- Saab's New Fighter Jet Has Big Potential After Landmark Brazil Deal
Saab’s New Fighter Jet Has Big Potential After Landmark Brazil Deal
Saab’s JAS-39 Gripen is expected to be one of the largest exports for the Swedish defense industry, financially. Bloomberg has just reported a lot of interest has been sparked since the first flight test of the Gripen last month that is destined for Brazil.
Saab is going up against rival defense firms from Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Eurofighter, and France’s Dassault Aviation S.A. in the global fighter jet market, but already has the potential to receive 400 to 500 Gripen orders over the next decade and a half thanks to strong sales from a batch of current tenders, which would account for 10% of the global fighter jet market. If all works out, this could mean Saab is catapulted into a major player overnight.
Aeronautics chief Jonas Hjelm told Bloomberg in a telephone interview that the selection last year of Boeing/Saab T-X fighter jet for U.S. training purposes has already boosted the Scandinavian company’s image.
Hjelm said there are several contests to win bids that could result in orders. The first contest is a bid for 64 fighters from Finland, a Canadian tender for 88 jets, possibly a deal with Croatia to replace outdated Mikoyan MiG-21s, and a possible agreement with Colombia. He said the Brazil contract would be used as a template to win future business. He also believes the fighter jet could be a huge success in Latin America.
“To win in Brazil was huge,” Hjelm said by telephone. “It really puts us on the world map. The T-X is also a huge thing. The Brazilian air force and the U.S. air force, they don’t choose a product that’s not a good product. It’s a recognition, and I think we’ll benefit overall.”
Among the potential Gripen deals, Hjelm said a $12.2 billion bid for a fighter jet contract with Finland is on “top of the list” to secure, with a flight demonstration test slated for next year and a preferred bidder selected by early 2021.
Saab, along with Boeing and Lockheed Martin are expected to submit their bids for the Canadian tender early next year. And the contest to supply Croatia was reopened after the country wasn’t able to source Lockheed Martin F-16s from Israel.
Hjelm said Saab has a good chance of winning the bid for Colombia next year or in 2021. He said the South American country’s aerospace industry is advanced enough to handle the jet. The already 36 Gripen deal with Brazil has taken notice by other neighboring countries.
The fourth Gripen plane built in series production flew on Aug. 26 and will be presented to Brazil on Tuesday. Flight tests are continuing in Sweden throughout 2H19.
The SAAB Gripen fighter jet doing a ‘Low and slow’ flypast. 😍🤩 #SAAFmuseum #airshow #aviation #avgeeks pic.twitter.com/len86KmOwb
— Spitfire Restoration (@Spitfire5518) September 7, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
With production already started and deals starting to flow in, Saab is expecting the plane could gain more global traction, that means even from countries in the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Other possible Gripen buyers include Austria, the Philippines, and India, could amount to over 100 planes in the next several years. Hjelm said about 60 of the jets have already been sold to Sweden.
With global momentum gaining for the Gripen, it seems that Saab is tapping into a niche fighter jet market, offering low-cost jets with advanced technologies to tier 2 and 3 countries.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 02:45 - UK: Tony Blair Think-Tank Proposes End To Free Speech
UK: Tony Blair Think-Tank Proposes End To Free Speech
Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,
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Disturbingly, the main concern of Blair’s think-tank appears to be the online verbal “hatred” displayed by citizens in response to terrorist attacks — not the actual physical expression of hatred shown in the mass murders of innocent people by terrorists. Terrorist attacks, it would appear, are now supposedly normal, unavoidable incidents that have become part and parcel of UK life.
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Unlike proscribed groups that are banned for criminal actions such as violence or terrorism, the designation of “hate group” would mainly be prosecuting thought-crimes.
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Democratic values, however, appear to be the think-tank’s least concern. The proposed law would make the British government the arbiter of accepted speech, especially political speech. Such an extraordinary and radically authoritarian move would render freedom of speech an illusion in the UK.
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The Home Office would be able to accuse any group it found politically inconvenient of “spreading intolerance” or “aligning with extremist ideologies” — and designate it a “hate group”.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has released a report, Designating Hate: New Policy Responses to Stop Hate Crime, which recommends radical initiatives to tackle “hate” groups, even if they have not committed any kind of violent activity.
