• Iran Celebrates National Army Day With High Tech Ground Drones

  Iran’s Army, Navy, Air Force, and Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base took part in a nationwide military parade last week.

  In Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) officers, attended the parade near the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini, also referred to as the holy shrine.

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  During the parade, the Iranian Armed Forces presented new defense achievements and unveiled new military hardware for the modern battlefield.

  In particular, Iranian media published several photos of a new unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) with a rocket launcher mounted on top.

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  Another photo shows an anti-drone rifle that is designed to disable or knock out the navigation system of an enemy drone.

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  TV footage also showed MiG-29, F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat fighters soaring above the parade area. More footage showed AH-1 Cobra and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

  Army Day parade in #Iran. pic.twitter.com/FYZ92CrwFI

  — GroundBrief (@GroundBrief) April 18, 2019

  There were reports of missiles, submarines, armored vehicles, radars, and electronic warfare systems showcased at the event.

  In the south, the Navy’s warships practiced attacking and defensives maneuvers in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

  Speaking at the parade, President Rouhani criticized America’s hostile policies against Iran, the latest of which saw the Trump administration designate the IRGC — as a “foreign terrorist organization.”

  The Iranian president described the designation as an “insult to all (Iranian) Armed Forces, and an insult to the great Iranian nation.”

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  Rouhani said Iran’s Armed Forces pose no threat against regional nations.

  He added that Iran will defend the homeland against Western invaders using the weapons showcased at the parade.

  Rouhani noted that the Trump administration is irritated with Iran’s Armed Forces, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters and Yemen’s Popular Committees due to their abilities to efficiently combat American proxy armies across the Middle East.

  “The Americans and their stooges in the region and the Zionist regime could not imagine that regional nations with the help of Iran, its Armed Forces and the IRGC could annihilate all their proxies, i.e. terrorists, in the Middle East,” he said.

  So maybe the new military hardware showcased at the parade could soon find itself on a modern battlefield fighting against American proxy armies.

  

• The Buried Maidan Massacre And Its Misrepresentation By The West

  Authored by Ivan Katchanovski via ConsortiumNews.com,

  The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled…

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  Police in Hrushevsky Street, Kiev, Feb. 12, 2014. (Wikimedia)

  Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.

  Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best documented case of mass killing in history, broadcast live on TV and the internet, in presence of thousands of eyewitnesses. It was filmed by hundreds of journalists from major media in the West, Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries as well as by numerous social media users.  Yet, to this day, no one has been brought to justice for this major and consequential crime.

  From the start, the dominant narrative promoted by the Ukrainian and Western governments and mainstream media has placed the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Yanukovych government. It contends that forces loyal to former President Victor Yanukovych— either snipers and/or the Berkut, a special anti-riot police— massacred peaceful Maidan protesters on the direct orders of Yanukovych himself. Such charges against Yanukovych, his ministers and commanders and a special Berkut unit—whose five ex-members were tried for the murder of 48 Maidan protesters on Feb. 20, 2014 — are generally taken at face value. With some limited exceptions, challenges to this narrative are treated dismissively.

  For the most part, mainstream news media in the U.S. and other Western countries ignored trial evidence, public statements by officials and politicians and scholarly studies that put the standard narrative under question. This includes non-reporting about my own academic studies of the Maidan massacre.

  Killing Protesters and Police

  My work found that this was an organized mass killing of both protesters and the police, with the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine. Oligarchic and far right elements of the Maidan movement were involved in this massacre. For this reason, the official investigation was fabricated and stonewalled. I presented studies to support this as well as several online video appendixes with various evidence at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco in 2015 and Boston in 2018, the 2017 World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York in 2017, and a joint conference by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in 2018, and published their summary in an academic press volume.

  The prosecutor general of Ukraine recently announced that the investigation of the Maidan massacre is complete. He cited reconstructions of the Maidan massacre by a New York architecture company, working with a team of Ukrainian “volunteers” to provide a 3D model, as definite evidence that the Maidan protesters were massacred by the Berkut police and that snipers did not massacre the protesters. 

  This model was featured by The New York Times, in its May 30, 2018,  report “Who Killed the Kiev Protesters?” as a proof that the Berkut police massacred Maidan protesters.

  However, no expert knowledge or familiarity with the Maidan massacre or Ukraine is needed to see blatant misrepresentation of elementary data in that 3D model.

  The wound locations of the killed Maidan protesters in the 3D model do not match the wound locations in the forensic medical examinations of the bodies. The reports of those examinations were used in this simulation to determine the locations of the shooters. They are published in Ukrainian and English on the linked website. According to one such report, Ihor Dmytriv was shot in the “right side surface” and the “left side surface” of the torso “from the right to the left, from the top to the bottom, and a little from the front to the back” with the entry wound 20.5cm (8 inches) higher than the exit wound. However, in the simulation, his wounds have been moved to the front and the back and made nearly horizontal.

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  Actual wound locations of Dmytriv and their misrepresentation.

  A Maidan lawyer visually confirmed at the Maidan massacre trial that these wounds locations of were in the right and left sides. In the video of their examination of Dmytriv right after his shooting, Maidan medics also indicate such locations of his wounds with no wounds visible in the front area, contrary to the 3D model. The forensic medical reports also state that Dmytriv was wounded in his right shoulder from bottom to top direction, with this entry wound 5 cm lower, but the 3D animation also misrepresents this direction.

  The wound locations of the other two victims have been similarly altered. The 3D model moved the exit wound location from around the middle line of the back of Andriy Dyhdalovych’s body in forensic medical and clothing examinations significantly to the right. It also changed a similar large vertical angle from a top and bottom direction and 17 cm difference in height of entry and exit wounds to nearly horizontal level.

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  Actual wound locations of Dyhdalovych and their misrepresentation.

  In the case of Yuriy Parashchuk, forensic medical examinations found that his entry and exit wounds were in the back of his head on the left side. But the 3D analysis moved the entry wound location to the front area and changed its somewhat top-to-bottom direction to nearly horizontal. Frames from a videoby a French photographer shows a large bullet hole in the back of Parashchuk’s red helmet. How can he be shot in the back of his head by the Berkut police on a nearly similar horizontal level?

  Changing the wound locations invalidates the entire reconstruction and, therefore, the conclusions of the SITU analysis and The New York Times article, that these and other Maidan protesters were shot from the Berkut positions.

  One does not need to be a ballistic expert to see that locations of wounds in the back and on the sides and top-to-bottom directions of wounds specified in forensic medical reports and positions of these three killed protesters facing the Berkut in the videos cannot physically match with Berkut police positions located on a similar horizontal level on the ground in front of them. The forensic medical examinations conducted for the government investigation and made public at the Maidan massacre trial revealed that the absolute majority of the protesters were shot not in front and not from horizontal or near horizontal directions that are consistent with police positions. Rather, they were shot from a top-to-bottom direction and in sides or the back that are consistent with shooting from the Maidan-controlled buildings.

  Government Investigation

  The government investigation, conducted after the Maidan government came to power after this massacre, and which charged the Berkut police behind the barricades with killing these three protesters, raises the same concerns.

  The complex medical examinations, which were published on the SITU website and which are presented by the government investigation in Ukraine as a key evidence that the Berkut police massacred the protesters, showed the same bullet trajectories as the 3D model. The text of these examinations, which are available in Ukrainian and in English translations, shows that these bullet trajectories were determined not by ballistic experts butby medical experts without any calculations or explanations.

  Synchronized videos, which were used by the SITU to determine that the Berkut police behind a truck barricade killed Parashchuk, actually show that he and other protesters were in a blind spot below the line of police fire from behind a truck. It was physically impossible for the police behind the wide and tall truck to shoot at him below over the top of this truck. Dozens of other Maidan protesters who were killed and wounded around the same spot were in the same situation.

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  Parashchuk in the blind spot below the line of fire from the police behind the truck.

  The locations of the forces of the Yanukovych government during the massacre are well known, and they are identified in my studies, the government investigation charges, numerous videos, and in the SITU 3D model.

  At the time of the killings of these three protesters, Berkut policemen were behind the barricades on Instytutska Street on the government side, while the protesters who were killed were in between Berkut and the Hotel Ukraina.

  Forensic examinations of bullet holes by government experts described numerous bullet holes on the second, third, and higher floors and the roof of the Hotel Ukraina on the side that faced the government forces. But they did not identify a single bullet hole on the first floor on the Berkut facing side of the hotel behind these protesters. Simple positioning of the bullet hole locations described in these forensic reports clearly shows that almost all bullets from the Berkut and other positions flew above the heads of the protesters there or targeted poles, trees, and a flower box. This is also shown in vide and photos — including some I took there after the massacre — and in videos and reports of shooting at journalists in the hotel with a Google Street View image from the first Berkut barricade.

  This confirms my study findings that the special Berkut police unit and the Omega unit of snipers of Internal Troops were shooting at snipers in the Hotel Ukraina.

  After five long years, the failure by the Poroshenko government’s investigation to determine bullet trajectories by ballistic experts or conduct on-site investigative experiments for the same purpose — even after the Maidan massacre trial judges ordered them two years ago to do so — is therefore hardly surprising. It is impossible to bend physical reality. In a literal cover-up, large fences were recently erected on the crime scene for the construction of the Maidan massacre memorial, which would completely alter the landscape. The fences and the memorial would make it impossible to determine bullet trajectories on-site, which still has not been done by the investigation for five years after this mass killing.

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  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with Poroshenko, outside Presidential Palace in Kiev, Feb. 5, 2015, during Kerry’s first round of meetings with the new government. (State Department via Flickr)

  The SITU reconstruction also missed bullet holes that appeared in Dmytriv’s shield and in a shield of another protester in front of Dyhdalovych in videos of their shooting that were used in the reconstruction. The locations of these bullet holes are inconsistent with shooting from the Berkut barricades.

  But these shields with clear locations of the bullet holes, like the helmet of Parashchuk and almost all the shields and helmets of protesters who were killed or wounded, mysteriously disappeared after the massacre, along with a lot of other crucial evidence, such as bullets and security-camera footage.

  Similarly, crucial testimonies of Maidan protesters, who witnessed the killings of Dyhdalovych and Dmytriv, are ignored by the Times’ report, SITU and the official Ukrainian investigation. Dyhdalovych’s wife stated in her Ukrainian media interview that another protester told her that he saw that Dyhdalovych was killed by a sniper on the roof of the Bank Arkada. This protester was filmed following Dyhdalovych when they both went to evacuate Dmytriv after he was shot. The Bank Arkada is a tall green building in the front and to the right of both Dyhdalovych and Dmytriv, and it appears to match the apparent directions of their wounds. My Maidan massacre studies video appendices showed that it was in the Maidan-controlled area and that snipers on its roof during the massacre were reported by both numerous Maidan protesters, including many wounded who spoke at the Maidan massacre trial and investigation, and by Security Service of Ukraine commanders and snipers.

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  SITU diagram of victims’ locations and names.

  A female Maidan medic during the massacre was pointing to the top of this green building and shouting about snipers. But her words were translated in a BBCreport as referring to six protesters killed by the snipers in that area. AMaidan protester and another Maidan medic, who were wounded near the same spot where these two protesters were killed, both testified at the Maidan massacre trial that they were shot from this building. Government ballistic experts confirmed this during on-site investigative experiments.

  Western Press Silence

  These revelations were not reported by any Western media. This includes The New York Times, which on April 5, 2014, profiled this wounded protester against the backdrop of an unquestioned report by the acting government in Kiev that blaming “former President Viktor F. Yanukovych, his riot police and their suspected Russian assistants for the violence that killed more than 100 people in Kiev in February.”

  It also includes CNN, which filmed the shooting of this medic and attributed it to the government forces.

  The government investigation simply denies that there were any snipers there and in other Maidan-controlled buildings, and refuses to investigate them. This is done despite videos of such snipers and testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded protesters at the trial and investigation and more than 150 other witnesses about snipers in these locations.

  The assumption in the 3D model that Dmytriv was shot by the single bullet is also contradicted bytestimony of another protester who saw that Dmytriv was shot by “a sniper” from the Hotel Ukraina. My Maidan massacre studies and their video appendices showed that this hotel was then controlled by the Maidan forces.   

  The New York Times article described collaboration of the New York architecture firm with a Ukrainian “volunteer” in creating the 3D model. It did not report 2017 admissions by the prosecutor general of Ukraine on Facebook that his government agency funded the work of  a group of anonymous “volunteers,” including this Ukrainian graduate student, in compiling and synchronizing various videos of the Maidan massacre in collaboration with a People’s Front party outlet.

  Some of the People’s Front party leaders were accused by various Ukrainian politicians and Maidan activists, such as Nadia Savchenko, and by five ex-Georgian ex-military members in Italian and IsraeliTV documentaries, of direct involvement in this massacre. Meanwhile, the Times lauds the Ukrainian government’s investigation and Maidan lawyers for drawing on such analyses by these “citizen investigators” and treats a New York architect firm as providing key evidence in the Maidan massacre trial.

  Brad Samuels is a founding partner of Situ Research, the New York architecture company that produced the 3D model of the killing of three protesters, which was presented by the Times as  proof that such snipers did not exist and that 49 protesters were massacred by the Berkut police.

  Samuels said in a video [start at 55:16] that “…eventually, there is a consensus that there was a third party acting. It is clear from forensic evidence that people were shot in the back. Somebody was shooting from rooftops.” His striking observation was not included anywhere in the SITU 3D model report that he produced. Nor was it reported by the Times.

  Cases of protesters, who were shot in the back, were omitted from the SITU model. But even in the deliberately selected cases of the three protesters, who were presented by this simulation as shot in front, their actual wound locations suggest that they were also shot from a Maidan-controlled building, which was located in front and to the right of them.

  There was not a single report in English-language media concerning testimonies at the Maidan massacre trial where 25 wounded Maidan protesters, with whose shootings Berkut policemen are charged, who stated that they were shot from Maidan-controlled buildings or areas.

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  Video still from trial.

  Major outlets likewise neglected to cover the testimonies by 30 wounded protesters who said they witnessed snipers in those locations or were told about them by other protesters. This is stunning since these testimonies are publicly available in live online recordings of the Maidan massacre trial and they are complied with English-language subtitles into an online video appendix to my study. These testimonies represent the majority of wounded protesters with whose shooting Berkut was charged. They are consistent with video testimonies by about 100 witnesses in the media and social media and at the trial and the investigation. But the official investigation in Ukraine simply denies that there were any such snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings, even though the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine previously stated that snipers massacred many protesters from the Hotel Ukraina and other buildings. 

  Similarly, not a single media outlet reported segments of the Belgian VRT News video that showed Maidan protesters shouting during the massacre that they saw snipers in the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina shooting Maidan protesters, pointing towards them, and asking them not to shoot. These segments were only shown to a small number of people at the Maidan massacre trial and are included in my online video appendix on YouTube. Other segments from this same video, however,were broadcast to some several hundred million viewers by major television networks in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, and Ukraine, and many other countries as evidence that the government forces massacred the Maidan protesters.

  With the notable exception of an Associated Press story quoting the charismatic politician Nadia Savchenko, news agencies have ignored the public remarks of several Maidan politicians and activists who said that they witnessed the involvement of specific top Maidan leaders in the massacre.

  Testimonies by five Georgian ex-military members in Italian, Israeli, Macedonian and Russian media and their published depositions to Berkut lawyers for the Maidan massacre trial have also been ignored. They stated that their groups received weapons, payments, and orders to massacre both police and protesters from specific Maidan and Georgian politicians.

  They also said that they received instructions from a far-right linked ex-U.S. Army sniper and then saw Georgian, Baltic States, and Right Sector-linked snipers shooting from specific Maidan-controlled buildings.

  Western media silence also greeted a recent statement by Anatolii Hrytsenko, one of the top Ukrainian presidential candidates, who was also a Maidan politician and minister of defense, that the investigation of the massacre has been stonewalled because of the involvement of someone from the current leadership of Ukraine in this mass killing.

  In contrast, there were no such testimonies admitting involvement in the massacre or knowledge of such involvement by the Berkut policemen, ex-police and security services commanders; nor by ex-Yanukovych government officials. No specific evidence of orders by then-president Yanukovych or his ministers and commanders to massacre unarmed protesters has been revealed by the trials, investigations or news reporting. Nonetheless, the Western mainstream media report existence of such orders as a matter of a fact.

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  Yanukovych with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (President of Russia)

  Not a single major Western media reported that a forensic ballistic examination, conducted by government institute experts on the prosecution request with use of an automatic computer-based IBIS-TAIS system, determined that bullets extracted from killed protesters did not match a police database of bullet samples from Kalashnikov assault rifles of members of the entire Kyiv Berkut regiment. The latter included the special Berkut company charged with the massacre of the protesters. The same concerns the forensic examination findings that many protesters were killed with hunting bullets and pellets.  

  There are no Western media reports, at least in English, concerning the investigation by the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine. This investigation determined, based on protester’s  testimonies and investigative experiments, that almost half of the protesters (77 out of 157) were wounded on Feb. 20 from other sectors than the Berkut police and that no one was charged with their shooting.

  A female Maidan medic, whose wounding on the Maidan was highly publicized by Western and Ukrainian media and politicians and attributed to government snipers, is one of them. Since the official investigation determined that government snipers did not massacre the Maidan protesters, with a single implausible exception announced recently, this implies that these protesters were wounded from the Maidan-controlled buildings and areas.

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  Medic sniper vicim. (Youtube)

  There was Western media silence, including from the BBC, about revelations by the Prosecutor General Office that one of the leaders of far right party Svoboda, who was also a member of the Ukrainian parliament at the time of the massacre, occupied a Hotel Ukraina room from which a sniper in Maidan-style green helmet was filmed by the BBC shooting in the direction of the Maidan protesters and the BBC’s own journalists.

  Similarly, there are no mainstream media reports of the visual examinations of bullet holes and their impact points by the government investigators that determined that one German ARD television room at the Hotel Ukraina was shot  from the direction of the Main Post Office, which was at the time the headquarters of the Right Sector.  The latter far-right group included radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations and football ultras. This bullet just narrowly missed a German ARD TV female producer. The government investigators also determined that another ARD room in the same hotel was shot at from the Music Conservatory building, which was then the headquarters of the Right-Sector-linked special armed Maidan Self-Defense company.

  Likewise, nothing was reported about a forensic ballistic examination made public at the trial that revealed that an ABC News producer was shot in his Hotel Ukraina room by a Winchester caliber hunting soft-point bullet that did not match a caliber of Berkut Kalashnikovs.

  Misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre and its investigation by Western media and governments is puzzling.

  American independence leader John Adams once defended the British soldiers charged with the Boston massacre in 1770. He regarded this defense as important for the rule of law to prevail over politics. He famously stated at the Boston massacre trial that “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” He not only won this politically charged case of a crucial massacre in U.S. politics and history but became U.S. president afterwards. The question is why this dictum is not heeded almost 250 years later in the case of the Maidan massacre in Ukraine.

  

• China Unveils New Guided-Missile Destroyer

  China has unveiled its newest high tech destroyer during Tuesday’s 70th anniversary of the Chinese PLA Navy’s founding, in an event witnessed by naval delegations from some 60 countries around the world gathered at the eastern port city of Qingdao.

  President Xi Jinping reviewed the major naval parade which further had the direct participation of nearly a dozen regional navies, including Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. In hosting the major exercises, China is using the opportunity to both flex its muscle amid heightening tensions with the US in the East and South China seas, and show off its new generation of guided-missile destroyers.

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  China’s navy has been a major focal point and beneficiary of Xi’s push for rapid modernization, which has shifted priority away from a conventional infantry in order to create a more high tech and agile force. 

  The PLA navy has been rapidly growing since 2000, a year ago surpassing the United States’ own in size, and compliments an already huge over 2-million strong PLA troop fighting force.

  Reuters summarized Tuesday’s naval parade scene as follows:

  After boarding the destroyer the Xining, which was only commissioned two years ago, Xi watched as a flotilla of Chinese and foreign ships sailed past, in waters off the eastern port city of Qingdao.

  “Salute to you, comrades. Comrades, thanks for your hard work,” Xi called out to the officers standing on deck as the ships sailed past, in images carried on state television.

  “Hail to you, chairman,” they replied. “Serve the people.”

  In all, 32 Chinese warships are participating the anniversary exercises, including the Liaoning aircraft carrier and nuclear subs, along with destroyers, frigates, landing ships, auxiliary ships.

  Air assets deployed as part of the exercise also include bombers, fighters, carrier-based fighters, and carrier-based helicopters engaged in flyovers. 

  The 70th anniversary exercise appeared an occasion for Beijing to reassert its own vision of “freedom of navigation” and maritime security issues with “major naval leaders” from the region at a time when the US is challenging Chinese territorial claims.

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  Other regional powers sent some of their advanced warships to showcase, such as a stealth guided-missile destroyer of the Indian Navy, INS Kolkata, and the Russian Caliber cruise missile-equipped frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov.

  Noticeably absent from the naval parade and exercises, however, was China’s first domestically produced aircraft carrier, the Type 001A, reported to still be undergoing sea tests before its official future launch. 

  And though older submarines were present, China did not showcase its new nuclear submarines as previously promised, according to footage aired on state television. 

  

• The Russian-China Polar Silk Road Challenges Global Geopolitics

  Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Whether the Arctic will become a platform for cooperation or warfare has been a question often posed throughout the past 150 years.

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  As early as 1875, a vision for Eurasian-American cooperation was becoming realized as leading Americans and Russians alike foresaw the construction of telegraph and even rail lines across the 100 km Bering Strait crossing separating Russia from Alaska. Proponents of this policy on the American side included Lincoln-ally and Colorado’s 1st governor William Gilpin, whose book The Cosmopolitan Railway was published in 1890 showcasing a “post-imperial world” where mutual development was driven by rail lines across all the continents and featured the Bering Strait rail connection as its keystone. Many of Gilpin’s co-thinkers in Russia grew in influence and even convinced Tsar Nicholas II to endorse the project in 1905. The fact that the newly completed Trans-Siberian Railway was modelled on Lincoln’s Trans-Continental Railway and carried train cars built in Philadelphia made this concept very feasible in the minds of many people in those days… not excluding a British Empire that desperately wished to see this potential destroyed.

  Although a few assassinations, a Russian revolution and Wall Street/London-funded wars disturbed this paradigm of cooperation from unfolding as it should have, hopes again ran high as Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin recognized that they had much more in common with each other than either did with the British Empire’s Winston Churchill. This partnership re-opened discussion for a Bering Strait rail connection during World War II after decades of dormancy. When FDR prematurely passed away in office and his leading American co-thinkers began to be targeted by the FBI-led “red scare”, Stalin ruminated that “the great dream had died”. Churchill’s Iron Curtain ushered in a new age of Mutual Assured Destruction whereby all talk of the Arctic as a domain of cooperation perished.

  Despite efforts of certain leading figures such as John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert in America, or Enrico Mattei of Italy and Charles De Gaulle in France to establish cooperation between east and west, the growth of what has today come to be known as the “deep state” continued apace, with the creation of NATO, and technocratic infiltration of all western governments… often over the dead bodies of nationalist leaders.

  While the west celebrated the collapse of Communism, and puppets like Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir George Bush ushered in the New World Order of NAFTA, NATO, the Eurozone, and WTO during the 1990s, a new alliance was forming, and soon the emergence of such institutions as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, APEC, and later Eurasian Economic Union occurred.

  With these new institutions, the designs for a Bering Strait rail tunnel were once again revived when Russia signaled its willingness to construct the century-old project in 2011 offering over $65 billion towards its funding, which only required the cooperation of the United States and Canada.

  As China began to emerge as a global force, it not only petitioned to become an observer in the Arctic Council in 2012, but also soon unleashed the Belt and Road Initiative in September 2013. A year later, in May 2014, China too gave its support to the construction of the Bering Strait Tunnel. Until this period the only serious discussion of the program was found in the work of the Schiller Institute, whose founders had publicized the New Silk Road and Bering Strait rail line through thousands of conferences and publications since 1993.

  While the period of 2014-present has been tense at the best of times, and close to world war at the worst of times, the potential of the Arctic as a platform for international dialogue has continued un-abated and has served as the theme of this year’s fifth International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg from April 9-10, 2019. The theme of the conference which saw the involvement of 3600 representatives of Russian, and international sectors both private and public was “Arctic: Territory of Dialogue”.

  Russia’s Arctic: Territory of Dialogue

  The keynote speech at the forum’s plenary session was given by Vladimir Putin whereby the Russian leader discussed the plans for Russia’s Arctic development for the coming decades stating:

   “This year we are going to draft and adopt a new strategy for the development of the Russian Arctic up to 2035. It is to combine measures stipulated in our national projects and state programmes, the investment plans of infrastructure companies and programmes for developing Arctic regions and cities. All Arctic regions should be brought to the level of at least the national average in key socioeconomic indicators and living standards.”

  In attendance were the heads of every Arctic Council nation (except Canada and the USA) who listened to Putin describe the upgrading of a global transportation corridor involving the Northern Sea Route, the Northern Latitudinal Railway connecting western Siberia to ports on the Arctic Ocean, a boost of freight traffic to 80 million tons by 2025 (from its 20 million tons today), and the creation of new nuclear powered ice breakers. Vast programs for resource development of LNG, oil and other minerals were announced throughout the conference and a new federal law to offer a special system of preferences for Arctic zone investments was publicized. Over 100 oil and gas extraction, infrastructure and tourism projects were finalized totalling over $164 billion.

  Most importantly, a vision for this growth process was tied to the creative spirit of scientific discovery that distinguishes the human species as unique among the biosphere, as scientific and educational centers to integrate universities, research institutions and the private sector with the productive industrial processes underlying the “real economy” were announced. This last component of an Arctic vision brought into focus Russia’s partnership with China brilliantly, as a strategic agreement on scientific cooperation was signed between the two allies

  The Russia-China Silk Road on Ice

  China’s Belt and Road Initiative has already spread across Eurasia and Africa uplifting standards of living, cognitive potential and building mega projects along the way. The grand design is a fluid concept driven by rail development and city building on its land (road) component, with ports and shipping lanes on its sea (belt) component. A philosophical commitment to scientific and technological progress (aka: creative reason) which once animated western society is its driving power.

  In January 2018, a Chinese white paper announced China’s northern vision with Russia “will bring opportunities for parties concerned to jointly build a ‘Polar Silk Road’, and facilitate connectivity and sustainable economic and social development of the Arctic.”

  In its press release announcing the creation of the China-Russia Arctic Research Center (CRARC) on April 10, 2019, the Russian government announced: 

  “Joint efforts will be made in Arctic marine science research, which will promote the construction of ‘Silk Road on Ice’. In future, QNLM looks forward to more fruitful and efficient partnerships worldwide to contribute to the sustainable development of the world oceans and a shared future for mankind.”

  NATO hawks Freak Out

  NATO hawks have reacted to these incredible developments as if the Cold war had never ended, with James Stravridis (former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO) penning an op-ed on April 16 stating China’s polar silk road is only an “aggressive program of building influence” and that the melting arctic ice “will create shipping routes that could be geopolitically central for China’s One Belt, One Road global development strategy.” Citing the recent China-Russia joint military exercises such as the Vostok 2018 China-Russia-Mongolia maneuvers of September 11-17, 2018 that involved over 300 000 military personnel, Stravridis said “they [Russia and China] see working together as a hedge against the US and their cooperation will create significant challenges for the NATO nations with Arctic territory”. The cold warrior called on the USA and Canada to respond with their own joint military maneuvers and collaboration with NATO.

  Stravridis’ words echoed those of NORAD chief US General Terrance O’Shaughnessy who spoke in Ottawa earlier calling for joint military cooperation in the Arctic saying “we must acknowledge the reality that our adversaries currently hold our citizens, our way of life and national interests at risk… we are at risk in ways we haven’t been in decades”.

  While fear-mongering headlines documenting Russia’s Arctic Summit with such titles as “Putin Bolsters Arctic Presence with Anti-Aircraft Missiles” are the norm in the western press, a major Canadian Foreign Affairs Committee report published on April 11 features a valuable insight into the powerful effects of which the New Silk Road paradigm is creating even among pro-NATO countries as hostile to the BRI and Russia as Canada has proven itself to be over recent years.

  The New Paradigm inspires potential change in Canadian Artic Strategy

  In the report begun in June 2018 entitled “Nation Building at Home, Vigilance Beyond: Preparing for the Coming Decades in the Arctic”, a non-partisan effort was released to call for a complete reversal on the Arctic policy which has governed Canada since the Deep State-led ouster of Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1963, whose “Northern Vision” was killed with his position as Prime Minister.

  While paying lip service to the “danger of Russian and Chinese interest in the Arctic”, the 140 page committee report broke with the tradition of treating the Canada’s Arctic Sovereign as somehow “threatened by outside forces” as has been the trend for decades and instead stated that “the Committee is of the view that the challenges Canada faces in the Arctic are those of security, national defence, stewardship, well-being, and prosperity. With that in mind, it seems unproductive to continue approaching these issues from the perspective of determining whether Canada is somehow losing sovereignty over land and waters that are Canadian.” Expressing an awareness that a new global system was rising the paper stated “the government must … ensure that it is not caught unprepared if the geopolitical reality changes.”

  While other similar white papers published over the years have taken more aggressive stances against Russia and China’s BRI, this committee report stated “The Arctic situation now goes beyond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature, having a vital bearing on the interests of States outside the region and the interests of the international community as a whole, as well as on the survival, the development, and the shared future for mankind.”

  Ultimately, the report called for Canada to break the British-steered zero growth/post-industrial policy of the past 60 years and instead create a new federal program for Arctic infrastructure investment, cooperation with China on the Polar Silk Road, involve natives trapped in suicide-laden under-developed reservations with the opportunity to participate in growth programs, mapping of northern resources (which Canada has failed to do unlike their Russian counterparts), and importantly provide for the social integration of natives with the rest of Canada.

  Of extreme importance was the call to reverse the 2016 Trudeau-Obama ban on Arctic drilling which was done to protect the ecosystem while excluding all natives who live in said ecosystems with any opportunity to have a say. The report stated “The manner in which that decision was carried out was not described warmly by the people with whom the Committee met in the North. There was a feeling that the decision had been made without consideration for the interests of the people who live and work there. One Indigenous organization received 20 minutes’ notice.”

  Rather than call for confrontation, or joining NATO’s ABM encirclement of Russia as previous reports had done, the committee called for discussion, science diplomacy, dialogue and a return to an Arctic growth policy not seen in over 70 years.

  While discussions of the Bering Strait rail connection between Eurasia and the Americas was absent, as was all discussion of nuclear energy, whose development is instrumental for the Arctic, it is relevant that no mention was made of “green energy” like windmills and solar panels which would serve no use in any serious national development strategy.

  The fact is that the polar Silk Road is a reality. The ports and shipping lines opening up along the Northwest Passage express only the beginning phases of it, but as Russia continues to develop rail and scientific capabilities with China’s assistance across its Arctic, the rail will follow and the dream of Governor Gilpin and Tsar Nicholas II to unite both worlds new and old with rail will occur, as long as the west chooses to take history seriously and not sleepwalk into world war once more. 

  

• Why One 18-Year-Old New Yorker Is Suing Apple For $1 Billion

  An 18-year-old New Yorker is suing Apple for $1 billion, claiming he was falsely arrested and charged for a series of thefts that he did not commit due to facial recognition software that Apple allegedly uses to track theft. Ousmane Bah was arrested at his home in New York in November and was charged with stealing from Apple stores in Manhattan, Boston, Delaware and New Jersey. However, the photo that accompanied the arrest warrant showed somebody that “looked nothing like” the student, according to the Daily Mail.

  Not only that, one of the thefts had occurred on the same day that Bah was attending his senior prom. He was in Manhattan for the event while one of the thefts occurred in Boston. So now, he is suing Apple for the hassle he has suffered as a result… which in his opinion is worth a solid one billion dollars.

  Bah believes that a learners permit that he lost, containing his name, address and other personal information, was used for identification at Apple stores during the thefts. The thief was caught stealing $1200 worth of products from Apple in Boston on May 31, 2018. The same thief then stole from Apple stores in Manhattan, New Jersey and Delaware, while at the same time allegedly being tracked by Apple software.

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  Bah said he learned about the thefts the hard way: when a Boston municipal court summons arrived at his door in June. He was then arrested by the New York Police Department on November 29.

  When the New York Police Department Detective who was assigned to the case examined surveillance footage from the Manhattan Apple Store, they found that the suspect “looked nothing like” Bah. Instead, the detective found that Apple’s (highly flawed) security technology had been using facial recognition to try and identify suspected thieves. 

  The investigator suspected that the thief had presented Bah’s learners permit during one of the multiple thefts. Bah then was forced to respond to all of the false allegations which led to ‘severe stress and hardship’ and left him ‘feeling humiliated, afraid, and deeply concerned’.  In his lawsuit, he claims:

  ‘[Apple’s] use of facial recognition software in its stores to track individuals suspected of theft is the type of Orwellian surveillance that consumes fear, particularly as it can be assumed that the majority of consumers are not aware that their faces are secretly being analyzed.’ 

  While the charges in most states have been dropped against him, the ones in New Jersey are still pending. Apple has claimed it “does not use facial recognition technology in its stores.”

  

• How To Survive A Nuclear Disaster

  Via The Simple Prepper blog,

  With the advent of nuclear technologies – the threat to everyone is unfortunately very real. If you are truly going to prepare for the nuclear threat, you must understand all the possible outcomes to be best prepared. 

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  When you hear the words nuclear disaster, most people start thinking about a nuclear strike from a foreign country.

  However, the threat of a nuclear disaster is much more than just nuclear weapons and war. In fact, you could have a serious nuclear threat right in your backyard.

  If that’s the case, you need to know how to react and what you need on hand to stay alive through the radiation and fallout.

  Top 3 Known Threats Of Nuclear Disaster

  1) Nuclear Power Plants

  There are nearly a hundred active nuclear power plants in our nation. These power plants supply millions of Americans with power each day and they are simply benign in the landscape and in how they affect our daily lives.

  However, the greatest nuclear disasters of the 21st century did not happen on the battlefield.

  Rather, they happened at a nuclear powerplant in Japan (Fukushima in 2011), and of course Chernobyl in 1986. Both are catastrophic nuclear accidents that have left irreparable damage to their surrounding areas. 

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  Source: Wikipedia

  Experts estimate it will take 20,000 years before the 19-mile radius around Chernobyl is safe for habitation by humans.

  2) Terrorists

  While the threat of terrorists is very real, their current capacity seems to be limited to things like guns and trucks. Do you think it will be that way forever? Sad to say, but the day may come when we see an American city attacked by a dirty bomb.

  The dirty bomb is an explosive device that contains radioactive material and is used to spread that radiation over a small area. It pales in comparison to the destruction and affect of a nuclear bomb but in a small crowded area the dirty bomb can do plenty of damage.

  The time may come when terrorists figure out how to incorporate nuclear capabilities into their arsenal, so take note.

  3) War

  Of course, we are still facing the threat of nuclear war. Even after all these years and the understanding that an all-out nuclear war could mean the end of humanity. Its hard not to envision a future war where both sides are pushed to the brink and start lobbing nukes at one another.

  Whether we are facing the growing contingent of radical dictatorial leaders or some other nation state, nuclear war is far from a thing of the past.

  How Far Reaching Is Nuclear Fallout?

  We all need to get real when it comes to the conversation of radioactive fallout. While it can be very dangerous, fallout itself requires the right conditions. Of the various nuclear threats we face only one version is going to produce a large cloud of nuclear fallout.

  According to Dave Jones, a long-time military man and expert in the field, a surface detonated nuclear bomb is the only tool that is going to send that plume of radiated material high enough into the sky that it will rain down for miles.

  Dave also mentions that the most likely form of detonation in a large city, in America, would be in a delivery truck at ground level. So, there is validity in being prepared for fallout depending on how far from a city you might be.

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  One of the best ways for a civilian to understand the affect or radioactive fallout on their town is to use NUKEMAP. This is a free service that allows you to simulate a detonation of powerful nuclear weapons across a map of your area.

  Aside from offering up information on immediate damage it also shows the full scope and direction of radioactive fallout. You can detonate powerful weapons in the most populated city or army base in your area and see if the fallout reaches your home. You may be out of range of this threat altogether.

  What Happens If You Are Exposed To Nuclear Fallout?

  As bad as nuclear fallout sounds, you may be surprised at the simple methods that can be used to mitigate the risk and exposure.

  If you find yourself exposed to nuclear fallout (ash, rain, radiation, etc.) – it can be managed by simply removing your clothes and leaving them outside or in a rubber made container and promptly taking a soapy shower. Doing this with a protective respirator on will assure the fallout doesn’t get inside the body.

  Once you have been washed off you are free of the debris that has been touched by the radiation. Thus, the radioactive fallout is gone. Only when you are trapped outside in the fallout does it really become an issue.

  Symptoms Of Radiation Sickness

  If you or someone you love has been affected by nuclear fallout you should know how to identify the symptoms. You are going to be feeling a lot of things in a nuclear disaster. Feeling sick from stress, emotional drain and downright terror could all make you feel like sick.

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  Source: Wikipedia

  This is a list of symptoms attributed to radiation sickness.

  • Extreme fatigue

  • Ringing in your ears

  • Frequent colds or increased infections

  • Unexplained bleeding or small red spots on your skin

  • Fever or burns

  • Headache or confusion

  • Nausea, vomiting, or bloody diarrhea

  Setting Up A Radiation Shelter In Your Home

  SWhile you might think that the only way to survive the effects of nuclear fallout is buried deep in an emergency shelter, you are wrong. In fact, every American is completely capable of setting up their own in-home fallout shelter and waiting out the radiation.

