Today’s News 25th March 2017

  • Alex Jones Acquiesces to Alefantis, Broadcasts Apology to Comet Ping Pong for Covering Pizzagate

    The head conspiracy theorist has surrendered to a cadre of heavy hitting D.C. lawyers, employed by the humble pizza parlor keeper, James Alefantis.

    Earlier this week, Alefantis’ former gay lover, David Brock from Media Matters and Shareblue, suffered a heart attack. Today, Alex Jones had a change of heart, especially in light of recent events that has placed Infowars.com in Facebook’s fake news genre and Adroll refusing to do business with him — likely due to his political leanings and fake news label, placed on him by the leftist media.

    Here’s Jones apologizing several times to James Alefontis and Comet Ping Pong and anyone else he might’ve offended.

    This video is, all of a sudden, trending on Youtube — #28 and rising.

    It’s over.

    Here is one of the more prominent Pizzagaters, David Seaman, responding to Jones’ apology.

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

     

  • Watch These Geopolitical Flashpoints Carefully

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    Anyone who has been involved in alternative geopolitical and economic analysis for a decent length of time understands that the establishment power structure thrives according to its ability to either exploit natural crises, or to engineer fabricated crises.

    This is not that hard to comprehend, but for some reason there are a lot of people out there who simply assume that global sea-change events just happen “at random,” that the elites are stupid or oblivious, and that all outcomes are a matter of random chance rather than being directed or manipulated.  I call these people “intellectual idiots,” because they believe they are applying logic to every scenario but they are sabotaged by an inherent bias which causes them to deny the potential for “conspiracy.”

    To clarify, their logic folds in on itself and becomes faulty.  They believe themselves objective, but they abandon objectivity when they staunchly refuse to consider the possibility of covert influence by organized special interests. When you internally dismiss the possibility of a thing, no amount of evidence will ever convince you of its reality.  This is how the “smartest” people in the room can end up being the dumbest people in the room.

    In the survivalist community there is a philosophy – there is no such thing as a crisis for those who are prepared. This is true for prepared individuals as much as it is true for prepared communities and prepared nations. The only way a society can fall is when it becomes willfully ignorant of potential outcomes and refuses to organize against them.

    By extension, it would make sense that by being prepared for a particular crisis or outcome an individual or group could not only survive, but also profit. It is not crazy or outlandish to entertain the idea that there are groups in power (perhaps for many generations) that aggressively seek to predict or even force particular outcomes in geopolitics for their own profit. And, by profit, I do not necessarily mean material wealth. In many cases, the power of influence and psychological sway over the masses might be considered a far greater prize than money or property.

    You can buy slaves or purchase the means to make demands of people at gunpoint, but you cannot put a price on fealty or adoration. This is what establishment elites ultimately want – voluntary servitude from the populace. They want us to beg for their leadership rather than begrudgingly accept it under threat.

    To this end, a Hegelian model of problem – reaction – solution is required. You cannot influence people to volunteer for servitude and submission unless they are sufficiently terrified of the alternative.

    The globalists tend to use what I call a “scattershot effect” when it comes to creating or managing chaos. They set the stage for multiple flashpoints around the world and wait to see which of them works and which of them fails. If you have enough of these flashpoints in place, statistically there is a high probability that at least some of them will succeed. We saw this in obvious form a few years ago when covert intelligence agencies instigated the “Arab Spring” insurgencies in Libya and Egypt among other nations, along with the funding and training of terrorist groups in Libya and Jordan that went on to become ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and at nearly the same time we had elitist lapdogs like John McCain in both Syria and Ukraine helping to foment unrest and civil war.

    All of these engineered events created a wave of global instability that exists to this day. Not only this, but one successfully executed flashpoint has the ability to give birth to dozens of new flashpoints. They tend to spread, like a cancer.

    That said, some flashpoints are more dangerous than others.  Here are just a few of the events I consider the most volatile right now.

    U.S. Debt Ceiling Battle Ahead?

