘Bouncing Czech’ a reference in most part to his worsening money woes. The implication of this request, if turned down, was the exposure of Israel’s state secrets. Epstein could have also attempted to collateralize the cache of damning evidence still in his possession to secure his his freedom with the same fatal consequences.
Both Maxwell and Epstein somehow evaded the electronics that linked them to the outside world at the time of their deaths, even though the latter had reportedly made an attempt on his own life while in custody. Both men, facing ruination and serious prison time gave their executioners an alibi: They had nothing to left to live for. The establishment media is already trotting out ancient, ding-a-ling conspiracy theories from obscure right wing sources (attributed to Russia, of course) to highlight the absurdity and futility of questioning the official story of Epstein’s death. Verdict: Nothing to see here.
By now, it’s a given that the parasitic and preferred daughter of the deceased tycoon, made the fateful introduction between her new boyfriend and the Israeli operatives seeking an entry level plutocrat to carry out their blackmail operations after the untimely death of his predecessor. An impoverished socialite has to survive in pricey Manhattan somehow, and that somehow was re-establishing the shady connections to the espionage underworld that had recruited Maxwell Sr.
Ghislaine’s later role as Epstein’s Chief Procurement Officer (or pimp for short) gives more credence to the rumors that she is more than just a debased, barnacle-like appendage to a billionaire, desperate to please her platonic partner by “organizing his social life”, but a fully cognizant co-conspirator in an operation aimed at strengthening Israel’s hand in all matters pertaining to its national security interests, or more accurately, its overseas criminal enterprises.
The recent raid on Epstein’s Manhattan apartment was not the result of a so-called Justice Department righting the egregious wrong it committed by letting Epstein off with a slap on the wrist after his initial conviction that allowed him to serve his sentence largely outside the minimum-security facility with an open door policy for its billionaire guest. More likely, the reversal of Epstein’s “sweetheart” deal was a joint operation between the oligarch cabal informally known as the Mega-Group, and the state security apparatuses that do their bidding.
It’s seems likely that this sudden pivot towards justice from a Justice Department initially spooked into inaction by the spook in his custody, was motivated by the need to remove the most damning bits among Epstein’s vast trove of physical evidence against the pervy punters who visited his island getaway for unintended photo ops with underage girls.
Perhaps his own abuse of these minors was a perk he felt entitled to, and one that would be overlooked in the service of “national security”. It’s hard for most people to differentiate between the government he actually worked for and the ruling establishment on his home turf.
It’s possible that Epstein felt his serial transgressions were merely par for the plutocracy and justified in the service of a higher calling.
The ‘Israel First’ philanthropist shared an unyielding ideological justification for his own criminality as Robert Maxwell, whom the British Home Office had considered recruiting for its own intelligence gathering in the mid 1960’s. Having determined that the well-connected, multilingual, rising star politician was strictly “Zionist”, the spy agency withdrew his candidacy.
Epstein’s real crimes had little to do with raping children, despite the overturned plea deal that came about when a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the victims rights by by concealing the agreement from them. The one time teflon-coated “member of intelligence” who was “above the pay grade” of a powerful District Attorney (now a now scandal-tainted former Labor Secretary) was ultimately (and lethally) penalized for not destroying the contents of his secret-laden safes, leaving his handlers still vulnerable to their explosive contents.
Had the doomed financier divested himself of the toxic assets still in his possession, he might still be roaming the earth today, scouring it for new specimens to populate his underage petting zoo. As a result of the Justice Department’s decision to reverse the non-prosecution deal meant to bury the most incendiary facts of the case, lower-rung punters like former governor Bill Richardson and Senator George Mitchell are being publicly named for their part in the sordid scandal. Someone has to take the fall. (Rule number one of PR crisis management: Crucify the insignificant and let them hang out to dry until the public tires of watching the slow motion spectacle of their undoing.) Meanwhile, documented and/or photographic evidence against more powerful players like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump will have already been destroyed in the pursuit of selective justice.