  Just to be clear I am talking about surviving nuclear fallout not a nuclear blast. If you find yourself in the blast area, unfortunately there is nothing you can do to survive.

  Beyond the blast radius, radiation from a blast will not last forever. Contrary to popular belief. In fact, levels can seriously decrease in a matter of hours. Check out FEMA’s guidelines on the 7:10 rule.

  The 7:10 Rule of Thumb states that for every 7-fold increase in time after detonation, there is a 10-fold decrease in the exposure rate. In other words, when the amount of time is multiplied by 7, the exposure rate is divided by 10. For example, let’s say that 2 hours after detonation the exposure rate is 400 R/hr. After 14 hours, the exposure rate will be 1/10 as much, or 40 R/hr.

  As you can see radiation will decrease over time, but you need to be insulated from it during the decrease period. The best way to do this is to think about insulation. Things like mattresses, cushions, and thick blankets can provide you with this insulation. Even plastic sheeting taped along doors, windows, and any other opening to the outside will provide substantial protection.

  You will want to find a location near the core of your home, away from windows and air flow from the outside world. Here you can create an insulated shelter in a closet or hallway that will put the maximum distance between yourself and the fallout outside.

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  Source: Business Insider

  Into this shelter you should bring things like food, water, entertainment and an emergency radio. As you can see, you might be holed up in there for a while to avoid as much radiation as possible!

  So be prepared for that. Listen to the radio so you can stay on top of radiation levels and how your area is being affected. These broadcasts will also tell you when its safe to go outside again.

  Addressing Demands That Follow A Nuclear Disaster

  A nuclear disaster is a very scary thought! Depending on the size and scope of nuclear disaster we could see a variety of failures in public service. These will have the biggest impacts on life after the disaster. If we see critical infrastructure like water treatment, power and waste management services disrupted you will quickly feel the effects.

  Contrary to popular belief, a nuclear blast (assuming it is a single event) is much more manageable afterwards than other types of events. In situations like Chernobyl and Fukashima – radioactive waste is dumped for days at a time, or longer, in massive quantities.

  Bombs and power plant disasters are two very different things. If you are in an area facing a meltdown of a power plant, you must leave immediately.  The condition of the land and water will be so bad, it is irrelevant.

  However, if you find yourself managing fallout from a nuclear blast you should consider these 4 things to be best prepared.

  Food and Water

  You can count on your sealed food and water in a nuclear disaster (like these). They will be fine to eat and drink. Don’t grab food from your garden or water from your rain barrels. These will have nuclear particles on them for some time.

  Backup Power

  The effect on your local power grid is going to be substantial. Multiple city blocks will be obliterated. Don’t look for power to be back on for some time. The same can be said for WIFI signals. Be sure that you have other options like solar or a generator.

  Security

  Unfortunately, in times of severe distress people may act in their own self interest and try to take things. Even a nuclear bomb won’t keep the bad people away. You need to have a means to secure that food, water and backup power.

  I will let you decide how you plan to do that, but my first option is a 12-gauge shotgun deterrent.

  First Aid

  Emergency services are going to be busy, to say the least. The more self sufficient you can be when treating illness and injury the better off you will be. This doesn’t mean avoiding the proper care if you need it but just be prepared to be turned away and have another option. Consider reading this if you have a medical condition.

  5 Nuclear Specific Preps

  There are certain preps that really lend themselves to prepping for a nuclear disaster. Take a minute to explore these 5 below. You might find that you are more prepared for a situation like this than you thought.

  1) Potassium Iodide Tablets (PI Tabs)

  These tablets find a home in the nuclear disaster kits of most preppers. These small pills are used to saturate your thyroid which will keep your body from allowing radiation to spread throughout it. These tabs are cheap and are easy to get your hands on. They are not top-secret stuff anymore – be sure you have enough for your family and maybe some extra to spare. The benefits of these tablets are immeasurable immediately after a nuclear disaster.

  2) Radiation Counters

  A much larger investment than the PI Tabs a radiation counter or radiation measurement device is going to tell you exactly how much radiation is in the air. There will be no guessing here. While these are expensive preps, I think if you are near a nuclear power plant it might be worth having. You never know when you might need it.

  3) Baking Soda

  Baking soda or soap and water are the key to radiological decontamination. You know, its not like you need a secret serum to decontaminate yourself. You will need something to scrub your hair and body with. Baking soda is a pretty common prep and you are likely storing it already.

  4) Respirator Masks

  While fallout on the body can be washed away, fallout in the body is going to do serious damage. If you inhale micro fallout particles its going to affect your lungs first and your whole body over time. A quality respirator is a very important prep to have on hand in case of a nuclear disaster. Check out these respirators to add to your stash (link).

  5) Eye Protection

  Eyes are another area that can be affected by fallout. Maybe you rub your eyes with a sleeve and not understand what you are doing. This is very dangerous and will spread that material throughout your body, as well. Be sure to have something to cover your sensitive parts immediately after a nuclear event.

  Make Sure You Are Ready NOW!

  The threat of a nuclear disaster is more complex than most people think. Every radiological disaster is different. The most important takeaway is to understand what items you need to add to your inventory to assure you can respond to such a disaster.

  The one thing that all nuclear disasters have in common is that they inflict serious damage either from blast radius, radiation or both. No matter what the situation, you must act in a nuclear disaster.

  Having the knowledge and the right preps will help but in most instances of fallout and radiation you are going to fall back on two major skills. The first being patience. You can safely wait out radioactive fallout. That is the best move if you are on the outskirts of the disaster.

  The other skill is going to be your evacuation or bugout skills. If you are too close to an area and the radiation is hazardous, well, you have no choice but to leave.

  For those in the blast radius of a modern-day nuclear weapon, well, there aren’t really any preps that will help you. The best thing you can do is be prepared for the worst and hope and pray for the best!

  

• Big Pharma Distributor Faces Federal Criminal Charges Over Opioid Crisis

  The nation’s sixth-largest pharmaceutical distributor is facing federal criminal charges over its role in the opioid crisis sweeping the country, according to the New York Times. 

  Rochester Drug Cooperative and two former company officials were charged on Tuesday with defrauding the federal government and conspiracy to distribute drugs. The case was brought by the US attorney’s office in Manhattan. The former RDC officials charged are former CEO Laurence F. Doud III and former chief of compliance, William Pietruszewski, according to the Times. Doud is expected to surrender to DEA agents and appear in US District Court in Manhattan later Tuesday. 

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  The criminal charges leveled at the drug distributor and its former executives marked a new tactic for the government in tackling the nation’s epidemic of addiction to prescription painkillers, like oxycodone.

  Prosecutors applied the same criminal statutes to charge the distributor and its former executives as have been used against illicit street dealers and cartel chiefs who traffic in fentanyl and oxycodone.

  The charges stem from a two-year investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration that began after the company violated the terms of a civil settlement. –NYT

  The company admitted in a civil case that it had failed for years to report thousands of suspicious opioid orders from pharmacies – many of which far exceeded ordering limits, and catered to doctors who ran “pill mills” according to the Times report. 

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  Rochester Drug Cooperative acting CEO John Kinney appeared on behalf of the company during a brief court proceeding Tuesday morning in front of Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the US District Court in Manhattan. Kinney signed a deferred prosecution agreement in which the company – which operates in 10 states – effectively admitted to committing the crimes. “The agreement, along with a civil consent decree, were both approved by Judge Buchwald,” notes the Times. 

  Together, the agreement and the decree will allow the company to continue operating and set standards for its conduct, as well as providing for continued oversight, according to a court document. –NYT

  “We made mistakes,” said company spokesman Jeff Eller. “and RDC understands that these mistakes, directed by former management, have serious consequences.”

  According to federal authorities, despite signing consent decrees and paying fines, drug distributors have continued to ship thousands of doses of opioids to pharmacies which have been red-flagged. 

  Since the Sackler family – which controls Purdue Pharma – launched OxyContin in the late 1990s, deaths involving prescription and illegal opioids have quadrupled from 2.9 per 100,000 in 1999 to 13.3 per 100,000 in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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  So far, 36 states and 1,600 cities and counties have filed lawsuits against Purdue. As noted previously, Purdue is contemplating filing for bankruptcy amid the barrage of lawsuits.

  

• 28 Years Ago, Our Enslavement Was Predicted… And We're Still Not Listening

  Authored by Yosel Del Valle Pulgarin via Hackernoon.com,

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  “An untold future lies ahead, and for the first time, I face it with a sense of hope. For if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life; maybe we can too.” — Sarah Connor

  I was a kid when I first heard this quote, and It was shocking how we could even think of machines having feelings. Even more, it was interesting the idea in that quote referring that human beings don’t appreciate life.

  At that moment I wasn’t a big fan of terminator and to be honest I’m still not the biggest follower, yet, that bit of the end of the movie was nailed into my memory even -especially these days- several years after.

  Some years after Terminator, the first movie of The Matrix was released and from the very first time, I was hooked into the whole concept, the world, the characters, the problem though never stopped to think about some of the reasoning behind that movie, just thought, “man, that’s cool!”

  There was no literal messaging, just the whole concept to me was exciting and in part was what took me interested in programming and to be honest to try to be “different” because, you know, it felt good at that age to be Neo and I’m not going to lie it still does!

  I’ve watched The Matrix so many times, but never really thought to myself what it meant to me or how I would connect it to The Terminator until these days.

  It has been more than a year that I’ve been commuting to work. Takes me around 30 to 60 min to get there, during which I do some headbanging at the sound of metal music, read tech books or stare at the traffic jams going on the city. One thing I do from time to time is to watch other people behaviors while listening to music, just because sometimes is a good way to keep your mind away from work, to think of something else for a change. One of those days I started experiencing that the more people jumped into the train, the more evident was a particular behavior: Everyone on the train was holding their phones! I was shocked seeing how everyone would go through whatever they were seeing with just barely blinking. The most concerning part to me is I ignored this before because I was looking down to my phone.

  You may think, well it’s 2019, it’s been like that for a couple of years now, so what’s the big deal?

  One of my objectives for the previous year for me was to be more in contact with the external world. Doing so took me to really notice how bad it is. What I think it is sad, is that from the moment I forced myself to lay down my phone, was the moment I realized how the world looks like, how all these situations deeply connect with movies that date back at least 20 years behind the current times.

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  It’s more common now that I find myself watching others during commute just because I want to see how smartphones are influencing normal human behaviors. Every day you can see things like people bumping into each other without apologizing. Parents so into their phones that they forget to watch their kids, couples that won’t cross a single word for a whole 30 more min ride and going to touristic places is a bit of a nightmare especially when everyone wants the same selfie to post it to Instagram.

  In 2019 we can say there is a fair amount of technological advances in software development, all of them at our reach thanks to our ever-connected smartphones. Apps and tools, in general, are getting smarter to provide more profound or more personalized experiences to users but none of them is even close to creating something so bright that would or could outreason a human being (At least not yet).

  Thanks to smartphones, humankind is being alienated of its true nature, and the best part of that is it didn’t require machines to be self-aware, feel or think but a bunch of brilliant, hard-working developers. We are preferring contact through limited voice messages rather than having a real talk. We are interrupting real conversations to read what someone else texted you. We are caring more about the unknown folk cat rather than the friend in front of us looking for advice. We seek to be more connected to people “we care about” creating connections that are meaningless or superficial. We are caring too much about how others see our “perfect” lives, and all this is more accessible thanks to the apps we love and use on our daily basis.

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  Human beings are a social species by design, and in my opinion, and it’s natural to try and find connections or to look for a tool that makes us socialization simpler. But the way we are “socializing” is not the best way. If we care more about the digital world than the real one, our reality can be easily replaced by an idea that would not necessarily be the truth just only what we want to see. We are digging our own tombs and allowing controlling mechanisms. We are the ones that are creating these situations, and if we don’t change that, we will be seating on chairs with screens on our faces all day (Wall-E?), or is that happening already?

  Movies like The Matrix, Terminator or any other film in that genre is they all refer to the times (in a made-up future) where there is a machine take-over and we humans are enslaved to their will. Even with a slight difference in their main argument, they all seem to concur to the fact that controlling humans is best for the sake of the world.

  

• Why Chinese Banks Are Running Out Of Dollars

  Following the biggest quarterly credit injection in Chinese history, it is safe to say that China’s banks are flush with yuan loans. However, when it comes to dollar-denominated assets, it’s a different story entirely. As the WSJ points out, in the past few years, a funding problem has emerged for China’s biggest commercial banks, one which is largely outside of Beijing’s control: they’re running low on US dollars so critical to fund operations both domestically and abroad.

  As shown in the chart below, the combined dollar liabilities at China’s four biggest commercial banks exceeded their dollar assets at the end of 2018, a sharp reversal from just a few years ago. Back in 2013, the four together had around $125 billion more dollar assets than liabilities, but now they owe more dollars to creditors and customers than are owed to them.

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  The reversal is the result of just one bank: Bank of China, which for many years held more net assets in dollars than any other Chinese lender, ended 2018 owing $72 billion more in dollar liabilities than it booked in dollar assets. The other “top 3” lenders finished the year with more dollar assets than liabilities, even though their net dollar surplus has shrunk substantially in the past five years.

  And yet, as everything else with China, there is more than meets the eye: as the WSJ reports looking at Bank of China’s annual report, the bank’s asset-liability imbalance is more than addressed by dollar funding that doesn’t sit on its balance sheet. Instruments like currency swaps and forwards are accounted for elsewhere.

  This is reminiscent of the shady operations discussed recently involving Turkey’s FX reserves, where the central bank has been borrowing dollar assets from local banks via off balance sheet swaps, which it then used to prop up and boost the lira at a time of aggressive selling of the local currency. It is safe to assume that the PBOC has been engaging in a similar operation.

  Additionally, as the WSJ observes, such off-balance-sheet lending “can be flighty”, and citing a recent BIS study, the vast majority of currency derivatives mature in under one year, meaning they are up for constant renewal and could evaporate during times of pressure.

  Of course, as we noted last week, the Turkish central bank got the idea to manipulate its currency using swaps from China, where currency swaps, meant to protect banks from liquidity crises when they lend in currencies other than their own, have boomed in recent years…. even if it still does not have “the most crucial of all” swap line – one with the Federal Reserve.

  The good news is that unlike Turkey, whose net foreign asset position may be as low as just $10 billion, the imbalance at Bank of China is small relative to its balance sheet, so it shouldn’t be seen as an imminent threat. As a reminder, China has roughly $3.1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves (gross of swaps), which remain a safety backstop in case of a crunch or funding crisis, but as the WSJ notes, it is unclear how bad things would have to get before Beijing would permit its use by major commercial banks; meanwhile, in a worst case scenario, “a heightened need to help the big four lenders also makes that hoard of reserves seem somewhat less formidable.”

  As for who is soaking up all the local bank’s dollar assets, one culprit is China’s Belt-and-Road projects, which are overwhelmingly financed in the U.S. currency, and are sending dollars overseas in the form of Chinese loans. Additionally, Chinese property developers have a rapacious demand, too.

  But at the heart of this funding mismatch there is a simple cause: as the WSJ’s Mike Bird notes, “Beijing would like to be a major financial player overseas, but few borrowers have any interest in the yuan. Most international trade is accounted for in dollars, the yuan is difficult to convert and foreign owners of Chinese assets have at best an uncertain relationship with the country’s legal system.”

  Until that changes, expect to see the banks’ net dollar funding position continue to turn increasingly negative.

  

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• Barclays Slashes Banker Bonuses As Activist Showdown Looms

  Jes Staley’s battle to save one of Europe’s last bulge-bracket investment banks from a marauding activist who is hoping to force his way onto the bank’s board during Barclay’s May 2 GAM has necessitated an abrupt about-face: After a year where Barclays poured resources into the investment bank to beef up its international presence, the bank is now following in the footsteps of several of its even more troubled European peers and slashing bonuses for its bankers.

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  According to the FT, Britain’s last remaining global investment bank is planning to cut bonuses for its investment bankers as part of a cost-cutting drive after a first quarter that UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti described as “one of the worst” first quarters for investment banks in recent memory. After US banks reported a rocky start to the year, largely thanks to steep declines in trading revenue, banking analysts have downgraded their expectations for their struggling European peers. Analysts at Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and JPM are all forecasting double-digit declines in Q1 revenues, thanks to a drop in equities-trading revenue, per the FT.

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  The bonus cuts come at a precarious time for Barclays. As the Guardian reported, activist investor Edward Bramson, who owns 5.5% of Barclays via his Sherborne Investors vehicle, saw his campaign to gain a seat on Barclays’ board bolstered over the weekend when Pirc, an institutional advisory firm, declined to give a recommendation one way or the other for 2019, and hinted that it might advise shareholders to vote in favor of Bramson’s proposal next year. Though that might not sound like much, it’s a sign that some of the big institutional advisory firms are beginning to come around to Bramson’s way of thinking. His plans for revitalizing Barclays include steep cuts to the investment bank, something that Staley, Barclay’s CEO, has vowed to resist.

  With Bramson breathing down his neck, Staley has been forced to shift his focus back to cost-cutting for the investment bank. Two sources told FT that the measures will extend beyond cuts to bonuses, and include lower pay for recruits and a pause on promotions.

  Two people briefed on the plans said the bank was also planning to adopt a tougher line on promotions, with fewer bankers progressing from director to managing director. Last year, 85 bankers were promoted in Barclays International compared to 74 in 2017. “It will be reflected in a really tough MD promotion round this year,” said one. “It will be only a rare and special person who makes it over the line.”

  They added that Barclays would also be more disciplined on pay when signing up new recruits.

  The cuts come just weeks after the bank’s former head of investment banking, Tim Throsby, was ousted after pushing back against Staley’s “sacrosanct” profitability targets. Throsby had resisted a policy adopted in 2016 to tie bonuses more closely to profitability, and had succeeded and securing bonuses for his bankers even in business lines where revenues had lagged.

  Going forward, bankers hoping to bring home big bonuses must abide by Staley’s return on tangible equity targets of more than 9% this year and more than 10% in 2020, goals that have been described as “sacrosanct”. And depending on what the bank reveals on Thursday when it reports Q1 earnings, this might not be the last round of cuts to Barclay’s investment bank.

  

• The Hubris Of Brexit: Short On Solutions & High On Hope

  Via Accelerating Meltdown,

  “Platforms don’t look like how they work and don’t work like how they look.” – Benjamin H Bratton, The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty

  Complex systems by their very nature are, of course, complex. As Sayama’s diagram at the opening of this post demonstrates…

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  An elementary definition of a complex system is one that is constituted of multifarious units (often simple), interacting with each other in abstruse patterns, which in turn, makes them inherently difficult to model. This difficulty in the modelling process is due to properties that such systems manifest, including emergence, cybernetic feedback loops, adaptation, non-linearity and self-organization. Some common examples include transport networks, biological systems and power grids.

  Trans-Continental, technomic, complex systems that encompass nested technomic systems as constituent parts, obviously are recursively complex themselves. From the smallest economic system, recursively building upon themselves we see the emergence of the networks that underlay a socioeconomic structure such as the EU. In other words, the complex systems we see at the state level, manifest at the trans-state level. Take your country’s power grid and scale it up across a continent.

  From 1950 onward numerous treaties were signed among European governments, giving birth to the EEC, EEA, Schengen and ultimately the EU. Each set of agreements allowed for evermore emergent properties to manifest. Each overlapping treaty, in turn, allowed for a convergence of networks. Consequently, existing systems became further embedded in a fashion that is difficult to discern until attempting to pry them apart.

  And there lies the fundamental problem, with the understanding that many Brexit supporting politicians have of the EU.

  To me, Brexit is easy  –  Nigel Farage, 20 September 2016

  Very often the platform does not look like how it works. In the case of the EU, it may appear as simply a group of trade treaties binding together a set of sovereign nation states.

  Now, of course, this certainly an aspect of it. What can’t be perceived by simply looking at the platform i.e. the aggregate of treaties and agreements, is the emergent and self-organizing qualities of the European project.

  The EU and related interconnecting bodies have become an astonishingly complex interplay of elements that have fed off the evolution of human society, its scientific discoveries, engineering marvels and social transformations.

  Power to the people

  One such example is the synchronous grid of Continental Europe also known by the acronym CSA (Continental Synchronous Area). Supplying over 400 million customers across 24 EU member states, and running at a phase-locked 50 Hz mains frequency, it forms the largest synchronous electricity grid on earth. It’s formed part of a push towards an internal European energy network and market and also aimed to harmonize with grids located outside of Europe, including those located in North Africa.

  This is a concrete realization of the concept of the energy-information networks that underpin the Earth layer of Benjamin Bratton’s Stack.

  “… energy-information networks … are central to how the Earth layer functions within The Stack — Benjamin Bratton. The Stack | On Software and Sovereignty”

  The CSA which encompasses elements of this layer forms the precursor to the European super grid, which would include not just the various grids in Europe, but those in the mentioned neighbouring areas too.

  The UK is not currently apart of the CSA directly but connects to it via the HVDC Cross-Channel link and BritNed (a submarine cable from Kent to Massvlakte). This is known as an electricity island network and has counterparts with Nordic regional group and Baltic regional group.

  The body behind the CSA is the ENTSO-E or European Network of Transmission System Operators. This currently represents 36 nation states across Europe (some of which lay outside the EU’s borders). ENTSO-E was established and given a legal mandate by the EU itself, via the Third Package for the Internal Energy market in 2009, but is self-funded by member states. The United Kingdom is represented at ENTSO-E by the National Grid, SONI, SHETransmission and SPTransmission.

  So what will be the relationship between ENTSO-E and the UK post-Brexit? Well, it appears nobody actually knows yet. Here is Montel News discussing the subject in August of 2018:

  Brexit could overhaul energy relations between the UK and the EU, derailing plans to increase market coupling with the UK and boost investment in interconnectors. — TSOs ready for no-deal Brexit — Entso-E, Montel.

  How would the UK remain a part of this body?

  Analysts believe the UK can remain a part of the internal energy market as a third country if the British government accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. — TSOs ready for no-deal Brexit — Entso-E, Montel.

  And thus the double-bind. The half-cyborg-half-human, British Prime Minister, known as Theresa May by some and the Maybot by others, has already ruled this out. In a paper published in 2017 May’s government had stated the jurisdiction of the ECJ will come to an end with Brexit.

  In leaving the European Union, we will bring about an end to the direct jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). — Enforcement and dispute resolution, A Future Partnership Paper — HM Government

  As the Montel News article notes, the former Tory politician Tim Yeo told said news agency that leaving the EU internal energy market would force the UK government to complete Hinkley Point nuclear power plant.

  But this path leads us into yet another conundrum — Euratom.

  The European Atomic Energy Community, better known as Euratom, has its origins in the late 1950s. Its goal was to create an internal market for nuclear power and to then trade any excess to non-market members. Since then it has gone on to concern itself with providing a basis for regulating civil nuclear material and also controlling the supply of fissile materials within the EU.

  While Euratom is closely linked to the EU including governance by some of the EU’s institutions it sits outside of the control of the European Parliament and is a legally distinct entity. Thus leaving the EU does not mean one has to leave Euratom.

  Adam Vaughan writing for the Guardian in 2017 discussed the problematic situation of the UK leaving this agency, which it intends to do as part of the exiting process:

  Failure to put in place alternative arrangements to replace the existing European nuclear treaty, Euratom, which the UK is quitting as part of the article 50 process, would have a “dramatic impact” on Hinkley Point C and other new power stations around the country, the industry said. — Adam Vaughan

  It was not until after the referendum the impact of leaving the institution was assessed in the Common Briefing papers CBP-8036.

  As of November 2018, exiting still seemed to be in the works and the draft treaty spells out as much. A December 2018 joint statement fleshed out commitments on the behalf of the UK to align its nuclear safeguards with that of Euratom. The devil as ever will be in the detail here. And if May’s deal is rejected? Well….

  Many shrewdly will be asking, why exactly is the UK leaving Euratom anyway regardless of what deal is struck?

  “It is simply bonkers to leave Euratom,” says Steven Cowley, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oxford who until last year was director of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, which hosts JET. — Nature.com

  Bonkers indeed.

  In addition to Hinkley Point C, the mentioned JET project centred on Nuclear Fusion experiments, and based in Oxfordshire had no idea if its EU funding (which forms the bulk) would be replaced by equal UK funding. And truth be told, it’s still not concrete.

  Following the impact and confusion Brexit is having on such a fundamental part of the UK’s infrastructure, one has to wonder if anyone in the UK government had actually thought about this prior to triggering article 50?

  *  *  *

  And there we have it, even with May’s deal, confusion reigns supreme. Yet according to the Prime Minister, the commons should vote to support her deal, which relies on promises of alignment and funding for Nuclear operations but mentioned nothing of ENTSO-E. Or to quote her retort to Ian Blackford MP:

  “He should vote for a deal — simples.”  –  May aide won bet with Pm’s ‘simple’ comment:report. Politico

  It is doubtful that there is a single soul in Europe who can grok the complexity of the EU now, let alone any British politician advocating for exiting it. Pelle Neroth captures the complexity pointedly in this quote:

  The EU is a consequence of the complexity of society, a kind of receptacle if you will. Don’t blame the Eurocrats. The EU is not some fictitious them but us: our companies, our NGOs, our trade unions, our scientists. They are in Brussels due to the enormous amount of legislation required to cope with the complicated social and technological interactions that result when all low hanging fruit has been picked. — Pelle Neroth

  Instead of facing this truth (and at times it is admittedly, not pretty), Brexiteer politicians and their tribe have created a simulacrum of a mythical EUSSR, from which they are trying to escape. Paradoxically, we find them voting forthe tentacles they argue strangle them.

  Fake news whether domestically generated, the intervention of a Surkovianintelligence agency, or the repacking of age-old conspiratorial tropes, cements the anti-EU, post-modernist nightmare, that Brexiteers have constructed for themselves.

  Evidence of Leave politicians woeful misunderstanding of the entity they are fighting to exit has been demonstrated over the course of the preceding three years in ample measure.

  Euratom suddenly appeared on the radars of the general public post triggering article 50, yet was barely considered during the Referendum campaign. And what of ENTSO-E? When has there been a public discussion regarding this?

  Oh and you ask, what about the other complexities that have arisen over the past 60 years? The ones that silently govern our day to day lives? Freight agreements, data transfer, mobile roaming, satellite infrastructure, joint procurement agreements, gas pipelines, medical supplies, food, financial instruments, tourists, conferences, insurance provision … this list goes on and on. And frighteningly this only scratches the surface.

  The progression of treaties and accords have paved the way for a rhizomic system to grow from the bottom up organically, and intersect with the molar top-down implementations oftentimes associated with the treaties.

  It’s these bottom-up organic developments that are invisible from merely looking at a set of signed agreements.

  Networks are often complex

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  Partial map of the Internet based on the January 15, 2005 data found on opte.org. Wikipedia

  For those of you coming from a background in tech, we’ll use a little analogy.

  Imagine if society were modelled as one giant switched network. Billions of devices connected through it, sending traffic back and forth. A network administrator may understand the complex cabling and switching equipment in place. But could he be expected to understand every protocol that passes across it, especially at Layer 7?

  There are assuredly tools to help and the security analysts in place to monitor the network. But even with the best technology and tools, 100% visibility is improbable. Now scale that network up a billion fold and predict to keep adding nodes Infinitum. Introduce new protocols that none of the networking team understands, or can analyze. Many of these protocols will also be emergent, there’s no standard let alone documentation.

  Welcome to how the other layers of Bratton’s Stack have realised themselves in Europe over the course of 60 years and will continue into the future.

  The way to build a complex system that works is to build it from very simple systems that work — Kevin Kelly

  As Kelly has noted, complex systems that work are often built from simpler building blocks. And this is certainly true of the EU. From the phone call, a florist in England makes to a Dutch flower distributor, to the Irish farmer sending produce to Belfast from Wexford, each act is small and seemingly simple in itself. There are myriad tiny events like this that take place, all predicated on the network existing to allow event X to happen, or item D to get from point N to A. Now scale this up. The complexity is simply impossible to disentangle.

  If you imagined globalization and JIT (Just In Time) lead to complexity, you’d be accurate and the EU is an integral part of this process.

  What the EU does, for a member state, is eliminate a layer of barriers, allowing the system to become more complex in its interior interconnections, and less complex at the barrier level.

  In the EU’s single market (sometimes also called the internal market) people , goods , services , and money can move around the EU as freely as within a single country. Mutual recognition plays a central role in getting rid of barriers to trade. — One market without borders. European Union

  You can think of barriers as like firewalls. Within the EU the traffic between nation states is freer flowing, and the firewall rules looser, allowing the complexity to evolve inside the network, rather than at the point of connecting networks, which in the old model was nation-to-nation agreements.

  This translates into the real world of not needing to invest effort and time into vast amounts of customs paperwork, visas for travel, roaming charges or work permits.

  So now we are presented with a situation where a set of politicians want to yank all the cables from the switches and do a hard reset, disable the wireless access points and start from scratch.

  Applications that were running across this network, which our politicians had no concept of are now no longer communicating. All the complex rules for routing traffic, gone!

  Our poor network administrators and network users (read civil service, businesses and every person on the street) are now trying to figure out how to rebuild all this, and hope that their applications still run.

  And this is basically where the UK finds itself, short on solutions and high on hope.

  What next?

  This week parliament votes yet again on May’s deal. If it passes, a host of issues will likely come to fore, ones that the public has had little to no visibility on up until now. For example, figuring out what happens with the UK’s relationship with ENTSO-E.

  Get used to hearing about all sorts of agencies you never knew existed, and why, after all, they were rather important to the mundane running of day-to-day business.

  If we leave without a deal — all bets are off. The headache we will have with May’s deal will turn into a nightmare under none. The gargantuan task of trying to recreate all the network connection we once had, will take years if not decades. The quality of those connections will likely be inferior in many regards. Britain can expect to see its leverage and power projection weakened substantially. The benefits of its soft power tarnished.

  And all this because some politicians thought to leave the EU was simple.

  Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy — the UK holds most of the cards in any negotiation. — John Redwood MP

  Therefore as much as it might hurt these MPs to know, the most complexdecision is to stay, and that would be better for everyone, whether they’d like to admit it or not.

  So, perhaps if politicians studied complexity more, they’d propose unfeasible simple options less. Subsequently, events like the EU referendum would be thrown into the dustbin when proposed, which is exactly where they belong.

  

• Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina's Family Targeted In Sri Lanka Blasts

  Via GreatGameIndia.com,

  One of the grandsons of Awami League Presidium member Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim – the cousin of current Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Zayan Chowdhury has been killed in one of the bomb blasts in Sri Lanka on April 21, 2019.

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  Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina’s Family Targeted In Sri Lanka Blasts

  Sheikh Selim, is a Bangladeshi member of parliament and a member of the standing committee of Bangladesh Awami League party. Selim is the nephew of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, former President of Bangladesh and a cousin of current Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

  Zayan’s father Mashiul Haque Chowdhury was also injured in the blast and later admitted to a local hospital. British MP Tulip Siddiq on Monday said she has lost a relative in the series of blasts which rocked Sri Lanka on Sunday. She did not reveal the identity of the relative. Tulip Siddiq is the niece of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

  I lost a relative today in the Sri Lanka attacks. It’s all so devastating. Hope everyone is keeping safe. Solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka.

  — Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) April 21, 2019

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself also confirmed that the family members of her cousin Sheikh Selim’s daughter Zohan were among the victims of the bomb blasts as reported by Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star. The same has also been confirmed by the Dhaka Tribune.

  Initially it was reported that the family was injured with some members missing in the blasts and were taken to a hospital. Later, the news has been confirmed by multiple persons related to the Awami League and PM Sheikh Hasina.

  Sheikh Selim’s daughter Sheikh Amena Sultana Sonia, Mashiul and their sons Zayan and Zohan were staying at hotel in Colombo, where one of the bombs exploded. The family was there on holidays. Sonia and Zohan were in their room on the hotel’s sixth floor while Mashiul and Zayan were eating at a restaurant on the ground floor.

  2016 Plot To Overthrow Bangladeshi Government

  In 2016, a plot to overthrow the Bangladeshi Awami League government was uncovered. Authorities in Bangladesh arrested a member of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country’s opposition party in connection with allegations that the party official, Aslam Chowhury, had purportedly made contact with Israel’s Secret Service Mossad in an effort to overthrow the Bangladeshi government.

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  The Israeli who met with Chowhury was Mendi Safadi, who was identified as “a leader” of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

  DelAviv, an Indo-Israel relationship platform, and Mendi N Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Public Relations, posted the photos. The reports sparked uproar in Bangladeshi media and political circles.

  On 26th January 2016, the Jerusalem Online reported that Mendi Safadi, the head of the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy and Advocacy, “is working in order to topple the present government within Bangladesh in favor of a new government that supports establishing full diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.”

  “Soon, the gates of Bangladesh will open up to Israelis in all aspects and this is not an impossible wish,” Safadi explained.

  2014 Plot To Assassinate Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheik Hasina

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  Prime Minister of Bangladeshi Sheikh Hasina

  Two years earlier to this coup d’etat attempt, a plot for the assassination of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was also uncovered by Indian agencies.

  In 2014 India’s top counter-terrorism agency had uncovered a suspected plot to assassinate the prime minister of Bangladesh and carry out a coup. The alleged conspiracy was discovered after two members of the group were killed in an explosion while building homemade bombs at a house in West Bengal in eastern India.

  The militants were Bangladeshis and were using India as a safe haven to plan the attacks. “The strategy was to hit the political leaders of the country and demolish the democratic infrastructure of Bangladesh,” said a senior Indian Home (interior) Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This was all being planned on Indian soil and we could have been blamed if there was an attack.”

  

• How CIA & Allies Helped Jihadists In Syria: French Covert Ops Expert Exposes New Details

  Authored and submitted by GlobalGeoNews.com

  Maxime Chaix, an expert on clandestine operations, intelligence and US foreign policy, is a journalist and regular contributor to GlobalGeoNews.com. He has written La guerre de l’ombre en Syrie (The Shadow War in Syria, published in French by Éditions Erick Bonnier), a shocker of a book in which he reveals insightful information on the support which several Western intelligence services provided to jihadist militias in Syria, starting with the CIA. His investigation reveals a multi-faceted state scandal and points out the murky game played by the Western powers and their Middle Eastern allies in the Levant.

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  An exclusive interview by Emmanuel Razavi (founder and editor of GlobalGeoNews.com):

  * * *

  Emmanuel Razavi: First of all, please refresh our memories about what operation Timber Sycamore is.

  Maxime Chaix: Timber Sycamore is the codename of a covert operation officially authorized by Obama in June 2013 to train and equip the anti-Assad rebellion, but which actually started in October 2011, when the CIA was operating via Britain’s MI6 to avoid having to notify Congressthat it was arming the rebels in Syria. Originally, the CIA and MI6 (the British foreign intelligence service) set up a rebel arms supply network in Syria from Libya — a plan that involved the Saudi, Qatari and Turkish intelligence services.

  In 2012, probably in spring, Obama reluctantly signed a top-secret executive order, of which little is known other than that it authorized the CIA to provide “non-lethal support” to the rebels in Syria. In concrete terms, then, what the CIA did was to link up its Qatari and Saudi allies with a number of arms manufacturers in the Balkans (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, etc.). With the backing of NATO, which controls arms exports from the Balkans via EUFOR, Qatari and Saudi secret services began buying up weapons and ammunition from these countries to illegally equip anti-Assad rebels.

  A few months later, in October 2012, the New York Times revealed that this vast CIA-sponsored arms trafficking was mainly going to support jihadist groups in Syria, while arms exports by air were growing, with weapons being injected into Syrian territory from “operation rooms” in Turkey and Jordan, through the FSA (“Free Syria Army”) and local arms traffickers.

  Finally, it turned out that these “operation rooms” were cobbled together by fifteen Western and Middle Eastern intelligence services, including the DGSE(French foreign intelligence service) and MI6, although the we do not yet know exactly what role these various agencies played in this secret war. What is clear — and what I demonstrate in my book with irrefutable evidence —is that tens of thousands of tons of weapons and millions of rounds of ammunition were brought into the Syrian theater of war by this operation. It is also proven that these armaments mostly went to equip jihadist groups, including the terrorist militia which proclaimed itself “Islamic State” in June 2014.

  Ultimately, Donald Trump decided to phase out this operation in early summer 2017. This was a major setback for the CIA, as the US President was thereby conceding the defeat of the United States and its partners in the war against Syria and its Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.

  * * *

  ER: What concrete evidence do you have to show that US intelligence services have provided support to jihadist militias in Syria?

  MC: The coordination role that the Agency signed off on in the fall of 2011 is now a proven fact, as we know that it was belatedly confirmed in June 2018 by Ben Rhodes, Obama’s chief adviser from 2009 to 2017. During the interview in question, Rhodes argued that the blacklisting of al-Nusra Front on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations in December 2012 was a “schizophrenic” move, since it was obvious that the jihadist militia was a “big chunk” of the anti-Assad opposition, as he put it in his own words. During that interview, journalist Mehdi Hasan not only elicited from him that the CIA had played a coordinating role in this vast arms trade, but also that US involvement in this shadow war had been much greater than we thought.

  According to the Washington Post, it was one of the CIA’s “largest covert operations” in its history. In January 2016, the New York Times confirmed this, noting that the CIA’s maneuvers to overthrow Assad were part of a multinational campaign involving billions of petrodollars from the Gulf states, mainly spent by Saudi Arabia.