    I realize we have seen this many times in the past eight years under the Obama administration; extreme media hype over possible conflict between Republicans and Democrats in extending the ongoing debt ceiling problem for another couple of months or another couple of years. In every instance, Republicans feigned attempts to reduce government spending and then rolled over to extend. The entire fight was purely theatrical and likely meant to distract the public.

    However, in this instance, certain elements are very different.

    With the deadline of March 15th crossed, the clock is ticking on remaining funds and “extraordinary measures” designed to stretch the federal budget until a vote on a debt ceiling extension can take place. Funds are predicted to last perhaps until this fall. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs alumni, has of course asked congress for a quick vote to raise the ceiling.  This is rather counter to Donald Trump’s original position that constant national debt increases are “embarrassing” to Republicans.

    Given, it is not Trump’s fault that he inherits the most massively inflated liability bubble in U.S. history after Barack Obama nearly doubled the national debt during his tenure (an incredible feat, to be sure). But, this does not change the reality that the U.S. is far beyond its means to balance the budget or maintain the current level of spending. And, I would remind everyone that the official debt does not even including the trillions in ongoing costs associated with entitlement programs or social security.

    With U.S. debt at a breaking point, it would seem prudent to institute considerable spending cuts. Of course, where those cuts are applied may become the excuse needed to drive the debt ceiling debate into crisis this time around.

    I am not at all surprised that Democratic senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has recently vowed to throw the debt ceiling talks into disarray if Trump continues to pursue a rollback of Obamacare, the building of the southern border wall, or the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Schumer has specifically warned of a government shutdown designed to prevent the Trump administration from instituting such policies.

    So, you can see why this particular debt ceiling fiasco might be different. With Trump in office, establishment elites do have a perfect opportunity to sow fiscal chaos and scapegoat conservatives in the process. Whether they will follow through or not remains to be seen…

    North Korean Wildcard Returns?

    They’re baaaaaaaack! Yes, North Korea pops up out of the geopolitical ether every two-three years or so to flood the mainstream media with headlines of apocalypse. Every new missile advancement or rocket test by Pyongyang conjures images of ICBMs and mushroom clouds. North Korea appears to be the globalist “ace in the hole” at times. If they ever need a war, North Korea is more than happy to oblige. If they ever need a villain to place at the forefront of a false flag terrorist attack, North Korea is a perfect candidate. And, with North Korea’s “unique” relationship with China, the diplomatic situation and potential for widespread conflict becomes even more tenuous.

    Like the debt ceiling, we have seen numerous instances of heightened tensions with North Korea fizzle out, overblown by the MSM and the Pentagon, perhaps to remind the world why we should continue to be afraid. That said, again, this time feels different.

    Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has stated quite blatantly that pre-emptive strikes against North Korea are immediately on the table. Meaning, the mere hint of a threat, whether real or imagined, could be used as a rational to strike kinetically. Not economically, or diplomatically, but a full bore shooting war.

    Do I think this is possible? This time, yes, more than ever before. If Trump is to be used by the establishment as a scapegoat for collapse as I predicted long before his election, then a situation must occur in which overt military force abroad and at home is solidified. War is the smokescreen by which terrorism, whether real or state sponsored, flourishes.  Martial law being the inevitable result. War can also be blamed for an economic crisis that was already many years in the making. And, war strains and destroys diplomatic ties with peripheral nations, causing more economic distress.

    A conflict with North Korea does offer the globalists a perfect petri dish for directed chaos.

    Oil Market Crash Returns?

    There are many economic analysts out there that are still waiting for an oil market “crash,” and it is baffling to me why they have not realize that the crash in oil markets has already happened. American oil consumption has been falling off the map since 2008. Projections of oil usage made by the Energy Information Administration have been way off the past several years.  Global increases in demand are also stalling.

    While the mainstream media and OPEC hyperfocus on supply and production, the real culprit behind the global oil glut is something that they do not want to address – collapsing consumption. This is why, despite OPEC oil cuts (if they are legitimate), prices have remained static and are now falling once again. Add to this the reality that certain producer nations have been lying about the level of cuts instituted, and yet another oil market reversal will take place.