The fallout of Epstein’s spectacular downfall predictably miss the mark as scandals involving the rich and powerful tend to do. Much of the controversy will dissolve into a Cheetoh dust maelstrom of disinformation, disseminated on Reddit and 4Chan by incel info-warriors before shooting up a shopping mall or playground.
Subsequent reporting of the case will overlook decades of the elite-driven state craft that elevated corrupt and ruthless entities like Epstein and Trump, both ring-kissing acolytes in their youth of influential mob fixer/politcal power broker Roy Cohn – himself a serial sexual predator who similarly caught the fancy of fellow deviants Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Follow the money trail from Tel Aviv and you’ll discover an ancestral link between the corpse of Epstein and his ghostly godfathers waiting with his rewards in hell.
Along with the other disgraced and expendable patsies left in the wake of this ongoing scandal is Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s octogenarian chief legal counsel and ‘wing man’ aboard the Lolita Express. The now unemployable cable news pundit will live out the remainder of his pointless life under a cloud of suspicion. Despite all the damning testimony against him, the statutory rape allegations never quite stick, but follow him around like a sneaky fart, forcing a distance between himself and the rest of humanity that will last until he is engulfed by the sulfurous fumes of his own making.
The former Harvard law professor’s lifelong service to Israel will go unrewarded – not as a result of victim testimony placing him at multiple crime scenes, but in consideration of his own inept self-defense strategy: ”I’m a scurvy rat aboard a sinking ship eating its own tail to stay alive. Pity me”! Dershowitz at this point will be lucky if he can achieve the same pay grade and social status of Lindsay Lohan. Ditto for Prince Andrew who can at least be relied on to expire slowly of gout in his time-out corner at Windsor Castle.
The moral of this story could be “Lie down with dogs and never wake up again with a prison-issued sheet around your neck”. A variation of the old “Lie down with dogs and and wake up as fish food”.
- It Took PG&E 8 Months To Prune A Tree Where Leaves Had Already Been Burnt By Power Lines "Inches Away"
We reported back in July that PG&E had known for years that hundreds of miles of high-voltage lines running in high-risk fire areas were at risk of failing and sparking a fire. And instead of acting swiftly to make the necessary upgrades, it appears the company routinely failed to identify the infrastructure most in need of maintenance.
As we plumb these depths of incompetence at PG&E, another example has emerged that truly shows off the company’s apathy as it related to potential fire hazards: it took PG&E eight months to prune one tree that was at risk of causing a fire, Bloomberg reports.
The tree, located in a “fire prone” area in Northern California, already had leaves singed off of it as wind gusts had blown it into a power line that was “inches away”. The tree was first flagged for maintenance back in November of 2018. Several months went by and one of the company’s tree-trimming contractors certified in February that the work had been completed. It hadn’t been.
In April, a “pre-inspector” again prescribed the tree for work, without noting that it was urgent. The tree was finally pruned – on June 12, about 8 months from it originally being flagged.
The details of this circus were detailed in a report issued this past week about the progress PG&E was making in Northern California. The company’s court appointed outside compliance monitor found that PG&E is overlooking high risk trees and isn’t training its contractors properly. It also found that the company is failing to keep up adequate records.
This may not help the company with the federal judge that is overseeing its probation for “multiple felony convictions in 2016 over shoddy record keeping for its natural-gas operations.”
The report could anger U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who has constantly reminded the company of its recklessness and is currently “straining” to punish the company for its poor fire prevention efforts. PG&E, as well as its CEO, are due back in front of the judge September 17.
A judge is expected to rule over the next few days on whether a group of bondholders can compete with the company in proposing a plan to restructure the company.
PG&E said in a statement: “PG&E’s service area includes more than 120 million trees with the potential to grow or fall into our overhead power lines. While we have made progress in many areas to further enhance wildfire safety including vegetation-management work, we acknowledge that we have more work to do.”