  It must be understood that this secret war ushered in, between 2011 and 2017, close cooperation between Western secret services and their Turkish and Middle Eastern counterparts. Thus, many experts and journalists were making a mistake by analyzing the operations of the various Middle Eastern powers in isolation from those of the Western governments. On the contrary, as the former Qatari Prime Minister admitted in 2017, it was a joint and coordinated operation involving all of those intelligence services.

  Due to the record number of public and private funders backing this campaign, and the tens of thousands of anti-Assad mujaheddin who were directly or indirectly aided by the CIA and its allies, I believe this could be the most massive clandestine operation in the history of the Agency. However, I have not been able to determine that with certainty due to the secrecy of this shadow war, which prevents access to archives and severely limits the quantity of leaks to the press.

  The fact remains, however, that I was able to assemble in my book hundreds of undisputed sources which combine to corroborate my writing. In this book, internationally renowned researchers such as Joshua Landis and Christopher Davidsonsupport my arguments, which I developed after a long investigation that I launched in 2014. Once again, I invite your readers to consult the evidence cited in my book, as it is overwhelming. I would take this opportunity to point out that Bashar al-Assad and his allies have committed major abuses against Syrian civilians, and that my book is not intended to excuse what they are responsible for.

  Nevertheless, and to date, the Western media have focused mainly on the crimes of Assad and his supporters, while suppressing or downplaying the vast shadow war launched by the CIA and its partners in the fall of 2011.

  * * *

  ER: What role did France play in these jihadist militias in Syria? Did it unambiguously support members of the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda?

  MC: Operation Timber Sycamore is a clandestine operation, and such campaigns are not owned up to by those sponsoring them — at least, not typically. In this case, however, the operation has become one of such magnitude over time that Western powers have had to communicate something about it, albeit misleadingly. That is to say, succor to jihadist groups has long been described by Western government spokesmen as “non-lethal support” for so-called “moderate” rebels, yet the reality on the ground is that the “moderate rebel force” that is the Free Syria Army (FSA) has served as a pool of fighters, weapons and ammunition for the anti-Assad jihadist nebula, whose tacticians and militiamen were much more effective than the FSA itself.

  As I explain in my book, the FSA has been dependent on jihadist groups, first and foremost al-Nusra Front, and vice versa. Other factions of the FSA were completely put out of action by the jihadists, their arsenals being looted by the Islamist militias, including the Islamic Front in December 2013. At the very least, it is clear that the FSA as a disunited and complex bundle of anti-Assad armed groups was supported by Western powers as it fought shoulder to shoulder with jihadist groups, including with what later became Daesh, until the winter of 2013-2014.

  In January 2014, the first major fighting erupted between Daesh and other rebel groups, including al-Nusra Front. It must be emphasized that, until their split in April 2013, al-Nusra Front and the soon-to-be-called “Islamic State” formed a single entity. More specifically, the founder of al-Nusra was sent to Syria in August 2011 by the leader of the future Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to fight Assad’s troops.

  However, between 2012 and 2014, it is beyond question that al-Nusra was the driving force of the rebellion in Syria, its tacticians developing major operations that allowed the conquest of various territories by the “Islamic State”, such as Camp Yarmouk south of Damascus, Raqqa, or Deir ez-Zor. In summary, the combined operations of the FSA and al-Nusra enabled the nascent Daesh to then establish itself in many Syrian cities following the split between al-Nusra and the “Islamic State”.

  It should be noted that, through the FSA, al-Nusra had been enjoying CIA and MI6 support since early 2012, but it is unclear precisely when the French DGSE started becoming involved in this operation. According to François Hollande, the “moderate rebels” of the FSA were in receipt of French lethal support from the end of 2012, in violation of the EU arms embargo on Syria, which was only lifted in May 2013. That same year, Colonel Oqaidi, the commander of the FSA, said to camera that his relationship with Daesh was “good, and even brotherly”… And, as revealed during my investigation, Obama’s then ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, telephoned Colonel Oqaidi to condemn the FSA’s persistent collaboration with al-Nusra.

  At the time, and since at least the fall of 2012, the French intelligence services were alerting their government to the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist groups such as al-Nusra were the driving forces of the anti-Assad rebellion. Despite these alarming surges in theater, Paris, London and Washington resolved to persist in their support for the anti-Assad rebellion, secure in the assurances being given them by their allies in the Gulf that Assad would be toppled quickly and that these groups would not be a problem after the fall of the Syrian government. Both these predictions turned out to be wrong, and the most brutal jihadist group in the Levant struck France directly on November 13^th, 2015.

  * * *

  ER: To be clear: In your opinion, France abetted a clandestine operation by supporting entities that then organized attacks in France?

  MC: As I explain in my book, the French state and its key Western allies did not directly support Daesh, but they oversaw a system that massively fueled what I call the anti-Assad jihadist nebula, of which the haplessly-named “Islamic State” on Syrian territory was an outgrowth and a driving force. I do not think that the French state or its allies, in carrying out this operation, ever imagined that Daesh would end up attacking Paris on November 13^th, 2015.

  On the other hand, it is clear that our government and its British, American and Israeli allies were consciously arming jihadist groups. In France, some parliamentarians of the PS, LR and LS parties confirmed to me that the DGSE was involved in supporting groups that were not as “moderate” as they were being presented to us in the media. I would go even further, and this is one of the main arguments that I develop in my book: by arming and supporting the FSA in various ways, the Western powers encouraged the rise of what then became the “Islamic State”, which fought “hand in glove” with the FSA from the beginning of 2012 to the winter of 2013–2014. From the time of the break  between the FSA and Islamic State in January 2014 onward, the FSA and al-Nusra maintained a fusional relationship, both against the Assad forces and against Daesh.

  Yet in August 2014, François Hollande acknowledged that French support for the FSA was continuing. Was he unaware of the close ties between the FSA and al-Nusra? If so, such a level of misinformation at the top of the government would be alarming. Nevertheless, in view of the available evidence, it is more likely that French leaders under the Hollande presidency were fully aware of the fact that al-Nusra was inextricably linked to the FSA.

  Moreover, in a book that was never contested in litigation by the then French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot claimed that the head of our diplomacy knew full well that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were infiltrating into al-Nusra’s private funding networks “paid agents, professional trainers, known to DGSE officers”. Despite this, according to Chesnot and Malbrunot, Fabius was complaining that the Syrian state and its armed forces were not being “hit hard enough [and] not strongly enough”.

  ER: Speaking of Laurent Fabius, why does his name feature in the Lafarge affair? Is there any evidence that he endorsed a financial agreement between that French company and Daesh?

  MC: Given his active stance on the Syria dossier, it is inevitable that his name pops up in the Lafarge affair. What’s more, there are even acronyms in it familiar to the French: DGSI (the Directorate General for Internal Security), DRM (French Military Intelligence Directorate), DGSE, and so on.

  Let’s be clear: the Jalabiya cement factory, constructed by Lafarge in 2010, was transformed during the war into a “bridgehead” for the French intelligence services: that is to say, for the Élysée [President’s office], the Quai d’Orsay [French Foreign Ministry] and all the other ministries concerned. Indeed, as journalist Guillaume Dasquié has proved, “the documents in the case, the testimonies of the few insiders and the documents to which the JDD [the Journal du Dimanche Sunday paper] had access reconstruct a different story [than that put forward by the French authorities.] […] This directly implicates the command in charge of counter-terrorism, the DGSI, the Quai d’Orsay, and the external intelligence services of the DGSE. It spells out for us an improbable war-zone game of chess between industrialists, spies and diplomats, with everyone taking advantage of the presence of the others to advance his pawns, at a time when the Islamic State had not yet committed an attack on French soil.”

  Nearly half of European jihadists in Syria, Iraq are French: report http://t.co/lzNf84VkCn pic.twitter.com/FKJP0D2c9l

  — FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) April 8, 2015

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  Laurent Fabius said in front of the investigative magistrates that he had not been aware of Lafarge’s actions in paying out cash to various local jihadist groups, including the ineptly-named “Islamic State” — an explanation that failed to convince some experts on the issue, including Georges Malbrunot. This is all the more eyebrow-raising since it has now become apparent that the French Military Intelligence Directorate was monitoring transactions between Lafarge and the various armed groups in the field.

  So I return to my previous explanation: a clandestine operation is mounted in such a way that its sponsors have deniability of all knowledge of, as well as their role in, any maneuver of this type. It is now clear that the DGSE has been involved since at least 2012 in supporting the nebula of armed groups opposing Bashar al-Assad.

  As we also know, Laurent Fabius was the most active of Hollande’s ministers on the Syria dossier, acting in the interests of a fickle “Sunni diplomacy” that put our trade relations with Saudi Arabia first — the main state funder of Timber Sycamore. Consequently, it is impossible that the Quai d’Orsay could have been unaware of Lafarge’s actions in Syria, which were part of several intelligence or destabilization operations carried out by the French secret services in that country. Renowned researcher Fabrice Balanche is of the same opinion on this as Guillaume Dasquié or Georges Malbrunot.

  * * *

  ER: On account of what interests might Laurent Fabius have allowed the DGSE to support islamists? Was he acting on behalf of the Saudis, as this same Georges Malbrunot and his co-author Christian Chesnot suggest in their book, Nos très chers émirs [Our Dearest Emirs]?

  MC: First of all, it should be pointed out that the French President is supposed to be the one who sponsors, as a last resort, a clandestine operation. However, he enjoys legal impunity in the exercise of his mandate, which is not the case for any of his ministers.

  During the Hollande presidency, we witnessed a blatant tendency for the French state to support and protect its Gulf allies. This policy materialized not only in Fabius’ hard line against Iran in the nuclear deal negotiations, but also, and much more seriously, in the shifty operations that aimed to shore up the disastrous interventions of the Saudis and their partners in Yemen and in Syria. This approach favorable to the Saudi monarchy was maintained under the Macron presidency, yet with a pro-Qatar instinct which became evident in the aftermath of the Gulf crisis that has set that emirate against Riyadh and Abu Dhabi since 2017.

  But until then, Saudi Arabia was expressly supported by the French state, owing to the economic and strategic interdependencies that are at stake between Paris and Riyadh. Consequently, and in the interests of this notorious “Sunni diplomacy”, the French state has not only turned a blind eye to the suspicious deeds of Saudi Arabia in Syria and Yemen; it has directly supported Saudi campaigns, in the most discreet way possible.

  These maneuvers have led to a literally schizophrenic political stance, whereby in fact the French state trumpets its operations against terrorism whenever it can, but further down at the level of the directorate and the intelligence services, strategies that have the specific effect of bolstering jihadist groups are being illegally imposed on some countries, such as Syria, Yemen or Libya.

  In the case of that latter Libyan operation, an anonymous DGSE officer revealed to our colleagues at Canal+ TV station that he had been ordered, in February 2011, to destabilize Benghazi in coordination with the Qatari intelligence services, notorious supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, who at that time were dominating the Libyan jihadist nebula.

  According to the reporter François de Labarre, this policy was then challenged by the French Ministry of Defense under Jean-Yves Le Drian, who used the DGSE to support General Haftar against Islamist armed groups. However, it is difficult to explain why the Quai d’Orsay [French Foreign Ministry] continued to support Abdelhakim Belhadj, one of the founders of al-Qaeda in Libya, who was appointed military commander of Tripoli in August 2011.

  It should be noted that Belhadj is Qatar’s man in Libya, and that he is one of the most influential figures of the Muslim Brotherhood in that country. According to François de Labarre, President Hollande was unable to decide between the Defense Ministry’s pro-Haftar line and the pro-Belhadj policy — that is, pro-Qatar and pro-Muslim Brotherhood — which the Quai d’Orsay was adhering to. One is left wondering, therefore, whether François Hollande was able to arbitrate France’s foreign policy. In any case, one can be worried about the schizophrenia that this implies. Indeed, this can lead to operations against jihadist groups initially backed by our intelligence services and their allies – operations that are deadly in effect upon civilians.

  In October 2018, Paris Match magazine co-editor Régis Le Sommier interviewed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On that occasion, Lavrov revealed a shocking conversation between Laurent Fabius and himself: “Some time after the bombings of Libya, Laurent Fabius, [then] Minister of Foreign Affairs, had called me. According to [the Malian capital] Bamako, mujaheddin from northern Mali were nearing the French contingent’s positions. France intended to stop them by gaining the approval of the Security Council, and I was in favor. I told Laurent Fabius: ‘You surely understand that you are now going to face the same guys you armed in Libya.’ He chuckled and said to me, ‘C’est la vie’.” Lavrov’s comments were not denied by Laurent Fabius, so this type of flippancy in the face of the consequences of French foreign policy towards terrorist groups — and thus of the populations they threaten — is alarming.

  The same is true of the Syrian dossier, which led our leaders to support for nearly five years a Free Syrian Army of which they could not ignore its close ties with al-Nusra since 2012, including when that Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and the ineptly-named “Islamic State” were a single entity.

  ER: Should an investigation into this be opened by the counter-terrorist section of the Paris prosecutor’s office?

  MC: Initially, I became interested in France’s clandestine actions in Syria in the spring of 2014. At the time, parliamentarian and former counter-terrorist judge Alain Marsaud was claiming in the media that our government had previously supported and infiltrated the al-Nusra Front.

  The following year, he revealed to me that the president-supporting majority under François Hollande had refused any parliamentary inquiry on this issue so as not to “uncover such collaboration with a terrorist group”, to quote his remarks. It should be noted again that several parliamentarians, including Claude Goasguen (LR party), Jacques Myard (LR) and Gérard Bapt (PS party), have leveled similar accusations at the French government. On LCP [French parliamentary TV], Mr. Goasguen declared in June 2015 that the French state was helping “al-Qaeda in Syria”, then the following year Gérard Bapt confirmed me the “clandestine support by the French state of the various islamist movements in Syria, in view of the porosity and proximity of these allied groups in the field”. He added that “French support for rebels in Syria, and more generally Western support for them, continued even after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and [the French Jewish supermarket]Hyper Cacher, though these were claimed by al-Qaeda”.

  I must say that this explanation by Gérard Bapt seems to me the most accurate: according to him, the French state has supported militias evolving within a nebula of armed groups which was in constant flux, but which indisputably had al-Nusra Front among its driving forces — as Obama’s close adviser Ben Rhodes himself acknowledged.

  Let’s not forget, either, that Claude Goasguen had frequently warned the French state on LCP against this policy of support for anti-Assad factions. Put simply, it is a safe bet that our government will oppose by all means the opening of parliamentary and judicial investigations around the clandestine actions of the French state in Syria.

  But we are looking here at a case obviously much graver than the botched DGSE operation against the Rainbow Warrior, during François Mitterrand’s first term. Let us be clear: if several of our parliamentarians have publicly risen to declaim French state support of al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, it is inconceivable that they did so without having specific information to back their accusations — which were never officially denied by the government.

  As taxpayers and as citizens, we should be refusing to accept that our authorities can carry out such dangerous and misguided policies on our behalf and with our tax money, but without our consent — and without our even being aware of it at the outset.

  Therefore, and as I explain in my book, several legal and factual arguments could justify at least the setting-up of a parliamentary committee of inquiry, though it seems unlikely to me that investigative magistrates will ever want to launch investigations into such a sensitive subject. Indeed, this clandestine operation is part of the state privilege and conduct of France’s foreign policy — an area in which the Executive has powers so exorbitant that it is able to support Islamist groups abroad that are officially considered enemies within our own borders.

  Authors’s note: if you think this interview was interesting, you can support GlobalGeoNews.com by clicking here.

  

• Mapping The Countries With The Most Oil Reserves

  There’s little doubt that renewable energy sources will play a strategic role in powering the global economy of the future.

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, for now, crude oil is still the undisputed heavyweight champion of the energy world.

  In 2018, we consumed more oil than any prior year in history – about 99.3 million barrels per day on a global basis. This number is projected to rise again in 2019 to 100.8 million barrels per day.

  The Most Oil Reserves by Country

  Given that oil will continue to be dominant in the energy mix for the short and medium term, which countries hold the most oil reserves?

  Today’s map comes from HowMuch.net and it uses data from the CIA World Factbook to resize countries based on the amount of oil reserves they hold.

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  Here’s the data for the top 15 countries below:

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  Venezuela tops the list with 300.9 billion barrels of oil in reserve – but even this vast wealth in natural resources has not been enough to save the country from its recent economic and humanitarian crisis.

  Saudi Arabia, a country known for its oil dominance, takes the #2 spot with 266.5 billion barrels of oil. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are found at the #3 (169.7 billion bbls) and the #11 (36.5 billion bbls) spots respectively.

  The Cost of Production

  While having an endowment of billions of barrels of oil within your borders can be a strategic gift from mother nature, it’s worth mentioning that reserves are just one factor in assessing the potential value of this crucial resource.

  In Saudi Arabia, for example, the production cost of oil is roughly $3.00 per barrel, which makes black gold strategic to produce at almost any possible price.

  Other countries are not so lucky:

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  *Total cost (bbl) includes production cost (also shown), capital spending, gross taxes, and admin/transport costs.

  Even if a country is blessed with some of the most oil reserves in the world, it may not be able to produce and sell that oil to maximize the potential benefit.

  Countries like Canada and Venezuela are hindered by geology – in these places, the majority of oil is extra heavy crude or bitumen (oil sands), and these types of oil are simply more difficult and costly to extract.

  In other places, obstacles are are self-imposed. In some countries, like Brazil and the U.S., there are higher taxes on oil production, which raises the total cost per barrel.

  

• The Trump Administration's Iran Policy Will Hasten Imperial Decline

  Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

  There was a postwar order, but was it liberal?  Like most political orders, it looked much better on paper than it did in practice and to the core members of the order than those on the margins…

  Liberal values were only remotely attached to the postwar institutions.  Sovereign equality did not translate into a liberal world order.  The postwar institutions were run by the most powerful countries, with middle and lesser powers either shunted to the back of the room or locked out altogether…Third World now comprised most of the world’s states, but it was on the outside looking in.  Western states enjoyed democracy and the rule of law, but the U.S. and the former colonial masters undermined rather than supported democracy and human rights elsewhere. Some Western states and analysts presumed that the global order must have some legitimacy because there were no great (or at least successful) revolts by the Third World, but they mistook coercion and the lack of alternative for consent…

  The suggestion, then, is that if the international order is having greater difficulty creating rule-based governance, it might have less to do with the weakening of liberalism and more to do with the fact that the rules that have been in place for decades were overdue for an overhaul, and especially given a shift in power from the West to the East.  

  – From Michael N. Barnett’s piece: The End of a Liberal International Order That Never Existed

  A primary focus of my writing of late centers around the idea that the policies of the Trump administration, and the neocons in control of it, will hasten the decline of U.S. imperial power and more rapidly usher in a multi-polar (and possibly bifurcated) world. Today’s news regarding the elimination of waivers on Iranian oil imports provides another perfect example.

  Specifically, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced earlier today that waivers which allowed eight countries to import Iranian crude oil without being subject to U.S. sanctions would expire on May 2 without extension. The eight countries included are China, India, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Greece, Italy and Taiwan.

  This move is an extraordinarily foolish and reckless act which illustrates the extreme hubris and short-sightedness of those running American foreign policy under Trump. What the U.S. is decreeing to the entire world with this action is that the U.S., and the U.S. alone, decides who gets to trade with who. The U.S. is telling China, the second largest economy in the world and home to over one billion people, that it lacks the sovereign authority to buy oil from Iran if it so desires. If the U.S. can unilaterally play boss on the trade decisions of foreign countries, national sovereignty does not exist in practice anywhere on the planet. There is only empire.

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  As such, this goes beyond aggressive foreign policy. It’s more or less an assertion by the Trump administration that the world is in fact a global dictatorship run by a single nation (empire) that has granted itself the authority to arbitrarily decide which countries get to participate in global trade, and which ones do not. Now that the true nature of U.S. power is so completely out in the open, countries will have to decide to either bend the knee or resist, which seems to be the point. What do you think China’s going to do?

  One thing people seem to miss when making geopolitical observations is an analysis of the role played by internal politics. It’s not all about military or economic might, popular opinion on the ground and the domestic internal mood also matter when it comes to foreign policy success or failure. It’s from this perspective that China appears to hold a better hand than the U.S.

  Political power is largely about perception and narrative control, which is why the U.S. move here is so fundamentally irresponsible. Chinese leadership can play the victim game and sell their perspective easily to the public. Look at rising oil prices they’ll say, noting that this is the result of the Americans not allowing anyone to buy oil from Iran. Why shouldn’t the great nation of China be able to buy oil from whomever they want, they’ll say.

  The U.S. will look like a global bully meddling in the affairs of a sovereign nation, and this narrative will resonate with the population there. China’s leadership can call this an unprovoked attack on the Chinese people and their national sovereignty. China will not bend the knee to the U.S. for many reasons, but an overlooked factor relates to the fact that the public would not find such subjugation acceptable. If public opinion didn’t matter, governments wouldn’t spend so much time propagandizing and actively keeping their citizens uninformed.

  The U.S. finds itself in the exact opposite scenario. While compulsive liars like Pompeo can endlessly repeat nonsense such as “Iran is the number one state-sponsor of terrorism,” nobody but the most brainwashed Trump diehards actually believe this. As such, the masses of people here in the U.S. won’t get riled up and excited about another pointless Middle East conflict, particularly as oil prices continue to march higher. Unlike China, U.S. leadership can’t reasonably expect to convince the American public the Trump administration is simply playing defense with its aggressive action against Iran. It’s crystal clear the move is nothing more than a power-play designed to consolidate, and possibly even expand, American imperial dominance. Importantly, wars for empire are not particularly popular domestically, and getting less so with each passing day.

  Lots of Americans are sick of wars, which is why every recent president (including Trump) pretends to be against them in order to win. https://t.co/Y8KH48neCS

  — Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) April 17, 2019

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  What I’m trying to say is Chinese leadership can expect to have the public on its side if it decides to resist U.S. diktats on who it can purchase oil from. China standing up for its right to buy oil from any country it desires is an easily defensible position, representing the only position any truly sovereign state can have. On the other hand, a single country unilaterally deciding trade for everyone else on earth is not a defensible or reasonable position. As mentioned earlier, it’s not just about military and economic might, geopolitics is also impacted by the internal dynamics of various populations, and on this front the U.S. is positioned poorly.

  The American public has become increasingly sick of wars and empire for simple economic and societal reasons, if not for ethical ones. People can look around and see their towns and infrastructure crumbling as trillions are spent overseas. Empire isn’t good for the average American citizen in the long-run, it merely provides lucrative money-making opportunities for our depraved elites. People are finally starting to pick up on this. While national defense is of the utmost importance, national offense is evil, stupid and wasteful.

  Once again, from Michael Barnett’s piece, The End of a Liberal International Order That Never Existed:

  The West has lived with the myth of a liberal international order for many decades.  Myths are powerful and hard to surrender because they serve important functions.  They helped the West maintain a solidarity and sense of purpose.  They acted as an ideology and helped the powerful feel as if might makes right.  It is not clear that those outside the Western club ever bought into the myth, but they had little success posing a viable alternative. 

  U.S. elites appear more focused than ever on imperial ambitions at the exact moment the general population tires of it. This isn’t a recipe for success, it’s a roadmap to collapse.

  *  *  *

  Liberty Blitzkrieg is now 100% ad free. As such, there’s no monetization for this site other than reader support. To make this a successful, sustainable thing I ask you to consider the following options. You can become a Patron. You can visit the Support Page to donate via PayPal, Bitcoin or send cash/check in the mail.

  

• Leader Of Border Militia Boasted Of Plans To Assassinate Obama, Clinton, Soros: FBI

  The leader of the militia group which we profiled over the weekend for its detention of migrant families at the US border, was arrested and charged of plotting the assassination of former President Barack Obama, George Soros and various other key Democratic Party figures, the FBI said in court papers.

  While militia leader Larry Hopkins, 69, was arrested on Saturday for a weapons charge said to be unrelated to his activities on the border, the FBI now claims Hopkins bragged about his fellow militia members “training to assassinate” former President Barack Obama, Trump’s nemesis in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party’s most generous billionaire donor, George Soros.

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  To be sure, Hopkins had been a busy man – if what the Feds say is to be believed (which these days is a stretch) – for a long time, and before the F.B.I. arrested the militia leader, he’d had so many run-ins with the law that his police record stretched across much of the United States. Oregon police arrested him in 2006 on charges of impersonating a police officer and a felony weapons offense. They had found him showing guns to teenagers in a gas-station parking lot while wearing a police-style uniform and a badge emblazoned with the words “Special Agent” according to the NYT.

  “Hopkins stated that he worked for the federal government directly under George Bush,” Officer Jack Daniel of the sheriff’s office in Klamath County, Ore., wrote in his report. Hopkins, the report said, claimed variously to be investigating a meth lab, hunting fugitives and undertaking unspecified “operations” in Afghanistan.

  Over a decade later, Hopkins finally came under the scrutiny of federal authorities in 2017, after the FBI received reports that his group was “training” to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, according to documents unsealed Monday in federal court.

  Hopkins appeared in Federal District Court on Monday after his arrest over the weekend on yet another charge, this time of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition.

  Hopkins’ group, the United Constitutional Patriots profiled here, claims to have helped the US Border Patrol to detain over 5,600 immigrants in the previous two months. The ACLU has condemned the group as a “fascist militia” and called its members vigilantes. In photos showcasing its actions, the group shows men in camouflage circling and detaining hundreds of migrants in the desert near Sunland Park, N.M., and then handing the migrants over to Border Patrol.

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  The heavily armed militia’s actions have ignited debate over whether its members broke kidnapping laws and effectively acted as a paramilitary force supporting the Border Patrol. Militia members argue that they were assisting the authorities to patrol remote areas of the border and carrying out “verbal citizen’s arrests.”

  “We cannot allow racist and armed vigilantes to kidnap and detain people seeking asylum,” the ACLU said in a letter to New Mexico Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Hector Balderas.

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  Hopkins’ attorney, Kelly O’Connell, said the militia group leader planned to plead not guilty.  The militia’s spokesman told local media that he’s “confident” Hopkins will “get through this.” He also claimed that the New Mexico, Hector Balderas, “has declared war on American citizens at the order of the ACLU” by pushing to prevent private citizens “from assisting and documenting a crisis on the border.”

  In an affidavit, FBI special agent David S. Gabriel, said the bureau was made aware of the activities of Hopkins after receiving reports in October 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico. Gabriel said that the following month, two F.B.I. agents went to a trailer park in Flora Vista, N.M., where Hopkins was living at the time. With Mr. Hopkins’s consent, the agents entered the home and saw about 10 firearms in plain view, in what Mr. Hopkins referred to as his office.

  Hopkins, who has also used the name Johnny Horton Jr., told the agents that the guns belonged to Fay Sanders Murphy, whom he described to agents as his common-law wife, according to the affidavit. The agents collected at least nine firearms from the home as evidence, including a 12-gauge shotgun and various handguns.

  According to the NYT, the court affidavit gave few details about the report the F.B.I. received stating that the United Constitutional Patriots “were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa.”

  Hopkins’s lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, disputed the reports about assassination plans. “My client told me that is not true,” Mr. O’Connell said. He also questioned the timing of the arrest. “My question is, why now?” O’Connell said. He suggested that pressure from prominent Democrats in New Mexico may have prompted the F.B.I. to take action.

  

• Paul Craig Roberts Warns The Orchestration Of Russophobia Is The Prelude To War

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  Russiagate has three purposes.

  • One is to prevent President Trump from endangering the vast budget and power of the military/security complex by normalizing relations with Russia.

  • Another, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, is “to conceal the criminal conduct of US government officials meddling in the 2016 election in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign,” by focusing all public and political attention on a hoax distraction.

  • The third is to obstruct Trump’s campaign and distract him from his agenda when he won the election.

  Despite the inability of Mueller to find any evidence that Trump or Trump officials colluded with Russia to steal the US presidential election, and the inability of Mueller to find evidence with which to accuse Trump of obstruction of justice, Russiagate has achieved all of its purposes.

  Trump has been locked into a hostile relationship with Russia. Neoconservatives have succeeded in worsening this hostile relationship by manipulating Trump into a blatant criminal attempt to overthrow in broad daylight the Venezuelan government.

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  The Russian Embassy in Washington has prepared an accurate 121-page report in response to Mueller’s report: THE RUSSIAGATE HYSTERIA: A CASE OF SEVERE RUSSOPHOBIA.

  Everyone should read this report. It documents the fake news, lies, violations of diplomatic standards and international law, and gratuitous aggressive actions taken against Russia during the period beginning May 18, 2016 and continuing through the issuance of the Mueller Report.

  Without explicitly saying so, the report shows that neither the US government nor the American media has a nanoparticle of integrity. Both are criminal organizations that are willing to risk war with Russia in their pursuit of narrow policitized agendas.

  This is important information for Americans and the rest of the world to have. Every person, every government and every private organization that supports Washington’s Russophobic policies is contributing to the growing threat of nuclear war.

  One hopes also that the entirety of the Russian government, media, and population also read the report as it has equally powerful messages for Russia. The messages are no doubt unintended, but they nevertheless emerge from the embassy’s report.

  The Russian government should marvel at its naivete in trusting Washington, US institutions such as Citibank, and US adherence to international law. For 121 pages the report lists transgression against Russia followed by transgression and lie followed by lie; yet the Russian government continued to send diplomatic notes that are never answered, requests for meetings that are never answered, requests for evidence that are never answered. One would think that month after month of abuse would have caused the Russian government to wonder where was the intelligence, “cooperative spirit,” reason, and “common interest in global security” that Russia’s responses to Washington assumed were present in Russia’s “partner.”

  The Russian government’s naive and gullible response to Washington played into Washington’s hands. By responding to Washington’s orchestrated Russophobia as if it were some kind of mistake based on bad information, the Russian government allowed Washington to keep the process of demonization alive and thereby contributed to the ongoing demonization of Russia. If, instead, the Russian government had denounced the demonization of Russia as Washington’s act of preparing Americans for war with Russia and had taken a belligerant rather than a complaining stance, the realization that Washington’s policy had serious cost would have spread throughout the US and Europe and voices would have arisen against Washington’s dangerous and reckless policy. Today in place of the uniformity of voice against Russia, there would be dissent opposing Washington’s irresponsible provocations.

  The danger of Russian self-delusion is not over. The embassy’s report expresses the hope that now that the Mueller report has concluded that the much heralded collusion has no basis in fact, relations between Washington and Russia can be normalized and cooperation achieved.

  There is no such possibility. The Democrats are screaming “coverup” and demanding the resignation of attorney general Barr and Trump’s impeachment. The presstitutes are claiming that the Mueller report vindicates their reporting. Trump continues to use US foreign policy to commit criminal acts. He has declared that the president of Venezuela is the person he picked, not the one Venezuelans elected. He has given to Israel part of Syria as if Syrian territory is his to give. He threatens Iran with war as Israel requires. In other words, American arrogance rises to ever higher heights.

  At some point the Russian government and Russian people are going to have to accept the fact that to reach an understanding with Washington Russia must either surrender her sovereignty or become as belligerent as Washington and replace Russia’s useless refutations of Washington’s accusations with accusations of her own. Otherwise, Washington is going to keep pushing until war is the only possible outcome.

  

• Don't Tell Bernie: Medicare's Hospital Fund Will Run Out Of Money In Seven Years

  Ever now and then we get a vivid reminder that America’s biggest threat are not a handful of Facebook ads bought by the KGB, nor Iran’s already brittle regime, nor Venezuela’s hyperinflating basket case of an economy, but over $100 trillion in unfunded future liabilities. Today was one such day, because that’s when the board of trustees for Social Security and Medicare reported that Medicare’s hospital insurance fund – also known as Medicare Part A – will be depleted in 2026, while Social Security program costs would exceed total income in 2020, for the first time since 1982.

  Additionally, and in line with previous forecasts, the report also projected that Social Security funds could be fully depleted by 2035, leading to a devastating hit on expected payouts to retirees and other beneficiaries (read none), unless a comprehensive overhaul of the entire program is implemented in the coming years.

  As a reminder, the Medicare trust fund comprises two separate funds: The hospital insurance trust fund is financed mainly through payroll taxes on earnings and income taxes on Social Security benefits. The Supplemental Medical Insurance trust fund is financed by general tax revenue and the premiums enrollees pay.

  With uncertainty around possible cost-cutting solutions already weighing on healthcare stocks this year, US healthcare costs are expected to be a hot topic during the 2020 presidential campaign; most provocative of all is Bernie Sanders’ proposal of “Medicare-for-All” – a plan that would eliminate private insurance and shift all Americans to a public healthcare plan.

  It now appears, that Bernie’s socialist healthcare vision is at best a pipe dream that will last about 6 more years, in line with Republicans’ complains that the Vermont socialist’s proposal is impractical and too expensive.

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  “At a time when some are calling for a complete government takeover of the American health car system, the Medicare Trustees have delivered a dose of reality in reminding us that the program’s main trust fund for hospital services can only pay full benefits for seven more years,” Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said.

  Here’s the reason: as the number of Medicare beneficiaries increases from about 58.4 million in 2017 to nearly 80 million by 2030, the number of workers per beneficiary will decline from 3.1 to 2.4. The cost of health care has increased rapidly as well putting further pressure on program costs. HI trust expenditures exceeded taxes for several years up to 2016, and though these outflows and inflows will roughly stabilize for a few years, the fund is projected to be exhausted by 2027. These pressures now and in the future will force lawmakers to find ways to finance promised benefits or cut services or provider payment rates.

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  Separately, the report said costs associated with the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) trust fund, which covers drug costs in Part B and D in the program for seniors, are likely to grow steadily from 2.1% of gross domestic product in 2018 to about 3.7% of GDP in 2038, given the aging U.S. population and rising costs.

  There was a sliver of good news, and one may have to thank Trump for it: cost projections for Part D drug spending, which covers pharmacy prescription medicines, are actually lower than in last year’s report because of slower price growth and a trend of increasing manufacturer rebates, CMS said.

  Some more good news: unlike Medicare Part A, the trustees projected that the SMI fund for Part B and Part D will remain adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law provides financing from general revenues and beneficiary premiums each year to meet the next year’s expected costs.

  Finally, in an unexpected twist, the trustees predicted that the Social Security program’s will extend for one more year than projected last year. Which means that instead of being exhausted in 2034, Social Security funding will hit zero in 2035, or as the LA Times put it, “the trust funds’ exhaustion last year was 16 years away; this year it’s still 16 years away.”

  That said, the costs of running Social Security will exceed the revenue next year; in 2018 income of $1.003 trillion only barely exceeded the costs of $1 trillion. The program received $885 million from the payroll tax, $83 million in interest and $35 million from taxing benefits, while it spent $988.6 million on benefit payments, $6.7 million on administrative expenses and $4.9 million on railroad retirement expenses.

  Costs haven’t exceeded revenues since 1982, but are projected to do so in 2020. After that, costs will then remain higher throughout the 75-year projection period, according to the forecast.The rising costs are a sign of America’s increasing aging population.

  Finally, for those eager to save Social Security it could be donw… it will just cost an additional 2.7% from every paycheck. Specifically, the cost of making Social Security fully solvent would require an immediate increase in the payroll tax of nearly 2.7% points, bringing the tax to 15.1% (shared by employers and employees), up from the current 12.4%. Whether or not any Americans will be thrilled with having nearly 3% of each and every paycheck be paid down to fund healthcare for others is a different matter entirely.

  

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• Air Force Deploys Stealth Fighters To Middle East For First Time 

  Amid the threats of war with Iran, the U.S. Air Force has forward deployed Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets to the Middle East, reported Air Force Times. 

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  Air Force Central Command (AFCENT) announced last week that F-35s from the 388th and 419th Fighter Wings at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, have arrived at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates to continue air superiority missions across the region.

  It’s the first time Air Force F-35s have been sent to the Middle East.

  “We are adding a cutting-edge weapons system to our arsenal that significantly enhances the capability of the coalition,” Lt. Gen. Joseph T. Guastella, commander of AFCENT, said in the release. “The sensor fusion and survivability this aircraft provides to the joint force will enhance security and stability across the theater and deter aggressors.”

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  “The F-35A provides our nation air dominance in any threat,” added Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein. “When it comes to having a ‘quarterback’ for the coalition joint force, the interoperable F-35A is clearly the aircraft for the leadership role.”

  The F-35’s deployment comes one month after Rockwell B-1 Lancer bombers completed their deployment at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which left an operational gap of planes in the Middle East. The F-35s will support regional allies in airstrikes against the Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan.

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  The F-35 is expected to replace aging airframes such as the F-15, F-16, and A-10. The stealth jet’s advanced sensor package is designed to integrate and share data with other assets on the modern battlefield.

  “The F-35A provides our nation air dominance in any threat,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein said in the release. “When it comes to having a quarterback for the coalition joint force, the inter-operable F-35A is clearly the aircraft for the leadership role.”

  AFCENT spokeswoman Maj. Holly Brauer told the Air Force Times that upcoming missions would be on behalf of Operation Inherent Resolve.

  “During their deployment, the Airmen will fly operational and other missions as assigned,” she said. “Consistent with operations security, we will not discuss employment details in advance. The F-35A and their crews will bring the advanced capabilities to the CENTCOM commander’s wide range of options.”

  The deployment comes as the Trump administration formally designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. Thus setting the stage for potential escalation with Iran.

  

• Spain: Does The Term 'Islamist' Constitute Hate Speech?

  Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  Vox, a fast-rising Spanish populist party, describes itself as is a socially conservative political project aimed at defending traditional Spanish values from the challenges posed by mass migration, multiculturalism and globalism. Vox’s foundational mission statement affirms that the party is dedicated to constitutional democracy, free-market capitalism and the rule of law.

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  Pictured: Santiago Abascal, President of Vox, arrives at a party rally in Granada, Spain on April 17, 2019. (Image source: David Ramos/Getty Images)

  Spanish prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation to determine whether the secretary general of Vox, a fast-rising Spanish populist party, is guilty of hate speech for warning of an “Islamist invasion.”

  The criminal inquiry, based on a complaint from a Muslim activist group, appears aimed at silencing critical discussion of Islam ahead of national elections on April 28. More broadly, however, the case poses a potentially immeasurable threat to the exercise of free speech in Spain.

  Prosecutors in Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain, said that they were investigating Javier Ortega Smith, the second-ranking leader of Vox, for an alleged hate crime after they received a complaint from a Muslim group called “Muslims Against Islamophobia” (Musulmanes Contra la Islamofobia).

  At a rally in Valencia on September 16, 2018, Ortega Smith declared that Europe’s “common enemy” is the “Islamist invasion”:

  “Spain is facing threats from internal and external enemies. The internal enemies are perfectly identifiable: the [Catalan] separatists, the friends of [Basque] terrorists, those who want to tear our nation apart….

  “The external enemies want to tell us how to run our country…. Angela Merkel and her fellow travelers, George Soros, the immigration mafias, believe that they can tell us who can and cannot enter our country. They demand that our boats pluck so-called castaways out of the sea, transfer them to our ports and shower them with money. Who do they think we are? We say enough is enough….

  “We will unite our voice with those of millions of Europeans who also are standing up. Those voices are saying, long live Germany, long live Switzerland, long live France, long live Great Britain. These Europeans understand the need to respect national sovereignty and national identity. They have no intention of being diluted into the magma of European multiculturalism.

  “Together we will be stronger against the common enemy that has a very clear name. I will not stop saying it. Our common enemy, the enemy of Europe, the enemy of freedom, the enemy of progress, the enemy of democracy, the enemy of the family, the enemy of life, the enemy of the future is called the Islamist invasion.

  “What is at stake is what we understand or know as civilization. It is under serious threat. We are not alone. More and more Europeans are standing up because they are suffering in their cities, on their streets and in their neighborhoods due to the application of Sharia law. They are not willing to have their cathedrals torn down and forcibly replaced with mosques.

  “They are not willing to have their women cover their faces with a black cloth and be forced to walk ten steps behind — to be treated worse than camels. They are not willing to extinguish what we understand as civilization and a respect for rights and freedom.”

  The founder of Muslims Against Islamophobia, Ibrahim Miguel Ángel Pérez, saidthat Ortega Smith’s comments are “completely untrue and undermine social peace and coexistence” by “encouraging the creation of an atmosphere of fear and rejection towards Muslim communities.” Pérez, a Spanish convert to Islam, added:

  “We believe that the content of the video, which is circulating on the Internet, is highly alarmist and could threaten coexistence and social peace, which is why we have decided to act, to determine if the content could be constitutive of an alleged hate crime.”

  Prosecutors must now determine whether Ortega Smith is guilty of a hate crime as described in Article 510.1 of the Criminal Code, which establishes prison sentences of between one to four years for those found guilty of “publicly fomenting, promoting or inciting, directly or indirectly, hate, hostility, discrimination or violence against a group […] for racist, anti-Semitic or other motives associated with ideology, religion or beliefs.”

  Ortega Smith said that he would be “delighted” to explain to prosecutors what the “Islamist invasion” means, namely “the attempt to end freedoms, to end respect for family, life, women and democracy.” If the prosecutor determines that there is some alleged crime, “there will be no problem to explain that Europe and Spain are facing an attempted Islamist invasion because of the Europeans themselves and their erroneous policies regarding national borders and their control,” he added.

  Vox, founded in December 2013 in response to the degeneration of Spanish conservatism, has been soaring in the polls — in large measure because it is filling a political vacuum created by the center-right Popular Party (PP), which in recent years has drifted leftward and is viewed by many Spanish voters as having abandoned its role as standard bearer of conservative values.

  Often derided by Spain’s political and media establishment as a “far right” party, Vox does not fit the traditional left-right paradigm. During regional elections in Andalusia in December 2018, for instance, Vox was catapulted into the Andalusian Parliament by voters from across the political spectrum: 45% of those who voted for Vox in 2018 backed the PP in 2015; another 15% of Vox voters previously supported the centrist party Citizens (Ciudadanos); and a whopping 15% of Vox voters previously opted for center-left and far-left parties.

  Vox (based on the Latin word for voice) describes itself as is a socially conservative political project aimed at defending traditional Spanish values from the challenges posed by mass migration, multiculturalism and globalism. Vox’s foundational mission statement affirms that the party is dedicated to constitutional democracy, free-market capitalism and the rule of law. In foreign policy, Vox is pro-Israel, pro-American and pro-NATO. Party leaders have called for Spain to double its defense spending to meet its commitments to the transatlantic alliance. In domestic policy, Vox’s stated priority is to enact constitutional reforms aimed at preventing the territorial disintegration of Spain from threats by Basque nationalism and Catalan separatism.

  Vox’s growing appeal also rests on the fact that it is the only political party in Spain to fundamentally eschew political correctness. Vox leaders speak with a frankness and clarity of conviction long unheard of in multicultural Spain.

  “We are neither a fascist party, nor the extreme right, nor do we eat children, nor are we totalitarians,” Ortega Smith recently said in an interview with the Espejo Público television program.

  “We are the only party that is defending the constitution and democracy [against Catalan separatists].”

  Vox could be described as “civilizationist,” a term coined by historian Daniel Pipes to describe parties that “cherish Europe’s and the West’s traditional culture and want to defend it from assault by immigrants aided by the left.” In an essay titled, “Europe’s Civilizationist Parties,” Pipes wrote:

  “Civilizationalist parties are populist, anti-immigration, and anti-Islamization. Populist means nursing grievances against the system and a suspicion of an elite that ignores or denigrates those concerns….

  “Civilizationist parties, led by Italy’s League, are anti-immigration, seeking to control, reduce, and even reverse the immigration of recent decades, especially that of Muslims and Africans. These two groups stand out not because of prejudice (‘Islamophobia’ or racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear that they will impose their ways on Europe.

  “Finally, the parties are anti-Islamization. As Europeans learn about Islamic law (the Shari’a), they increasingly focus on its role concerning women’s issues, such as niqabs and burqas, polygamy, taharrush (sexual assault), honor killings, and female genital mutilation. Other concerns deal with Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other religions.”

  Since Vox’s inception, party leaders have warned against creeping Islamization. In December 2014, for example, Vox President Santiago Abascal criticized the Spanish government’s decision to approve a law that promotes Islam in Spanish public schools. In an essay entitled, “Trojan Horse,” Abascal wrote that the government was conceding a “dangerous privilege” to Islam:

  “The Spanish state is allowing the Muslim community to preach in schools and propose Mohammed as a role model…. This law, according to experts, has been drafted in its entirety by the heads of the Muslim community in Spain, with little review by the competent ministry. The law surprises by its markedly confessional character in each of its articles, and it develops a proselytizing vocation, covering with tolerance the most controversial aspects of a strict theocratic system. The controversial preaching of the imams in our mosques, often bordering on the criminal, is well known. And we all know about the lack of freedom, if not direct persecution, suffered by women and Christians in Islamic countries, while here they enjoy the generosity characteristic of freedom, democracy and reciprocity, of course, all of which they systematically deny….

  “We already know that a part of the Western world is determined to commit suicide and many governments know that, to achieve this, they must destroy their own foundations. The beautiful multiculturalism of the progressive myth — reflected in nonsense such as the Alliance of Civilizations, or false notions of peaceful coexistence of the ‘Three Cultures’ in al-Andalus — is fed above all by the contempt for one’s own culture. The best ally of intolerance is the relativism of those who have no principles.

  “Today we have to face two fundamentalisms that, as we are seeing, are allies: Islamism and radical secularism. Every day they seem less opposed to each other and more complementary.”

  After members of the Muslim community accused Abascal of being “anti-democratic,” “Islamophobic,” and “reactionary,” Abascal replied:

  “It is somewhat curious that the Islamic Commission of Spain accuses me of trying to ‘create permanent confusion’ by identifying the political dimension of Islam with the religious dimension, when, precisely, the mixture of the religious and the political is so obviously constitutive of the Muslim world. It is worth remembering in this regard that, while our Christian civilization was built precisely on the separation of the civil and religious, you cannot say the same about yours….

  “Of course, not all who profess Islam share the most extreme expressions of Islamist intolerance or support terrorism; but it is also true that the failure of multiculturalism is clearly visible throughout Europe. I reiterate that there are better and worse civilizations, a view that, I’m sure, you share. As I said, putting them all on the same level is just paving the way to barbarism.

  “Finally: you refer the ‘myth’ of the invasion (I suppose that refers to the year 711), historical evidence that you seem to question in line with the darkest historical revisionism. We Spaniards, however, know very well that such a ‘myth’ is an unquestionable historical reality, for which we must thank the formation of a deep sense of national identity forged during the eight centuries of struggle for the recovery of the fatherland of our ancestors.”

  In an August 2017 interview, days after the jihadi attacks in Barcelona and nearby Cambrils, in which 14 people were killed and more than 130 injured, Abascal was asked if Spain is at war. He replied:

  A: “We are in a global war. They have declared war. It’s not a war between regular armies. It’s a war that is distinct and very different from the wars we have known unto now. It is a global war against radical Islam.”

  Q: “Is Spain responsible? Are Spaniards responsible? Are Europeans responsible? Do we have to ask for forgiveness for something?”

  A: “Those who have to ask for forgiveness are the politicians for their failure to protect us. The politicians are guilty for accepting the massive Islamic invasion, for failing to value the importance of borders, for providing migrants with economic assistance paid for by Spanish taxpayers.”

  Q: “Are we responsible for people who see no other option than to immolate themselves?”

  A: “Are we responsible because they want to kill us?”

  Q: “An MP from the far-left party Podemos said that we have to assume responsibility.”

  A: “We are not responsible. My children are not responsible. I am not going to accept that my children have to bow the knee to Mecca. I am not going to accept that my daughters are forced to wear a veil. If the far left like these guys, fine. If they like these jihadis, they should invite them into their homes and have them force their daughters to wear the veil. These politicians lack the courage to defend our borders and they lack the courage to defend Spaniards.”

  Q: “What about Islamophobia?”

  A: “The danger is Islamophilia. I am tired of this constant preoccupation with Islamophobia. Muslims do not face persecution in Spain. I do not like that Muslims are incapable of making a distinction between religion and politics. I don’t like the way they treat women. I don’t like their concept of liberty. I don’t like it. And to say this I’m called an Islamophobe. I can criticize a Communist and they don’t call me a Communistphobe. If I criticize the separatists, they don’t call me a Separatistphobe. But if I criticize a Muslim because I don’t like their worldview, they call me Islamophobe. Why?”

  In a radio interview in November 2018, Abascal commented on the growing popular support for Vox:

  “I am very aware of the responsibility we are assuming. More and more people trust us. People are disappointed because the other parties have failed them. We have been able to connect with people who say in their homes the same things we say in public. This is the key to the great support we are getting. We know that people who come to our meetings do so not because of Vox, but because they are worried about their country and because we are not ashamed about talking about Spain.

  “Vox is not ashamed to use words such as ‘Reconquest.’ To a large extent, the success we are reaping is because we have rescued words that seemed to be proscribed. From a historical perspective, the Reconquest is not a bad thing. On the contrary, we avoided Islamization and we live in freedom.”

  Meanwhile, Ibrahim Miguel Ángel Pérez, the man who reported Ortega Smith to Spanish prosecutors, says that he is dedicated to imprisoning those who, according to him, “profess the discourse of hatred against Islam.” Pérez, who married a Moroccan woman before converting to Islam, is a member of the far-left party Podemos. He has bragged of his efforts to force the closure of the social media accounts of dozens of people who are critical of Islam.

  A blogger named “Elentir” wrote about the significance of the hate crime allegations against Ortega Smith:

  “For years the left has maintained a curious double discourse on religious matters: it promotes hatred of Christianity, calling it retrograde and macho, while it is friendly with Islam.

  “With the same ease with which they accuse you of the crime of ‘micro-machismo’ if you compliment a woman, the left defends the use of the Islamic veil and does not dare to criticize the atrocious discrimination suffered by women in Muslim countries.

  “While here in the West the left does everything possible to uproot our Christian heritage, the left considers it respectable that there are countries that have Islam as their official religion and that treat religious minorities as second-class citizens, or even subject them to persecution.

  “Likewise, the left defends any gratuitous offense, even the most beastly ones, against Christians as ‘freedom of expression.’ At the same time, the mere criticism of Islam is branded as ‘Islamophobia.’

  “Note that Ortega spoke of ‘Islamist,’ an adjective used to refer to Islamic extremism.

  “Apparently, now they do not just want us to stop all criticism of Islam: they do not want us to oppose the more extreme version either. On April 4, many media outlets reported that the Prosecutor’s Office will investigate Ortega to verify if there is such a ‘hate crime.’

  “That is to say, that public resources will be used to investigate whether a person had the audacity to meddle with Islam.

  “Is this still Spain or are we in Iran?

  “It was to be expected that sooner or later some Muslims would try to transfer to Spain an environment of intolerance to any criticism of Islam such as that which exists in most Islamic countries.

  “When a Muslim association tries to censor a critique of Islamism, the political and media left remains silent as a grave. It is more: yesterday the progressive media loaded their inks not against the denunciating association, but against the denounced politician.

  “Every time that the Association of Christian Lawyers makes a denunciation against acts of Christianophobia, the leftist media speak of an ‘ultra-Catholic group.’ Yesterday, not one progressive used the term ‘ultra-Islamic group’ to describe an organization that is trying to impede the right to criticize Islamism.

  “Rather, the news seemed designed to imply that the mere fact of being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office already makes Ortega guilty. No presumption of innocence, no freedom of expression or tolerance. When it comes to Islam, the left changes the relativist ‘anything goes’ for an authoritarian ‘shut your mouth.'”

  Meanwhile, popular support for Vox is higher than ever, according to the Center for Sociological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, CIS), a Spanish public research institute. A recent poll found that Vox is projected to win around 12% of the vote in the upcoming national election on April 28. Vox would win between 29 and 37 seats in the next parliament, positioning the party as king-maker in any potential center-right coalition government.

  

• America's "Triumph Of Evil" Exposed, PCR

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  On Wednesday, April 17, I heard a NPR “news” report that described the democratically elected president of Venezuela as “the Venezuelan dictator Maduro.” By repeating over and over that a democratically elected president is a dictator, the presstitutes create that image of Maduro in the minds of vast numbers of peoples who know nothing about Venezuela and had never heard of Maduro until he is dropped on them as “dictator.”

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  Nicolas Maduro Moros was elected president of Venezuela in 2013 and again in 2018. Previously he served as vice president and foreign minister, and he was elected to the National Assembly in 2000. Despite Washington’s propaganda campaign against him and Washington’s attempt to instigate violent street protests and Maduro’s overthrow by the Venezuelan military, whose leaders have been offered large sums of money, Maduro has the overwhelming support of the people, and the military has not moved against him.

  What is going on is that American oil companies want to recover their control over the revenue streams from Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Under the Bolivarian Revolution of Chavez, continued by Maduro, the oil revenues instead of departing the country have been used to reduce poverty and raise literacy inside Venezuela.

  The opposition to Maduro inside Venezuela comes from the elites who have been traditionally allied with Washington in the looting of the country. These corrupt elites, with the CIA’s help, temporarily overthrew Chavez, but the people and the Venezuelan military secured his release and return to the presidency.

  Washington has a long record of refusing to accept any reformist governments in Latin America. Reformers get in the way of North America’s exploitation of Latin American countries and are overthrown.

  With the exceptions of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Latin America consists of Washington’s vassal states. In recent years Washington destroyed reform governments in Honduras, Argentina and Brazil and put gangsters in charge.

  According to US national security adviser John Bolton, a neoconservative war-monger, the governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua will soon be overthrown. New sanctions have now been placed on the three countries. Washington in the typical display of its pettiness targeted sanctions against the son of the Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. 

  Ortega has been the leader of Nicaragua since for 40 years. He was president 1985-1990 and has been elected and reelected as president since 2006.

  Ortega was the opponent of Somoza, Washington’s dictator in Nicaragua. Consequently he and his movement were attacked by the neoconservative operation known as Iran-Contra during the Reagan years. Ortega was a reformer. His government focused on literacy, land reform, and nationalization, which was at the expense of the wealthy ruling class. He was labeled a “Marxist-Leninist,” and Washington attempted to discredit his reforms as controversial leftist policies.

  Somehow Castro and Ortega survived Washington’s plots against them. By the skin of his teeth so did Chavez unless you believe it was the CIA that gave him cancer. Castro and Chavez are dead. Ortega is 74. Maduro is in trouble, because Washington has stolen Venezuela’s bank deposits and cut Venezuela off the international financial system, and the British have stolen Venezuela’s gold. This makes it hard for Venezuela to pay its debts.

  The Trump regime has branded the democratically twice-elected Maduro an “illegitimate” president. Washington has found a willing puppet, Juan Guaido, to take Maduro’s place and has announced that the puppet is now the president of Venezuela. No one among the Western presstitutes or among the vassals of Washington’s empire finds it strange that an elected president is illegitimate but one picked by Washington is not.

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  Russia and China have given Maduro diplomatic support. Both have substantial investments in Venezuela that would be lost if Washington seizes the country. Russia’s support for Maduro was declared by Bolton today to be a provocation that is a threat to international peace and security. Bolton said his sanctions should be seen by Russia as a warning against providing any help for the Venezuelan government.

  Secretary of state Mike Pompeo and vice president Pence have added their big mouths to the propaganda against the few independent governments in Latin America. Where is the shame when the highest American government officials stand up in front of the world and openly proclaim that it is official US government policy to overthrow democratically elected governments simply because those governments don’t let Americans plunder their countries?

  How is it possible that Pompeo can announce that the “days are numbered” of the elected president of Nicaragua, who has been elected president 3 or 4 times, and the world not see the US as a rogue state that must be isolated and shunned? How can Pompeo describe Washington’s overthrow of an elected government as “setting the Nicaraguan people free?”

  The top officials of the US government have announced that they intend to overthrow the governments of 3 countries and this is not seen as “a threat to international peace and security?”

  How much peace and security did Washington’s overthrow of governments in Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and the attempted overthrow of Syria bring?

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  Washington is once again openly violating international law and the rest of the world has nothing to say?

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  There is only one way to describe this: The Triumph of Evil.

  “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” — William Butler Yeats

  

• Watch: Shocking Video Shows Parked Tesla Spontaneously Exploding In Chinese Garage

  Karma can be quite the funny thing.

  About 24 hours ahead of Tesla’s coming “Investor Day” and just moments after we broke the news that Tesla had been granted a restraining order on a short seller who has been critical of the company on Twitter, stunning video has surfaced of a Tesla catching fire and exploding, while parked.

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  It did not appear that anyone was in the vehicle at the time of the explosion. 

  A self proclaimed Tesla owner in Shanghai that Tweets under the name @ShanghaiJayIn posted video on his Twitter moments ago of what appears to be a Tesla Model S, 1st generation, catching fire spontaneously in a Chinese parking garage.

  Good or bad, negative or positive I will post anything about Tesla or EVs in China. This happened today in Shanghai, China 🇨🇳 1st generation Tesla Model S caught Fire 🔥 underground car park.#Tesla #TeslaChina #ModelS #Fire #China #Shanghai #特斯拉 #中国 $TSLA pic.twitter.com/HOwMcvulV1

  — Jay in Shanghai (@ShanghaiJayin) April 21, 2019

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The video shows what appears to be security footage of a white Tesla that starts with smoke pouring out of the bottom of it. As people can be heard in the background talking in Mandarin, the car simply appears to spontaneously combust.

  Before the video is written off as big oil conspiracy FUD, we should note that the Twitter user also has his own YouTube channel, which appears to mostly be positive content toward the brand.  

  We will be following this story and updating this post with further information, as it becomes available.

  

• Here Are The Richest Zip Codes In America

  Personal finance site GoBankingRates has published a new report identifying the wealthiest zip codes in America.

  The report shows that Sagaponack, a community in the Town of Southampton in Suffolk County, New York, is the most expensive zip code in the nation. GOBankingRates studied how much an upscale lifestyle would cost in the town, the result: more than $850,00 per year. On top of that, the median home price jumped from $5,125,000 in 2015 to $8.5 million in 2018, with the most expensive homes and recent sales being logged around Daniels Lane.

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  GOBankingRate calculated the annual cost of necessities and the annual income needed to live luxuriously in each zip code using the traditional 50-30-20 budgeting method.

  Coming in at number three is Alpine, New Jersey, with a cost of living of $499,244 per year.

  Fisher Island, Florida, located on a barrier island south of Miami Beach, ranked fourth with a cost of living of $452,630 per annum.

  Aspen, Colorado, number five on the list, costs $380,590 to live comfortably, due in part to the region’s $3 million median home price.

  Sea Island, Georgia, ranked sixth, with a $354,366 annual cost of living. The privately owned, unincorporated area of Glynn County, Georgia, has a median home price of $2.75 million.

  Greenwich, a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, is in seventh, with an annual cost of living around $340,000.

  Nantucket, an isolated island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, came in eighth, with a $331,558 cost of living that exceeds living expenses that of Martha’s Vineyard.

  Sullivans Island, South Carolina, placed ninth, with a cost of living around $300,000. The area is a town and island in Charleston County, has a median home price of $2.2 million.

  And number 10 was the 96821 zip code in Honolulu, where residents needed $288,000 to live a lifestyle of comfort.

  Last on the list, coming in at 51, was Brookhaven, West Virginia, which only required a yearly income of $79,786.

  Here is the complete list of the wealthiest zip codes in America:

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• Seattle's Revolt Of The Elites

  Authored by Christopher Rufo via City-Journal.org,

  With residents fed up by the homelessness crisis, city leaders and their allies coordinate a PR campaign to convince them that everything is fine…

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  In Seattle, people are losing patience with city leadership over the homelessness crisis, but the frustration is running in both directions: the city’s political, cultural, and academic elites are conducting their own revolt—against the people.

  Since the release of Eric Johnson’s documentary Seattle Is Dying, which depicts an epidemic of street homelessness, addiction, crime, and disorder, city elites have launched a coordinated information campaign targeted at voters frustrated with the city’s response to homelessness. Earlier this month, leaked documentsrevealed that a group of prominent nonprofits—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Campion Advocacy Fund, the Raikes Foundation, and the Ballmer Group—hired a PR firm, Pyramid Communications, to conduct polling, create messaging, and disseminate the resulting content through a network of silent partners in academia, the press, government, and the nonprofit sector. The campaign, #SeattleForAll, is a case study in what writer James Lindsay calls “idea laundering”—creating misinformation and legitimizing it as objective truth through repetition in sympathetic media.

  The key messages of the campaign include a number of misleading claims, including:

  “Seattle is making progress to end homelessness,”

  “1 in 4 people experiencing homelessness in our community struggle with drug or alcohol abuse,” and

  “[62 percent of Seattle voters believe] we are not spending enough to address homelessness.”

  All three contentions fail to meet basic scrutiny:

  • street homelessness has increased 131 percent over the past five years;

  • King County’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma admits that “the majority of the homeless population is addicted to or uses opioids” (not one in four);

  • and 62 percent of Seattle voters agree to the statement “we are not spending enough” only when it is directly prefaced in the polling questionnaire by the phrase “other cities of the same size are spending 2 to 3 times the amount that Seattle is and are seeing significant reductions in homelessness”—itself an unsubstantiated claim. (When the same question is presented neutrally, without the framing, support for “we are not spending enough” drops to 7 percent).

  Nonetheless, the media have widely circulated or echoed Pyramid’s talking points. “New poll shows the majority in Seattle say we have a moral obligation to help homeless people, and we need to spend more,” declared Seattle Timesdata journalist Gene Balk. Catherine Hinrichsen, director of Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness, published “6 reasons why KOMO’s [Seattle’s ABC affiliate, which broadcast Seattle Is Dying] take on homelessness is the wrong one” in the local magazine Crosscut, arguing that the documentary “conflates homelessness with drug use, mental illness, and crime.” And Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan told reporters that “we have made a lot of progress” and dismissed the documentary as “an opinion piece.” Her office pushed the #SeattleForAll messaging on government social media channels.

  Many of the authors and news outlets that published the #SeattleForAll messaging failed to disclose that their work is funded by the same group of foundations that hired Pyramid Communications, and that their content is distributed in direct coordination with Pyramid and the City of Seattle. For example, in her story, Hinrichsen neglects to mention that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the sole funder of her work at the Project on Family Homelessness; the publisher, Crosscut, does not reveal that the Gates and Raikes foundations are major funders of their operations and their homelessness coverage.

  In its own widely circulated story on the polling data, the Seattle Times does disclose that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Campion Advocacy Fund, and the Raikes Foundation support their homelessness coverage—but not that Pyramid commissioned the polling and coordinated the campaign with the city and the mayor’s office. (Pyramid’s Chris Nelson confirmed via email that the #SeattleForAll coalition works in tandem with “City and County advisors working in the homelessness space,” but he refused to answer whether the coalition deliberately withheld this information from the Seattle Times and other media.)

  The inner workings of the #SeattleForAll campaign tell a clear story: a group of well-funded philanthropies hired a PR firm to produce misleading polling results, distributed them through the city’s main newspaper and other media outlets (many of which enjoy generous donations from those same philanthropies), and then concealed the fact that the messaging was part of a broader campaign coordinated with the city. The “counter-narrative” to the Seattle Is Dying documentary was not a spontaneous reaction of a diverse group of experts; it was a planned effort by Seattle’s philanthropic, academic, media, and governmental elites to steamroll critics. Seattle’s institutional powers, in other words, attempted to quash the emerging public consensus that the city’s approach to homelessness is failing.

  A quarter-century ago, social critic Christopher Lasch observed the beginnings of this kind of phenomenon, arguing that America’s political and cultural elites were starting to revolt against the people. While during Lasch’s time this elite contempt was directed against “middle America”—an early iteration of today’s “deplorables”—coastal progressivism has now reached the point that the new elites have gone into revolt against themselves. In Seattle, the emerging activist class—billionaire philanthropists, multimillionaire politicians, and like-minded commentators in academia and prestige media—has begun an information offensive against the liberal, wealthy, educated residents of a city that gave Hillary Clinton 92 percent of its votes. Scolding the public to be more “compassionate,” this new hyper-elite has shown only contempt for middle-class residents in Seattle’s hardest-hit neighborhoods.

  The biggest problem with such top-down management of public knowledge is that it prevents honest debate—which Seattle desperately needs. The gap between elite rhetoric and on-the-ground reality continues to widen. In the most recent polling, 68 percent of Seattle voters say that they don’t trust the mayor and city council to solve the homelessness crisis—yet the foundations, the communications firms, and the mayor’s office keep lashing out at dissenters. In The Revolt of the Elites, Lasch revealed the danger of ignoring public opinion and limiting debate to elite influencers: “Since political debate is restricted, most of the time, to the ‘talking classes,’ as they have been aptly characterized, it becomes increasingly ingrown and formulaic. Ideas circulate and recirculate in the form of buzzwords and conditioned reflex.”

  The #SeattleForAll campaign is destined to fail. The more that majority opinion gets muzzled, the stronger the eventual backlash will be. Seattle Is Dying spoke to the anger of hundreds of thousands of residents whose voices haven’t been heard. City leaders would be wise to give the PR efforts a rest and do some listening. The residents of Seattle are demanding change.

  

• This Is How Crazy The Climate Alarmists Are Getting

  Authored by Tom Rogan via The Washington Examiner,

  George Monbiot and the climate change heart of darkness

  George Monbiot appeared recently on Frankie Boyle’s far-left political chat show, “New World Order.” A columnist and environmental activist, Monbiot explained how we have to save the planet. And boy, does Monbiot have some ideas.

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  The easy things we need to change, Monbiot said, are to end air travel flying and cease consumption of meat. If that doesn’t sound easy to you, then you’re not alone. Indeed, those ideas are so destructive of modern life, economics, and the pursuit of happiness, that they could justifiably be regarded as insane.

  But Monbiot was just getting started. Next up, he took us down the intellectual river, into the heart of activist darkness.

  “We have to overthrow this system which is eating the planet: perpetual growth,” Monbiot declared. And the writer pulled no punches. Annual economic growth targets of 3% represent “madness,” he said. The columnist reached his crescendo.

  “We can’t do it by just pitting around at the margins of the problem; we’ve got to go straight to the heart of capitalism and overthrow it.“

  The morons in Boyle’s audience lapped this up.

  In a way, I’m glad Monbiot said what he did. With this interview, Boyle, a terrorist sympathizer and champagne socialist, unwittingly gave us a rare window into the malicious faux-humanitarianism that motivates many climate change ideologues. I don’t exaggerate when I say it’s malicious.

  The free market system has, since the 1980s, lifted billions of people out of poverty worldwide, exceeding all of the achievements of all the nonprofits in history. Monbiot and his comrades, in seeking to overthrow the modern way of life, are proud servants of moral darkness. They seek to impose socialism, communism, or some other defective ideology precisely because these will limit economic growth and human flourishing.

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  History proves that capitalism uniquely serves a growing and broadly shared prosperity, new innovations for health, technology, and science, and sustaining democratic government.

  And yes, that makes economic growth moral.

  There may also be a moral imperative to adopt reasonable climate change policies — it’s something I’m quite willing to accept. But we must call out the intellectual and moral deceptions offered by people like Monbiot. Failing to do so, we entertain the growing chance of a poorer, less happy, and morally darker world.

  

• Telepathic Russian Troops Trained For Psychic Warfare – Something The US Has Studied For Decades

  Earlier this month, it was reported that the Russian military has been training “psychic” special forces to use in combat to “defeat the enemy with non-contact methods,” according to the official magazine of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Armeysky Sbornik (Army Digest). 

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  “Fighters can see right through the enemy soldier: what kind of person they are, what their weak and strong sides are and whether they can be recruited [as a spy],” read the magazine. 

  “By force of thought, it is possible to shut down computer programmes, burn crystals in generators, listen in on conversations and disrupt radio and telecommunications,” the article continues. 

  These ‘goat-staring’ specialists in “parapsychological” warfare are said to have honed their skills during combat in Chechnya, using their purported abilities for applications ranging from managing the amount of pain felt by a wounded soldier, to locating caches of enemy weapons 

  Russia’s chief skeptic, Yevgeny Aleksandrov who chairs the Russian Academy of Science’s committee for combating “false science” called claims of psychological warfare capabilities “complete rubbish,” according to Sky.com

  “Such research did indeed exist and was developed in the past but it was made secret. Now it’s being brought out into the light again but such research is recognised as a false science,” Aleksandrov added. 

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  Long history of parapsychological research

  The study of parapsychology began in the mid-1800s with the founding of the London Society for Psychical Research in 1882, research which has continued for over 100 years in some form or another. 

  The United States as been officially conducting forms of parapsychological research since the 1930s within various government agencies, however in the 1970s a specific emphasis was placed on “remote viewing“ – a technique which purportedly allows one to project their consciousness over vast distances and even time. Physicists Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff of Stanford Research Institute (SRI) received a $20 million government grant for the “Stargate Project” in 1975.

  How does one get $20 million to study “the men who stare at goats?” A film of Russians performing telekinesis is a good start. From a declassified CIA document: 

  In April of 1972, Targ met with CIA personnel from the Office of Scientific Intelligence (PSI) and discussed the subject of paranormal abilities. Targ revealed that he had contacts with people who purported to have seen and documented some Soviet investigations of psychokinesis. Films of Soviets moving inanimate objects by “mental powers” were made available to analysts from OSI. They, in turn, contacted personnel from the Office of Research and Development (ORD) and OTS. An ORD Project Officer then visited Targ who had recently joined the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Targ proposed that some psychokinetic verification investigations could be done at SRI in conjunction with Puthoff. 

  These proposals were quickly followed by a laboratory demonstration. A man was found by Targ and Puthoff who apparently had psychokenetic abilities. He was taken on a surprise visit to a superconducting shielded magnetometer being used in quark (high energy particle) experiments by Dr. A. Hebbard of Stanford University Physics Department. The quark experiment required that the magnetometer be as well shielded as technology would allow. Nevertheless, when the subject placed his attention on the interior of the magnetometer, the output signal was visibly disturbed, indicating a change in internal magnetic field. Several other correlations of his mental efforts with signal variations were observed. These variations were never seen before or after the visit. 

  …

  For a cost of $874, one OTS and one ORD representative worked with Targ and Puthoff and the previously mentioned man for a few days in August, 1972. During this demonstration, the subject was asked to describe objects hidden out of sight by the CIA personnel. The subject did well. The descriptions were so startingly accurate that the OTS and ORD representatives suggested that the work be continued and expanded. –CIA Reading Room  P.7 (link goes to CIA website)

  Eventually, the program run by Targ and Puthoff was formally given code name PROJECT STAR GATE, with the goal of evaluating “potential adversary applications for remote viewing” at Fort Meade, MD. 

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  The Gateway Process

  In order to induce remote viewing and other psychic phenomenon, The US Army studied the “Gateway Process” – essentially perfecting meditation techniques developed by the Monroe Institute which allow humans to harness their own electromagnetic energy waves, control them, and effectively traverse time and space. 

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  The procedure is performed by synchronizing both hemispheres of the brain. 

  Fundamentally, the Gateway Experience is a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space. The participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge which the universe offers. 

  …

  the Gateway process is designed to rather rapidly induce a state of profound calm within the nervous system and to significantly lower blood pressure to cause the circulatory system, skeleton and all other physical organ systems to begin vibrating coherently at approximately 7–7.5 cycles per second. The resulting resonance sets up a regular, repetitive sound wave which propagates in consonance with the electrostatic field of the earth. 

  …

  To enter these intervening dimensions, human consciousness must focus with such intense coherence that the frequency of the energy pattern which comprises that consciousness (i.e. the brainwave output) can accelerate to the point where the resulting frequency pattern, if displayed on an oscilloscope, would look virtually like a solid line. Achievement of this state of altered consciousness sets the stage for perception of non-time-space dimensions because of the operation of a principle in physics known as Planck’s Distance. 

  …

  Moreover, once the individual is able to project his consciousness beyond time-space, that consciousness would logically tend to entrain its frequency output with the new energy environment to which it is exposed, therein greatly enhancing the extent to which the individual’s altered consciousness may be further modified to achieve a much heightened point of focus and a much refined oscillating pattern.

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  Declassified document below (searchable here)

  In short, the US Government has been intimately involved in psychic research, and has devoted untold resources towards developing it as a tool for various uses. 

  Former President Jimmy Carter admitted that the CIA had once consulted a psychic without his knowledge to help locate a missing government plane in Zaire. .

  According to Carter, U.S. spy satellites could find no trace of the aircraft, so the CIA consulted a psychic from California. Carter said the woman “went into a trance and gave some latitude and longitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the plane was there.” -CNN (archived)

  Meanwhile, one can read examples of remote viewing sessions at the following links: 

  • In this report, the remote viewer appears to explore a building some have interpreted to be the Kremlin (via archive.org)
  • And in a bizarre demonstration from 1984, a remote viewer is directed to specific coordinates on Mars, where they describe a dying race of Martians who were trying to escape the planet more than 1 million years B.C. (via archive.org) 

  The race of Martians – who wore “cut to fit” silken clothing, were apparently hiding in some sort of underground bunker while the planet’s environment was slowly killing them. They were able to escape in a “shiny metal” craft “to find another place to live” – where the remote viewer saw “a really crazy place with volcanos and gas pockets and strange plants.”  

  Whether or not you think this is all tin foil, the US Government took it very seriously, and thought it might even led to breakthroughs in human potential. 

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  A declassified 1991 summary of Star Gate reveals that the “primary mission of the STAR GATE project is to pursue a broad range of parapsychological activities to include external research and foreign assessments,” and was described as “a new dynamic approach for pursuing this largely unexplored area of human consciousness/subconsciousness interaction.” 

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  Research has been conducted at various locations across the United States, including Duke University, SRI International, Princeton University, SAIC and elsewhere since 1930. 

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  It’s a real, yet unreliable phenomenon

  The declassified materials make clear that “remote viewing is a real phenomenon,” with potential applications in counternarcotics, counterterrorism and counterintelligence – with limited potential for predictive intelligence.

  According to a declassified 1981 threat assessment, “Laboratory demonstrations have shown that gifted individuals using remote viewing can describe small details in a room or describe a SIGINT site and particular types of antennae.”

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  Telekinesis too

  The 1981 memo describes telekinesis as well – noting that “Laboratory demonstrations have shown that gifted individuals using telekinetic abilities can alter the state of objects or change electrical or magnetic fields.” 

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  In 1973, meanwhile, the CIA studied the cryptologic aspects of ESP (link goes to CIA website). 

  Meta analysis

  In a 1995 executive summary of the government’s remote viewing experiments to that date, a “blue-ribbon” panel was assembled which included two noted experts in parapsychology; Dr. Jessica Utts of the University of California at Davis, and Dr. Raymond Hyman of the University of Oregon – who was more skeptical of the phenomenon. After reviewing “all laboratory experiments and meta-analytic reviews conducted as part of the research program” they concluded: 

  • A statistically significant laboratory effort has been demonstrated in the sense that hits occur more often than chance.
  • It is unclear whether the observed effects can unambiguously be attributed to the paranormal ability of the remote viewers as opposed to the characteristics of the judges or of the target or some other characteristic of the methods used. 
  • Evidence has not been provided that clearly demonstrates that the causes of hits are due to the operation of paranormal phenomena; the laboratory experiments have not identified the origins or nature of the remote viewing phenomenon, if, indeed, it exists at all. 