    The initial oil price collapse from over $100 per barrel to around $30 per barrel was an incredible crash, yet no one seems to want to call it a crash.  Today, the price of around $50 a barrel is barely enough for the industry to break even in most cases. As I have been warning since last year, the $20 jump is temporary. OPEC cuts are minimal, if they are even being implemented at all, and demand continues to falter. Slow consumption plus inadequately adjusted production equals price deflation. There is no way around this fact.

    Why does oil matter?  This should be apparent to most people, but the stability of entire nations and regions relies heavily on the stability of the oil market.  In particular, the U.S. dollar’s world reserve status is tied inexorably to the fact that it is also the petro-currency. Oil market chaos will no doubt lead to a dump of the dollar itself. In fact, the last time oil fell into the $30 per barrel range, Saudi Arabia openly threatened to begin efforts to decouple from the dollar and shift into a basket of currencies as a means for international oil trade.

    The mainstream media tried to bury this story as “empty posturing,” and I think many MSM economists are actually stupid enough to believe that Saudi Arabia dropping the dollar as the petro-standard is inconsequential. What they do not consider is that where Saudi Arabia goes, most other oil producers will follow.

    The U.S. economy cannot survive without the dollar’s world reserve status, and by extension its petro-status. A dump of the dollar by OPEC nations would be absolutely devastating. This is why I highly suggest people take note of oil prices carefully this year, and not underestimate their importance to the wider geopolitical picture.

    Resurgence Of Terrorism?

    In my article 'Globalists Want To Destroy Conservative Principles – But They Need Our Help', I predicted increasing terrorist attacks over the course of the spring in Europe and the US.  I have also recently predicted that if there is a resurgence of terrorism in the EU, Marine Le Pen will win the French presidency.  So far there have been multiple small attacks in France, sporadic riots throughout the EU, and now the latest murders outside the UK Parliament.  Such attacks have not yet been sparked again in the U.S., but I still expect that these events will increase before summer.

    Terrorism in itself does not necessarily represent a "geopolitical flashpoint" unless we are talking about something on the scale of 9/11, but it does tend to act as a building catalyst for other major government and social shifts.  The rise of what the globalists call "populism" (their favorite scapegoat now for every crisis under the sun including crises that have been gestating for nearly a decade) could be directly linked in part to the forced mass immigration programs in the EU and the U.S., as well as expanding terrorism.  Every attack will bring certain western nations ever closer to a more nationalist government.

    As this process continues, the danger of globalists and central banks pulling the plug on stock market support surges.  From terrorism, to populism to economic collapse – this is the narrative that the public will be sold in the near future.  It is a narrative that could scar the world for generations to come if we do not continue to expose the REAL internationlist culprits behind our ongoing fiscal instability.

    Standing Watch

    Whenever any alternative analyst writes an article concerning threat assessment, we fully expect that some dimwits out there will jump to the accusation of “doom and gloom.” I’m not sure that anyone really takes them seriously, but let’s think critically for a moment, shall we?

    Civilization is fragile and finite. It always has been and most likely always will be. The continuation of peace and stability, even at a micro-level such as a neighborhood or a town, requires vigilance and preparedness. Governments spend billions on think-tanks and working groups whose sole function is threat assessment. They might only be assessing threats to the power elite and not the citizenry, but they exist all the same. No one accuses these think tanks of “doom and gloom” whenever they present an analysis that is not the most optimistic.

    I hardly see how it is logical to deny the common public the right to our own “think-tanks,” or to be skeptical of our current “stability.” The fact of the matter is, alternative analysts (myself included) have been proven right time and time again in our predictions and warnings, all while mainstream analysts regurgitating endless false optimism have been proven indelibly wrong. We do not promote “doom and gloom.” We present reality.

    Great social and political changes never happen in a vacuum. There are always triggers and warning signs.  Sometimes these events are naturally occurring, sometimes they are created. In either case, to stay watchful and mindful is pure common sense. This does not mean we need to be in a state of constant panic. On the contrary, as I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the prepared have no need to panic.

  • Here Are The Reasons Why Today's Republican Debacle Makes Tax Reform Less Likely

    With Americans now “stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future“, attention shifts to Trump’s next agenda item: tax reform.