The problem, as the think-tank defines it, is “the dangerous nature of hateful groups, including on the far right like Britain First and Generation Identity. But current laws are unable to stop groups that spread hate and division, but do not advocate violence”. The think-tank defines what it sees as one of the main problems with hate crime the following way:
“A steady growth in hate crime has been driven by surges around major events. Often this begins online. Around the 2017 terror attacks in the UK, hate incidents online increased by almost 1,000 per cent, from 4,000 to over 37,500 daily. In the 48-hour period after an event, hate begins to flow offline”.
Specifically, the report mentioned as problematic the rise online in “hate incidents” after three Islamic terrorist attacks in the UK in 2017 — the Westminster car-ramming and stabbing attack in March by Khalid Masood, who murdered pedestrians and a police officer; the Manchester arena bombing in May, at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, in which Salman Abedi murdered 22 people — the youngest only 8 years old — and injured more than 200 people; and the London Bridge ramming attack in June, in which Rachid Redouane, Khuram Butt and Youssef Zaghba drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then proceeded to stab people in nearby Borough Market. Eight people were murdered in that attack.
Disturbingly, the main concern of Blair’s think-tank appears to be the online verbal “hatred” displayed by citizens in response to terrorist attacks – not the actual physical expression of hatred shown in the mass murders of innocent people by terrorists. Terrorist attacks, it would appear, are now supposedly normal, unavoidable incidents that have become part and parcel of UK life.
The report claims:
“Divisive groups – especially increasingly mainstreamed far-right groups – spread hatred with relative impunity because responses to nonviolent extremism remain uncoordinated; hate incidents spike around major events, leaving communities exposed; and perpetrators of religious hate are rarely prosecuted due to gaps in legislation”.
The problem, according to the report, is that “current laws are unable to stop groups that spread hate and division, but do not advocate violence”.
One of the think-tank’s suggested solutions to this problem is to:
“Create a new law to designate ‘hate groups’. This new tier of hate group designation would be the first of its kind in Europe and would help tackle nonviolent extremist groups that demonise specific groups on the basis of their race, religious, gender, nationality or sexuality … Powers to designate would, like proscription powers, fall under the Home Office’s remit and require ministerial sign off”.
The report defines a hate group as:
“Spreading intolerance and antipathy towards people of a different race, religion, gender or nationality, specifically because of these characteristics; Aligning with extremist ideologies… though not inciting violence; Committing hate crimes or inspiring others to do so via hate speech; Disproportionately blaming specific groups (based on religion, race, gender or nationality) for broader societal issues”.
It would be up to the government to define what is understood by “spreading intolerance”, or “blaming specific groups for broader societal issues”.
Being designated a “hate group”, it is underlined in the report, “would sit alongside proscription but not be linked to violence or terrorism, while related offences would be civil not criminal”.
Unlike proscribed groups that are banned for criminal actions, such as violence or terrorism, the designation of “hate group” would mainly be prosecuting thought-crimes.
The groups that Blair’s think-tank mentions as main examples of those to be designated hate groups are Britain First and Generation Identity. Both are political; Britain First is also an aspiring political party with parliamentary ambitions. If the report’s suggestions were to be adopted into law, these movements, if designated as “hate groups” would not be allowed “to use media outlets or speak at universities”. They would also not be allowed “to engage, work with or for public institutions”.
However, the report tries to assure us, “hate designation would be time-limited and automatically reviewed, conditioned on visible reform of the group”.
Although the report would still allow designated “hate groups” to “meet, support or campaign”, such a law would mean that the political speech of designated groups would be rendered null and void. The European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence on the convention from the European Court of Human Rights puts a special premium on political speech, which enjoys particular protection: it is so fundamental to the basic workings of a democratic society. In its case law, the European Court of Human Rights has stated that the convention
“…protects not only the information or ideas that are regarded as inoffensive but also those that offend, shock or disturb; such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness without which there is no democratic society. Opinions expressed in strong or exaggerated language are also protected”.
Even more important is that, according to the European Court of Human Rights’ case law,
“…the extent of protection depends on the context and the aim of the criticism. In matters of public controversy or public interest, during political debate, in electoral campaigns… strong words and harsh criticism may be expected and will be tolerated to a greater degree by the Court”. [emphasis added]
The European Court of Human Rights may therefore find aspects of the proposed law problematic precisely because of concerns with free speech and basic democratic values.