  Utts concluded that “anomalous cognition is to some extent possible in the general population,” it also appears that “certain individuals possess more talent than others, and that it is easier to find those individuals than to train people.” 

  Hyman pushed back, arguing that Utts’ conclusion was premature and that the findings needed to be independently replicated, and suggested that the psychic abilities could be “nothing other than reasonable guessing and subjective validation.” 

  In short, the 1995 report does not confirm or deny whether remote viewing is an actual phenomenon, despite a Defense Intelligence Agency summary which clearly states that it is. The program was officially terminated in 1995 after it did not produce reliable intelligence, and was featured in the book (and movie) The Men Who Stare At Goats. 

  And so while the phenomenon is real according to the US Government, it is also fairly unreliable. In 1988, the Defense Department called in researcher Ed Dames and two psychics to use remote viewing for the location of Marine Lieutenant Colonel William Higgins – who was kidnapped by Hezbollah. 

  While the psychics were able to pinpoint the village Higgins was held in, they were wrong that he was alive, along with that he was being held “on water.” Subsequent reports revealed that Higgins was already dead – while Hezbollah later released a video of his corpse with a noose around his neck, according to New Republic. That said, his body was kept on ice for months – possibly the “water” seen by the psychics. 

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  According to the same project summary that the above screenshots came from, remote viewing was also used with some success during Operation Desert Shield/Storm, and explored for applications within Joint Tactical Force support. 

  If one wants to hear directly from the horse’s (goat’s?) mouth – Russell Targ did an interesting TED Talk about his experiences. 

  Controversial TEDTalk about Psychic Abilities | Russell Targ from SuzanneTaylor on Vimeo.

  

• 23.2 Million Hack Victims Used '123456" As Their Password

  A shocking number of people who have been hacked used mind-numbingly simple passwords, according to a breach analysis conducted on behalf of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). 

  According to data obtained from the website “Haver I Been Pwned,” more than 23 million people who were hacked used the password ‘123456,’ followed by ‘123456789’ (7.7 million) and ‘qwerty’ (3.8 million). 

  Top 10 most-frequently used passwords by hack victims: 

  • 123456 
  • 123456789
  • qwerty
  • password
  • 111111
  • 12345678
  • abc123
  • 1234567
  • password1
  • 12345

  Separate of the release, the NCSC conducted its first “UK Cyber Survey” ahead of their CYBERUK 2019 conference in Glasgow this week, which found among other things; 

  • Only 15% say they know a great deal about how to protect themselves from harmful activity
  • The most regular concern is money being stolen – with 42% feeling it likely to happen by 2021
  • 89% use the internet to make online purchases – with 39% on a weekly basis 
  • One in three rely to some extent on friends and family for help on cyber security
  • Young people more likely to be privacy conscious and careful of what details they share online
  • 61% of internet users check social media daily, but 21% report they never look at social media
  • 70% always use PINs and passwords for smart phones and tablets
  • Less than half do not always use a strong, separate password for their main email account

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  “We understand that cyber security can feel daunting to a lot of people, but the NCSC has published lots of easily applicable advice to make you much less vulnerable,” said NCSC technical director Dr. Ian Levy.” 

  Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided – nobody should protect sensitive data with somethisng that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band.

  Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password. -Dr. Ian Levy

  “Given the growing global threat from cyber attacks, these findings underline the importance of using strong passwords at home and at work,” said David Lidington, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office. 

  “This is a message we look forward to building on at CYBERUK 2019, an event that reaffirms our commitment to make Britain both the safest place in the world to be online and the best place to run a digital business.” 

  Read the cyber survey below:

  

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• Escobar: The Deep State Vs. WikiLeaks

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The Made-by-FBI indictment of Julian Assange does look like a dead man walking. No evidence. No documents. No surefire testimony. Just a crossfire of conditionals…

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  But never underestimate the legalese contortionism of US government (USG) functionaries. As much as Assange may not be characterized as a journalist and publisher, the thrust of the affidavit is to accuse him of conspiring to commit espionage.

  In fact the charge is not even that Assange hacked a USG computer and obtained classified information; it’s that he may have discussed it with Chelsea Manning and may have had the intention to go for a hack. Orwellian-style thought crime charges don’t get any better than that. Now the only thing missing is an AI software to detect them.

  Assange legal adviser Geoffrey Robertson – who also happens to represent another stellar political prisoner, Brazil’s Lula – cut straight to the chase (at 19:22 minutes);

  “The justice he is facing is justice, or injustice, in America… I would hope the British judges would have enough belief in freedom of information to throw out the extradition request.”

  That’s far from a done deal. Thus the inevitable consequence; Assange’s legal team is getting ready to prove, no holds barred, in a British court, that this USG indictment for conspiracy to commit computer hacking is just an hors d’oeuvre for subsequent espionage charges, in case Assange is extradited to US soil.

  All about Vault 7

  John Pilger, among few others, has already stressed how a plan to destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was laid out as far back as 2008 – at the tail end of the Cheney regime – concocted by the Pentagon’s shady Cyber Counter-Intelligence Assessments Branch.

  It was all about criminalizing WikiLeaks and personally smearing Assange, using “shock troops…enlisted in the media — those who are meant to keep the record straight and tell us the truth.”

  This plan remains more than active – considering how Assange’s arrest has been covered by the bulk of US/UK mainstream media.

  By 2012, already in the Obama era, WikiLeaks detailed the astonishing “scale of the US Grand Jury Investigation” of itself. The USG always denied such a grand jury existed.

  “The US Government has stood up and coordinated a joint interagency criminal investigation of Wikileaks comprised of a partnership between the Department of Defense (DOD) including: CENTCOM; SOUTHCOM; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA); Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA); US Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) for USFI (US Forces Iraq) and 1st Armored Division (AD); US Army Computer Crimes Investigative Unit (CCIU); 2nd Army (US Army Cyber Command); Within that or in addition, three military intelligence investigations were conducted. Department of Justice (DOJ) Grand Jury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of State (DOS) and Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). In addition, Wikileaks has been investigated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Office of the National CounterIntelligence Executive (ONCIX), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the House Oversight Committee; the National Security Staff Interagency Committee, and the PIAB (President’s Intelligence Advisory Board).”

  But it was only in 2017, in the Trump era, that the Deep State went totally ballistic; that’s when WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 files – detailing the CIA’s vast hacking/cyber espionage repertoire.

  This was the CIA as a Naked Emperor like never before – including the dodgy overseeing ops of the Center for Cyber Intelligence, an ultra-secret NSA counterpart.

  WikiLeaks got Vault 7 in early 2017. At the time WikiLeaks had already published the DNC files – which the unimpeachable Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) systematically proved was a leak, not a hack.

  The monolithic narrative by the Deep State faction aligned with the Clinton machine was that “the Russians” hacked the DNC servers. Assange was always adamant; that was not the work of a state actor – and he could prove it technically.

  There was some movement towards a deal, brokered by one of Assange’s lawyers; WikiLeaks would not publish the most damning Vault 7 information in exchange for Assange’s safe passage to be interviewed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).

  The DoJ wanted a deal – and they did make an offer to WikiLeaks. But then FBI director James Comey killed it. The question is why.

  It’s a leak, not a hack

  Some theoretically sound reconstructions of Comey’s move are available. But the key fact is Comey already knew – via his close connections to the top of the DNC – that this was not a hack; it was a leak.

  Ambassador Craig Murray has stressed, over and over again (see here) how the DNC/Podesta files published by WikiLeaks came from two different US sources; one from within the DNC and the other from within US intel.

  There was nothing for Comey to “investigate”. Or there would have, if Comey had ordered the FBI to examine the DNC servers. So why talk to Julian Assange?

  The release by WikiLeaks in April 2017 of the malware mechanisms inbuilt in “Grasshopper” and the “Marble Framework” were indeed a bombshell. This is how the CIA inserts foreign language strings in source code to disguise them as originating from Russia, from Iran, or from China. The inestimable Ray McGovern, a VIPS member, stressed how Marble Framework “destroys this story about Russian hacking.”

  No wonder then CIA director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a “non-state hostile intelligence agency”, usually manipulated by Russia.

  Joshua Schulte, the alleged leaker of Vault 7, has not faced a US court yet. There’s no question he will be offered a deal by the USG if he aggress to testify against Julian Assange.

  It’s a long and winding road, to be traversed in at least two years, if Julian Assange is ever to be extradited to the US. Two things for the moment are already crystal clear. The USG is obsessed to shut down WikiLeaks once and for all. And because of that, Julian Assange will never get a fair trial in the “so-called ‘Espionage Court’” of the Eastern District of Virginia, as detailed by former CIA counterterrorism officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou.

  Meanwhile, the non-stop demonization of Julian Assange will proceed unabated, faithful to guidelines established over a decade ago. Assange is even accused of being a US intel op, and WikiLeaks a splinter Deep State deep cover op.

  Maybe President Trump will maneuver the hegemonic Deep State into having Assange testify against the corruption of the DNC; or maybe Trump caved in completely to “hostile intelligence agency” Pompeo and his CIA gang baying for blood. It’s all ultra-high-stakes shadow play – and the show has not even begun.

  

• Racist, Sexist "Diversity Disaster" Looming In AI Thanks To White Male Programmers

  Sorry white males, you’ve done it again. 

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  According to new research by New York University’s AI Now Institute, we may be in for a future of racist, mansplaining, sexist AIs which are “at risk of replicating or perpetuating historical biases and power imbalances,” reports The Guardian. 

  Examples cited include image recognition services making offensive classifications of minorities, chatbots adopting hate speech, and Amazon technology failing to recognize users with darker skin colors. The biases of systems built by the AI industry can be largely attributed to the lack of diversity within the field itself, the report said. –The Guardian

  “The industry has to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and admit that its existing methods have failed to address these problems,” said report author Kate Crawford. “The use of AI systems for the classification, detection, and prediction of race and gender is in urgent need of re-evaluation.“

  As the report notes, over 80% of AI professors are men, while ‘progressive’ Silicon Valley’s super-sexism isn’t helping either. Facebook’s AI research team, for example, is only 15% women. Microsoft’s stands at 10%. Nevermind that women comprise just 18% of computer science majors – which is the exact percentage of authors presenting their work at leading AI conferences. 

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  Big tech’s ‘overt racism’ is also on display – as just 2.5% of Google’s workforce is black, while Facebook and Microsoft are each at 4%. Could this be why Microsoft’s AI, Tay, turned into a raging Holocaust denier after “machine learning” from the internet over the span of 24 hours: 

  “Tay” went from “humans are super cool” to full nazi in <24 hrs and I'm not at all concerned about the future of AI pic.twitter.com/xuGi1u9S1A

  — gerry (@geraldmellor) March 24, 2016

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  Why is this happening? According to the report, it’s not the fact that far fewer women are entering computer science despite nearly 20 years of encouraging women to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors. It’s issues with “the pipeline” – i.e. the industry (dominated by liberals) is racist and sexist. 

  Despite many decades of ‘pipeline studies’ that assess the flow of diverse job candidates from school to industry, there has been no substantial progress in diversity in the AI industry. The focus on the pipeline has not addressed deeper issues with workplace cultures, power asymmetries, harassment, exclusionary hiring practices, unfair compensation, and tokenization that are causing people to leave or avoid working in the AI sector altogether. –AI Now Institute

  What recommendations does NYU have to save the world from mansplaining AI that don’t respect “historical imbalances”? 

  1. Publish compensation levels, including bonuses and equity, across all roles and job categories, broken down by race and gender.

  2. End pay and opportunity inequality, and set pay and benefit equity goals that include contract workers, temps, and vendors.

  3. Publish harassment and discrimination transparency reports, including the number of claims over time, the types of claims submitted, and actions taken.

  4. Change hiring practices to maximize diversity: include targeted recruitment beyond elite universities, ensure more equitable focus on under-represented groups, and create more pathways for contractors, temps, and vendors to become full-time employees.

  5. Commit to transparency around hiring practices, especially regarding how candidates are leveled, compensated, and promoted.

  6. Increase the number of people of color, women and other under-represented groups at senior leadership levels of AI companies across all departments.

  7. Ensure executive incentive structures are tied to increases in hiring and retention of underrepresented groups.

  8. For academic workplaces, ensure greater diversity in all spaces

  ***

  And remember, AI industry: 

  

• Pushing Marijuana Legalization Across The Finish Line

  Authored by Paul Armentano via Counterpunch.org,

  After nearly a century of cannabis criminalization, U.S. voters — and a growing number of high-profile politicians — are demanding that marijuana policy move in a different direction.

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  One in five Americans now live in states where the adult, recreational use of marijuana is legal. And the majority of us reside someplace where the medical use of cannabis is legally authorized.

  Many of these latter programs have been in place for the better part of two decades. And it’s plain to see the results have been better for public health and safety than criminal prohibition, because public and political support in for marijuana reform just keeps growing.

  According to the latest national polling compiled by Gallup, 66 percent of U.S. adults — including majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans —  believe that the adult use of marijuana should be legal.

  Separate national surveys, such as the General Social Survey and the latest Pew poll, similarly show that public support for legalization is at a historic high.

  Voters’ support for legalizing and regulating cannabis isn’t born out of a presumption that the plant is altogether harmless. To the contrary, society has long acknowledged that cannabis is a mood-altering substance with some risk potential — particularly for young people or among those with a family history of mental illness.

  In fact, it’s precisely because marijuana use may pose potential risks that advocacy groups like NORML have long urged lawmakers to regulate it accordingly.

  Such regulations already exist governing the use, production, and retail distribution of alcohol and tobacco — two substances that are far more dangerous and costly to society than the responsible adult use of cannabis.

  The enforcement of these regulations, coupled with public awareness campaigns to educate consumers about these products’ health effects, have proven effective at reducing the public’s use of these two substances — particularly among U.S. teens.

  Specifically, according to 2018 data compiled by the University of Michigan, lifetime use of cigarettes by young people has fallen 70 percent since the early 1990s and is now at a historic low. The lifetime use of alcohol is also at an all-time low, having fallen 49 percent during this same time period.

  There is no legitimate reason not to apply these same tried-and-true principles to marijuana.

  In Congress, a growing number of politicians are getting the message.

  In the Senate, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers recently introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act of 2019, which protects state-sanctioned marijuana-related activities from undue federal interference.

  Broader federal reform bills, such as the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act and the Marijuana Justice Act, are also pending in the House, where lawmakers recently took steps to permit banks to legally affiliate with state-licensed marijuana businesses.

  Among the growing field of Democratic presidential hopefuls, almost all are on record in support of legalizing adult use.

  Yet despite these recent cultural and political shifts in opinion, marijuana legalization is not inevitable. These societal and legal changes only occur when advocates remain passionate and vigilant, and when they demand their elected officials to act. And the time for action is now.

  The failures of marijuana prohibition are apparent and too large to any longer ignore. It’s time to move in another direction.

  A pragmatic regulatory framework that allows for the legal, licensed commercial production and retail sale of marijuana to adults but restricts its use among young people — coupled with a legal environment that fosters open, honest dialogue between parents and children about cannabis’ potential harms — best reduces the risks associated with the plant’s use or abuse.

  By contrast, advocating for the marijuana’s continued criminalization only compounds them.

  A freer, healthier, and safer society awaits.

  

• Beto O'Rourke Campaign Loses Top Adviser And Her Deputy

  Beto O’Rourke’s is down two aides – one of whom was a self-described “central part of” his 2020 campaign for president, according to BuzzFeed. 

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  According to BuzzFeed News:

  A top adviser to Beto O’Rourke, Becky Bond, has split with his campaign, an O’Rourke spokesperson confirmed.

  Bond, a longtime progressive activist and organizer known for her work on O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate bid against Republican Ted Cruz, left the campaign along with her deputy Zack Malitz. Malitz worked closely with Bond on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign in 2016.

  It has yet to be seen if this will slow the momentum of the former Texas congressman who fantasized about murdering children and wrote weird furry poetry about a ball-buffing, butt-shining, ass-waxing cow that provides “milky wonder.” 

  The Song of the Cow, a poem by @BetoORourke aka Psychedelic Warlord, circa 1988 (via @WeldPond and @josephmenn) Not telling you who to vote for but this will be the national anthem if Beto wins. pic.twitter.com/HjV9JzxlZB

  — Andy Greenberg (@a_greenberg) March 15, 2019

  Perhaps they just didn’t connect with the skateboarding, dabbing, ex-hacker failing miserably with a “how do you do, fellow kids?” campaign to woo progressive voters. Or perhaps they were fired after O’Rourke recruited as his campaign manager veteran Democratic operative Jen O’Malley Dillon, who served in top leadership roles for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, according to BuzzFeed. 

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  O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans did not address the reasons for the departures, or whether Bond and Malitz left voluntarily – only that they worked for O’Rourke during his 2018 Senate race and served on a “temporary” one-month basis. 

  Evans said that Bond and Malitz, who worked for O’Rourke during the 2018 Senate race, only served as employees the campaign in a “temporary” one-month basis. Democratic operatives who have worked with Bond this year say she considered herself a central part of O’Rourke’s 2020 operation.

  In a statement about her and Malitz’s departure to BuzzFeed News, Bond said it was “time for us to move on to other challenges.” –BuzzFeed

  “Launching a presidential campaign without a big staff or even a campaign manager was no easy feat and it took everyone pitching in,” said Bond. “We’re proud to have been part of the team of deeply dedicated staff and volunteers who nearly pulled off a historic upset in the 2018 Texas Senate race and broke records launching Beto’s campaign for the presidency.” 

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  According to Evans, the two remain “volunteers” for the O’Rourke campaign. 

  In short, BuzzFeed is reporting mixed messages following their departure, or downgrade, whichever the case may be. 

  “They were not only instrumental to the historic Texas Senate race but they agreed to help get us off the ground in this monumental undertaking of running a grassroots campaign for president in every part of the country,” said Evans in a Saturday statement. “Becky and Zack remain close friends of the campaign, and true to form, they have already joined our army of grassroots volunteers who are signing up for shifts and committing to electing Beto president.”

  Bond is a well-known organizer in progressive circles, serving as political director of CREDO, a San Francisco-based activist group that aimed to push Obama to the left during his administration, before joining the Sanders campaign in 2016. On that race, she and Malitz helped build the Vermont senator’s “distributed organizing” program, which aimed to build volunteer leadership networks in areas of the country where the campaign lacked staff.

  She and Malitz committed to support O’Rourke’s team in 2020 at a time when some progressives, including a handful of Sanders allies, were critical of the Texas congressman. Several of Sanders’ former advisors still work for O’Rourke. –BuzzFeed

  Meanwhile, enjoy some of Beto’s poetry:

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• How To Explain Bitcoin To Your Friends & Family

  Authored by Len Ruggiero via The Burning Platform blog,

  Introduction: 

  EVERY new technological development throughout mankind’s recorded history has been met initially with derision, protest, incarceration, torture, death, and sometimes war. From the Catholic Church’s restraint of Galileo, who insisted that Copernicus was correct in his assertion that the sun was the center of the solar system, rather than the Earth as center, as was the position of the church at the time, to the invention of the printing press, which facilitated the French Revolution due to its ability to improve communication exponentially, to the personal computer, to Bitcoin, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, driverless electric vehicles, etc., technology advancement has always intimidated mankind when first introduced. Bitcoin is no exception.

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  Prediction:

  Taking it to its logical conclusion, the adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value and a means of exchange will literally destroy the existing banking and financial system as we know it.  It is inevitable. Nothing can stop Bitcoin. All current assets owned by people across the globe will become worthless. This will include assets owned by all levels of government, including, social security funds, and any other type of retirement fund. It makes no difference if the asset is measured in Dollars, Euros Yen, or Renminbi, the value of all current forms of assets will disappear, literally overnight.

  So there will be world anarchy, we’ll retreat to the dark ages, everyone will be poor, and we’ll have to subsist off the land, or die.  Right? Wrong. There will exist a fairly large group of Bitcoin Billionaires and Trillionaires, so called “whales,” in all the currently existing advanced economies of the world. These people will control all the power because they control Bitcoin.

  There will be a meeting of these people. It will be like Bretton Woods all over again, but instead of politicians and bankers attending, it will be Bitcoin Billionaires and Trillionaires.  They will  declare a “New World Order.”  Under the Bitcoin “New World Order”, a percentage of all Bitcoin in the world will be taxed at some agreed upon amount sufficient to replace the capital of every private individual, institution, and government around the globe with an amount equivalent to the pre-Bitcoin changeover. All countries will receive Bitcoin in an amount equivalent to local currency and people will continue to work as they do now.

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  I further predict this event will transpire within the next five years when the use of bitcoin by individuals and organizations becomes so widespread that local currencies will become unnecessary. The event will be similar to what is happening right now with the Petrodollar. China has declared it will begin using its currency rather than Dollars to buy its oil needs. Potentially, this could lead to China becoming the dominant world power in buying and trading of crude oil. It is currently the largest buyer of crude, which, coincidentally, is the largest traded commodity by Dollar volume.

  I also predict that this event will cause all the world’s central bankers to establish their own form of bitcoin but that attempt will fail because Bitcoin by then will already be established as the gold standard, so to speak.

  History:

  If one reads, listens to, or watches the news, one will hear repeatedly that Bitcoin is a scam, that it will go bust, it will be put out of business by competing bank’s cybercurrencies, or that governments will stop it, etc.  However, I happen to believe Bitcoin will prevail over all obstacles and I therefore boldly

  (or perhaps stupidly), predict its future. In a remark attributed to Mark Twain, “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.”

  On August 18, 2008, the domain name “bitcoin.org” was registered.  In November that year, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was posted to a cryptography mailing list.  Nakamoto implemented the bitcoin software as open sourcecode and released it in January 2009.   The identity of Nakamoto remains unknown.

  In January 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence after Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first ever block on the chain, known as the genesis block, for a reward of 50 bitcoins.

  The name Satoshi Nakamoto  is shrouded in mystery. It’s not known if it is a single person, a group of people or just a made up name. Whatever it is, it’s certainly prescient!

  Public comments:

  The potential, but real, threat of Bitcoin and the blockchain to the established financial order and to powerful financial elites, recently caused Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan, one of the world’s largest banks, to state that  “…Bitcoin…is a  fraud.”

  But the man speaks with forked tongue. It’s a known fact that every bank in the world is frantically analyzing the blockchain upon which Bitcoin and over 1500 other cryptocurrencies are based because it will—and is already—changing the fundamental workings of the global financial system.  This new technology threatens the well-being and very existence of every financial powerhouse and its beneficiaries because it brings a truly distributed, democratic process to the functioning of money as a system for the storage and exchange of value. However, only those who believe in Bitcoin will come out whole on the other side.

  Dimon speaks from his position at the very top of the established financial and political power base.  He speaks not to the point that Bitcoin is a fraud, but rather from outright fear of the ability of this new technology to literally destroy that system he represents. Without a shadow of doubt, he FULLYcomprehends Bitcoin’s and the blockchain’s threat to the current financial system. Fifty to a hundred years from now, his statement will be seen as akin to those made during the advent of the automobile.

  Similarites to existing money as a store of value and means of exchange:

  Bitcoin is fundamentally no different than our current global system of finance. Each country has its own form of currency which serves as a measure of value and means of exchange. Bitcoin, however, does not belong to any country. It belongs to its owners in a fully distributed manner.

  All forms of money currently in existence in advanced economies are fiat, meaning they are backed by nothing. Until 1971 the U.S. dollar was backed by gold. As a result, the government could never print more money than the amount of gold stored in its vaults. This gold backing of the dollar also served to limit the amount of dollars that could be printed or coins minted. Thus the value of money could never decrease below the value of gold.  Now the dollar’s backing exists only in the confidence and belief of people that money serves as a store of value and a means of exchange. Once people lose that confidence and belief, they will panic and there will be runs on banks as people seek to withdraw their money from their bank. This is exactly what happened in the U.S. before the Great Depression and also more recently in Cyprus.

  In 1971, President Nixon removed gold as the backing behind the dollar. Since then, the price of dollars has been allowed to float freely like any other commodity on trading exchanges throughout the world. Each country’s central bank creates its money out of thin air by entering additional digital numbers in their computer ledgers.  This so-called “money printing” has been proven time and time again throughout history to end in financial disaster. It is happening now, as we speak, in Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

  Today, banks operate under what is known as the “fractional reserve system”. The U.S, Government requires that every bank hold in its vaults at least $50 million or $5% of its capital base. A simplified explanation of how the fractional reserve system works is that people deposit money into their bank and the bank is required to keep only 5% of that money in its vaults available for withdrawal by its owners. The bank is in the business of earning profits, so it turns around and loans 95% of its deposits to others in the form of loans or it may invest in financial instruments, such as government bonds, which pay a percentage of interest.

  Value:

  We must ask ourselves what the word “value” truly and fundamentally means. The fundamental value each individual offers in today’s global society is the ability to work if one is in the working age group. For that value we are paid a wage in the currency of the country in which we reside.

  Again, Bitcoin is fundamentally no different. However one key difference is in the type of work that is performed to create value. The work that will be completed by Bitcoin to create value will not be physical or mental. Instead the work that will be performed and is currently performed is digital and virtual.

  This digital and virtual work is made possible by a technology named the “blockchain.” The blockchain is a computer algorithm, akin to a mathematical puzzle, but infinitely more complex. The numbers in the algorithm (actually the ones and zeros of the program), stretch to an unimaginable length, nearing infinity. Each time an algorithm puzzle is solved, a new Bitcoin is produced

  Furthermore, Bitcoin is limited in quantity to 20,000,000 Bitcoins, the maximum amount that will ever be produced. No central bank will be able to create more Bitcoin and thus inflate the currency. Bitcoin’s value will never be diminished because there are too many of them, the way there are too many dollars, Marks, or Zimbabwe Dollars, which ultimately leads to destructive inflation as in countries like Weimar Germany, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

  The making, or “mining,” of Bitcoin is horrendously expensive, requiring vast networks of the most powerful computer servers to work incessantly, creating a Bitcoin approximately every ten minutes. Furthermore the servers create so much heat in their operation that they must be cooled at high expense to a point they can operate at their peak efficiency. This “mining” will continue until the maximum amount of 20,000,000 Bitcoin is reached. Each Bitcoin “miner” is free to keep or sell the Bitcoin they create.

  The Blockchain:

  The “blockchain” is a virtual ledger designed to track each and every Bitcoin as well as the creation and exchange of Bitcoin. The  blockchain can be used in other digital applications as well, such as global supply chains,and financial transactions. The blockchain bookkeeping ledger is now virtual rather than residing on a computer or in a physical book into which accounting entries are made. Under all currently known technologies, the blockchain can never be hacked or compromised in any way, but that will undoubtedly change much sooner than most expect.

  The virtual ledger is, in fact, a digital chain recording each transaction. This prevents any single transaction from ever being duplicated or changed, thus it provides security along with anonymity. This latter point presents a legitimate concern held by critics due to the fact Bitcoin can be used for illicit purposes without anyone knowing the better. At this point, there is no known antidote. But one could also argue that such activity takes place under the current system of currencies and there is no means to prevent it. However, it seems well within the realm of reason to expect that a virtual solution will indeed be found

  Additional concerns:

  In addition to the above mentioned concerns, investors say Bitcoin is nothing but the latest speculative investment, going all the way back to the Dutch Tulip Mania. They expect that a crash in price is inevitable. That will likely happen and, in fact, has already happened. No investment goes straight up, there are always up and down cycles.

  Many believe another type of cryptocurrencies will replace Bitcoin, but there are no evident advantages to other cryptocurrencies under currently envisioned scenarios,

  Another valid concern has recently been expressed, that 1000 people hold 40% of existing Bitcoin, socalled “whales.”. This concentration of power may allow those with evil intent to corner the market and control price. This very point confirms one point made in my prediction above, except that I would hope those whales would have honorable intentions to help mankind in a massively positive way.

  

• When Disruption Goes Horribly Wrong: MoviePass Loses 90% Of Subscribers

  For those curious what happens to new normal “disruptors” when they run out of money and can no longer operate at a loss to capture market share (a favorite strategy for Silicon Valley and most “hot” names such as Tesla, Netflix, Uber, and in many ways, Amazon) look no further than MoviePass.

  The company, which rose to prominence after allowing its members to watch a virtually unlimited number of movies for a very low monthly price, only to see its business model implode after it failed to “scale” and leverage its user base and quickly ran out of cash, has seen a deluge of users hitting the exits after it was forced to scale back the number of movies users could see each month. The embattled cinema-subscription provider has seen its subscriber number collapse by 90% from a peak of more than 3 million to just 225,000 in under a year, according to a report by Business Insider, which cited “internal data” even though the company declined to officially confirm the humiliating figures.

  Last summer, when things were still running relatively smoothly, MoviePass claimed in June 2018 that it had signed up more than 3 million subs for its $9.95 monthly plan, which let customers see one movie every single day. However, that model quickly proved unsustainable as we previously reported, and MoviePass was forced to change that to a three-movies-per-month plan. So, last August MoviePass began to convert subscribers on annual subscription plans to the three-movies-per-month subscription plan, by giving annual subscribers the option to either cancel or refund their annual subscription or continue on the new three-movies-per-month subscription plan.

  As it turns out, most canceled: over 90% of MoviePass’ prior subscribers were no longer interested in paying the same price for a service that offered dramatically scaled-backed terms.

  Then, in an attempt to spark renewed membership interest, in March MoviePass introduced a refashioned “unlimited” plan, dubbed Uncapped, priced at $14.95 per month (or $119.4 per year), to again allow customers to see one movie daily, which however came with big caveats, described by MoviePass like this: “Your movie choices may be restricted due to excessive individual usage which negatively impacts system-wide capacity.”

  It was too little too late, and as BI reports, MoviePass managed to sign up only about 13,000 new subscribers Uncapped launched in mid-March, a far cry from where it was a year ago.

  It’s easy to grow sales and acquire subscribers with a negative variable margin. This suggests that @MoviePass’s value proposition can’t support a positive one (although financial viability concerns are also likely weighing on subscriber numbers). 1/https://t.co/4Zlzxpw1he

  — Dan McCarthy (@d_mccar) April 20, 2019

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  Meanwhile, the company’s liquidity struggles are only getting worse, and as of March 21, 2019, parent company Helios & Matheson Analytics only had $2.8 million in cash on hand and $13.1 million on deposit with its merchant and fulfillment processors related to subscription revenues.

  In an attempt to give the melting ice-cube a few more months before pulling the plug, last month Helios and Matheson said it raised a $6 million new round of financing from “certain institutional investors,” which closed March 25, Variety reported. The company said it would use the $5.56 million net proceeds (after placement-agent fees) “to accelerate MoviePass’ product development, fine tune its subscription technology, and increase MoviePass Films’ investment in new films.”

  Translation: the newly raised funds will be used to fund the company’s cash burn and delay its bankruptcy filing by a few months.

  The only question is whether once MoviePass does file for Chapter 7 liquidation, will anyone go to prison. The answer may well be yes: last month, MoviePass, which hasn’t filed financial results since Q3 2018, announced it would restate historical results for the8 months ended Sept 2018, as a result of a cut in revenue for the first three quarters of 2018 restated to $198.3 million vs $204.9 million previously, which boosted the company’s operating loss from $320 million to $327.4 million for the same period. Separately, the New York Attorney General opened a securities-fraud probe into whether Helios and Matheson misled investors. Among other legal woes noted by Variety, MoviePass also is the target of a class-action lawsuit by subscribers claiming the the change in the “unlimited” plan was a deceptive “bait-and-switch” tactic.

  The good news for investors: at least MoviePass’ painful lesson in what happens when the cash to fund “disruption” runs out, will come in relatively early, before the company could suck in far more capital. And while most other major disruptors will suffer the same fate once their generous VC or public capital backers lose the faith, the amount of capital involved there will be orders of magnitude higher. Until then, we eager look forward to even more unprofitable companies going public and proving that not only is the number of greater fools out there truly unprecedented, but that a sucker is indeed born every millisecond.

  

• China's Fake Numbers And The Risk They Pose For The Rest Of The World

  Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

  Not so long ago, London Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was one of the handful of must-read financial journalists. He probably still is, but since he disappeared behind the Telegraph’s pay wall his work is invisible to non-subscribers, only emerging when a free outlet runs one of his stories.

  That happened this morning when the Sydney Morning Herald carried his analysis of the financial Ponzi scheme that is China.

  After taking on more debt in a single decade than any other country ever — in the process helping to pull the US and Europe out of the Great Recession — China recently shifted into an even higher gear, creating a world record amount of credit in the most recent reporting month.

  And – more important for headline writers and money managers – it reported exactly the right amount of GDP growth.

  This brings to mind a long-ago interview in which economist Nouriel Roubini asserted that China just makes its numbers up, frequently reporting GDP immediately after the end of the period being measured, something that even the US can’t do.

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  But it’s one thing to for the rest of us to suspect and/or assert that China is just giving the markets what they want to hear, and another thing to understand the implications and explain them coherently. Evans-Pritchard does this in his latest article.

  Maximum vulnerability: China (and the world) are still in big trouble

  China’s majestic and elegantly-stable GDP figures are best seen as an instrument of political combat.

  Donald Trump says “trade wars are good and easy to win” if your foes depend on your market and you can break them under pressure.

  He proclaimed victory when the Shanghai equity index went into a swoon over the winter. This is Trumpian gamesmanship.

  It is in China’s urgent interest to puncture such claims as trade talks come to a head. Xi Jinping had to beat expectations with a crowd-pleaser in the first quarter. The number was duly produced: 6.4 per cent. Let us all sing the March of the Volunteers.

  “Could it really be true?” asked Caixin magazine. This was a brave question in Uncle Xi’s evermore totalitarian regime.

  Of course it is not true. Japan’s manufacturing exports to China fell by 9.4 per cent in March (year on year). Singapore’s shipments dropped by 8.7 per cent to China, 22 per cent to Indonesia, and 27 per cent to Taiwan. Korea’s exports are down 8.2 per cent.

  The greater China sphere of east Asia is in the midst of an industrial recession. Nomura’s forward-looking index still points to a deepening downturn. “Those expecting a strong rebound in Asian export growth in coming months could be in for disappointment,” said the bank.

  China’s rebound is hard to square with its own internal data. Simon Ward from Janus Henderson said nominal GDP growth – trickier to manipulate – is still falling. It dropped to 7.4 per cent from 8.1 per cent in the last quarter on 2018.

  Household demand deposits fell by 1.1 per cent last month. This means that the growth rate of “true” M1 money is still at slump levels. It has ticked up a fraction but this is nothing like previous episodes of Chinese stimulus. It points towards stagnation into late 2019. “Hold the champagne,” he said. A paper last month by Wei Chen and Chang-Tai Tsieh for the Brookings Institution – “A Forensic Examination of China’s National Accounts” – concluded that GDP growth has been overstated by 1.7 per cent a year on average since 2006. They used satellite data to track night lights in manufacturing zones, railway cargo volume, and so forth.

  “Local officials are rewarded for meeting growth and investment targets,” they said. “Therefore, it is not surprising that local governments also have an incentive to skew the statistics.”

  Liaoning – a Spain-sized province in the north – recently corrected its figures after an anti-corruption crackdown exposed grotesque abuses. Estimated GDP was cut by 22 per cent. You get the picture.

  Bear in mind that if China’s economy is a fifth or a quarter smaller than claimed it implies that the total debt ratio is not 300 per cent of GDP (IIF data) but closer to 400 per cent. If China’s growth rate is 1.7 per cent lower – and falling every year – the country is less able to rely on nominal GDP expansion whittling away the liabilities.

  Debt dynamics take an ugly turn – just at a time when the working-age population is contracting by two million a year. The International Monetary Fund says China needs (true) growth of 5 per cent to prevent a rising ratio of bad loans in the banking system.

  China bulls in the West do not dispute most of this. But they say that what matters is the “direction” of the data, and this is looking better. Stimulus is flowing through. It gained traction in March with an 8.5 per cent bounce in industrial output – though sceptics suspect that VAT changes led to front-loading. Suddenly the words “green shoots” are on everybody’s lips.

  The thinking is that China will rescue Europe. Optimists are doubling down on another burst of global growth, clinched by the capitulation of the US Federal Reserve. It will be a repeat of the post-2016 recovery cycle.

  Personally, I don’t believe this happy narrative. But what I do respect after observing late-cycle psychology over four decades – and having turned bearish too early during the dotcom boom – is that investors latch onto good news with alacrity during the final phase of a long expansion. A filtering bias creeps in.

  So sticking my neck out, let me hazard that heady optimism will lead to a rally on asset markets until the economic damage below the waterline becomes clear.

  Let us concede that Beijing has opened its fiscal floodgates to some degree over recent weeks. Broad credit grew by $US430 billion ($601 billion) in March alone. Business tax cuts were another $US300 billion. Bond issuance by local governments was pulled forward for extra impact. But once you strip out the offsets, it is far from clear that the picture for 2019 has changed.

  Nor is it clear what can be achieved with more credit. The IMF said in its Fiscal Monitor that the country now needs 4.1 yuan of extra credit to generate one yuan of GDP growth, compared to 3.5 in 2015, and 2.5 in 2009. The “credit intensity ratio” has worsened dramatically.