The company says that it has a plan to step up its tree trimming in high fire risk areas that span 25,000 miles of power lines as part of a new multi-billion-dollar wildfire safety plan. The court monitor is reviewing those efforts and is tasked with making sure PG&E doesn’t violate the terms of its probation.
The monitor’s role has expanded as PG&E’s equipment has been found to be at fault for wildfires that have torched Northern California and killed residents over the last few years. The company is under criminal investigation in Butte County, where the Camp Fire started, before killing 86 people.
The court monitor has said in his report to the court that he has found “significant, actionable findings.”
The monitor continued: “Inspections are not only revealing individual trees that are missed, including three active wildfire threats in high-risk areas, but they also reflect gaps in processes, for example, contractor training.”
The now-bankrupt PG&E has put together a contingency plan that would plunge millions of unsuspecting Californians into rolling blackouts reminiscent of the early 2000s (when the utility was last pushed into bankruptcy protection thanks to the market-manipulation hijinx of Enron and other electricity brokers), but as WSJ revealed in an explosive report published in July – a report that was probably the result of months of battles between the paper’s lawyers and California’s Freedom of Information Commission – PG&E has a long history of deterring maintenance on its lines and towers, a practice that directly contributed to causing the deadliest forest fire in California history.
- McMaken: Why Joe Biden Is Winning The Gun-Control Debate
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
There are two fundamental arguments most commonly made against gun control.
1. The Anti-Crime Argument
The first one is based on the idea that persons have a fundamental right to self-defense against ordinary criminals. That is, in a world where criminals have access to either legal or illegal weapons, ordinary people ought to be able to arm themselves for purposes of self defense.
The benefits of private gun ownership in this regard can be illustrated in a variety of ways. Mexico’s strict gun-control regime, for instance, ensures ordinary Mexicans are at the mercy of the cartels and ordinary street criminals. Mexico’s astoundingly high homicide rates illustrate the unfortunate reality.
Moreover, within the United States, some of the worst regions for homicides are areas with some of the most strict gun control laws. Baltimore, for example, has a homicide rate ten times that of the United States overall, while the state of Maryland heavily restricts gun ownership.
Studies that assert “more guns means more crime,” meanwhile, have never been able to demonstrate a causal relationship here. Not only is there no reliable data on where exactly all the guns are, but the direction of causality can go either way. We would expect people living in a high crime area to be more likely to purchase a gun for protection. In other words, the proper conclusion may just as likely be “more crime means more guns.”
The gun-for-self-defense argument is the easier one to make. For the most part, one need only argue that people need to be at least as well armed as ordinary criminals. Shotguns and rifles for home defense, or conceal-carry of handguns, for instance, would arguably be sufficient.
2. The Defense-Against-Tyranny Argument
The other argument for private gun ownership is the argument that weapons ought to be owned by a sizable portion of the population as a defense against an abusive government.
In the current ideological environment, this is the harder argument to make. And, as we shall see, this argument depends heavily on making the case that a standing army controlled by the federal government is a threat to freedom. As it now stands, this argument isn’t exactly popular.
The Origins of the Second Amendment
In the late eighteenth century, however, the idea that a standing army was a grave danger to any society was far more common. The eighteenth-century arguments behind the Second Amendment, of course, were always centered around providing a check on the power of the central government’s military power. Those argumentsgo far back beyond the Declaration of Independence at least to the days of the English Civil war. In the 1660s it was agreed that troops were necessary to maintain order, but few trusted the central government with the task. Thus, “a nationwide militia, composed of civilians who would — as in earlier days — be summoned in time of need.”
In practice, this meant the militia members would have access to their own arms, and be skilled in their use. Much was made of the idea that a national standing army, under the command of the central government was a significant danger to the liberties of the resident population. This idea persisted in Britain even into the nineteenth century.