    This was confirmed by none other than the President himself who moments ago said that “Republicans will probably work on tax reform now.” To be sure, following today’s embarrassing fiasco, Trump will be eager to move on to a law which will be easier to pass, and according to market consensus, tax reform is precisely that. Alas, consensus may once again be wrong.

    Ignoring the fact that work on tax reform in earnest won’t start for 6-8 weeks as House Ways and Means member Merchant said moments ago, and may not even take place until fiscal 2018 (after August), the reality is that since Obamacare and tax reform are both parts of the Reconciliation process, as a result of not freeing up hundreds of billions from the deficit that the CBO estimated repealing Obamacare would do, it means that Trump’s tax cuts have been hobbled – by as much as $500 billion – before even starting.

    Furthermore, with the Freedom Caucus flexing its muscle and openly defying Trump, another major headache for Trump’s tax reform is that the Bordere Adjustment Tax – an aspect of the reform that the Caucus has been vocally against – is likely off the table. And since BAT was expected to generate over $1 trillion in government revenues, it means that a matched amount in tax cuts is also now off the table.

    In summary, between Obamacare repeal and BAT being scrapped, roughly $1.5 trillion in budget “buffers” are wiped out.

    And yet, when news hit that Obamacare repeal has failed, stocks surged, arguably on traders’ belief that this will accelerate tax reform. Alas, in addition to the above, Axios lists another four reasons why today’s healthcare debacle spells trouble for tax reform.

    • We now know that Congressional Republicans are willing to buck Trump and leadership on big-ticket legislative items.
    • Republicans will need to keep working on healthcare reform, even though Trump says that he’s done with it. They’ve campaigned for years on killing Obamacare, and can’t head into the mid-terms without giving it another go. Particularly when they keep insisting that the current scheme is collapsing?
    • CBO said that the Republican healthcare bill would shrink long-term budget deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars. Without it, filling the tax revenue hole becomes harder.
    • Sean Spicer today said repeatedly that Trump had talked to “everyone” and listened to “all” ideas, which reflects zero consideration of Congressional Democrats. If such sentiment persists ? it just raises the degree of difficulty for tax reform, particularly if the White House doesn’t change its position on keeping corporate tax reform tied to personal tax reform.

    Finally, here is Goldman’s persepctive. Despite the realities above, Jan Hatzius is his typically optimistic self about the potential for Trump’s agenda.

    Preliminary discussions on tax reform could begin soon but we do not expect legislative action on tax reform until June. This week’s events do not change our expectation that tax legislation will be enacted within the next year and actually suggest that enactment could come slightly sooner than we previously expected.

     

    1. The American Health Care Act (AHCA) has no path forward for now. House Republicans appear unable to reach a consensus on any bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”); we believe reaching a consensus among Senate Republicans would have been even more difficult in any case. This would appear to signal an end to the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). That said, addressing health care in some way will be politically necessary, so we do expect health legislation to be considered again at some point later this year or next year.

     

    2. Other issues must be addressed before Republican leaders can shift their full focus to tax legislation. The Senate is expected to consider the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court the week of April 3, which raises the risk of a Democratic filibuster, which Republicans might counter with a controversial rules change (the so-called “nuclear option” for Supreme Court nominations). Following a two-week recess, Congress will return the week of April 24 to consider extending spending authority, which expires April 28; inclusion of funding for the President’s proposed border wall would raise the risk of a government shutdown.

     

    3. Congress will also need to address the FY18 budget resolution before it can act on tax reform. This is necessary to provide the “reconciliation instructions” that allow Republicans to pass tax legislation with only 51 votes in the Senate (and therefore no Democratic support). As we have noted before, reaching an agreement on the FY budget resolution will not be easy; in the past, conservatives have demanded a balanced budget within ten years but this would require endorsing spending cuts (in non-binding form) that some centrist Republicans might oppose.

     

    4. Tax reform will probably not begin to move through the legislative process until June. In light of the other issues described above, we would not expect the House Ways and Means Committee to vote on a tax reform bill until late May (less likely) or June (more likely). The Committee is unlikely to release a detailed proposal until they are ready to vote, so details regarding the House proposal may not be known for at least another two months or so.