  I stick to my view that the US will slump to stall speed before China recovers. Europe is on the thinnest of ice. It has a broken banking system. It is chronically incapable of generating its own internal growth or taking meaningful measures in self-defence.

  Momentum has fizzled out in all three blocs of the international system. We are entering the window of maximum vulnerability.

  Lots of good data here – something notably lacking in most reporting on China’s “miracle.”

  But the best — and scariest — single stat is the dramatic decline in the marginal productivity of debt. China, like the US, is getting progressively less bang for each newly-borrowed buck. There’s a point at which new borrowing doesn’t just product less wealth but actually destroys it. The US and China are heading that way fast, while Europe might be there already.

  As Evans-Pritchard, notes, the result is “maximum vulnerability.”

  

• Gen Z Will Ditch Alcohol To Become The "Ultimate" Marijuana Consuming Generation

  America’s newest generation is growing up in a marijuana environment that is unlike anything ever seen in the U.S.

  Generation Z has never experienced an era where marijuana was looked upon as a “scourge”, or the source of extreme political ire – instead, they have only known an era where cannabis is being relentlessly pushed toward acceptance and legality. In fact, California voted to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, just one year before the eldest Generation Z consumers were born, according to Bloomberg. 

  Anna Duckworth, co-founder and chief content officer of Miss Grass, an online cannabis accessories shop and publication based in Los Angeles said:

   “They’re growing up in a world where cannabis is completely normal. Everybody will know how to roll a joint and there won’t be any shame talking about it.”

  Marijuana is already a big industry in the U.S. Sales have passed $10 billion as regulations have been rolled back and the industry only looks to be getting bigger. In fact, Generation Z consumers are twice as likely to use cannabis than they are to earn a steady paycheck. The generation looks poised to be chock full of marijuana consumers who will eventually embrace pot to unwind or treat ailments like insomnia and anxiety. 

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  Bloomberg spoke to 21-year-old student Baruch Levin at UCLA, who said he waited until he was 18 to try smoking pot, worried about his father’s warnings that it would “make him dumb”. And when Gen Z wants to get high, there’s an app for that. Before 2018’s legalization, he had a friend who would get it for him using a medical card, but now he buys it for himself through the “Eaze” delivery app.

  He says that there’s still some stigma attached to talking about marijuana use. “I think it will take one more generation. We grew up with the stigma from our parents,” he said.

  The legal age to buy pot is typically 21, which means that only the top end of Gen Z (ages 7-22) are already part of the legal weed economy. But as each year passes, more consumers will be able to spark one up. Last year, Gen Z consumers accounted for more than 1% of marijuana sales in the legal market. But by 4/20 this year, at least three times more will be able to participate in the holiday. 

  And corporations are taking notice. In addition to widespread firms in Canada, where pot is now legal, there are also some multi-state operators in the U.S. that are among the most valuable pot companies in the world. Companies in the U.S. are “opening stores and cultivation facilities across the country in a race to develop national weed brands.”

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  Food and beverage companies like Coca-Cola and Conagra are also studying the industry, trying to find ways to market to Gen Z and include CBD, a compound that doesn’t have the psychoactive effects of marijuana with THC. 

  And it isn’t just Gen Z that’s embracing cannabis. In the last 2 decades, the percentage of Americans who support legalization has doubled – more than 60% now have access to some form of legal weed. Medical programs have even sprung up in conservative states like Utah and Oklahoma. Industry observers cite the ongoing conversation about the medical benefits of pot as a turning point for public perceptions of it. But just 7% of Baby Boomers use marijuana, a survey by Bloomberg and Morning Consult said.

  Duckworth, of Miss Grass, often takes business meetings at a local dog park where she can spark a joint. She looks at it the same way she looks at meeting a client for a drink. That perception is going to continue to shape the industry, especially as younger Americans fall out of love with alcohol, and in love with cannabis. In fact, back in January, we highlighted how Americans were boozing less, forcing alcohol companies to scramble for booze alternatives. 

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  According to John Dick, who runs the data and polling firm CivicScience, Americans are becoming more introverted, which fits well with embracing the cannabis lifestyle. Dick’s polling found “a strong correlation between Americans who had reported using CBD, the hemp-derived compound that doesn’t get you high, and survey respondents who said they would prefer to watch a movie at home, rather than go to the theater.”

  He commented: “We’re realizing that deep down we’re introverts. You don’t need rocket science to figure out how that’s going to change things.”

  Bethany Gomez, managing director of Brightfield Group, a cannabis research firm said: “It’s becoming much more palatable. It’s not crazy to think the usage rate could eventually be similar to alcohol.”

  Angelica Bishop is a UCLA transfer student with a part-time job at a law firm and a 3.9 GPA who grew up in California. She is 23 and on the cusp of the Gen Z demographic. She says she gets high before philosophy class because pot helps her “think about things like existentialism without barriers.”

  She concluded: “When it comes to alcohol I’m really turned off. If you drink too much you end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. If I smoke too much, I sleep really well.”

  

• Visigoth Reparations & 'Karate-Chopped' Testicles

  Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  Every week we highlight a number of important, and often bizarre stories from around the world that my team and I are closely following:

  Cory Booker introduces reparations bill

  Get ready for a slippery slope, because because Cory Booker just introduced a reparations bill in Congress.

  The 2020 Presidential contender said, “this bill is a way of addressing head-on the persistence of racism, white supremacy, and implicit racial bias in our country… and propose solutions that will finally begin to right the economic scales of past harms…”

  If that’s the route America wants to go, seems like they should start with Native Americans. After all, they were the first ones to be exterminated and have their land stolen. And, comparatively speaking, they’re at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

  While the rest of the US enjoys historically low unemployment, the unemployment rate on Indian Reservations often exceed 10%.

  Native Americans also have the highest poverty rates of any ethnic group in the Land of the Free.

  It also makes me wonder what standard politicians should apply to correct historic injustice–

  Should the US government make reparation payments for killing countless Filipino civilians in the early 1900s during the armed occupation of the Philippines?

  Or to descendants of Japanese-Americans who died in internment camps during World War II?

  And, how far back should politicians go ?

  Should the government of Mongolia make reparation payments to Ukrainians for murdering tens of thousands of people during the siege of Kiev in 1240?

  Should descendants of the Visigoths have to give money to Italians for the sack of Rome in 410?

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  We doubt this bill will ever see the light of day. But it’s yet another striking indicator of what the Bolsheviks are thinking.

  Supreme Court to hear case of TSA Agent who “Karate Chopped” a man’s testicles

  The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is already pretty legendary for touching passengers in intimate ways… and it often crosses the line.

  In one important case, an airline captain was apparently given a swift ‘karate chop’ to his manhood during a TSA frisk back in 2016.

  According to court documents, the TSA agent was irritated, and admitted that he deliberately struck the captain’s groin during the pat-down.

  Federal law prohibits government agents from being sued in the performance of their duties– even if they commit assault and battery.

  But the airline captain (James Linlor) sued anyway, on grounds that the TSA violated the 4th Amendment of the Constitution which protects against unreasonable searches.

  This case is now going to the Supreme Court; and it will be an important one… because, if Linlor is victorious, it will establish a clear precedent that government agents can be sued when they cross the line.

  Nashville, a key music capital, shutting down home music studio

  Every year countless musicians descend upon Nashville to stake their claim on the country music scene.

  With such massive demand, thousands of home recording studios flourish. But now the city is threatening them all.

  Nashville bans home businesses from allowing clients in the home. This rule applies for anyone working from home, whether a hairdresser, massage therapist, or music producers.

  But one man is suing.

  Officials decided to shut down his home recording studio, threatening daily $50 fines and possible jail time if he refused. They even tried to force him to remove equipment from his home, submit to home inspections, and remove YouTube videos recorded in his studio.

  The Institute for Justice will help him argue that the regulation is an unconstitutional restriction on his right to earn a living.

  It is absurd that in a music capital like Nashville, the government claims the authority to prosecute musicians for recording a jam session in the wrong place.

  Timing of IMF loan to Ecuador raises suspicions

  Ecuador recently expelled Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, from its embassy in London.

  He had been living there with asylum since 2012, fearing extradition to the United States.

  Assange helped leaked top secret information exposing US war crimes in the middle east. And last year it was revealed that the US indeed filed a sealed indictment against him.

  Now he will be extradited to the Land of the Free to face charges related to computer hacking.

  But the timing of Ecuador’s revocation of his asylum raises some suspicions.

  Less than two months before Ecuador expelled Julian Assange from its embassy, it secured a $4.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

  The last time the IMF gave a loan to Ecuador was 2016. That was only $364 million, and it was to help them rebuild after a devastating earthquake.

  The USA is the largest shareholder in the IMF (and is known to use cash to exert international pressure).

  The timing seems a little too perfect to be a coincidence.

  And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

  

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• Brzezinski's Warning To America

  Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

  The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing. The center of gravity is shifting from west to east where China and India are experiencing explosive growth and where a revitalized Russia has restored its former stature as a credible global superpower. These developments, coupled with America’s imperial overreach and chronic economic stagnation, have severely hampered US ability to shape events or to successfully pursue its own strategic objectives. As Washington’s grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates global policy.

  At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here’s an excerpt from his presentation:

  “The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was… Not only do war and violence play a more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested….

  In this international environment, the risk of an inter-state war between great and middle powers has clearly increased….What we had been observing in many places around the world was a dramatic increase in brinkmanship, that is, highly risky actions on the abyss – the abyss of war….

  No matter where you look, there are countless conflicts and crises…the core pieces of the international order are breaking apart, without it being clear whether anyone can pick them up – or even wants to. (“Who will pick up the pieces?”, Munich Security Conference)

  Ischinger is not alone in his desperation nor are his feelings limited to elites and intellectuals. By now, most people are familiar with the demonstrations that have rocked Paris, the political cage-match that is tearing apart England (Brexit), the rise of anti-immigrant right-wing groups that have sprung up across Europe, and the surprising rejection of the front-runner candidate in the 2016 presidential elections in the US. Everywhere the establishment and their neoliberal policies are being rejected by the masses of working people who have only recently begun to wreak havoc on a system that has ignored them for more than 30 years. Trump’s public approval ratings have improved, not because he has “drained the swamp” as he promised, but because he is still seen as a Washington outsider despised by the political class, the foreign policy establishment and the media. His credibility rests on the fact that he is hated by the coalition of elites who working people now regard as their sworn enemy.

  The president of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, summed up his views on the “weakening of the liberal world order” in an article that appeared on the CFR’s website. Here’s what he said:

  “Attempts to build global frameworks are failing. Protectionism is on the rise; the latest round of global trade talks never came to fruition. ….At the same time, great power rivalry is returning…

  There are several reasons why all this is happening, and why now. The rise of populism is in part a response to stagnating incomes and job loss, owing mostly to new technologies but widely attributed to imports and immigrants. Nationalism is a tool increasingly used by leaders to bolster their authority, especially amid difficult economic and political conditions….

  But the weakening of the liberal world order is due, more than anything else, to the changed attitude of the U.S. Under President Donald Trump, the US decided against joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. It has threatened to leave the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. It has unilaterally introduced steel and aluminum tariffs, relying on a justification (national security) that others could use, in the process placing the world at risk of a trade war….America First” and the liberal world order seem incompatible.” (“Liberal World Order, R.I.P.”, Richard Haass, CFR)

  What Haass is saying is that the cure for globalisation is more globalization, that the greatest threat to the liberal world order is preventing the behemoth corporations from getting more of what they want; more self-aggrandizing trade agreements, more offshoring of businesses, more outsourcing of jobs, more labor arbitrage, and more privatization of public assets and critical resources. Trade liberalization is not liberalization, it does not strengthen democracy or create an environment where human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law are respected. It’s a policy that focuses almost-exclusively on the free movement of capital in order to enrich wealthy shareholders and fatten the bottom line. The sporadic uprisings around the world– Brexit, yellow vests, emergent right wing groups– can all trace their roots back to these one-sided, corporate-friendly trade deals that have precipitated the steady slide in living standards, the shrinking of incomes, and the curtailing of crucial benefits for the great mass of working people across the US and Europe. President Trump is not responsible for the outbreak of populism and social unrest, he is merely an expression of the peoples rage. Trump’s presidential triumph was a clear rejection of the thoroughly-rigged elitist system that continues to transfer the bulk of the nation’s wealth to tiniest layer of people at the top.

  Haass’s critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.

  As we noted earlier, the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, which is the one incontrovertible fact that cannot be denied. Washington’s brief unipolar moment –following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December, 1991 — has already passed and new centers of industrial and financial power are gaining pace and gradually overtaking the US in areas that are vital to America’s primacy. This rapidly changing economic environment is accompanied by widespread social discontent, seething class-based resentment, and ever-more radical forms of political expression. The liberal order is collapsing, not because the values espoused in the 60s and 70s have lost their appeal, but because inequality is widening, the political system has become unresponsive to the demands of the people, and because US can no longer arbitrarily impose its will on the world.

  Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely responsible for the hollowing out of America’s industrial core. Haass’s antidote would only throw more gas on the fire and hasten the day when liberals and conservatives form into rival camps and join in a bloody battle to the end. Someone has to stop the madness before the country descends into a second Civil War.

  What Haass fails to discuss, is Washington’s perverse reliance on force to preserve the liberal world order, after all, it’s not like the US assumed its current dominant role by merely competing more effectively in global markets. Oh, no. Behind the silk glove lies the iron fist, which has been used in over 50 regime change operations since the end of WW2. The US has over 800 military bases scattered across the planet and has laid to waste one country after the other in successive interventions, invasions and occupations for as long as anyone can remember. This penchant for violence has been sharply criticized by other members of the United Nations, but only Russia has had the courage to openly oppose Washington where it really counts, on the battlefield.

  Russia is presently engaged in military operations that have either prevented Washington from achieving its strategic objectives (like Ukraine) or rolled back Washington’s proxy-war in Syria. Naturally, liberal elites like Haass feel threatened by these developments since they are accustomed to a situation in which ‘the world is their oyster’. But, alas, oysters have been removed from the menu, and the United States is going to have to make the adjustment or risk a third world war.

  What Russian President Vladimir Putin objects to, is Washington’s unilateralism, the cavalier breaking of international law to pursue its own imperial ambitions. Ironically, Putin has become the greatest defender of the international system and, in particular, the United Nations which is a point he drove home in his presentation at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 28, 2015, just two days before Russian warplanes began their bombing missions in Syria. Here’s part of what he said:

  “The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality….We consider any attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. It may result in the collapse of the entire architecture of international relations, leaving no rules except the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than collective effort, by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly sovereign nations we will have colonies controlled from outside.”(Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly)

  Putin’s speech, followed by the launching of the Russian operation in Syria, was a clear warning to the foreign policy establishment that they would no longer be allowed to topple governments and destroy countries with impunity. Just as Putin was willing to put Russian military personnel at risk in Syria, so too, he will probably put them at risk in Venezuela, Lebanon, Ukraine and other locations where they might be needed. And while Russia does not have anywhere near the raw power of the US military, Putin seems to be saying that he will put his troops in the line of fire to defend international law and the sovereignty of nations. Here’s Putin again:

  “We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way….

  We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress.

  It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people’s mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are “democratic” revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already mentioned by the previous speaker. … Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention indiscriminately destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.

  I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done?” (Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly)

  Here Putin openly challenges the concept of a ‘liberal world order’ which in fact is a sobriquet used to conceal Washington’s relentless plundering of the planet. There’s nothing liberal about toppling regimes and plunging millions of people into anarchy, poverty and desperation. Putin is simply trying to communicate to US leaders that the world is changing, that nations in Asia are gaining strength and momentum, and that Washington will have to abandon the idea that any constraint on its behavior is a threat to its national security interests.

  Former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, appears to agree on this point and suggests that the US begin to rethink its approach to foreign policy now that the world has fundamentally changed and other countries are demanding a bigger place at the table.

  What most people don’t realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative.

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  In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America’s unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. Here’s a short excerpt from an article he wrote in 2016 for the American Interest titled “Toward a Global Realignment”:

  “The fact is that there has never been a truly “dominant” global power until the emergence of America on the world scene….That era is now ending….As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture….The United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.

  America can only be effective in dealing with the current Middle Eastern violence if it forges a coalition that involves, in varying degrees, also Russia and China….

  A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia… that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China’s increasing role in the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.

  The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility.

  Since the next twenty years may well be the last phase of the more traditional and familiar political alignments with which we have grown comfortable, the response needs to be shaped now…. And that accommodation has to be based on a strategic vision that recognizes the urgent need for a new geopolitical framework.” (“Toward a Global Realignment”, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American Interest)

  This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world had changed, that power had shifted eastward, and that the only path forward for America was cooperation, accommodation, integration and partnership. Tragically, there is no base of support for these ideas on Capital Hill, the White House or among the U.S. foreign policy establishment. The entire political class and their allies in the media unanimously support a policy of belligerence, confrontation and war. The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order.

  

• Libertarian 'Seasteaders' Face Execution In Thailand For 'Violating National Sovereignty'

  Despite its location just outside  of Thailand’s territorial waters, leaving it outside the reach of the country’s laws according to international maritime law, the world’s second “seastead” was raided by Thai police earlier this week as the country’s military-dominated government pressed charges of violating national sovereignty against the two bitcoin enthusiasts who had lived there.

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  The couple, Chad Elwartowski and his partner Supranee Thepdet, who goes by Nadia, could face life in prison or a death sentence in a Thai court if they are caught and formally charged. The two had sought to be pioneers in the seasteading movement, which advocates building structures anchored in international waters to allow people to live outside the control of governments and their laws. The couple’s home in the Adaman Sea, off the coast of Phuket.

  Elwartowski claimed in a Facebook post published earlier this week that the Thai government “wants us killed”, though he added that he and Nadia had sought refuge somewhere safe, outside the reach of Thai authorities. The two only lived on the vessel part time.

  “Hunting us down to our death is just plain stupid and highlights exactly the reason someone would be willing to go out in middle of the ocean to get away from governments,” he wrote. “We never had any ill intentions and I even state plainly several times that I would not want to be a citizen of any seastead nation that would have me.”

  Thai authorities revoked Elwartowski’s visa and said they would destroy the seastead within a week. The crackdown has dashed the couple’s plans to build ‘underwater restaurants’ and ‘floating hotels’ to Phuket.

  “We were hoping to bring tourism to Phuket with an underwater restaurant, floating hotels and medical research, tech jobs, etc. We had 3 wealthy entrepreneurs in the past week tell us they were coming to live in Phuket because they were excited about the project,” Elwartowski wrote.

  […]

  “We’re looking forward to freedom-loving people to come join us out on the open ocean,” he said.

  A promotional video from March showed the couple toasting champagne to the future on the open water. Elwartowski said during the video that their home would be the first of 20 built by the company Ocean Builders.

  Instagram photos and video posted by Nadia, also known as “bitcoingirlthailand,” also showed life out at sea.

   

   

   

   

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  First Seastead in International Waters Now Occupied, Thanks to Bitcoin Wealth Two libertarians now have a private home off the coast of Thailand—proof of concept for a world of more competitive governance and greater ocean environmental health read more on my website.. Do you Really Love My Planet.?. Support (me) @bitcoingirlthailand Thank you 🙏🏽 🙌🏽👌🏽😉…. #BitcoinGirlThailand #oceanbulleds #XLII #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #seasteading #seasteaders #floating #island #sailor #sailing #beach #summer #friends #bitcoingirl #love #happy #model #smart #life #fashion #instagood #fitness #healthy #food #smile #inspiration #beautiful #thailand

  A post shared by Nadia Summergirl (@bitcoingirlthailand) on Mar 1, 2019 at 5:19pm PST

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  But Thailand’s navy said the couple’s outpost still endangered national sovereignty, charging them with article 119 of the Thai Criminal Code, an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death.

   

   

   

   

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  Seastead not affected vote 2 Float 😁🤗 Ocean.Builders Do you Really Love My Planet.?. Support (me) @bitcoingirlthailand Thank you 🙏🏽 🙌🏽👌🏽😉…. #BitcoinGirlThailand #oceanbulleds #XLII #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #seasteading #seasteaders #floating #island #sailor #sailing #beach #summer #friends #bitcoingirl #love #happy #model #smart #life #fashion #instagood #fitness #healthy #food #smile #inspiration #beautiful #thailand

  A post shared by Nadia Summergirl (@bitcoingirlthailand) on Mar 25, 2019 at 4:45pm PDT

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  Ocean Builders, the company that built the couple’s seastead, released a statement on Monday saying that the couple were “volunteers excited about the prospect of living free” and were in “no way” involved in building the structure. They also confirmed that the couple are safe…at least for now.

  “Chad and Nadia are safe for now but understand that Thailand is currently being run by a military dictator. There will be no trial if they are caught,” the group said. “They already demonstrated that by being judge jury and executioner of the historic very first seastead.”

  While charges against the two had been filed by the Navy, Thai Police colonel Nikorn Somsuk said the country’s AG would still need to sign off for charges of violating national sovereignty – charges that carry max penalties of life imprisonment or execution – to be brought.

  While Ocean Builders had been planning to build more seasteads near Phuket, we imagine those plans are on hold for now. And with it, the dream held by many in the cryptocurrency community of living a life free of government intervention has faced a serious setback.

  

• Zombie Science: Researchers Kept The Brains Of Decapitated Pigs Alive For 36 Hours

  Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

  Scientists seem to be crossing a lot of boundaries as of late, which begs the question: Just because they can do something, does it mean they should?

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  Advances in brain-related technology are reaching dystopian levels. Scientists recently developed the ability to predict our choices before we are consciously aware of them, and can now translate people’s thoughts into speech. Smart chips that will create super-intelligent humans are in development, and China is mining data from the brains of citizens.

  While there are legitimate uses for some of this technology, it doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to realize that much of it could also be used for nefarious purposes.

  Are scientists taking some research too far?

  Developments in artificial intelligence are both fascinating and terrifying, but they pale in comparison to a recent discovery in neuroscience.

  This headline caught my attention a few days ago:

  Yale Scientists Kept Decapitated Pigs’ Brains Alive for 36 Hours

  That article goes on to explain the study:

  In March 2018, Yale neuroscientist Nenad Sestan shared a remarkable bit of news with his peers at a National Institutes of Health (NIH) meeting: he was able to keep pigs’ brains “alive” outside their bodies for up to 36 hours.

  The news quickly made its way from that meeting to the media. And now, more than a year later, the details of the radical study have finally been published in the highly respected journal Nature, confirming that what sounded initially like science-fiction was actually sound science — and raising startling questions about what it really means to be “dead.” (source)

  A press release titled Pig brains kept alive outside body for hours after death outlines the details of the study:

  Researchers at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, hooked the organs to a system that pumped in a blood substitute. The technique restored some crucial functions, such as the ability of cells to produce energy and remove waste, and helped to maintain the brains’ internal structures. (source)

  Sestan wanted to know if a whole brain could be revived hours after death, so he decided to find out…

  …using severed heads from 32 pigs that had been killed for meat at a slaughterhouse near his lab. His team removed each brain from its skull and placed it into a special chamber before fitting the organ with a catheter. Four hours after death, the researchers began pumping a warm preservative solution into the brain’s veins and arteries.

  The system, which the researchers call BrainEx, mimics blood flow by delivering nutrients and oxygen to brain cells. The preservative solution the team used also contained chemicals that stop neurons from firing, to protect them from damage and to prevent electrical brain activity from restarting. Despite this, the scientists monitored the brains’ electrical activity throughout the experiment and were prepared to administer anaesthetics if they saw signs that the organ might be regaining consciousness. (source)

  The researchers tested how well the brains fared during a six-hour period.

  Here’s what they found:

  …neurons and other brain cells had restarted normal metabolic functions, such as consuming sugar and producing carbon dioxide, and that the brains’ immune systems seemed to be working. The structures of individual cells and sections of the brain were preserved — whereas cells in control brains, which did not receive the nutrient- and oxygen-rich solution, collapsed. And when the scientists applied electricity to tissue samples from the treated brains, they found that individual neurons could still carry a signal.

  But the team never saw coordinated electrical patterns across the entire brain, which would indicate sophisticated brain activity or even consciousness. The researchers say that restarting brain activity might require an electrical shock, or preserving the brain in solution for extended periods to allow cells to recover from any damage they sustained while deprived of oxygen. (source)

  This research revealed some shocking information.

  It appears that the death of brain cells may not be as sudden, or as irreversible, as previously believed. The cells of the brain remained viable six hours later, compared with other brains not preserved using the newly developed process, the researchers reported.

  This study revealed a surprising degree of resilience among cells within a brain that has lost its supply of blood and oxygen, Sestan said. “Cell death in the brain occurs across a longer time window than we previously thought,” he explained.

  “Although the experiments stopped short of restoring consciousness, they raise questions about the ethics of the approach — and, more fundamentally, about the nature of death itself. The current legal and medical definitions of death guide protocols for resuscitating people and for transplanting organs,” the press release states.

  “For most of human history, death was very simple,” says Christof Koch, president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington. ”Now, we have to question what is irreversible.”

  In most countries, a person is considered to be legally dead when brain activity ceases or when the heart and lungs stop working. The brain requires an immense amount of blood, oxygen and energy, and going even a few minutes without these vital support systems is thought to cause irreversible damage. (source)

  The researchers say their findings might lead to new therapies for stroke and other conditions, as well as provide a new way to study the brain and how drugs work in it. They said they had no current plans to try their technique on human brains.

  Last year, Sestan said the BrainEx system is far from ready for use in people – not least because it is difficult to use without first removing the brain from the skull.

  This study and its possible uses raise serious ethical concerns.

  Do the possible implications and consequences of this research send chills down your spine?

  We’ve long been told that the brain cannot survive long without blood – that brain deterioration begins within minutes, and death soon follows.

  This study brings those beliefs into question and raises some serious concerns about ethical issues.

  Scientists – both those involved with the study and some who were not – have weighed in on the ethical issues surrounding this type of research and its possible uses, reports the Associated Press:

  Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, who didn’t participate in the study, said he was surprised by the results, especially since they were achieved in a large animal.

  “This sort of technology could help increase our knowledge to bring people back to the land of the living” after a drug overdose or other catastrophic event that deprived the brain of oxygen for an hour or two, he said. Unlike the pig experiments, any such treatment would not involve removing the brain from the body.

  The pig work also enters an ethical minefield, he said. For one thing, it touches on the widely used definition of death as the irreversible loss of brain function because irreversibility “depends on the state of the technology; and as this study shows, this is constantly advancing,” he said.

  And somebody might well try this with a human brain someday, he said. If future experiments restored the large-scale electrical activity, would that indicate consciousness? Would the brain “experience confusion, delusion, pain or agony?” he asked. That would be unacceptable even in an animal brain, he said. (source)

  In an editorial in Nature asserting the need for ethical guidelines for research on brain tissue, Sestan and 16 other scientists explained the various forms this tissue could take, such as samples removed via surgery or tissue grown in a lab from stem cells. They noted that “the closer the proxy gets to a functioning human brain, the more ethically problematic it becomes.”

  The study also raises questions about whether brain damage and death are permanent:

  Lance Becker, an emergency-medicine specialist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, says that many physicians assume that even minutes without oxygen can cause irreversible harm. But the pig experiments suggest that the brain might stay viable for much longer than previously thought, even without outside support. “This paper throws a hand grenade into the middle of what the common beliefs are,” says Becker. “We may have vastly underestimated the ability of the brain to recover.” (source)

  This may be the most troubling excerpt from the ethical issues editorial:

  In the meantime, scientists and governments are left to confront the legal and ethical quandaries related to the possibility of creating a conscious brain without a body. “This really is a no-man’s land,” says Koch. “The law will probably have to evolve to keep up.”

  Koch wants a broader ethical discussion to take place before any researcher tries to induce awareness in a disembodied brain. “It is a big, big step,” he says. “And once we do it, it’s impossible to reverse it.” (source)

  Also chilling: When MIT Technology Review contacted Sestan last year to ask a few questions about his study, he declined to elaborate, “saying he had submitted the results for publication in a scholarly journal and had not intended for his remarks to become public”.

  Steve Hyman, director of psychiatric research at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was among those briefed on the work. He shared his thoughts on the experiments with MIT Technology Review:

  “These brains may be damaged, but if the cells are alive, it’s a living organ. It’s at the extreme of technical know-how, but not that different from preserving a kidney.”

  Hyman says the similarity to techniques for preserving organs like hearts or lungs for transplant could cause some to mistakenly view the technology as a way to avoid death. “It may come to the point that instead of people saying ‘Freeze my brain,’ they say ‘Hook me up and find me a body,’” says Hyman.

  Such hopes are misplaced, at least for now. Transplanting a brain into a new body “is not remotely possible,” according to Hyman. (source)

  More disturbing concerns were raised in the MIT article:

  Sestan acknowledged that surgeons at Yale had already asked him if the brain-preserving technology could have medical uses. Disembodied human brains, he said, could become guinea pigs for testing exotic cancer cures and speculative Alzheimer’s treatments too dangerous to try on the living.

  The setup, jokingly dubbed the “brain in a bucket,” would quickly raise serious ethical and legal questions if it were tried on a human.

  For instance, if a person’s brain were reanimated outside the body, would that person awake in what would amount to the ultimate sensory deprivation chamber, without ears, eyes, or a way to communicate? Would someone retain memories, an identity, or legal rights? Could researchers ethically dissect or dispose of such a brain? (source)

  If you are interested in additional information on the ethical issues surrounding this type of experiment and its possible consequences, the full editorial is worth reading and can be found here: The Ethics of Experimenting With Human Brain Tissue.

  

• Cord-Cutting Is Quickly Picking Up Pace

  Over the past couple of weeks, things went from bad to worse for pay-TV providers in the United States, after both Apple and Disney announced their own subscription-based video streaming services to launch this year. Already struggling to hold on to subscribers lured away by the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, Statista’s Felix Richter points out that the last thing the pay-TV industry needs is two new heavyweight competitors with deep pockets and plenty of ambition.

  According to Leichtman Research Group, the largest pay-TV providers in the United States, accounting for 95 percent of all subscribers, lost more than 2.85 million subscribers, collectively, in 2018, with satellite services seeing the biggest drop in customers (-2.4 million) and cable companies also losing 0.9 million subs. Part of the decline was offset by a rise in internet-delivered services such as Sling TV, but overall things are looking increasingly bleak for the pay-TV industry.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As the chart above shows, cord-cutting is really picking up pace, with net subscriber losses of the largest pay-TV providers growing from 125,000 in 2014 to 2.85 million last year, with total subscriber losses amounting to more than 5.5 million over the five-year period.

  At the same time, household penetration of SVOD services has grown from 47 percent to 69 percent between 2014 and 2018, indicating who is likely to blame for pay-TV’s losses.

  

• Russia's Military Doctrine For 2019 And Beyond

  Submitted by South Front

  The term “Gerasimov Doctrine”, apparently wholly made up Mark Galeotti who, to his credit, owned up to his mistake, has been used by the Western media to the point of obscuring the real work on developing national security doctrines for Russia’s 21^st century needs.  In this work, General Valeriy Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, has played a major role. During a recent conference at the Academy of Military Sciences, where Gerasimov delivered the keynote speech, he outlined the national security priorities facing the Russian Federation. This included areas where further theoretical research is necessary to inform the future dimensions of armed forces development.

  While Gerasimov’s address dedicated considerable attention to the problem of nuclear deterrence, it also made clear that, in terms of meeting challenges posed by the threat of rapid evolution and expansion of the United States’ strategic nuclear potential, Russia’s symmetrical and asymmetrical responses will ensure the viability of its nuclear deterrent for the foreseeable future. The emphasis appears to be on diversification, and not only of launch platforms but also of delivery vehicles. The problem with the existing force of ICBMs, SLBMs, and bomber-launched ALCMs is that they represent a relatively well-known potential to counter. This means that should the US decide to invest heavily in anti-missile and anti-air defenses, it could defeat Russia’s nuclear deterrent in an all-out war. Moreover, the existence of widespread anti-air and anti-missile networks means that limited escalation using small numbers of offensive weapons might be stopped, forcing Russia to make an “all or nothing” choice—either no escalation at all, or an all-out nuclear strike. Gerasimov’s discussion of a genuinely strategic system such as the Avangard hypersonic glider, Burevestnik global-range cruise missile, and Poseidon underwater unmanned vehicle together with operational-level systems such as the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile and Kinzhal aeroballistic missile, indicates the desire to constitute Russia’s nuclear deterrent on the basis of an array of mutually complementary systems carried by an expanded range of carrier vehicles, including fighter aircraft such as the MiG-31 and attack submarines.

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  Russia’s leadership would thus be able to hold at risk a wide range of leadership and value targets using both conventional and nuclear systems against which it would be extremely difficult to construct a defensive barrier that would be viable in the minds of US decision makers.

  Remarkably, the traditional strong suit of the Russian military, namely large-scale land warfare, received relatively little attention in Gerasimov’s speech. Regarding that, he only touched upon the existing reorganization of army-brigade structure into army-division-regiments which are better suited for high-intensity operations. He also discussed the continued equipment modernization and expansion of the volunteer components of the armed forces. There were no indications that the mission of the Land Forces was about to shift from the emphasis on fighting a limited land battle on one of Russia’s many frontiers against a conventional incursion launched with little warning. However, Gerasimov’s concept of defensive action also includes the “strategy of limited actions” in order to safeguard not only Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity but also its interests abroad, including in far-flung theaters of operations such as Syria and possibly even Venezuela. Here, depending on the situation, the strategy calls for the establishment of a forces group led by one of the main branches of forces such as the Land Forces, Aerospace Forces, Airborne Assault Forces, or the Navy, in order to deploy to a remote destination and conduct operations in support of a regional ally. The unveiling of the concept of “strategy of limited actions” indicates that the Syria operation was to a large extent an improvisation, a test-bed for not only weapons but also, and perhaps especially, operational concepts including inter-service cooperation.  While a successful improvisation, the Syria campaign did reveal a number of gaps in Russia’s military capabilities, including the use of unmanned platforms where it clearly lags behind the United States, and also the ability to assess and strike emerging targets in near-real time. The repeated drone swarm attacks on the Hmeimim airbase are a case where Russian forces, while able to defeat the swarms themselves, did not appear able to quickly locate and destroy the source of these swarms. Gerasimov’s address recognized the need for theoretical and practical solutions to these problems, as well as the importance of political and humanitarian factors in the ultimate settlement of the conflict which definitely proved to be the case in Syria, where the adroitness of Russia’s diplomacy and Moscow’s ability to use political and economic levers of influence considerably changed the political landscape of not only Syria, but of the entire Middle East.

  The final aspect of Gerasimov’s address that is worthy of attention is the recognition that Russia has less to fear from NATO’s conventional or even nuclear warfare than from unconventional “hybrid” attacks, including information and cyber-warfare, and even direct subversion using a domestic “fifth column”. It is here that Gerasimov made the most extensive request for theoretical research, acknowledging that dealing with such a threat would require close coordination of military, paramilitary, and purely civilian government agencies. What Gerasimov described is essentially the Venezuela scenario. The dispatch of a delegation of some 100 Russian military personnel appears to be intended to provide both a show of support and tangible assistance in the form of advice to the beleaguered Venezuelan government.  However, in view of Gerasimov’s emphasis on theoretical research into dealing with unconventional threats, Venezuela also offers an opportunity to study US methods being used in this undeclared “hybrid” war.  There the United States is, in effect, conducting an experiment in “non-kinetic” warfare using chiefly economic pressure, information operations, and cyberwarfare, in conjunction with what appears to be a rather weak “fifth column”. The apparent lack of use of even proxy armed forces may yet change should the current US strategy fail.

  All in all, even though the Russian Federation was able to successfully weather the military and political challenges of the past several years, including the undoubted success in Syria that has considerably enhanced Russia’s prestige not only in the Middle East but all over the world, there was no evidence of complacency in Gerasimov’s address. Instead there was a sense of awareness that this is a crisis which will not be quickly resolved and which will require the ability to rapidly develop and deploy counters to whatever new methods of confrontation Western powers will adopt.

  

• Wild Bee Population Collapses By 90% In New England, Study Warns 

  Researchers from the University of New Hampshire conducted a study to document declines in about 100 wild bee species critical to pollinating crops throughout New England. What they discovered, according to the study, was a collapse in the wild bee population across the state, reported AP.

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  Researchers analyzed 119 species in the state from a museum collection at the college dating back more than a century. Sandra Rehan and Minna Mathiasson published the study in the peer-reviewed journal called Insect and Conservation Diversity this month. They concluded 14 species found across New England were on the decline by as much as 90%. Several of the species include leafcutter and mining bees.

  “We know that wild bees are greatly at risk and not doing well worldwide,” Rehan, assistant professor of biological sciences and the senior author on the study, said in a prepared statement. “This status assessment of wild bees shines a light on the exact species in decline, besides the well-documented bumblebees. Because these species are major players in crop pollination, it raises concerns about compromising the production of key crops and the food supply in general.”

  The AP noted that wild bee populations across the world are in decline, and scientists have blamed a wide range of factors including industrialization, insecticides, herbicides, parasites, disease, and climate change. Bees are crucial for pollination, and about one-third of the human diet derives from plants that are directly pollinated by bees.

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  Greg Burtt, founder of Burtt’s Apple Orchard in Cabot, Vermont, told the AP that his farm relies heavily on wild bees for crop production. 

  “Making sure that pollinators in the area are healthy and doing well is definitely something we’re concerned about,” Burtt said.