These ideas eventually made their way to the United States where state and local militias were commonly used during the Revolutionary War, and afterward, such as when the Massachusetts Militia was successfully used to put down Shays’ Rebellion. Formal and independent militias — some controlled by cities and states, and some semi-private — continued to exist throughout the nineteenth century. But there was also the “unorganized” militia, which in many state constitutions were defined as “all able-bodied male residents of the State, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years.” As noted by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, some militias were successfully employed in defense against Indian raids, and as part of the invasion force of the Mexican War.
Under-girding the idea of the militia was always the belief that a sizable federal standing army was a threat to American freedoms, and that outside the Navy, military force ought to be decentralized and subject to state and local control.
These militias — once called into service — were usually subject to control by government officials, whether local or at the state level. But it was often assumed that the ranks of the militia would be filled by residents skilled in the use of their own private arms. This also assumed private gun ownership. Moreover, it assumed ownership of arms — and proficiency with them — at the level of a military unit.
So What does This Have to do with the Gun Control Argument Today?
The idea of the militias as a check on standing armies remains important because gun-control advocates are now specifically targeting the defense-against-tyranny argument in their drive to further criminalize gun ownership.
For example, last week, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was asked about his position on gun control:
COOPER: So, to gun owners out there who say, well, a Biden administration means they’re going to come for my guns?
BIDEN: Bingo. You’re right if you have an assault weapon. The fact of the matter is, they should be illegal, period. Look, the Second Amendment doesn’t say you can’t restrict the kinds of weapons people can own. You can’t buy a bazooka. You can’t have a flame thrower.
The guys who make these arguments are the people who say the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, we need the protection against the government. We need an F-15 for that. We need something well beyond whether or not you’re going to have an assault weapon.
Biden is not claiming no gun ownership is to be allowed. Instead, he’s just saying people don’t need guns beyond what’s necessary for personal defense. In his mind, that means it’s practical to eliminate private ownership of so-called “assault weapons.”
The tactic here is clear: Biden is attacking the guns-against-tyranny argument because he knows if he can win on that, he can make a case for abolishing legal ownership of semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s. For now, he won’t bother arguing against the guns-for-self-defense argument. That’s too much trouble.
But when he says guns can’t really fight abusive government, his argument will strike many listeners as quite sensible. Here are the key components:
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It is silly to assert an AR-15 will defend against tyranny.
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Why is it silly? Because a tyrannical US government would be armed with F-15 fighter jets and flame throwers and bazookas. Thus, the idea that people could defend against this with some AR-15s is absurd.
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Should people be allowed to own military hardware then? Of course not! Everyone knows we can’t just let anybody own a bazooka or a machine gun.
The conclusion is this: let’s move on form this fantasy about how your AR-15 fights tyranny, and let’s get down to making people safe by getting these “weapons of war” out of the hands of people who will use them to slaughter children.
Meanwhile, very few people are willing to go on CNN and say “yes, I think military grade rifles and armored vehicles with belt-fed machine guns should be perfectly legal to everyone at any time.” Few are willing to say this for good reason. They’d be mocked and dismissed as utterly irrelevant.
The pro-gun-control side also benefits from the fact the US military is incredibly popular, and we are regularly told that all Americans only have any freedom at all because the US military makes it possible. Why would anyone need a gun to shoot at those American heroes?
Rebuilding the Dike: Yes, Standing Armies Are a Problem, and Yes, We Must Decentralize Military Power
Unfortunately, anyone who wants to really defend the guns-against-tyranny argument has his work cut out for him.
For more than a century now, Americans have been told there is no longer any role for any sort of military force that is beyond the direct control of the federal government. In other words, a huge standing federal army is perfectly fine, and we don’t need military hardware — privately owned or otherwise — to defend against them.
This idea was made a legal reality with the Militia Act of 1903. With the new legislation, the federal government created the so-called National Guard which would spell the doom of the unorganized militia in the US, and serve to completely undermine the Second Amendment and its defense of decentralized military power in the US.