Democratic values, however, appear to be the think-tank’s least concern. The proposed law would make the British government the arbiter of accepted speech, especially political speech. Such an extraordinary and radically authoritarian move would render freedom of speech an illusion in the UK. The Home Office would be able to accuse any group it found politically inconvenient of “spreading intolerance” or “aligning with extremist ideologies” — and designate it a “hate group”.
It would make the old Soviets proud.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 02:00 -
- Ron Paul: Will Another John Bolton Replace John Bolton?
Ron Paul: Will Another John Bolton Replace John Bolton?
Bolton may be gone, but Boltonism lives on.
Those believing that the end of Bolton would signal a return to the foreign policy of candidate Donald Trump, however, may be disappointed.
President Trump has appointed Charles Kupperman to temporary fill in for John Bolton as National Security Advisor. Kupperman is one of Bolton’s closest friends and allies in Washington. Plus – What have we learned since 9/11? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
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According to CNN, the following have been mentioned as possible candidates to replace Bolton as national security adviser:
- Brian Hook, US Special Representative for Iran and senior policy adviser to Mike Pompeo
- Ricky Waddell, Major General in the US Army Reserve who served a year as Trump’s Deputy National Security Adviser to Trump
- Steve Biegun, US Special Representative to North Korea
- Rob Blair, national security adviser to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney
- Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany
- Pete Hoekstra, US ambassador to the Netherlands
- Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence
- Douglas Macgregor, retired US Army Colonel
- Jack Keane, retired four-star general
- Fred Fleitz, former chief of staff to Bolton at NSC
CNN further reports on Thursday that the administration is considering “double-tapping” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for national security adviser.
“Under this scenario, the country’s top diplomat would absorb the national security adviser role and do both jobs, according to a senior administration official and a source familiar with the possibilities,” report adds.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/13/2019 – 00:05 - What Would You Eat To Save The Earth?
What Would You Eat To Save The Earth?
The following video was produced by Truthstream Media,
While people are fighting with each other about what is the correct diet for everyone, there is a propaganda push by government to eat only plants, insects and even non-food… because humans.
Climate change has been weaponized to the point of ridiculousness. Melissa Dykes breaks down the UN’s new diet program to supposedly save Earth.
So, what would you eat, or what will you have to eat to save the planet? And what do the studies show about how the “save-the-planet” diet will affect human health and even reproduction?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 23:45 - The Impact Of Social Media On Young People's Mental Health
The Impact Of Social Media On Young People’s Mental Health
Is the end of the “like” coming? According to TechCrunch, based on the findings of researcher Jane Manchun Wong, Facebook is currently carrying out tests to reveal only a limited number of likes on a post. The social networking giant is currently conducting the same type of experiment in seven countries on its Instagram app.
What is the reason for this?
To reduce the feeling of permanent competition and social pressure. As Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, recent research has shown, this decision could be particularly beneficial for the mental health of young people. Based on the results of a survey of 1,479 people aged 14 to 24 years by the UK’s Royal Society for Public Health, the top 5 social networks have been ranked according to their impact on mental health.
It emerges that Instagram is the social media platform with the most negative effect on the psychological state of young people.
You will find more infographics at Statista
On the other side, YouTube is considered to be the most positive network in this area and the only one in the research considered to have a ‘net positive’ influence.
To establish this ranking, 14 factors were taken into account such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-image, harassment, and the opportunity to express oneself.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 23:25 - The Madness Of James Mattis
The Madness Of James Mattis
Authored by Danny Sjursen via TruthDig.com,
Last week, in a well-received Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis delivered a critique of Donald Trump that was as hollow as it was self-righteous. Explaining his decision to resign from the administration, the retired Marine general known as “Mad Dog” eagerly declared himself “apolitical,” peppering his narrative with cheerful vignettes about his much beloved grunts.
“We all know that we’re better than our current politics,” he observed solemnly.
“Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”
Yet absent from this personal reflection, which has earned bipartisan adulation, was any kind of out-of-the-box thinking and, more disturbingly, anything resembling a mea culpa – either for his role in the Trump administration or his complicity in America’s failing forever wars in the greater Middle East. For a military man, much less a four-star general, this is a cardinal sin. What’s worse, no one in the mainstream media appears willing to challenge the worldview presented in his essay, concurrent interviews and forthcoming book.