     

    5. Enactment of tax legislation looks just as likely as it did before this week. The health bill faced much different challenges than tax legislation will face. While the health bill would have reduced benefits (tax credits and Medicaid eligibility) and the deficit, the tax bill is likely to provide new benefits (tax cuts) and will probably increase the deficit. Ultimately, we believe that there will be broad support among Republicans in Congress for legislation that reduces the corporate tax rate and cuts personal taxes modestly.

     

    6. However, the defeat of the health bill indicates that complex and controversial tax reforms are likely to be difficult to pass and we note that the “Freedom Caucus” that opposed the health bill also opposes some of the most controversial aspects of the House Republican tax blueprint, like the border-adjusted tax (BAT). This suggests congressional Republicans might scale back their ambitions on tax reform, and pursue a simpler tax cut that includes selected reform elements (e.g. changes to the taxation of foreign profits of US multinationals and profit repatriation).

     

    7. The timing on tax legislation might be pulled slightly forward. Compared to our prior expectation that a tax bill would not be enacted before Q4 2017 and could easily slip to early 2018, with the health issue no longer in play, our central expectation remains that it will be enacted in Q4 2017. However, the risk to that timing now appears more evenly balanced, since there no longer appears to be a risk that the health debate will drag out for several more months.

    However, if today’s events are any indication (and weighting item 6 above more heavily than Goldman), don’t hold your breath for a law being concluded this calendar year.

  • China Bans Buying Of Hong Kong Property On Credit Cards

    In China's latest effort to control capital flight, authorities have banned Chinese citizens from buying property in Hong Kong using their credit cards.The use of Chinese credit cards to pay for a portion of property transactions is widespread in Hong Kong.

    Willy Liu, chief executive of local real estate agent Ricacorp, said 15-20 per cent of new property buyers were mainland Chinese. The majority use UnionPay cards to pay for 5 per cent of the home price as a mortgage deposit in Hong Kong. Most of those transactions are worth at least HK$500,000 ($64,371), Mr Liu said, surpassing the $50,000 annual limit for personal foreign exchange imposed by China’s regulators.

    UnionPay cards have been a common conduit for mainland Chinese to move cash offshore, and the company has sought to shutter those channels. In October, it said it had barred the use of its credit and debit cards to purchase investment-linked insurance products.

    And so, as The FT reports, Beijing has stepped up curbs on capital flight by banning this use of cards for real estate deals

    UnionPay, China’s sole clearing house for bank card transactions, told property agents in the city that customers would no longer be allowed to swipe their cards for real estate transactions.

     

    “It is strictly prohibited to use a UnionPay card issued in Mainland China for cross-border acquisition of property”, UnionPay said on Friday.

     

    The crackdown by the state-controlled company comes as regulators grow anxious over the level of China’s foreign exchange reserves, which in January dipped below $3tn for the first time in five years.

    Finally, while this is yet another effort by Chinese authorities to control capital flight (which we note seems to be something the Chinese are absolutely desperate to do, while western mainstream media keeps pumping the Chinese investment, growth narrative), it also seems like a common-sense cap of the madness of Chinese trend-following crowds.

  • Trump On What Happens Next: "Obamacare Will Explode"

    After the Republican ObamaCare replacement bill failed to generate enough Republican support to pass a House vote Friday, President Trump announced his planned path forward: “Let ObamaCare explode.” 

    Having insisted there is no Plan B in case the bill failed, the White House found itself in a situation with no backup plan now. “We’re going to go back and figure out what the next steps are,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters at a press conference just minutes after the shocking news that the GOP was pulling the bill hit the wires. Ryan called the failure of his bill “a setback, no two ways about it.” Looking forward, Ryan said Obamacare is “going to remain the law of the land until it’s replaced. We didn’t have the votes to replace this law. So yeah, we’re going to be living with ObamaCare for the foreseeable future.”

    A disappointed and embarrassed House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Greg Walden was blunt with reporters: “This bill’s done.”