After 1903, the federalization of the state militias only accelerated until, as historian David Yassky concludes, “Today’s National Guard is thus a far cry from what the Founders’ understood a militia to be” and the result of these changes has brought about “the disappearance of anything the Founders would have recognized as a militia.” Far from acting as a bulwark against abuse of federal power, today’s National Guard is something the authors of the Second Amendment “would have seen as little better than a standing army.”
This change has essentially removed the idea of the unorganized militia from public debate, and has also solidified the notion that all military power in the United States ought to be controlled by generals in Washington, DC. Thus, the idea that anyone outside federally-controlled military units ought to have military-level weapons strikes most as bizarre.
Yes, some vestiges of the old system did persist later than 1903. As late as 1990, it was still possible — at least in theory — for state governors to legally veto deployment of National Guard units ordered by US presidents. But even that independence is gone now.
Historically, however, state governments could — and did — refuse to deploy troops when US presidents demanded it. But today, the idea that standing armies are a danger — or that local and state militias have a role in defending against them — is profoundly unpopular among policymakers and average voters alike.
So now, if one is going to assert that guns (and other weapons) are needed to protect against tyranny, one has to rebuild the entire Second Amendment edifice: an edifice which is fundamentally opposed to standing armies and which imagines both an organized and unorganized militia outside the control of the central government.
After all, even many people who fancy themselves big defenders of the Second Amendment certainly don’t act like it. Often, the same people who clamor to thank soldiers “for their service” then say with the next breath that guns are necessary to fight against the military’s soldiers. Moreover, the destruction of the militia’s independence was historically cheered by conservatives. It was gun-owning social conservatives who supported legislation like the Montgomery Amendment which put the final nail in the coffin of state-control of National Guard units. The bill’s sponsor, conservative Congressman Sonny Montgomery of Mississippi, was never punished by his voters for his assault on the Second Amendment.
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- Pakistan's PM Khan: World Must "Seriously Consider" Safety Of India's Nuclear Arsenal
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone on a blistering attack, in a series of Twitter statements arguing that the world must “seriously consider” the safety of India’s nuclear arsenal under control the “fascist” Modi government.
“The world must also seriously consider the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal in the control of the fascist, racist Hindu supremacist Modi government. This is an issue that impacts not just the region but the world,” Khan tweeted early Sunday.
Khan’s words came just as the AFP is reporting some 4,000 Kashmiris thrown into detention amid an unprecedented crackdown by tens of thousands of Indian troops enforcing a legal revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&k) autonomous status.
It also comes two days after Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh detailed India’s “no first use” nuclear policy, hinting that it could become permanent. Pakistani officials have said this is a distraction from India’s “genocidal” policies against Muslim Kashmirs.
“India has been captured, as Germany had been captured by Nazis, by a fascist, racist Hindu supremacist ideology and leadership. This threatens nine million Kashmiris under siege for over two weeks which should have sent alarm bells ringing across the world with UN observers being sent there,” Khan tweeted.
India has been captured, as Germany had been captured by Nazis, by a fascist, racist Hindu Supremacist ideology & leadership.This threatens 9m Kashmiris under siege in IOK for over 2 weeks which shd have sent alarm bells ringing across the world with UN Observers being sent there
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) August 18, 2019
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And speaking of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata leadership in New Delhi led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which on August 5th J&K’s status quo ability and rights to maintain their own local governance, Khan described further, “One can simply Google to understand the link between the Nazi ideology and ethnic cleansing and genocide ideology of the RSS-BJP founding fathers.”
“Already four million Indian Muslims face detention camps and cancellation of citizenship. The world must take note as this genie is out of the bottle and the doctrine of hate and genocide, with RSS goons on the rampage, will spread unless the international community acts now to stop it,” he said.
Since the crisis began two weeks ago through New Delhi’s voiding Article 370 of the constitution, there’s been a reported build-up of Pakistani forces along its side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, meaning at any moment the heated rhetoric could spark a major war between the nuclear armed neighbors and rivals.