This was disconcerting if unsurprising. In Trump’s America, reflexive hatred for the president has led many in the media to foolishly pin their political hopes on generals like Mattis, leaders of the only public institution the people still trust. Even purportedly liberal journalists like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who was once critical of U.S. militarism, have reversed course, defending engagements in Syria and Afghanistan seemingly because the president has expressed interest in winding them down. The fallacy that Mattis and other generals were the voice of reason in the Trump White House, the so-called “adults in the room,” has precluded any serious critique of their actual strategy and advice.
The wildly unpopular, if not forbidden-to-be-uttered, truth is that Mattis, while an admittedly decorated Marine and a military strategist, was an abject failure.
Despite being hailed as a “warrior monk,” he was and remains a conventional interventionist figure—prisoner to the tired old militarist ideas of the necessity for U.S. military forward deployment, counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, and the perpetual need to balance or “contain” Russia and China. His career-long defense of America’s post-9/11 engagements should be the first sentence of his obituary.
None of these egregious errors in judgment have derailed Mattis’ career, of course. Can-do attitudes and compulsive optimism form the bedrock of today’s military culture, if not American society at large. Indeed, it was the general’s all-too-familiar view of the “War on Terror” that likely endeared him to successive promotion boards. As he notes in his own op-ed, “Institutions get the behaviors they reward.”
But Mattis and his entire generation of military leadership ultimately did a great disservice to their subordinates and the American people once they reached four-star rank. When given an (often absurd) mission by administration officials—be they Bush neoconservatives or Obama liberals—these generals and admirals offered “how” rather than “if” responses. Cultishly eager to please, they failed to tell their frequently ill-informed superiors that perhaps a proposed conflict couldn’t be won, at least with the resources available or at an acceptable human cost. Instead, Mattis, David Petraeus and their ilk debated whether counter-terror, advise-and-assist, or counterinsurgency was the best method to achieve an ill-defined “victory.” They effectively substituted high-level tactics for strategy.
Thanks to Mattis and company, Trump’s purported desire to withdraw from fruitless Middle Eastern wars has been stifled, the result being business as usual for the military-industrial-complex and national security state. And why not? Since resigning his post, Mattis has burst through the “revolving door” of the arms industry, reclaiming his seat on the board of the fifth largest defense contractor, General Dynamics. Albert Einstein famously (and perhaps apocryphally) said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” He might just as easily have been describing the career of James Mattis, who has been proven wrong again and again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria.
Perhaps the only thing more celebrated than Mattis’ ostensible intellectualism is his supposed integrity. Yet his record as defense secretary throws that into question as well. Lest we forget, the general only decided to resign when Trump dared suggest a modest troop withdrawal from an 18-year war in Afghanistan and a speedy end to a highly risky, and ill-defined, mission in Syria.
This man of principle apparently had no ethical or philosophical compunctions about his department’s support and complicity in the Saudi terror bombing and starvation campaign aimed at the people of Yemen. This ongoing war has killed tens of thousands of civilians, starved at least 85,000 children to death, unleashed the world’s worst cholera epidemic, and generated millions of refugees. Mattis offered not one word of public criticism as his boss sold Saudi Arabia bombs that were all too often dropped on the heads of Yemeni civilians.
Even after revelations that Saudi intelligence agents had murdered and dismembered The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Mattis and Secretary of State Pompeo appeared before Congress to defend the Saudis and argue for continued U.S. support in its war on Yemen. That conflict alone should have prompted him to resign, but it did not.
Mattis, a supposed “warrior monk,” and cerebral strategist above the passions and viciousness of battle, also holds a tarnished legacy from his time commanding the siege and assault of Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. According to a well-documented report from the Center for Investigative Reporting, his Marines played fast and loose with their firepower, killing enough civilians to fill a soccer stadium. A year later, he reportedly used his status as a two-star general to “wipe away criminal charges” for Marines accused of massacring 24 Iraqi civilians in the village of Haditha.
His actions in Iraq earned Mattis the nickname “Mad Dog,” of which he is now reportedly embarrassed. The former defense secretary seems always to have been a disturbingly gleeful killer, and once famously said of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, that “Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.” These aren’t the words of a reluctant warrior, even if they do demonstrate surprising candor about the dark side of war rarely uttered in polite company. It sounds instead like the irresponsible comments of a senior general who was busy playing sergeant.