    In a statement to the media, Trump said that if things get bad enough, Democrats will come aboard the reform effort. At that point, Trump said, it will become possible to pass a bill even better than Ryan’s. “They’re going to reach out whenever they’re ready.”

    Until then, Trump said that “we were very close and it was a very, very tight margin. We had no Democrat support. We had no votes from the Democrats. They weren’t going to give us a single vote so it’s a very difficult thing to do.”

    Putting a positive spin on events, Trump then said that “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let ObamaCare explode,” Trump said of the path forward. “It is exploding right now. Many states have big problems, almost all states have big problems. I was in Tennessee the other day and they’ve lost half of their state in terms of an insurer. They have no insurer. And that’s happening to many other places.”

    “I was in Kentucky the other day and similar things are happening,” he continued. “So, ObamaCare is exploding with no Democrat support. We couldn’t quite get there with just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed.”

    “People will see how bad it is and it’s getting much worse,” Trump added. “I said the other day when President Obama left, ’17, he knew he wasn’t going to be here. ’17 is going to be a very bad year for ObamaCare, very, very bad. You’re going to have explosive premium increases and your deductibles are so high people don’t even get to use it.”

    “But we’re very, very close,” he said. “And, again, I think what will happen is ObamaCare, unfortunately, will explode.”

    Trump also said the losers from Friday’s failed vote are Democrats. “The losers are Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer because now they own ObamaCare,” Trump said. “They own it, 100 percent own it. And this is not a Republican health care, this is not anything but a Democrat health care, and they have ObamaCare for a little while longer until it ceases to exist, which it will at some point in the near future.”

    Pelosi did not agree and called today’s aborted ObamaCare repeal a “great day for our country.”  “What happened on the floor,” she said, “is a victory for the American people.”

    “I don’t know what else to say other than ObamaCare is the law of the land,” Ryan told reporters late Friday. “It’s going to remain the law of the land until it’s replaced. We didn’t have the votes to replace this law. So yeah, we’re going to be living with ObamaCare for the foreseeable future.”

  • Russophobia – Symptom Of US Implosion

    Authored by Finian Cunningha, via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    There was a time when Russophobia served as an effective form of population control – used by the American ruling class in particular to command the general US population into patriotic loyalty. Not any longer. Now, Russophobia is a sign of weakness, of desperate implosion among the US ruling class from their own rotten, internal decay.

    This propaganda technique worked adequately well during the Cold War decades when the former Soviet Union could be easily demonized as «godless communism» and an «evil empire». Such stereotypes, no matter how false, could be sustained largely because of the monopoly control of Western media by governments and official regulators.

    The Soviet Union passed away more than a quarter of a century ago, but Russophobia among the US political class is more virulent than ever.

    This week it was evident from Congressional hearings in Washington into alleged Russian interference in US politics that large sections of American government and establishment media are fixated by Russophobia and a belief that Russia is a malign foreign adversary.

    However, the power of the Russophobia propaganda technique over the wider population seems to have greatly diminished from its Cold War heyday. This is partly due to more diverse global communications which challenge the previous Western monopoly for controlling narrative and perception. Contemporary Russophobia – demonizing Russian President Vladimir Putin or Russian military forces – does not have the same potency for scaring the Western public. Indeed, due to greater diversity in global news media sources, it is fair to say that «official» Western depictions of Russia as an enemy, for example allegedly about to invade Europe or allegedly interfering in electoral politics, are met with a healthy skepticism – if not ridicule by many Western citizens.

    What is increasingly apparent here is a gaping chasm between the political class and the wider public on the matter of Russophobia. This is true for Western countries generally, but especially in the US. The political class – the lawmakers in Washington and the mainstream news media – are frenzied by claims that Russia interfered in the US presidential elections and that Russia has some kind of sinister leverage on the presidency of Donald Trump.