- "The Southern Poverty Law Center Is A Hate-Based Scam That Nearly Caused Me To Be Murdered"
Authored by Jessica Prol Smith, op-ed via USAToday.com,
After internal challenges with discrimination, the Southern Poverty Law Center can’t call itself an arbiter of justice.
I’ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been shot. We knew we couldn’t leave yet. We knew little else.
While I was missing lunch, a crime scene played out in the office lobby below me. My coworker and friend Leo wasn’t armed, but he’d played the quick-thinking and inadvertent hero, disarming a young man on a mission to kill me and as many of my colleagues as possible. The gunman had packed his backpack with ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — later admitting that he’d planned to smear them on our lifeless faces as a political statement. Leo took a bullet in the arm but managed to disarm and hold the attacker until law enforcement arrived.
I wrote and edited for the Family Research Council, a public advocacy organization that promoted the principles I’d cared about since childhood: protecting the family, promoting the dignity of every human life and advocating for religious liberty. It reads like a tagline, but it’s also just what I believed and the way I chose to match my career with my convictions.
I never expected that everyone would celebrate or share my beliefs. But I did expect to be able to discuss and debate these differences without becoming a political target in an act of terrorism, the first conviction under Washington, D.C.’s 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act.
It was the type of violent incident that one could expect a group that purportedly monitors “hate,” like the Southern Poverty Law Center, to notice, research, and decry. In fact, we were on the center’s radar but for all the wrong reasons. The assailant acknowledged later in FBI testimony that he had selected our office precisely because the SPLC had labeled my employer a “hate group.”
It’s always been easier to smear people rather than wrestle with their ideas. It’s a bully who calls names and spreads lies rather than thoroughly reading a brief’s legal arguments or challenging the rationale underlying a policy proposal. The SPLC has chosen to take the easy path — to intimidate and mislead for raw political power and financial benefit.
For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported and commentatorshave lamented: the Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent Neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it’s apologized to public figures; it’s smeared and recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.
The SPLC has its own troubles
These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder, and its president resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.
The criticism comes from many corners. There’s theCurrent Affairs editor who seems sympathetic to the center’s progressive mission but decries its “hate group” list as an “outright fraud” and a “willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.”
There’s the retired investigative journalist who helped research and write an eight-part series on the center’s “litany of problems and questionable practices” in the mid-1990s. His Washington Post opinion piece reads with a thinly-veiled message: We nearly got a Pulitzer Prize for TELLING YOU SO.
But perhaps most damning of all are the indictments leveled by former employee Bob Moser in The New Yorker. He remembers being welcomed to the “Poverty Palace” and recounts the heart-sinking reality of it all — being “pawns” in a “highly profitable scam.”
Jobs and years have passed, and I work now for Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF ranks among “the top performing firm(s]” litigating First Amendment cases, the “Christian legal powerhouse that keeps winning at the Supreme Court.” And yes, my new employer has also attracted one of the SPLC’s spurious hate labels. The label easily peels and fades away when one actually does the research and listens to truth before deciding to troll.
I won’t be intimidated by the SPLC
If the SPLC thought that their hate would intimidate or silence me and my colleagues, they’re sadly mistaken. I’m lucky — blessed, really — that I didn’t take a bullet for my beliefs back in 2012. But the center’s ugly slander and the gunman’s misguided attack have sharpened my resolve and deepened my faith in my Savior, who commands my destiny and shields me from the schemes of man. The same is true for my colleagues.
Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fell to an assassin’s bullet. The SPLC pretends to carry his legacy but weaponizes hate labels instead. Unlike SPLC’s name-calling, Dr. King’s words and vision stand the test of time. “Injustice anywhere,” he warned, “is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The SPLC, as an institution, has thoroughly disqualified itself as an arbiter of justice. But this country would be a better place if the center’s donors, lawyers and friends would truly believe and apply Dr. King’s legacy — his peaceful pursuit of justice and his love of neighbor.