Mattis ends his op-ed with a brief tale about the proverbial boys in the trenches. During the (predictably failed) assault on Marjah, Afghanistan, in 2010, he recounts asking an exhausted, sweaty Marine how he was doing and receiving a gleeful reply of “Living the dream, sir!” In my experience as a soldier, this kind of quip is usually meant sarcastically, but no matter. The exchange energized Mattis, and no one in the corporate press dared examine the real essence of the story he imparted.
By refusing to question the Marjah operation, or Obama’s Afghan “surge” in general, Mattis betrayed the very ground-pounders by whom he was so inspired. A more honorable figure, a true adult in the room, would have asked what we were doing there in the first place.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 23:05 - Vinyl Records Set To Outpace CD Sales For The First Time In 30 Years, Even Though They Suck
Vinyl Records Set To Outpace CD Sales For The First Time In 30 Years, Even Though They Suck
While streaming content has displaced all forms of physical media as the preferred medium for sonic consumption, nostalgia-driven audiophiles have driven Vinyl sales through the roof – at least compared to CDs.
According to the RIAA’s 2019 mid-year revenue report published by Rolling Stone, LPs are on pace to outsell CDs this year, making them the most profitable form of non-streaming music for the first time since 1986.
Vinyl records earned $224.1 million (on 8.6 million units) in the first half of 2019, closing in on the $247.9 million (on 18.6 million units) generated by CD sales. Vinyl revenue grew by 12.8% in the second half of 2018 and 12.9% in the first six months of 2019, while the revenue from CDs barely budged. If these trends hold, records will soon be generating more money than compact discs. –Rolling Stone
That said, vinyl accounted for just four percent of total music revenues in the first half of 2019, while paid subscriptions to streaming services accounted for 62% of industry revenues according to the report.
“We welcome [the growth in vinyl],” said Warner Records co-chairman and CEO, Tom Corson. “It’s a sexy, cool product. It represents an investment in music that’s an emotional one. [But] it is a small percentage of our business. It’s not going to make or break our year. We devote the right amount of resources to it, but it’s not something where we have a department for it.”
Rolling Stone notes that the resurgence in vinyl has been a boon for rock groups in particular. “The Beatles sold over 300,000 records in 2018, while Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Queen all sold over 100,000.”
Opining on why vinyl sucks and the weird phenomenon of hipsters buying records is a 2016 article from Home Theater Review.
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So what’s the hype about vinyl these days? Vinyl is part of the cliché world of hipsters. If you don’t know what a hipster is, I might suggest you don’t read any further–as your world is likely better not knowing about this phenomenon. Those of us who have been to Brooklyn, Portland, or Silver Lake (and practically anywhere else in the country) in recent years can tell you that hipsters are a group of people who follow a certain “we’re different” vibe, yet ironically they tend to follow many of the same trends. The men grow lumberjack beards, and they drive electric cars when their quirky bike has a flat. They enthusiastically eat Quinoa and kale and report to like it. The men wear berets (not raspberry or the ones you find in a second-hand store) and carry trendy messenger bags. The girls are apt to tattoo any and every part of their body and sometimes embrace hairstyles like “grandma hair”–where one bleaches out all of the color of one’s hair and then dyes it gray, silver, or blue. Don’t forget, any card-carrying hipster has his or her pair of thick-framed Warby Parker glasses.
On the plus side, hipsters love music, which is just fantastic. Live music–specifically, music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo–draw hipsters from all over the world to flaunt their style.
What’s a head-scratcher about this new breed of music lover is the idea that, in every other aspect of their lives, they rock cutting-edge, high-resolution digital technology. They can’t look away from their HD smartphones for any meaningful length of time. They’ve made the video-game industry bigger in terms of top-line sales than the motion-picture business. They love the potential of virtual reality, yet they are also the ones behind this resurgence in vinyl.
It’s time for people who love music and have a taste for great-sounding audio to teach these young whippersnappers about HD music–because vinyl is a standard-definition, low-resolution format. Here, specifically, is why vinyl sucks.