    But this frenzy of Russophobia is not reflected among the wider public of ordinary American citizens. Rabid accusations that Russia hacked the computers of Trump’s Democrat rival Hillary Clinton to spread damaging information about her; that this alleged sabotage of American democracy was an «act of war»; that President Trump is guilty of «treason» by «colluding» with a «Russian influence campaign» – all of these sensational claims seem to be only a preoccupation of the privileged political class. Most ordinary Americans, concerned about making a living in a crumbling society, either don’t buy the claims or view them as idle chatter.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week dismissed the Congressional hearings into alleged Russian interference in US politics. He aptly said that US lawmakers and the corporate media have become «entangled» in their own fabrications. «They are trying to find evidence for conclusions that they have already made», said Peskov.

    Other suitable imagery is that the US political class are tilting at windmills, chasing their own tails, or running from their own shadows. There seems to be a collective delusional mindset.

    Unable to accept the reality that the governing structure of the US has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people, that the people rebelled by electing an outsider in the form of business mogul-turned-politician Donald Trump, that the collapse of American traditional politics is due to the atrophy of its bankrupt capitalist economy over several decades – the ruling class have fabricated their own excuse for demise by blaming it all on Russia.

    The American ruling class cannot accept, or come to terms, with the fact of systemic failure in their own political system. The election of Trump is a symptom of this failure and the widespread disillusionment among voters towards the two-party train wreck of Republicans and Democrats. That is why the specter of Russian interference in the US political system had to be conjured up, by necessity, as a way of «explaining» the abject failure and the ensuing popular revolt.

    Russophobia was rehabilitated from the Cold War closet by the American political establishment to distract from the glaring internal collapse of American politics.

    The corrosive, self-destruction seems to know no bounds. James Comey, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Congress this week that the White House is being probed for illicit contacts with Russia. This dramatic notice served by Comey was greeted with general approval by political opponents of the Trump administration, as well as by news media outlets.

    The New York Times said the FBI was in effect holding a «criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House».

    Other news outlets are openly airing discussions on the probability of President Trump being impeached from office.

    The toxic political atmosphere of Russophobia in Washington is unprecedented. The Trump administration is being crippled at every turn from conducting normal political business under a toxic cloud of suspicion that it is guilty of treason from colluding with Russia.

    President Trump has run afoul with Republicans in Congress over his planned healthcare reforms because many Republicans are taking issue instead over the vaunted Russian probe.

    When Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reported to be skipping a NATO summit next month but was planning to visit Moscow later in the same month, the itinerary was interpreted as a sign of untoward Russian influence.

    What makes the spectacle of political infighting so unprecedented is that there is such little evidence to back up allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. It is preponderantly based on innuendo and anonymous leaks to the media, which are then recycled as «evidence».

    Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said earlier this week that he has seen no actual evidence among classified documents indicating any collusion between the Trump campaign team and the Russian government.

    Even former senior intelligence officials, James Clapper and Michael Morell who are no friends of Trump, have lately admitted in media interviews that there is no such evidence.

    Yet, FBI chief James Comey told Congress that his agency was pursuing a potentially criminal investigation into the Trump administration, while at the same time not confirming or denying the existence of any evidence.

    And, as already noted, this declaration of open-ended snooping by Comey on the White House was met with avid approval by political opponents of Trump, both on Capitol Hill and in the corporate media.

    Let’s just assume for a moment that the whole Trump-Russia collusion story is indeed fake. That it is groundless, a figment of imagination. There are solid reasons to believe that is the case. But let’s just assume here that it is fake for the sake of argument.

    That then means that the Washington seat of government and the US presidency are tearing themselves apart in a futile civil war.

    The real war here is a power struggle within the US in the context of ruling parties no longer having legitimacy to govern.

    This is an American implosion. An historic Made-in-America meltdown. And Russophobia is but a symptom of the internal decay at the heart of US politics.

  • US Debt of $20 Trillion Visualized In Stacks Of Physical Cash

    The faith and value of the US Dollar rests on the Government’s ability to repay its debt.

    $20,000,000,000,000 is a number so large that it is beyond comprehension for most.

    And so here it is stacks of dollar bills…

    Just remember “the money in the video has already been spent.”

  • Why Precious Metals Will Protect Wealth During The Global Energy Collapse

    SRSrocco

    By the SRSrocco Report,

    There will be very few assets worth owning when the “Energy Collapse” begins in earnest.  Precious metals will be one of the few assets that will protect wealth as the U.S. and global oil industry disintegrates.