  Jeff Lozier, a bee expert from the University of Alabama who didn’t participate in the study, said the results are a critical step in expanding research into lesser-known species of bees. He cautioned that the study relied upon bees in a museum that were not collected “for the purpose of large scale population surveys.”

  “The most important use of the data in my view is in providing a baseline set of hypotheses for groups of species that are potentially declining or stable across a much greater set of species than is usually examined, which can then be investigated in more detail to determine why they may be changing,” Lozier said in an email interview. “This study doesn’t really determine the why quite yet, but gives us a reference point for further study.”

  The study noticed that half of those wild bees on the decline were located in higher elevation regions like the White Mountains than in the state’s coastal areas. The study said as the wild bees shift northward, some of the species don’t have the same kind of flowers and plants to pollinate.

  “They have nowhere else to go,” Rehan said. “That is the biggest concern.”

  Rehan warned as wild bee populations collapse so will crop yields, which could produce food shortages across the country. She says wild bees are facing similar threats that have also caused honeybee populations to plunge – including the overuse of pesticides and herbicides, a lack of seasonal wild plant diversity and volatile weather.

  

• Petras: Why Venezuela Has Not Been Defeated

  Authored by James Petras via The Unz Review,

  Introduction

  Over the past half decade, a small army of US analysts, politicians, academics and media pundits have been predicting the imminent fall, overthrow, defeat and replacement of the Venezuelan government.

  They have been wrong on all counts, in each and every attempt to foist a US client regime.

  In fact, most of the US-induced ‘regime change’-efforts have strengthened the support for the Chavez – Maduro government.

  When the US promoted a military-business coup in 2002, a million poor people surrounded the presidential palace, allied with the military loyalists, defeated the coup. The US lost their assets among their business and military clients, strengthened President Chavez, and radicalized his social program. Likewise, in 2002-03 when state oil company executives launched a lock-out.They were defeated, and hundreds of hardcore US supporters were fired and Washington lost a strategic ally.

  A more recent example is the overbearing role of President Trump’s bellicose proclamation that the US is prepared to invade Venezuela. His threat aroused massive popular resistance in defense of national independence ,even among discontented sectors of the population.

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  Venezuela is in the vortex of a global struggle which pits the imperial aspirations of Washington against an embattled Venezuela intent on defending its own, and like countries, in support of national and social justice.

  We will proceed by discussing the multi-sided means and methods adopted by Washington to overthrow Venezuela’s government and replace it by a client regime.

  We will then analyze and describe the reasons why Washington has failed, focusing on the positive strengths of the Venezuelan government.

  We will conclude by discussing the lessons and weaknesses of the Venezuelan experience for other aspiring nationalist, popular and socialist governments.

  US Opposition: What Venezuela Faces

  The US assault on Venezuela’s state and society includes:

  1. A military coup in 2002

  2. A lockout by the executives of the Venezuelan oil company

  3. The exercise of global US power – organized political pressure via clients and allies in Europe, South and North America

  4. Escalating economic sanctions between 2013 – 2019

  5. Street violence between 2013 – 2019

  6. Sabotage of the entire electrical system between 2017 -2019

  7. Hoarding of goods via corporations and distributors from 2014 – 2019

  8. Subversion of military and civilian institutions 2002 – 2019

  9. Regional alliances to expel Venezuelan membership from regional organizations

  10. Economic sanctions accompanied by the seizure of over $10 billion dollars of assets

  11. Sanctions on the banking system

  The US direct intervention includes the selection and appointment of opposition leaders and ‘dummy’ representatives overseas.

  In brief the US has engaged in a sustained, two decades struggle designed to bring down the Venezuelan government. It combines economic, military, social and media warfare. The US strategy has reduced living standards, undermined economic activity, increased poverty, forced immigration and increaser criminality. Despite the exercise of US global power, it has failed to dislodge the government and impose a client regime.

  Why Venezuela has Succeeded?

  Despite the two decades of pressure by the world’s biggest imperial power ,which bears responsibility for the world’s highest rate of inflation, and despite the illegal seizure of billions of dollars of Venezuelan assets, the people remain loyal , in defense of their government. The reasons are clear and forthright.

  The Venezuelan majority has a history of poverty, marginalization and repression, including the bloody massacre of thousands of protestors in 1989. Millions lived in shanty towns, excluded from higher education and health facilities. The US provided arms and advisers to buttress the politicians who now form the greater part of the US opposition to President Maduro. The US- oligarch alliance extracted billions of dollars from contracts from the oil industry.

  Remembrance of this reactionary legacy is one powerful reason why the vast majority of Venezuelans oppose US intervention in support of the puppet opposition.

  The second reason for the defeat of the US is the long-term large-scale military support of the Chavez-Maduro governments. Former President Chavez instilled a powerful sense of nationalist loyalty among the military which resists and opposes US efforts to subvert the soldiers.

  The popular roots of Presidents Chavez and Maduro resonates with the masses who hate the opposition elites which despise the so-called ‘deplorables’. Chavez and Maduro installed dignity and respect among the poor.

  The Venezuelans government defeated the US-backed coups and lockouts, these victories encouraged the belief that the popular government could resist and defeat the US-oligarch opposition. Victories strengthened confidence in the will of the people.

  Under Chavez over two million modern houses were built for the shanty town dwellers; over two dozen universities and educational centers were built for the poor, all free of charge . Public hospitals and clinics were built in poor neighborhoods as well as public supermarkets which supplied low-cost food and other necessities which sustain living standards despite subsequent shortages.

  Chavez led the formation of the Socialist Party which mobilized and gave voice to the mass of the poor and facilitated representation. Local collectives organized to confront corruption, bureaucracy and criminality. Together with popular militias, the community councils ensured security against CIA fomented terror and destruction.

  Land reform and the nationalization of some mines and factories secured peasant and workers support – even if they were divided by sectarian leaders.

  Conclusion

  The cumulative socio-economic benefits consolidate support for the Venezuelan leadership despite the hardships the US induces in recent times. The mass of the people have gained a new life and have a lot to lose if the US-oligarchy return to power. A successful US coup will likely massacre tens of thousands of popular supporters of the government. The bourgeoisie will take its revenge for those many who have ruled and benefited at the expense of the rich.

  There are important lessons to be learned from the long-term large-scale successful resistance of the Venezuelan government’s experience but also its limitations.

  Venezuela , early on, secured the loyalty of the army. That’s why the Chavista government has endured over 30 years while the Chilean governments of Salvador Allende was overthrown in three years.

  The Venezuelan government retained mass electoral support because of the deep socio-economic changes that entrenched mass support in contrast to the center-left regimes in Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador which won three elections but were defeated by their right-wing opponents, including electoral partners, with a downturn in the economy, and the flight of middle-class voters and parties.

  Venezuelas linkages with allies in Russia, China and Cuba provided ‘life jackets’ of economic and military support in the face of US interventions, something the center-left governments failed to pursue.

  Venezuela built regional alliances with nearly half of South America, weakening US attempts to form a regional or US invasion force.

  Despite their strategic successes the Venezuelan government has committed several costly mistakes which increased vulnerability.

  1. Failure to diversify their exports, markets and banking system. The US sanctions exploited these weaknesses.

  2. Failure to carry out monetary reforms to reverse or contain hyperinflation.

  3. Failure to maintain the hydro-electoral system and secure it from sabotage.

  4. Failure to invest in and recruit new technical professional to upgrade the operation of the financial system and prosecute financial corruption in the banking system. Venezuela worked with high officials who engaged in financial and real estate transactions of a dubious nature.

  5. The failure to recruit and train working class and professional political cadres capable of oversight over management.

  Venezuela has taken steps to rectify these errors but the question is whether they have time and place to realize radical reforms?

  

• CIA Chief Says Russia And Iran Are New Focus, Praises Trump's North Korea Efforts

  On the same day the Mueller report went public, CIA Director Gina Haspel made a rare public appearance at Auburn University outlining the Central Intelligence Agency’s new priority to better understand “nation-state adversaries such as Russia and Iran,” according to a new WSJ report. 

  Though she made no mention of the special council’s now public report, she said the agency had made both Russia and Iran a central focus over the past year, shifting resources to these areas to better prepare for the threat. 

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  “Our Russia and Iran investment has been strengthened after years of falling behind our justifiably heavy emphasis on counter-terrorism” in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Haspel said in the remarks. “We still have a lot of work to do on that front, but we’re making good progress,” she added.

  She mentioned new potential government adversaries “whether in Moscow, Tehran or Pyongyang” according to the WSJ’s summary of the speech, but also pledged to put continued focus on threats from al-Qaeda and ISIS. 

  Significantly, it was only the second time the CIA chief had given public remarks since taking the director post last May. She’s seen as having kept a low profile, given her clandestine service background and intelligence community tensions with the Trump White House. 

  Also interesting is her praise of Trump’s engagement with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, per the WSJ:

  On North Korea, the CIA director said Mr. Trump “has shown a lot of wisdom” in reaching out to leader Kim Jong Un in a bid to rid the country of its nuclear arms. “And that’s not to downplay the difficulty or the obstacles and challenges associated with” the effort, she said.

  In January, Mr. Trump clashed with his spy chiefs via Twitter after intelligence leaders, including Ms. Haspel, told a Senate panel that U.S. analysts were skeptical about Mr. Kim’s willingness to give up his nuclear program.

  On state actors like Russia, as well as resurgent terror groups, she stopped short of saying these threats were “existential,” however. 

  But given her remarks revealing the CIA prioritizing efforts focused on Russia, it doesn’t appear the Mueller report, which has now effectively debunked the past three years of “Moscow-centric national security threat hysteria,” will make Washington’s neo-Mccarthyite anti-Russia craze go away anytime soon.  

  

• Ilargi Meijer: "They Were All Lying!"

  Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

  A dear friend the other day accused me of defending Trump. I don’t, and never have, but it made me think that if she says it, probably others say and think the same; I’ve written a lot about him. So let me explain once again. Though I think perhaps this has reached a “you’re either with us or against us’ level.

  What I noticed, and have written a lot about, during and since the 2016 US presidential campaign, is that the media, both in the US and abroad, started making up accusations against Trump from scratch. This included the collusion with Russia accusation that led to the Mueller probe.

  There was never any proof of the accusation, which is why the conclusion of the probe was No Collusion. I started writing this yesterday while awaiting the presentation of the Mueller report, but it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other: the accusation was clear, and so was the conclusion.

  Even if some proof were found through other means going forward, it would still make no difference: US media published over half a million articles on the topic, and not one of them was based on any proof. If that proof had existed, Mueller would have found and used it.

  And sure, Trump may not be a straight shooter, there may be all kinds of illegal activity going on in his organization, but that doesn’t justify using the collusion accusation for a 2-year long probe. If Trump is guilty of criminal acts, he should be investigated for that, not for some made-up narrative. It’s dangerous.

  Axios report[ed] that since May 2017, exactly 533,074 web articles have been published about Russia and Trump-Mueller, which in turn have generated “245 million interactions – including likes, comments and shares – on Twitter and Facebook.” “From January 20, 2017 (Inauguration Day) through March 21, 2019 (the last night before special counsel Robert Mueller sent his report to the attorney general), the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts produced a combined 2,284 minutes of ‘collusion’ coverage, most of it (1,909 minutes) following Mueller’s appointment on May 17, 2017,” MRC reports

  What the Mueller report says is that 500,000 articles about collusion, and 245 million social media interactions in their wake, were written without any proof whatsoever (or Mueller would have used that proof). That doesn’t mean they may not have been true, or that they can’t be found to be true in the future, it means there was no proof when they were published. They Were All Lying.

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  The same goes for the Steele dossier. It holds zero proof of collusion between Trump’s team and Russia. Or Mueller would have used that proof. New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, CNN: they all had zero proof when they published, not a thing. Or Mueller would have used that proof. Rachel Maddow’s near nightly collusion rants: no proof. Or Mueller would have used that proof.

  That there is no proof also means there has never been any proof. Why that is important, and how important it is, is something we’re very clearly seeing in the case concerning Julian Assange. That, too, is based on made-up stories.

  I suggested a few days ago in the Automatic Earth comment section that the advent of the internet, and social media in particular, has greatly facilitated the power of repetition: say something often enough and few people will be able to resist the idea that it must be true. Or at least some of it.

  If you look at the amount of time people spend in ‘their’ Facebook, the power of repetition becomes obvious. 245 million social media interactions. On top of half a million articles. How were people supposed to believe, in the face of such a barrage, that there never was any collusion?

  Or that Assange is squeaky clean, both in person and in his alleged involvement in the collusion? There is only one way to counter all this: for people like me to keep pointing it out, and to hope that at least a few people pick it up.

  That has nothing to do with defending Trump. It has to do with defending my own sanity and that of my readers. Of course it would have been easier, and undoubtedly more profitable, to go with the flow and load on more suspicions, allegations and accusations.

  All those media made a mint doing it, and the Automatic Earth might have too. But that is not why we are here.

  The Democrats, and the media sympathetic to them, now have seamlessly shifted their attention from Collusion to Obstruction. Which leads to a bit of both interesting and humorous logic: No Collusion? No Obstruction.

  The Mueller probe would never have happened if it had been clear there was no collusion. But everyone and their pet hamster were saying there was. And there was the Steele dossier, heavily promoted by John McCain and John Brennan. Neither of whom had any proof of collusion.

  The obstruction the anti-Trumpers are now aiming their arrows at consists of Trump allegedly wanting to fire Mueller and/or stopping an investigation that should never have been instigated into a collusion that never existed and was based on a smear campaign.

  And now they want to impeach him for that? For attempting to stop the country wasting its resources and halt an investigation into nothing at all?

  Know what I hope? That they’ll call on Mueller to testify in a joint session of Senate and Congress and that Rand Paul gets to ask him to address this tweet of his:

  “Rand Paul: BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report… Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.”

  And why Mueller refused to go talk to Assange, who offered actual evidence that no Russians were involved. Or how about these stonkers:

  “Undoubtedly there is collusion,” Adam Schiff said. “We will continue to investigate the counterintelligence issues. That is, is the president or people around him compromised? … It doesn’t appear that was any part of Mueller’s report.”

  Preet Bharara: “It’s clear that Bob Mueller found substantial evidence of obstruction.”

  There’ll never be such a joint session, the Democrats want to play a home game in Congress. So there will have to be a separate session in the Senate. No doubt that will happen. Trump was right about one thing (well, two): 1) A special Counsel fcuks up a presidency, and 2) this should never happen to another president again.

  Not that I have any faith in Capitol Hill, mind you. Because they will agree, and they will agree on one thing only, as Philip Giraldi stipulates once more:

  Rumors of War – Washington Is Looking for a Fight

  [..] even given all of the horrific decisions being made in the White House, there is one organization that is far crazier and possibly even more dangerous. That is the United States Congress, which is, not surprisingly, a legislative body that is viewed positively by only 18 per cent of the American people. A current bill originally entitled the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA) of 2019,” is numbered S-1189.

  It has been introduced in the Senate which will “…require the Secretary of State to determine whether the Russian Federation should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and whether Russian-sponsored armed entities in Ukraine should be designated as foreign terrorist organizations.”

  And that brings us back to Robert Mueller’s investigation into hot air, which, while it entirely eviscerates even the notion of collusion, still contains accusations against Julian Assange and ‘the Russians’.

  Why does he leave those in, when there was no collusion? It’s dead simple. Because unlike accusations against Trump, he doesn’t have to prove them. Which is why I will not stop saying, as I first did some 10 weeks ago, that Robert Mueller Is A Coward And A Liar.

  Again, this has nothing to do with defending Trump, it’s about defending and maintaining my own sanity and yours, and the rule of law.

  As I said back then about Mueller refusing to talk to Assange, and James Comey in 2017 making sure the DOJ didn’t either :

  Every single American should be alarmed by this perversion of justice. Nothing to do with what you think of Trump, or of Assange. The very principles of the system are being perverted, including, but certainly not limited to, its deepest core, that of every individual’s right to defend themselves. Just so Robert Mueller can continue his already failed investigation into collusion that has shown no such thing, and which wouldn’t have been started 20 months ago if we knew then what we know now.

  Get off your Trump collusion hobby-horse, that quest has already died regardless, and start defending the legal system and the Constitution. Because if you don’t, what’s to keep the next Robert Mueller from going after you, or someone you like or love? It’s in everyone’s interest to demand that these proceedings – like all legal proceedings- are conducted according to the law, but in Mueller’s hands, they are not.

  And that should be a much bigger worry than whether or not you like or dislike a former game-show host.

  I’ve said this before as well: I’ll always defend Julian Assange, but I won’t defend Donald Trump. Is that clear now?

  

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• Info Overload? All Of The Data Created In 2018 Is Equal To…

  As revealed in the newly released Statista Digital Economy Compass, the world created an enormous 33 zettabytes of data in 2018.

  If that number means nothing to you, you’re surely not alone. While the size guide at the bottom of this infographic might be of help, a more effective way to provide some context to the number is to compare it to something more tangible.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  If you were to burn all of the information created last year onto Blu-ray discs, you would need to invest in an astounding 660 billion – each with a standard capacity of 50 gigabytes.

  Moving into the biological realm, 33 terrabytes is equivalent to the estimated storage space of 33 million human brains.

  Delving even deeper, and as an equally impressive testament to the power of DNA, you would need 73 grams of our genetic material to create a backup of 2018’s global data.

  You can download the Statista Digital Economy Compass 2019 for free, here.

  

• US/NATO Using Europe For Strategy Of Controlled Chaos

  Authored by Manlio Dinucci via GlobalResearch,

  Everyone against everyone else – this is the media image of chaos which is spreading across the Southern shores of the Mediterranean, from Libya to Syria. It is a situation before which even Washington seems powerless. But in reality, Washington is not the sorcerer’s apprentice unable to control the forces now in motion. It is the central motor of a strategy – the strategy of chaos – which, by demolishing entire States, is provoking a chain reaction of conflicts which can be used in the manner of the ancient method of “divide and rule”.

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  Emerging victorious from the Cold War in 1991, the USA self-appointed themselves as “the only State with power, reach, and influence in all dimensions – political, economic and military – which are truly global”, and proposed to “prevent any hostile power from dominating any region – Western Europe, Eastern Asia, the territories of the ex-Soviet Union, and South-Western Asia (the Middle East) – whose resources could be enough to generate a world power”.

  Since then, the United States, with NATO under their command, have fragmented or destroyed by war, one by one, the states they considered to represent an obstacle to their plan for world domination – Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and others – while still others are in their sights (among which are Iran and Venezuela).

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  In the same strategy came the coup d’État in Ukraine under the direction of the USA and NATO, in order to provoke a new Cold War in Europe intended to isolate Russia and reinforce the influence of the United States in Europe.

  While we concentrate politico-media attention on the fighting in Libya, we leave in the shadows the increasingly threatening scenario of NATO’s escalation against Russia. The meeting of the 29 Ministers for Foreign Affairs, convened in Washington on 4 April to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Alliance, reaffirmed, without any proof, that “Russia violated the FNI Treaty by deploying new missiles with a nuclear capacity in Europe”.

  One week later, on 11 April, NATO announced that the “update” of the US Aegis “anti-missile defence system”, based at Deveselu in Romania, would be implemented this summer, assuring that it would “not add any offensive capacity to the system”.

  On the contrary, this system, installed in Romania and Poland, as well as on board ships, is able to launch not only interceptor missiles, but also nuclear missiles. Moscow issued a warning – if the USA were to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, Russia would deploy – on its own territory – similar missiles pointed at European bases.

  Consequently, NATO’s spending for « defence » has skyrocketed – the military budgets of European allies and those of Canada will rise to 100 billion dollars in 2020.

  The Ministers for Foreign Affairs, united in Washington on 4 April, agreed in particular to “face up to Russia’s aggressive actions in the Black Sea”, by establishing “new measures of support for our close partners, Georgia and Ukraine”.

  The following day, dozens of warships and fighter-bombers from the United States, Canada, Greece, Holland, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria began a NATO aero-naval war exercise in the Black Sea at the limit of Russian territorial waters, using the ports of Odessa (Ukraine) and Poti (Georgia).

  Simultaneously, more than 50 fighter-bombers from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Holland, taking off from a Dutch airbase and refuelling in flight, practised “offensive aerial missions of attack against earth-based or sea-based objectives”. Italian Eurofighter fighter-bombers were once again sent by NATO to patrol the Baltic region to counter the “threat” of Russian warplanes.

  The situation is increasingly tense and can explode (or be exploded) at any moment, dragging us down into a chaos much worse that of Libya.

  *  *  *

  This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated by Pete Kimberley.

  

• Rumors Of War: Washington Is Looking For A Fight

  Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  It is depressing to observe how the United States of America has become the evil empire. Having served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and in the Central Intelligence Agency for the second half of the Cold War, I had an insider’s viewpoint of how an essentially pragmatic national security policy was being transformed bit by bit into a bipartisan doctrine that featured as a sine qua non global dominance for Washington. Unfortunately, when the Soviet Union collapsed the opportunity to end once and for all the bipolar nuclear confrontation that threatened global annihilation was squandered as President Bill Clinton chose instead to humiliate and use NATO to contain an already demoralized and effectively leaderless Russia.

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  American Exceptionalism became the battle cry for an increasingly clueless federal government as well as for a media-deluded public. When 9/11 arrived, the country was ready to lash out at the rest of the world. President George W. Bush growled that “There’s a new sheriff in town and you are either with us or against us.” Afghanistan followed, then Iraq, and, in a spirit of bipartisanship, the Democrats came up with Libya and the first serious engagement in Syria. In its current manifestation, one finds a United States that threatens Iran on a nearly weekly basis and tears up arms control agreements with Russia while also maintaining deployments of US forces in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places like Mali. Scattered across the globe are 800 American military bases while Washington’s principal enemies du jour Russia and China have, respectively, only one and none.

  Never before in my lifetime has the United States been so belligerent, and that in spite of the fact that there is no single enemy or combination of enemies that actually threaten either the geographical United States or a vital interest. Venezuela is being threatened with invasion primarily because it is in the western hemisphere and therefore subject to Washington’s claimed proconsular authority. Last Wednesday Vice President Mike Pence told the United Nations Security Council that the White House will remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, preferably using diplomacy and sanctions, but “all options are on the table.” Pence warned that Russia and other friends of Maduro need to leave now or face the consequences.

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  The development of the United States as a hostile and somewhat unpredictable force has not gone unnoticed. Russia has accepted that war is coming no matter what it does in dealing with Trump and is upgrading its forces. By some estimates, its army is better equipped and more combat ready than is that of the United States, which spends nearly ten times as much on “defense.”

  Iran is also upgrading its defensive capabilities, which are formidable. Now that Washington has withdrawn from the nuclear agreement with Iran, has placed a series of increasingly punitive sanctions on the country, and, most recently, has declared a part of the Iranian military to be a “foreign terrorist organization” and therefore subject to attack by US forces at any time, it is clear that war will be the next step. In three weeks, the United States will seek to enforce a global ban on any purchases of Iranian oil. A number of countries, including US nominal ally Turkey, have said they will ignore the ban and it will be interesting to see what the US Navy intends to do to enforce it. Or what Iran will do to break the blockade.

  But even given all of the horrific decisions being made in the White House, there is one organization that is far crazier and possibly even more dangerous. That is the United States Congress, which is, not surprisingly, a legislative body that is viewed positively by only 18 per cent of the American people.

  A current bill originally entitled the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA) of 2019,” is numbered S-1189. It has been introduced in the Senate which will “…require the Secretary of State to determine whether the Russian Federation should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and whether Russian-sponsored armed entities in Ukraine should be designated as foreign terrorist organizations.” The bill is sponsored by Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado and is co-sponsored by Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

  The current version of the bill was introduced on April 11th and it is by no means clear what kind of support it might actually have, but the fact that it actually has surfaced at all should be disturbing to anyone who believes it is in the world’s best interest to avoid direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia.

  In a a press release by Gardner, who has long been pushing to have Russia listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, a February version of the bill is described as “…comprehensive legislation [that] seeks to increase economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on the Russian Federation in response to Russia’s interference in democratic processes abroad, malign influence in Syria, and aggression against Ukraine, including in the Kerch Strait. The legislation establishes a comprehensive policy response to better position the US government to address Kremlin aggression by creating new policy offices on cyber defenses and sanctions coordination. The bill stands up for NATO and prevents the President from pulling the US out of the Alliance without a Senate vote. It also increases sanctions pressure on Moscow for its interference in democratic processes abroad and continued aggression against Ukraine.”

  The February version of the bill included Menendez, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as co-sponsors, suggesting that provoking war is truly bipartisan in today’s Washington.

  Each Senator co-sponsor contributed a personal comment to the press release. Gardner observed that “Putin’s Russia is an outlaw regime that is hell-bent on undermining international law and destroying the US-led liberal global order.” Menendez noted that “President Trump’s willful paralysis in the face of Kremlin aggression has reached a boiling point in Congress” while Graham added that “Our goal is to change the status quo and impose meaningful sanctions and measures against Putin’s Russia. He should cease and desist meddling in the US electoral process, halt cyberattacks on American infrastructure, remove Russia from Ukraine, and stop efforts to create chaos in Syria.” Cardin contributed “Congress continues to take the lead in defending US national security against continuing Russian aggression against democratic institutions at home and abroad” and Shaheen observed that “This legislation builds on previous efforts in Congress to hold Russia accountable for its bellicose behavior against the United States and its determination to destabilize our global world order.”

  The Senatorial commentary is, of course, greatly exaggerated and sometimes completely false regarding what is going on in the world, but it is revealing of how ignorant American legislators can be and often are. The Senators also ignore the fact that the designation of presumed Kremlin surrogate forces as “foreign terrorist organizations” is equivalent to a declaration of war against them by the US military, while hypocritically calling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism is bad enough, as it is demonstrably untrue. But the real damage comes from the existence of the bill itself. It will solidify support for hardliners on both sides, guaranteeing that there will be no rapprochement between Washington and Moscow for the foreseeable future, a development that is bad for everyone involved. Whether it can be characterized as an unintended consequence of unwise decision making or perhaps something more sinister involving a deeply corrupted congress and administration remains to be determined.

  

• Mapping The World's Busiest Air Routes

  Modern air travel gives us almost unlimited possibilities for getting around.

  Whether you are acting on your wanderlust to explore new and exotic destinations, hopping to a familiar island for a well-deserved vacation, or jetsetting to London in the comfort of business class, the modern airline industry can get you almost anywhere you need to go.

  But, as Visual Capitalists’ Jeff Desjardins notes, while flying allows us to have unique experiences, it’s often the case that we are all coming and going from many of the same popular destinations. As a result, the world’s busiest air routes have hundreds of flights per day connecting important city pairs together.

  Ranking City Pairs

  Today’s chart pulls data from OAG, which has compiled a detailed report ranking the busiest domestic and international air routes from around the globe.

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  It’s worth noting that the data is over the period of March 2018 to February 2019, and it excludes carriers that operate fewer than 500 routes per year.

  Let’s dive in to see which city pairs have the most air travel between them.

  Domestic Routes

  Domestic routes are far more popular than international routes globally. According to the report, there are 15 domestic routes that have more operating flights per year than any international route anywhere.

  Here’s a look at the top 10 domestic routes:

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  The busiest domestic route might be a surprise, unless you are familiar with Asian geography.

  With almost 80,000 annual flights, the 300-mile hop between Seoul and Jeju Island in South Korea is the busiest air route in the world by a large margin. Overall, there are seven carriers competing on it each day, with over 200 daily flights available between them.

  What makes Jeju so popular?

  Known as the “Hawaii of South Korea”, this volcanic island is an extremely popular vacation destination within the country, and it hosts roughly 15 million guests per year.

  International Routes

  On an international basis, the busiest route has almost 50,000 fewer flights per year than the Jeju-Seoul city pair listed above. Not surprisingly, this route – and many other top international routes – are also located in the Asia Pacific region.

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  The short hop between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur takes only one hour, and it connects two major Southeast Asian commercial hubs. The route has 41 flights per day between eight airlines, making it one of the most competitive routes globally.

  The busiest international route outside of the Asia Pacific is between Toronto and New York (LaGuardia) with 17,038 annual flights. Interestingly, it only has three competing carriers – the lowest of any of the top 10 routes.

  

• The Elites Laugh As Americans Revel In Their Enslavement While Fearing Each Other

  Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

  Americans are increasingly living in fear of the opposing political party.  While the elites laugh and continue to enslave the populace even further because of this fear, Americans increasingly embrace their chains while asking them to be shortened, and all while dehumanizing those on a different plantation.

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  The fact is, none of us are free. We are all slaves to the same master – the political elites.  The only way to be free is to accept it and attempt to free others in the process. So far, the government has not had to put literal chains on anyone because most Americans are mental slaves.  If you own the mind, you won’t need to enslave the body.  This is causing problems in problems in our society, however, as many fear those who think differently than they do while giving a pass to the ones actually at fault for their dissatisfaction.

  Extreme partisanship has infected both democrats and republicans to the point of no return. According to Oregon Live, more than 40 percent of Americans say they are surrounded by “downright evil” and they’re referring to their fellow Americans who happen to belong to a different political party. This division and fear keep the elite wealthy, powerful, and increasingly authoritarian. While we fight each other, we can’t be bothered to actually take on the behemoth monster that is responsible for all this fear and division in the first place.

  A recent academic paper by political scientists Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason, presented at the National Capital Area Political Science Association conference in January, concludes that the extreme partisanship of recent decades has made millions of Americans intellectually insular and emotionally numb. As a result, these hyper-partisans – and, to be clear, all of this goes for members of both major parties – feel little or no sympathy “in response to deaths and injuries of political opponents.” Some even show “explicit support for partisan violence.” –Oregon Live

  The key component to all of this fear is ensuring the public stays divided by dehumanizing each other.  This makes violence against each other suddenly “acceptable” to those stuck and enslaved by the system. A key reason for this “moral disengagement” is that partisanship in the cable-TV and social-media age has proven exceptionally good at dehumanizing one’s ideological opponents. Kalmoe and Mason’s unpublished paper found that about one in five Americans believe that those on the other side of the partisan divide “lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals.”

  The portion of hyper-partisan Americans is worrisome even for those not on the political spectrum.  Morality no longer matters if another human being is not seen as a human being. Kalmoe and Mason’s work indicates that the nature of this uptick in extreme partisanship provides people with the “psychological distancing” that allows them to rationalize physical violence and discrimination against others.

  Instead of accepting that it is ALWAYS  morally wrong to initiate force or violence against another human being for ANY REASON, Americans have rationalized such violence and theft as taxation or police brutality in order to justify their own political violence. This type of path is leading our society down a very dangerous path.

  

• Legal Weed In Canada Struggles To Compete With Black Market 

  Six months after Canada became the first country in the developed world to legalize marijuana, legal sales of dried cannabis flower went up in smoke as consumers shifted to illicit markets.

  A marijuana shortage left the industry in shock earlier this year and caused concerns that Canadian cannabis producers were not properly structured to handle the massive demand from the Canadian marketplace.

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  As a result, a majority of marijuana sales in the country — approximately $5 billion — were transacted on the black market, compared to $2 billion in legal sales, according to new government data from January 2019.

  Pot smoking Canadians purchased 6,671 kilograms of legal cannabis in February, down 9% from January, and the lowest amount since October when 6,415 kilograms were sold, according to Health Canada.

  While the legal cannabis market has been hit with supply chain bottlenecks and overpricing, the black market continued to flourish into 2Q.

  Canadians paid 57% on average more for legal cannabis than they did from their drug dealer, according to the data.

  Since October [the month when pot became legal], consumers purchasing legal cannabis paid $7.47 per gram on average, compared with buyers on the black market who paid an average $4.70 per gram.

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  Industry experts believe the illicit cannabis market will continue to expand by offering affordable weed to all.

  “As long as that price differential exists, there will likely be a black market – because people will go to where they can get a deal,” Rosalie Wynoch, a policy analyst at the CD Howe Institute, a conservative think tank, told the Guardian. “The government was aware that it wouldn’t fully displace the black market on day one.”

  A recent survey of 500 pot smokers conducted by BMO Capital Markets found that 35% of all respondents indicated they have purchased legal cannabis. BMO’s survey responses also suggest that muted legal sales were due to supply shortages and overpricing.

  Ahead of legalization last October, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, emphasized that legal pot would eliminate the black market. Unfortunately, Trudeau has been terribly mistaken as the illicit market continues to expand.

  

• RussiaGate Is Dead! Long Live Russiagate!

  Authored by Gerald Sussman via Counterpunch.org,

  Now that Mueller’s $40 million Humpty Trumpty investigation is over and found wanting of its original purpose (to retire Trump), perhaps the ruling class can return without interruption to the business of destroying the world with ordnance, greenhouse gases, and regime changes. A few more CIA-organized blackouts in Venezuela (it’s a simple trick if one follows the Agency’s “Freedom Fighter’s Manual”), and the US will come to the rescue, Grenada style, and set up yet another neoliberal regime. There is a small solace that with Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton, there is at least a semblance of transparency in their reckless interventions. The assessed value of Guaido and Salman, they forthrightly admit, is in their countries’ oil reserves. And Russians better respect the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny if they know what’s good for them. Crude as they may be, Trump’s men tell it like it is. And when Bolton speaks of “the Western Hemisphere’s shared goals of democracy, security, and the rule of law,” he is of course referring to US-backed coups, military juntas, debt bondage, invasions, embargoes, assassinations, and other forms of gunboat diplomacy.

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  That the US is not already formally at war with Russia (even with NATO forces all along its borders) has only to do with the latter’s nuclear arsenal deterrent. Since World War II, a period some describe as a “a period of unprecedented peace,” the US war machine has wiped out some 20 million people, including more than 1 million in Iraq since 2003, engaged in regime change of at least 36 governments, intervened in at least 82 foreign elections, including Russia (1996), planned more than 50 assassinations of foreign leaders, and bombed over 30 countries. This is documented here and here.

  Despite unending US and US-supported assaults on Africa and western and central Asia, the authors who see postwar unprecedented peace argue that it’s Russia and China, not the US, that represent the real threats to peace and deserve to be treated as “outcasts.” That NATO has warships plying the Black Sea and making port calls at the ethnically Russian Ukraine city of Odessa and is conducting war games from Latvia to Bulgaria and Ukraine represents unprecedented peace? While NATO, which together has 20 times the military spending of Russia and includes member states along virtually the entire perimeter of Russia, in Western propaganda Russia is the aggressor.

  Although the US corporate media may have missed the news, the rest of the world gets the fact that the greatest threat to peace on the planet is Uncle Sam. In 2013, a WIN/Gallup International poll of 66,000 people in 65 countries found that the US was considered by far the most dangerous state on earth (24% of respondents), while Russia didn’t even register statistically on that poll. In 2017, a Pew poll found the same perception of US power and that such a view had increased to 38% and had grown in 21 of 30 countries compared to 2013. Even America’s neighbors, Canada and Mexico, see the US as a major threat to their countries, worse than either China or Russia. The mainstream media (MSM) stenographers’ myopia in failing to cover this story is not an oversight. Carl Bernstein, of Watergate exposé fame, documented in 1977 the fact that from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, the MSM (New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the rest) had regularly served as overseas informers for the CIA. It would be hard to believe that those ties are not still intact given the level of collaboration among the CIA, the MSM, and the Democratic Party in the Russiagate conspiracy drama.

  Context is everything.

  In blaming others for the instability of the Middle East, it is important to bear in mind that for 36 years since Reagan launched air attacks on Beirut and parts of Syria, the US, and its ally Israel, has been using the greater Middle East region as a testing ground for its weapons systems. This has meant repeated bombing and droning of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, and Sudan, and increased weapons sales to the region to assure continuous instability and profits. The US has “special forces” operating in two-thirds of the world’s countries and non-special forces stationed in three-quarters of them, altogether over 800 military bases and installations in as many as 130 countries (the Pentagon refuses to give the exact number). By comparison, apart from several bases in some of the former Soviet republics, Russia has a naval resupply facility in Vietnam and small temporary leased naval and airport stations in Syria. China opened a combined naval and army base in Djibouti in 2017 and an “unofficial military presence” in Tajikistan. There is nothing remotely close to equivalence.

  We can expect a continuing outcasting of Russia, either under a second Trump presidency or, if the long dark shadow of the Clintons prevails, a Joe Biden White House. Biden claims without the benefit of evidence that currently “the Russian government is brazenly assaulting the foundations of Western democracy around the world,” as if the huge imbalance of military forces and the long history of US interventions against liberal democracies and socialist states were unknown or irrelevant. In his (and the establishment’s) heavy-handed uses of propaganda, Biden has learned well the tactics of Goebbels – repeat the lies often enough to make the imperial state appear as the victim.

  With regard to a brazen assault on democracy, Biden might take a cue from Clinton, who knew how to capitalize on her power position by signing off on huge arms sales to the Saudis (e.g., a $29 billion sale of fighter jets to that country to be used against Yemen) and other Gulf States while securing tens of millions of dollars in donations from the sheikhs ($25 million from Saudi Arabia alone) to her private foundation, run by her husband. This is all the more contemptuous given that she acknowledged in 2013: “The Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons… clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region…and pretty indiscriminately – not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future.”

  In other words, she knew the Saudis and other Gulf dictators were arming ISIS (ISIL) and other caliphate actors but continued to keep them as allies and patrons. She also took $800 thousand for her 2016 campaign (almost double what Trump received) and some $3 million for her private foundation from oil and gas companiesafter approving lucrative gas pipeline in the Canadian tar sands. Part of the foundation staff’s business was to arrange meetings of top donors meetings with the then secretary of state. Following Clinton and Obama’s lead and without a second thought, Trump has authorized US energy companies to sell the Saudi monarchy nuclear power technology and assistance.