Dynamic Range
Vinyl has a dynamic range of about 65 to 69 dB. In the days when vinyl ruled the world, much energy went into mastering vinyl releases to have better (or, at least, better perceived) dynamic range. If you go into a recording studio, mic a snare drum, and then hit it as hard as you can, you will record something in the 120- to 125-dB range. Vinyl reproduces roughly half of those dynamics. Compact Discs do drastically better in dynamic range, while HD files can reproduce ALL of the dynamics of a snare drum.Noise
Many listeners find the stereotypical sound of vinyl to be comfortable and reassuring. That “warmth” is because of second-degree harmonic distortion created by the stylus in the groves. This distortion is what keeps one from hearing all the pristine sound recorded on the master tape. Analog master tape in the studio doesn’t have this kind (or volume) of distortion. The cracks and pops heard in vinyl come from flaws in the actual vinyl, as well as wear and dirt on the record. Hardcore vinyl lovers go to great lengths to keep the records clean and protected, which is wise on their part. The sad news is that, unlike a high-resolution digital file, vinyl will degrade over time as it’s played.My question is, given the amount of noise and distortion coming from an age-old source, why invest in a great, audiophile-quality amp or preamp? In effect, one is feeding it with a distortion-laden source component with poor dynamic range. It’s tantamount to pumping 50-octane fuel into your new Lamborghini Aventador. Perhaps it’s time to try out the higher-grade audiophile fuel, even if it costs a few bucks more, so that you can realize the potential of your music playback system.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 22:45 - Trump The Russian Puppet. A Story That Just Will Not Die
Trump The Russian Puppet. A Story That Just Will Not Die
Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Certainly, there are many things that President Donald Trump can rightly be criticized for, but it is interesting to note how the media and chattering classes continue to be in the grip of the highly emotional but ultimately irrational “Trump derangement syndrome (TDS).”
TDS means that even the most ridiculous claims about Trump behavior can be regurgitated by someone like Jake Tapper or Rachel Maddow without anyone in the media even daring to observe that they are both professional dissemblers of truth who lie regularly to enhance their professional resumes.
There are two persistent bogus narratives about Donald Trump that are, in fact, related.
The first is that his campaign and transition teams collaborated with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton. Even Robert Mueller, he of the famous fact-finding commission, had to admit that that was not demonstrable. The only government that succeeded in collaborating with the incoming Trumpsters was that of Israel, but Mueller forgot to mention that or even look into it.
Nevertheless, Russia as a major contributing element in the Trump victory continues to be cited in the mainstream media, seemingly whenever Trump is mentioned, as if it were demonstrated fact. The fact is that whatever Russia did was miniscule and did not in any way alter the outcome of the election. Similarly, allegations that the Kremlin will again be at it in 2020 are essentially baseless fearmongering and are a reflection of the TDS desire to see the president constantly diminished in any way possible.
The other narrative that will not die is the suggestion that Donald Trump is either a Russian spy or is in some other, possibly psychological fashion, controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin. That spy story was first floated by several former senior CIA officers who were closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently because they believed they would benefit materially if she were elected.
Former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell was the most aggressive promoter of Trump as Russian spy narrative. In August 2016, he wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled “I Ran the CIA. Now I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton.” Morell’s story began with the flat assertion that “Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. I trust she will deliver on the most important duty of a president – keeping our nation safe… Donald J. Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.”
In his op-ed, Morell ran through the litany of then GOP candidate Trump’s observed personality and character failings while also citing his lack of experience, but he delivered what he thought to be his most crushing blow when he introduced Vladimir Putin into the discussion. Putin, it seems, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, is “trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them. That is exactly what he did early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities… In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
How can one be both unwitting and a recruited agent? Some might roll their eyes at that bit of hyperbole, but Morell, who was a top analyst at the Agency but never acquired or ran an actual spy in his entire career, goes on to explain how Moscow is some kind of eternal enemy. For Morell that meant that Trump’s often stated willingness to work with Putin and the nuclear armed state he headed was somehow the act of a Manchurian Candidate, seen by Morell as a Russian interest, not an American one. So much for the presumed insider knowledge that came from the man who “ran the CIA.”
The most recent “former intelligence agents’” blast against Trump appeared in the Business Insider last month in an article entitled “US spies say Trump’s G7 performance suggests he’s either a ‘Russian asset’ or a ‘useful idiot’ for Putin.” The article cites a number of former government officials, including several from the CIA and FBI, who claimed that Trump’s participation at the recent G7 summit in Biarritz France was marked by pandering to Putin and the Kremlin’s interests, including a push to re-include Russia in the G-7, from which it was expelled after the annexation of Crimea.