    I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Doug and Joe Hagmann
    about the upcoming energy collapse at what that will look like in the
    future.  Very few people truly understand how bad the situation will
    become as the low oil price continues to gut the U.S. and global oil
    industry.  Oil is the lifeblood of our economy.  In addition, a
    significant portion of the coal we use to generate electricity to power
    homes and business is transported by trucks constantly running up and
    down the interstates and highways.

    http://www.youtube.com/v/mbuKtVo2NI8

    LINK HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbuKtVo2NI8

    I explained in the interview that 99% of investors have their wealth in
    Stocks, Bonds and Real Estate.  These three assets will collapse along
    with the disintegration of the U.S. and global oil industries.  The
    reason physical gold and silver will protect wealth is because they are
    stores of “Economic Energy”, while Stocks, Bonds & Real Estate are
    “Energy IOU’s.”

    Lastly, if you haven’t checked out our new PRECIOUS METALS INVESTING section or our new LOWEST COST PRECIOUS METALS STORAGE page, I highly recommend you do.

    Check back for new articles and updates at the SRSrocco Report.

  • Canada Passes 'Blasphemy' Bill To Silence Critics Of Islam

    Despite polls showing that 71% of Canadians would not have voted for the measure, Canada's Parliament, with the strong backing of Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, passed a motion this week 201 to 91 that critics say singles out Islam for special protection. Tabled by Muslim liberal MP Iqra Khalid, M-103 urges the federal government to “condemn Islamophobia” and to “develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.” The term “Islamophobia” is nowhere defined in the motion.

    A petition on CitizenGo asking MPs to stop the “restrictive ‘anti-blasphemy’” motion has been signed by 79,500 people.

    “This motion will encourage legislation that would criminalize speech deemed ‘islamophobic’ and lay the groundwork for imposing what is essentially a Sharia anti-blasphemy law on all of Canada,” the petition states.

     

    "If that happens, criticism of Islam would constitute a speech crime in Canada,” it states, adding that this “kind of content-based, viewpoint-discriminatory censorship is unacceptable in a Western liberal democracy.”

    As LifeSiteNews reports, while the motion does not change existing laws or create new ones, it empowers a committee to study the issue of “eliminating…Islamophobia” and the federal government to collect data on Islamic ‘hate crimes’ for further study.

    A Conservative alternative to the motion that condemned racism and discrimination against Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other religious groups — without including the word “Islamophobia” — was defeated by the Liberals in February. Liberals argued at that time that the Tories were simply trying to “water down” the very purpose of M-103, reported Huffington Post.

     

    A number of Conservatives running for the the party's leadership have been outspoken about the problems they see in M-103.

     

    Brad Trost said he could not support the motion because it “will only serve to strengthen extremist elements within the Muslim community itself that seek to preserve and promote their own form of hate and intolerance.” He added that any “serious plan to combat religious discrimination in Canada should include all faith groups, including Christians and Jews.”

     

    Pierre Lemieux said that Canadians should be wary of the language in the motion.

     

    “Do you have a valid concern about Islam? Do you disagree with Sharia Law? Uneasy about radical Islamic terrorism? The Liberals may very well classify you as Islamophobic,” he wrote in an email to supporters.

     

    Lemieux, who called on supporters to pressure MPs to force a recorded vote on M-103, called it a “great day for accountability and for freedom of speech in Canada” when almost two dozen MPs stood up on Tuesday to demand such accountability.

     

    Leadership contender Andrew Scheer also added his voice of opposition to the motion shortly before the vote, saying that it “could be interpreted as a step towards stifling free speech and legitimate criticism” of Islam.

     

    M-103 is not inclusive. It singles out just one faith. I believe that all religions deserve the same level of respect and protection,” he wrote in an email to supporters.

     

    “I will be voting against it because I believe in Freedom of Speech,” he wrote.

    Finally, we leave it to Rebel Media's Faith Goldy to react to this attack on Canadians' most precious freedom– the freedom of speech

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