- US Air Force Can Now Turn Small Planes Into Robots
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) and DZYNE Technologies completed a two-hour test flight of a new robot plane Aug. 9 at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
“This flight test is a testament to AFRL’s ability to rapidly innovate technology from concept to application in a safe build up approach while still maintaining low cost and short timelines,” said Maj. Gen. William Cooley, AFRL commander.
The new revolutionary Robotic Pilot Unmanned Conversion Program, called ROBOpilot, interacts with flight controls just like a human pilot.
“Imagine being able to rapidly and affordably convert a general aviation aircraft, like a Cessna or Piper, into an unmanned aerial vehicle, having it fly a mission autonomously, and then returning it back to its original manned configuration,” said Dr. Alok Das, CRI’s Senior Scientist. “All of this is achieved without making permanent modifications to the aircraft.”
The robot manipulates the yoke, pushes on the rudders and brakes, regulates the throttle, observes the instrument panel the same way a pilot does. “At the same time, the system uses sensors, like GPS and an Inertial Measurement Unit [essentially a way for a machine to locate itself in space without GPS] for situational awareness and information gathering. A computer analyzes these details to make decisions on how to best control the flight,” AFRL said.
Once the flight is completed, ROBOpilot can be quickly uninstalled from a plane. The system is the size of a pilot’s seat, which includes all the equipment needed to control the aircraft including actuators, electronics, cameras, power systems, and a robotic arm.
Das said ROBOpilot is a non-invasive way towards robotically piloted aircraft leverages existing commercial technology and components. It’s a low-cost alternative compared to military drones that cost $15 to $200 million.
“ROBOpilot offers the benefits of unmanned operations without the complexity and upfront cost associated with the development of new unmanned vehicles,” Das said.
AFRL uploaded a short video of the test flight onto YouTube last week.
- Former CIA Spook: "Russian Hoax Coup & Epstein Are Interlocked"
Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,
Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the Russian hoax and attempted coup of President Trump and the sex trafficking case against Jeffery Epstein are linked together by the same Deep State players.
Shipp explains, “The FBI has completely raided his vault, and they have some pretty damning material…”
“I don’t know why it took so long, but they have raided Epstein’s island… So, there is a lot of damning information the FBI has now on certain people. At the top of the list, and the one who flew the most, was Bill Clinton. Then he lied about it. They are intertwined in that regard and with the Clinton Foundation that we know is a fraud. It is known around the world, and you’ve got these two intersections with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Of course, Hillary Clinton is tied to the dossier in an attempt to get rid of Donald Trump. So, these webs interlocked with each other, and these people interlock with each other. Welcome to the global elite. Welcome to human trafficking. These things are connected, and with Epstein dead, there are a lot of prominent people breathing a sigh of relief—for now. Is Barr aggressive enough? He says he is going to pursue this case anyway. Is he going to call in the people seen on the CD’s, videos and photographs? That remains to be seen.”
On Epstein’s officially ruled suicide while in prison, Shipp says, “Epstein tries to commit ‘suicide,’ and his cellmate, a four-time convicted murderer, said he didn’t see (or hear) it because he had his headphones on. Attorney General William Barr was in charge of the safety of Jeffery Epstein. There should have been an entire contingent of U.S. Marshals to protect this huge witness, but there were none... Why is that? …”
“It is just unbelievable how they left this huge witness to die in prison. The prison guards were off, as we know. The cameras were not functioning. He was taken off of suicide watch and on and on we go. There are so many things that add up to this not being a suicide that it is remarkable. . . …
We are all still hoping that Attorney General Barr will do his job and people are charged, but this is starting to bother me a little bit. A major witness that was connected to high level people in government and finance was left alone to die in prison, and I think he was murdered. This was all left to happen by William Barr. The pieces to this just don’t add up…
We’ve got so many strange things going on here that do not add up, and Attorney General Barr is ultimately responsible for this happening.”
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer and author of the top selling book about the Deep State called “From the Company of Shadows.”
* * *
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