One current anonymous FBI source cited in the article described the Trump performance as a “new low,” while a former senior Justice Department official, labeled Trump’s behavior as “directly out of the Putin playbook. We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office.” An ex-CIA officer speculated that the president’s “intent and odd personal fascination with President Putin is worth serious scrutiny,” concluding that the evidence is “overwhelming” that Trump is a Russian asset, while other CIA and NSA veterans suggested that Trump might be flattering Putin in exchange for future business concessions in Moscow.
Another recently retired FBI special agent opined that Trump was little more than “useful idiot” for the Russians, though he added that it would not surprise him if there were also Russian spies in Trump’s inner circle.
The comments in the article are almost incoherent. They come from carefully selected current and former government employees who suffer from an excess of TDS, or possibly pathological paranoia, and hate the president for various reasons. What they are suggesting is little more than speculation and not one of them was able to cite any actual evidence to support their contentions. And, on the contrary, there is considerable evidence that points the other way. The US-Russia relationship is at its lowest point ever according to some observers and that has all been due to policies promoted by the Trump Administration to include the continuing threats over Crimea, sanctions against numerous Russian officials, abrogation of existing arms treaties, and the expansion of aggressive NATO activity right up to the borders with Russia.
Just this past week, the United States warned Russia against continuing its aerial support for the Syrian Army advance to eliminate the last major terrorist pocket in Idlib province. Once against, Washington is operating on the side of terrorists in Syria and against Russia, a conflict that the United States entered into illegally in the first place. Either Donald Trump acting as “the Russian agent” actually thinks threatening a Moscow that is pursuing its legitimate interests is a good idea or the labeling of the president as a “Putin puppet” or “useful idiot” is seriously misguided.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 22:25 - Bidding Wars For US Homes Collapse To Eight-Year Low
Bidding Wars For US Homes Collapse To Eight-Year Low
Bidding wars for homes in Seattle, San Jose, and San Francisco have crashed in the past year, reflecting an alarming national trend, according to a new report from Redfin.
The report found that the national bidding-war rate in August was 10.4%, down from 42% a year earlier. The rate printed at the lowest level since 2011.
At the start of 2018, the national bidding-war rate was 59%, then plunged as homebuyers became uncomfortable with sky-high housing prices, increasing mortgage rates, and economic uncertainty surrounding the trade war. The housing market started to cool in late 2018, as the competition among homebuyers collapsed by 4Q18, this is an ominous sign for the national housing market that could soon face a steep correction in price.
Even with eight months of declining mortgage rates in 2019, bidding-wars among homebuyers continue to drop. This is somewhat troubling because the government’s narrative has been declining rates will boom housing, but as of Wednesday, mortgage applications continue to fall. Homebuyers aren’t coming off the sidelines, and there’s too much uncertainty surrounding the economy with recession risks at the highest levels in more than a decade.
“Despite remaining near three-year lows, mortgage rates have failed to bring enough buyers to the market to rev up competition for homes this summer,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. Recession fears have been enough to spook some would-be buyers from making the big financial commitment of a home purchase. But assuming a recession doesn’t arrive this fall or winter, consumers will likely adjust to the new ‘normal’ of continued volatility in the stock and global markets, and the people who need and want to make a move will take advantage of low mortgage rates.”
As for one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, that being San Francisco, the bidding-war rate was 31% in August, down from 73.5% a year earlier. The lack of demand has certainly cooled housing prices, now expected to fall 1% YoY.
The rate in San Jose was 10.3% in August, down from 77% a year earlier, and in Seattle, another hot city for real estate, it saw its rate at 9.4%, down from 37.8% last August.
“Competition in the Seattle area has certainly slowed down since the second half of 2018. Last year, five out of five offers I submitted faced competition; now, it’s one in five,” said local Redfin agent Michelle Santos.
“Now, for desirable homes, competition is still fierce, and the winning offer is one that’s above the list price and waives contingencies. At the same time, average homes sit on the market for quite some time before they get any offers.”
With the rapid decline of competition among homebuyers and a flood of inventory entering the market, real home prices are starting to correct in major cities. Real price change over the last 12 months is falling in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York, according to new CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index data.
With competition among homebuyers evaporating in a very short period of time, this could mean a downturn in the real estate market is imminent.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 22:05
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