  In foreign policy, indeed, it’s hard to see any meaningful difference between Republican and Democratic administrations. Obama and John Kerry sent Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Victoria Nulandto Kiev’s Maidan to cheer on the 2014 coup, hand out sandwiches to protesters, and give marching orders to her ambassador there to arrange for Yatsenyuk to be prime minister and to “fuck the EU.” Poroshenko, a regular informer at the US embassy, as WikiLeaks revealed, was already in the bag for president. Biden was brought in to “midwife” and “help glue this thing” by pressuring the still-ruling Yanukovych to step down in favor of the US-designated coup leaders. Along the same lines, Trump’s then ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, joined Venezuelan protesters outside UN headquarters in New York, using a megaphone to publicly call for a coup against Maduro. “I will tell you,” she told the group, “the U.S. voice is going to be loud.”

  Both the Ukraine and Venezuela interventions are in part a grand strategy to isolate Russia. However, the orchestration of a new Cold War against Russia and to implicate Trump as a Kremlin puppet has failed, and the problem for Russiagate propagandists is how to keep the conspiracy theory alive now that Mueller’s unsuccessful hunt for 5thcolumnists is in the dustbin. The leading Russia scholar, Stephen Cohen, who has been professionally marginalized because of his skepticism toward the CIA narrative, sees the impact of a larger scandal – the corruption of the Democratic Party and its minions in the media that formed an alliance with the spooks. He asks: “what about the legions of high-ranking intelligence officials, politicians, editorial writers, television producers, and other opinion-makers, and their eager media outlets that perpetuated, inflated, and prolonged this unprecedented political scandal in American history…?”

  Another question is, how would the mainstream media financially survive an ending of Russiagate, if indeed the media moguls allow it to end? This spectacular failure of the “fourth estate” in covering the Clinton and Democrats’ defeat in 2016 greatly weakened their trust status, which has been in quite steady decline since the 1970s, especially among Republicans. Democrats tend to look more favorably on the largely partisan liberal MSM for obvious reasons. However, as of December 2018, according to an IPSOS/Reuters poll, only 44% of Americans has much (16%) or some (28%) confidence in the MSM, compared to hardly any (48%). On whether MSM news organizations are more interested in making money than telling the truth, 59% agreed with the former assessment. No known organization has published findings on MSM trust since the completion of the Mueller debacle.

  What is to be made politically of the Russia obsession? Russiagate, which Matt Taibbi calls “this generation’s WMD,” can be seen as serving three broad major purposes.

  It has given the Democratic Party leadership and its partners in the CIA and MSM a cause célèbre inorder to salvage the status and image of the party and distract from its disastrous electoral defeats from 2008 to 2016. It thereby serves as an alternative reality to the widespread recognition that the ruling forces in the party have no genuine popular agenda and represent corporate, banking, neoliberal, and neoconservative militarist projects designed under Bill Clinton’s New Democrat agenda.

  On foreign policy, Russiagate puts the Democrats to the right of the Republicans, similar to the way that John Kennedy in the 1960 campaign accused the Eisenhower (and VP Nixon) administration of weakening America’s defenses, which presently enables the energy and defense industries and their lobbyists to unduly influence the perception of international threats and flashpoints. Democrats in the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly for the 2019 $716 billion defense budget, over and above what even Trump requested. In 2018, five military contractors – Northrup Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon – provided key political leaders in both parties with $14.4 million in addition to $94 million spent on lobbying efforts that year. Oil & gas spent $89 million on the election campaign and $125 million on lobbying.

  And, third, it serves to stifle the political left in and outside the party and the demands for progressive legislative changes activated by Bernie Sanders in 2016 and by newer members like Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Tulsi Gabbard.

  Where is the center of public political confidence these days? Certainly not with the mainstream media, which is even lower than that for Trump. Even in terms of its vaunted claims of press freedom, the US fares quite badly. Reporters Without Borders ranked the US number 45th worldwide (of 180 countries cited) in press freedom in its 2018 report. Tory-led Britain slid from 33rd in 2014 to 40th– only Italy and Greece were behind the UK among western European countries. And although Trump hasn’t helped with his attacks on the media (and more than reciprocated by the media’s extraordinarily hostile coverage of the president), the situation wasn’t much better under Obama, who threatened whistle blowers in the press with enforcing the 1917 Espionage Act. This is law that may be pressed against the journalist Julian Assange. There still exists no “shield law” guaranteeing journalists the right to protect their sources’ identities. Journalism students should be concerned for another reason as well:Newspaper employment between 2001 and 2016 has been cut by more than half, from 412,000 to 174,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  William Arkin, who quit NBC News as a political commentator last January, accused the station of peddling “ho-hum reporting” that “essentially condones” an endless US war presence in the Middle East and Africa. He also took the network to task for not reporting “the failures of the generals and national security leaders,” and essentially becoming “a defender of the government against Trump” and a “cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering.”

  In his parting comments, he wrote: “I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically … be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war.… Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War?”

  It may be whistling in the wind, but there are more important things to worry about than whether “the Russians” exposed the DNC’s perfidious behavior in 2016. It would be more worthwhile for Democrats to demand programs that eliminate child poverty, which is at 20% in the US, compared to an OECD average of 13%. It might also be useful to concentrate a bit more on the white working class and working poor that went to Trump in 2016, whose kids make up 31% of  the child poverty bracket (black children are 24%, and Latino children are 36%).

  And while they’re at it, they might try to change the fact that the US ranks 25thout of 29 industrialized countries in investments in early childhood education or the fact that the disgraceful American infant mortality rate at 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births is 50% higher than the OECD average (3.9%). Many of the parents of these less privileged children are serving long sentences in prison for non-violent crimes, the discarded citizens who form the highest incarceration rate in the world. Overall, the Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranked the US 18th out of 21 wealthy countries on measures of labor markets, poverty rates, safety nets, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. On the other hand, the US has more than 25% of the world’s 2,208 billionaires. This is American exceptionalism at its worst.

  The corporate-run market system and the calamities it is bringing to the world depends on such distractions. As the New York Times journalist and defender of US global supremacy, Thomas Friedman, has noted, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” In his view, the system needs protecting, for which his “journalism” and most of the MSM are certainly doing their part.

  Unless the rather soft left within the Democratic Party can somehow capture the public imagination, the Democrats’ political agenda, the MSM and their cohorts in the deep state will likely continue to report fake Russian conspiracies around the world.

  Russiagate is a propaganda industry that keeps on giving. In the longue durée of American elections, the question is what discourse will dominate the next campaign – social justice and a rational foreign policy or more aggressive polemics about Russia aimed at a steady pathway to nuclear war?

  

• Nearly Half Of Millennials Wouldn't Invest In Stocks Even If They Had The Money

  As the American equity market roars back toward its all-time highs, a majority of the millennial generation is probably learning the true meaning of FOMO, because as study after study has showed, those who came of age immediately before, during and after the financial crisis were so scarred by the experience that they refused to ever buy in to the equity market. Overall, equity ownership among American adults remains 8% below its pre-crisis levels.

  Of course, the factors behind the millennial generation’s inability to accumulate wealth are myriad: Stagnant wages, crushing student loan debt and widening inequality are just a few reasons why the savings rate among those under the age of 35 is basically nil. And when they do invest, they appear doomed to repeat the mistakes of the not-too-distant past, favoring get-rich-quick bubble plays like marijuana stocks and bitcoin over blue-chip stalwarts like Apple.

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  But while most would probably chalk millennials’ aversion to investing up to the fact that they don’t have any savings or income to spare, one recent study suggested that even if they had the money, they wouldn’t put it in stocks.

  Lexington Law, a firm that offers services to help people fix their credit, asked 1,000 millennials how they would invest $10,000 if they had it to spare.

  Nearly half – 46% – said they wouldn’t put the money in stocks.

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  Only one in three respondents said they would rely on a financial advisor, reflecting a distrust of financial ‘professionals’ that has lingered since the crash.

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  And although a slightly higher percentage of men than women said they would rely on their own advice, most expressed a lack of confidence in their investing acumen that was reflective of their lack of acumen.

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  As the study’s authors  argued, this distrust in the financial system isn’t terribly surprising.

  Considering the effects of the last market crash, it’s not terribly surprising that 46 percent of adults aged 25 to 34 said they wouldn’t invest in the stock market. Many of the financial institutions that played a role in the last recession continue to operate as investment banks today. Though employment and wages are up, the crisis hasn’t been forgotten.

  We wonder if their attitudes would be different if Congress and the Fed didn’t step in to bail out banks and the wealthy while leaving average working Americans to shoulder the brunt of the consequences?

  

• Five Companies Represent 35% Of All The S&P 500’s Value Creation Over The Last 5 Years

  Submitted by Nicholas Colas of DataTrek

  Six companies represent 37% of all the S&P 500’s value creation over the last 5 years: Amazon (10.1%), Apple (6.5%), Facebook (4.7%), Google (6.4%), Microsoft (7.8%), and Netflix (1.8%). And even though NFLX may look small, its increase in market value over the last 5 years is essentially the same as JP Morgan’s. US equity valuations reflect present and future Tech disruption. No other narrative need apply.

  * * *

  In our Markets section 2 nights ago we mentioned that Amazon is responsible for 6.7% of the S&P 500’s market value gain since November 2005. Amazon was added to the index in the that month, and since then:

  • The value of the companies in the S&P 500 has risen by $13,161 billion.
  • Amazon’s market cap has increased by $886 billion
  • Divide the two figures and you get 6.7%

  That got us to thinking: how much have large Tech companies influenced the S&P 500 over just the last 5 years? Here are a few baseline numbers to start the analysis:

  • At the end of March 2014, the S&P 500 had a total value of $17,206,453 million.
  • At the end of March 2019, it was $24,760,982 million
  • The difference: $7,554.5 billion, or 43.9% higher
  • One technical note: the S&P 500 is +51.3% over this period with the difference due to stock buybacks.

  So how much of that $7.6 trillion comes from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Netflix? Here are the numbers:

  Amazon: 10.1% of the market’s value gain over the last 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $157.4 billion
  • Market cap now: $917.6 billion
  • Difference: $760.2 billion

  Apple: 6.5% of the market’s gains over the last 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $472.1 billion
  • Market cap now: $963.9 billion
  • Difference: $491.8 billion

  Facebook: 4.7% of the market’s gains over the past 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $157.2 billion
  • Market cap now: $510.5 billion
  • Difference: $353.3 billion

  Google: 6.4% of the market’s gains over the last 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $375.6 billion
  • Market cap now: $859.5 billion
  • Difference: $483.9 billion

  Microsoft: 7.8% of the market’s gains over the last 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $343.0 billion
  • Market cap now: $934.2 billion
  • Difference: $591.2 billion

  Netflix: 1.8% of the market’s total gains over the last 5 years:

  • Market cap Q1 2014: $21.6 billion
  • Market cap now: $154.9 billion
  • Difference: $133.3 billion

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  Pulling all this into 3 summary points:

  #1: Netflix may not seem all that impressive at “just” $133 billion of added market cap, but that’s essentially what JP Morgan added to the S&P 500 over the same period. JPM’s market cap has increased by $139.1 billion in the last 5 years.

  Conclusion: disruption at global scale can add as much market value as a much larger but old-school business even if the latter is very well-run.

  #2: In aggregate, these 6 companies are responsible for 37.3% of all the S&P’s incremental value creation over the last 5 years. Take out Netflix, and the remaining 5 are still 35.5%.

  Conclusion: over a third of the S&P’s 44% value accretion in the last 5 years comes down to a handful of now-super cap tech disruptors. Without them, the S&P’s total value would only have compounded annually at 5.0% instead of 7.6%.

  #3: The right question out of this analysis: what will be the source of the S&P’s value creation over the next 5 years (i.e. where is the next $3-5 trillion of market cap coming from)? Here’s how we handicap the odds:

  • 65% chance it will be these same companies. They have the scale and scope to develop the next wave of disruptive technologies and get them to market.

  • 30% chance it will be either new businesses (such as the raft of IPOs currently in the pipeline) or already public Tech companies with a break-through technology or platform. This is why investors are looking so hard at Uber, for example.

  • 5% chance it will come from a strategic shift in non-Tech companies to incorporate disruptive business models at scale. The challenge here is the Innovator’s Dilemma – established businesses rarely burn their boats and strike off into the wilderness.

  Final thought: remember that we only highlighted 6 disruptive Tech companies here and still got to 37% of all the value creation for US stocks over the last half decade. Add another dozen or two and we suspect we could get to well north of 50%. The US stock market, or at least the S&P 500, is inextricably tied to the present and future of disruptive technology. We don’t see that changing.

  

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• Pink Floyd's Roger Waters "Ashamed To Be An Englishman" Over Assange Saga

  As the establishment attempts to paint a narrative of Julian Assange in cahoots with every thug and terrorist in the world – and definitely not a journalist – many ‘dissenters’ refuse to allow the whitewashing to go unanswered.

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  One such voice is legendary Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who told RT, in a wide-ranging interview this week, that he was “ashamed to be an Englishman” after seeing Assange being physically removed from his shelter at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

  “To think that the UK has become such a willing accomplice and satellite of the American Empire that it would do such a thing in contravention with all laws, moral, ethical, and actual legal restrictions is absolutely, stunningly appalling and makes me ashamed to be an Englishman.“

  UK authorities will soon decide whether to deport Assange to Sweden, where he faces possible rape charges, or to the US, where he is wanted for conspiring with former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to break into a classified government computer.

  The second scenario would be worse, Waters believes.

  Citizens “barely have rights anymore” after the Patriot Act was adopted, and “everything is at the whim of the commander-in-chief.”

  “If we let the UK get away with allowing him to be extradited to the United States, we allow the United States government, at their whim, to torture him and to detain him possibly for the rest of his life.”

  The rock icon concluded by slamming Washington and London for simply wanting to hush up Assange as he exposes “the matters of torture, or incarceration of innocent people.”

  “And also, what they’re doing – Trump and the rest of them, and Theresa May – is to try to frighten would-be Julian Assanges who may provide this incredibly important service for the rest of us in society in the future.” 

  Assange, along with Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and other whistleblowers, “are the heroes who help us gain some of the knowledge that the [powerful] would keep secret if they could.”

  Watch the full interview below:

  

• Escobar: Now Comes The Notre Dame Of Billionaires

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

  The Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by an intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam. Buddhism all across Asia grieved. The West hardly paid attention.

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  The remaining ruins of Babylon, and the attached museum, were occupied, plundered and vandalized by a US Marine base during Shock and Awe in 2003. The West paid no attention.

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  Vast tracts of Palmyra – a legendary Silk Road oasis – were destroyed by another intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs covered by layers of Western “intelligence”. The West paid no attention.

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  Scores of Catholic and Orthodox churches in Syria were burnt to the ground by the same intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs sponsored and weaponized, among others, by the US, Britain and France. The West paid no attention whatsoever.

  Notre-Dame, which in many ways can be construed as the Matrix of the West, is partially consumed by a theoretically blind fire.

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  Especially the roof; hundreds of oak beams, some dating back to the 13th century. Metaphorically, this could be interpreted as the burning of the roof over the West’s collective heads.

  Bad karma? Finally?

  *  *  *

  Now back to the nitty-gritty.

  Notre-Dame belongs to the French state, which had been paying little to no attention to a gothic jewel that traversed eight centuries.

  Fragments of arcades, chimeras, reliefs, gargoyles were always falling to the ground and kept in an improvised deposit in the back of the cathedral.

  Only last year Notre-Dame got a check for 2 million euros to restore the spire – which burned to the ground yesterday.

  To restore the whole cathedral would have cost 150 million euros, according to the top world expert on Notre-Dame, who happens to be an American, Andrew Tallon.

  Recently, the custodians of the cathedral and the French state were actually at war.

  The French state was making at least 4 million euros a year, charging tourists to enter the Twin (Bell) Towers but putting back only 2 million euros for the maintenance of Notre-Dame.

  The rector of Notre-Dame refused to charge for a ticket to enter the cathedral – as it happens, for example, at the Duomo in Milan.

  Notre-Dame basically survives on donations – which pay the salaries of only 70 employees who need not only to supervise the masses of tourists but also to organize eight masses a day.

  The French state’s proposal to minimize the ordeal; organize a beneficent lottery. That is; privatize what is a state commitment and obligation.

  So yes: Sarkozy and Macron, their whole administrations, are directly and indirectly responsible for the fire.

  Now comes the Notre-Dame of Billionaires.

  Pinault (Gucci, St. Laurent) pledged 100 million euros from his personal fortune for the restoration. Arnault (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) doubled down, pledging 200 million euros.

  So why not privatize this damn fine piece of real estate – disaster capitalism-style? Welcome to Notre-Dame luxury condo, hotel and attached mall.

  

• China Builds World's First Amphibious Drone Boat For Island Assaults 

  President Xi Jinping wants to ‘Make China Great Again’, — and that implies bringing Taiwan under the Communist Party’s control. For that to happen, China would need to strengthen its military capabilities before it launched a potential invasion of the island nation.

  New evidence this week from China’s state-owned media reveals that the world’s first armed amphibious drone boat for sea assault operations has rolled off the assembly line.

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  Manufactured by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group under China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), the new drone boat, dubbed Marine Lizard, passed “delivery checks” and left the factory on April 8 in Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei Province, state-run Global Times reported on Monday.

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  The vessel measures 40 ft long, is powered by a diesel-powered hydro jet engine for a maximum speed of 50 knots. 

  Hubei Daily reported on Sunday, citing an anonymous CSIC manager, that the amphibious drone ship releases four continuous track units hidden under its belly as it approaches land, can traverse over hard terrain at about 13 mph.

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  They vessels have a maximum operational range of 745 miles and can be remotely controlled from 31 miles away.

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  CSIC mounted advance radar, optical and BeiDou satellite navigation systems in the vessel that can connect to other autonomous vehicles.

  Marine Lizards are constructed from special aluminum alloy, could be used to transport troops, establish perimeter surveillance around coasts, conduct inshore monitoring, support airport defenses, and even lead sea assault operations.

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  The drone boats could lie dormant near a target for eight months before being reactivated to launch an attack, a tactic that could be used to commandeer uninhabited islands in the East and the South China Sea, or even Taiwan.

  “They can hide and hibernate, do autonomous patrols, and launch rapid assaults and landings,” CSIC told Hubei Daily.

  Beijing-based military commentator Song Zhongping told Hubei Daily that the quick speed of the boats means China can launch surprise attacks on islands.

  Song said the boats would be ideal for the military to start autonomous surveillance operations throughout the South China Sea.

  “In the South China Sea, it can be used to either seize a reef or guard a reef, both offensive and defensive,” he said.

  The drone boat is available for export, read a statement issued by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group. 

  

• Psy-Op Of The Day: North Korea And Bitcoin

  Authored by Tom Luongo,

  So the latest threat to global security we’re supposed to believe is cybercrime from North Korea involving Bitcoin.

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  There is a new report from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) called Closing the Crypto Gap: Guidance for Countering North Korean Cryptocurrency Activity in Southeast Asia.

  It’s important stuff apparently. Because it’s all over the news feeds. All the major MSM outlets are covering this story by doing what they always do, quote the executive summary and dress it up as journalism.

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  FEAR! HATE!

  Welcome to Fearville folks. I know a catchy title is all part of the eyeballs game of the daily news feed but come on! The RUSI report is nothing but warmed over innuendo and generalizations that could be levied at anyone who owns a Trezor and a small pile of coins they overpaid for in late 2017.

  In general, North Korea could seek to use cryptocurrencies as part of its proliferation financing efforts through:

  • Fundraising: To sustain its ongoing needs for cash, North Korea may obtain cryptocurrencies with the aim of converting them to fiat currencies in the short term.

  • Stockpiling: North Korea could accumulate reserves of cryptocurrencies with the objective of eventually spending them or converting them into fiat currency at some point in the future.

  • Circumvention: North Korea could use cryptocurrencies to pay directly for goods, services and resources that are explicitly prohibited by international sanctions.

  – RUSI Report on North Korea and Bitcoin.

  The fiends!

  They may *gasp* get around sanctions or convert bitcoins to dollars to *gasp* BUY FOOOD!

  It’s all so ridiculous it’s beyond belief. Implicit in all of these arguments is that sanctions are a legitimate tool for political gain. They aren’t. Sanctions hit the people not the regime. They starve the people of the capital they need to effect change.

  So never forget that sanctions are simply punishment by evil men of ordinary people. Everything else is just what it looks like, a psy-op.

  If you just read the executive summary itself you’ll see the classic scholastic trick of footnoting someone else’s speculation, in this case The UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on North Korea, to corroborate RUSI’s speculations.

  This is called appeal to authority. It’s not research. It simply says, “Some other person with an official sounding name agrees with me.” It’s not an argument.

  The point here is that this report from RUSI is designed to create headlines and keep the narrative alive that the North Koreans are untrustworthy. That they are shifty, under-handed and, most importantly, dangerous.

  It supports the notion that U.S. and U.N. sanctions on North Korea are justified for all reasons.

  I have no doubt that North Korea is using cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, to circumvent sanctions. There’s little incentive for them not to. This is one of the use cases Bitcoin was designed for in the first place, serving the unbanked and the unbankable, as it were.

  Muddying Waters

  This report came out the same time that there is a potential summit between Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. That rumor has been upgraded by Fort Russ News which seems to think Putin and Kim will meet next week.

  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may visit Russia in late April, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing sources familiar with the contacts between Moscow and Pyongyang.

  “It is expected that Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend an event in the Russian Far East on April 24,” the source writes, adding that his sources believe that just then “the expected summit” of the two leaders could be held.

  Even if that doesn’t happen there is a lot of smoke out there that Russia and China have both had enough of the U.S.’s approach to North Korean talks. It’s become clear, really, that the Russians, in particular, have had enough of the Trump administration.

  The talks in Hanoi collapsed thanks to John Bolton and the U.S. added more sanctions in response. It’s all so tired and predictable at this point.

  The RUSI report is designed to keep the news feed mixed on North Korea as it and China opened up a new border crossing last week and the U.S. special envoy to North Korea travels to Moscow for talks.

  Putin and Kim will meet before Kim meets again with Trump and I would expect something surprising to come from that meeting with Putin. It’s clear the U.S. is not interested in solving the situation. Bolton wants North Korea as a prize and will accept nothing less.

  And therefore everything else we read on a daily basis about the talks are simply misdirection and false hope. The sanctions will remain in place but they will be actively circumvented further over time.

  Russia and China will continue assisting North Korea in this while saying they aren’t. The U.S. will fulminate and pile on more sanctions. And eventually everyone will stop listening. Meanwhile, trade will develop, relationships that want to develop will, the North Koreans will still have nukes and eventually someone will call the U.S.’s bluff.

  

• Navy's $128 Billion Nuclear Sub Project Faces Audit Over "Unreliable Cost Estimates"

  A new report published several weeks ago raised red flags about the affordability of the U.S. Navy’s latest nuclear submarine project.

  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the Navy is considering to ask Congress for additional funds in fiscal 2021 to procure the first of its new 12-ship fleet of nuclear-armed submarines.

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  The Columbia-class submarine program has an estimated value of approximately $128 billion including research and development costs, with $115 billion for procurement. GAO said that makes it the third-costliest program for any weapon systems in the Pentagon’s history. But stressed the cost estimate for the program “is not accurate because it relies on overly optimistic” reductions in labor costs, added GAO.

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  Now the Pentagon’s inspector general is getting involved and wants to audit the program’s propulsion and steering system.

  Bloomberg said an audit would begin on the first of 12 vessels, will “determine whether the Navy is managing the development” of the system to “ensure that it meets performance requirements without cost increases or schedule overruns,” the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) said in its fiscal 2019 audit plan.

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  “There is a suggestion in this statement that the stern section may present some risk of cost growth or schedule delay,” Ronald O’Rourke, a naval systems analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said in an email to Bloomberg.

  The audit will surround the propulsor, a mechanical device that gives propulsion to the vessel and allows it to manuever through the water. The fleet of submarines is being built by General Dynamics Corp.’s Electric Boat division.

  “We look forward to working with the DoD IG on any such effort,” said William Couch, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command.

  The audit could take a year to complete as Congress deliberates the fiscal 2021 defense budget. The Navy is expected to request additional funds to start construction of the first vessel in October 2020.

  

• Mapping The Global Migration Of Millionaires

  Submitted by Visual Capitalist

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  High net worth individuals (HNWIs) – persons with wealth over US$1 million – may decide to pick up and move for a number of reasons. In some cases they are attracted by jurisdictions with more favorable tax laws, or less pollution and crime. Sometimes, they’re simply looking for a change of scenery.

  Today’s graphic, using data from the annual Global Wealth Migration Review, maps the migration of the world’s millionaires, and clearly shows which countries are magnets for the world’s rich, and which countries are seeing a wealth exodus.

  The Flight of the Millionaires

  It’s no secret that China has been a wealth creation machine over the past two decades. Although the country is still making a number of its citizens very wealthy, over 15,000 Chinese HNWIs still chose to migrate to other countries in 2018 – the most significant migration of any country.

  Here’s a look at the top countries by HNWI outflows:

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  Unlike the middle class, wealthy citizens have the means to pick up and leave when things start to sideways in their home country. An uptick in HNWI migration from a country can often be a signal of negative economic or societal factors influencing a country.

  This is the case in Turkey, which has been rocked by instability, mass protests, and an inflation rate estimated to be in the triple-digits by some sources.

  For the third straight year, Turkey lost more than 4,000 millionaires. An estimated 10% of Turkey’s HNWIs fled in 2018, which is concerning because unlike China and India, the country is not producing new millionaires in any significant number.

  Millionaire Magnets

  Time-honored locations – such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands – continue to attract the world’s wealthy, but no country is experiencing HNWI inflows quite like Australia.

  The Land Down Under has a number of attributes that make it an attractive destination for migrating millionaires. The country has a robust economy, and is perceived as being a safe place to raise a family. Even better, Australia has no inheritance tax and a lower cost of health care, which can make it an attractive alternative to the U.S.

  In 2018, Australia jumped ahead of both Canada and France to become the seventh largest wealth market in the world.

  Here’s a look at HNWI inflows around the world:

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  Greece, which was one of the worst performing wealth markets of the last decade, is finally seeing a modest inflow of millionaires again.

  

• Watch: Wolf Pack Of Robot Dogs Pulls Box Truck Across Parking Lot 

  Robotics company Boston Dynamics published a stunning video Tuesday of ten SpotMini robots pulling a Freightliner box truck across a parking lot, presumably at their headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

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  “It only takes 10 Spotpower (SP) to haul a truck across the Boston Dynamics parking lot (~1 degree uphill, truck in neutral),” the company wrote in the video description posted on Youtube. “These Spot robots are coming off the production line now and will be available for a range of applications soon.”

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  SpotMini is a medium size four-legged robot that is intended to complete tasks in offices, homes, and outdoor environments. The robot dog can carry approximately 31 pounds, weighs about 66 pounds and stands 2.6 feet high. This all-electric robot has a battery life of 90 minutes, depending on the task(s).

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  SpotMini can pick up and handle objects using its five degree-of-freedom arm and advanced sensors. The sensor suite includes stereo cameras, depth cameras, an IMU, and position/force sensors in the legs. These sensors allow the robot to navigate various terrains with extreme ease.

  Boston Dynamics wasn’t open for comment when asked by CNET but said the robots are being developed for a range of applications. Last spring, the company’s president, Marc Raibert, said SpotMini would be released to the public in 2019.

   

   

  

• Lori Loughlin's Daughter Is First Student Under Criminal Investigation In Admissions Scandal

  A third member of the Loughlin family – the most familiar faces in the recent college admissions scam – is now facing a criminal investigation, according to The Daily Mail. A daughter of Full House star Lori Loughlin, who recently plead not guilty to charges in “the largest ever college admissions scandal” is now the focus of a Department of Justice probe as to her involvement in the case.

  Multiple sources have said that the actress’ daughter was on the receiving end of a letter from federal prosecutors in Massachusetts earlier this month regarding the investigation. The letter said that Loughlin’s daughter was the subject of an investigation that could result in criminal charges.

  One person who saw the letter said: “It is a not-so-veiled threat. [The US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts] is making it pretty clear that they have evidence that very strongly suggests she knew of the illegal plot.”

  The tone of the letter was described as “ominous”. A source said that these letters are an indication that prosecutors are working to obtain evidence and possibly pursue additional charges and defendants.

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  Another source interpreted the letter as clear telegraphing of more charges to come: “It is clear that some students are going to be charged.”

  Sources said that five additional people whose children received letters all refused a plea deal and filed a plea of not guilty, as Loughlin and her husband have done. Loughlin’s daughters, as part of the scam, pretended they had previously been on crew teams in order to gain preferential treatment as potential athletic recruits. To sell that idea, they posed for photos on ergometers, offering the suggestion that they were aware and willing participants in their parents’ plan. Loughlin daughter Olivia also reportedly had scam ringleader William Rick Singer’s team fill out her college applications for her.

  According to the complaint:

  ‘On or about December 12, 2017, Loughlin e-mailed [Singer], copying Giannulli and their younger daughter [Olivia], to request guidance on how to complete the formal USC application, in the wake of her daughter’s provisional acceptance as a recruited athlete,’ states the complaint.

  ‘Loughlin wrote: “[Our younger daughter] has not submitted all her colleges [sic] apps and is confused on how to do so. I want to make sure she gets those in as I don’t want to call any attention to [her] with our little friend at [her high school]. Can you tell us how to proceed?”‘

  In response, Singer wrote an email ‘directing an employee to submit the applications on behalf of the Giannullis’ younger daughter [Olivia].

  Loughlin and Giannulli ‘agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team – despite the fact that they did not participate in crew – thereby facilitating their admission to USC,’ according to the documents.

  Perhaps if you’re too “confused” on how to fill out a college application, that should automatically discredit you from admission – just a thought.

  Regardless, this is the first report of a student potentially being investigated in the scandal that has already seen 16 parents face indictments. Previously it had been reported that Loughlin was worried about what a guilty plea would do to her daughters. 

  “She is very concerned about what a guilty plea would do to her daughters, who may not have grasped everything that was going on. Yes, she can think about the public perception of her, but that’s nothing compared to what her daughters think of her. So that is something that has understandably made her less likely to enter a plea,” a source told People several days ago. 

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  Just days ago, we reported that the Harvard test taking whiz who was central to the scheme, Mark Riddell, had cut a deal with prosecutors and was facing 33 to 41 months in prison. 14 other parents were also recently indicted in the scandal last week. Two weeks ago, we noted that parents charged in the scheme were seeking out “prison life consultants” to find out what life would be like in the big house. Perhaps Loughlin’s daughters can now benefit from the same consultant. 

  We have been following the admissions scandal at length. As part of our coverage, we detailed how financial speaking gigs and elite high schools helped facilitate the scam for years.

  We’ve also covered the fallout from the scandal, like when UCLA’s Men’s Soccer Coach and former U.S. Men’s national team player Jorge Salcedo recently resigned from his position at the university as a result of taking bribes. We also wrote about how students were being encouraged to fake learning disabilities in order to cheat on college entrance exams. 

  We profiled Mark Riddell for the first time in March. Prior to that, we also reported on the tipster who gave the SEC the lead on the admissions scandal.

  

• Again!! Are Establishment Democrats Plotting To Sabotage Bernie?

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

  Bernie Sanders is on a roll, and this is absolutely terrifying many establishment Democrats.  He has raised far more money that any of the other Democratic candidates, he just took the lead in a major national poll, and a Fox News town hall featuring Sanders was just watched by nearly 2.6 million viewers.  You would think that the Democratic establishment would be thrilled to see such enthusiasm for one of their presidential candidates, but instead they are totally freaking out because they don’t want him to be the nominee.

  On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article entitled “‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum”, and in that article we are told that “his critics are chiefly motivated by a fear that nominating an avowed socialist would all but ensure Mr. Trump a second term”.  And of course those critics are right.  If Sanders is the nominee, that will give Trump the best chance of winning again in 2020.  It would be a complete and total nightmare for the Democratic Party, and so in order to avoid that scenario some Democratic operatives are already plotting how to sabotage the Sanders campaign.

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  Right now there are 17 Democrats running for president, and it looks like Joe Biden will jump into the race very soon.

  But most of the other candidates have not gained any traction at all, and a brand new poll that just came out actually shows Sanders beating Biden…

  Sen. Bernie Sanders finished ahead of Joe Biden in the first major national poll of the year that did not find the former vice president leading the pack of potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

  When asked whom they would support from a list of 20 candidates – including “someone else” –  29% named Sanders, and 24% named Biden in an Emerson College poll released Monday. They were trailed by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was the pick of 9% of likely Democratic primary voters.

  What is even more important is the trajectory of the support for the two candidates.  Biden’s support appears to be dropping because of his history of “inappropriate touching”, and support for Sanders has risen 12 points since February…

  “Biden has seen his support drop. In February, he led Sanders 27% to 17%, and in March, the two were tied at 26%. Now, Sanders has a 5-point lead,” said Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson Polling.

  If Biden ends up flopping as a candidate, establishment Democrats are going to be in quite a quandary because nobody else is even polling in double digits at this point.  Perhaps someone like Pete Buttigieg will end up catching fire, but there is no guarantee that will happen.

  As it stands today, there is a very good chance that Bernie Sanders could be the Democratic nominee, and many establishment Democrats are trying to figure a way out of this mess…

  From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts to the cloakrooms of Washington, mainstream Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016.

  How, some Democrats are beginning to ask, do they thwart a 70-something candidate from outside the party structure who is immune to intimidation or incentive and wields support from an unwavering base, without simply reinforcing his “the establishment is out to get me”’ message — the same grievance Mr. Trump used to great effect?

  Of course if Sanders supporters get the impression that the nominating process is being rigged against their guy again, that could cause a full-blown civil war in the Democratic Party.

  Needless to say, Republicans would absolutely love that.

  But despite that danger, establishment Democratic operatives such as David Brock are publicly talking about sabotaging Sanders…

  “There’s a growing realization that Sanders could end up winning this thing, or certainly that he stays in so long that he damages the actual winner,” said David Brock, the liberal organizer, who said he has had discussions with other operatives about an anti-Sanders campaign and believes it should commence “sooner rather than later.”

  Once this New York Times story came out, it was inevitable that there would be a tremendous amount of backlash from Bernie supporters.

  For example, Bernie supporter Katherine Krueger very quickly released a response piece entitled “I’m Going to Have a Rage Stroke Over This Story About Dem Elites Trying to Take Bernie Out”…

  I’m spent. I want nothing from these people; in fact, I’d prefer they retire from politics entirely for their role in losing what was arguably the most winnable presidential election in modern history. Neera Tanden might punch me in the chest for saying this, but that’s OK!

  It’s insanely telling that the people featured in this story—who call themselves “progressives,” despite being wedded to deeply middle-of-the-road centrist policies—are so threatened by a candidate who, after being screwed by them in 2016, isn’t inclined to make concessions to the vast, useless apparatus of consultants and donors that they represent. Of course they want to stop Sanders. He’s sworn off big money, has actual progressive policy ideas, and is thumbing his nose at scolds like Tanden and her cronies! If the voters choose Bernie, he should be the nominee. End of story. If you’re the kind of person who would tack a “but,” onto the end of that sentence, you’re probably more wedded to rewriting the perceived wrongs of 2016 than actually taking back the White House in 2020.

  The fact that Bernie Sanders has so much support shows how much America has moved to the left in 2019.  He represents just about the opposite of everything that our founders believed in, but a large percentage of the nation is embracing him anyway.

  But could a self-described socialist actually go all the way and win the entire thing?

  Probably not, and that is why establishment Democrats are so freaked out right now.

  There is still plenty of time, and a lot can change in the coming months.  But at this moment, many are describing Sanders as the front-runner…

  “Right now, he is the front-runner,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the chief public affairs officer for MoveOn, a progressive group. “He is leading in the fundraising. He is leading in the polling — except for Biden, who has not jumped in yet. … Bernie’s start has been impressive. Clearly his base is still with him and still excited.”

  Of course there is one Democrat that would beat Bernie very easily, but she has insisted over and over that she is not running.

  However, the stronger the Sanders campaign gets, the louder the calls for her to run will become.

  

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• Governments Come Clean In New 'Honest Ad' About Assange's Arrest

  The British, Australian, Ecuadorian and US Governments have made an ad about Julian Assange’s arrest and it’s surprisingly honest and informative!

  

• Notre Dame & The Identity Of France

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  These are not matters solely of politics and finance; they are manifestations of the elite war on the identity of France.

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  As rationalists, we’re supposed to take the dramatic and profoundly tragic fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris as random chance or bad luck. But I cannot be the only one who feels a symbolic tie between the near-destruction of a French religious and cultural icon and the embattled identity of France.

  As it happens, I am reading Fernand Braudel’s massive two-volume history The Identity of France: Volume One: History and Environment and Volume Two: People and Production.

  Longtime readers know I have often recommended Braudel’s three-volume history, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, as essential to the understanding of the rise of Capitalism in Europe:

  The Structures of Everyday Life (Volume 1)

  The Wheels of Commerce (Volume 2)

  The Perspective of the World (Volume 3)

  The Chinese famously view natural disasters and similar events as portents of political change, as disasters suggest the Emperor/ruling elite has lost the Mandate of Heaven. It is difficult not to see the disastrous fire in Notre Dame as just such a portent.

  For the identity of France is under assault on a number of fronts. The left-leaning status quo has set up a false duality: one either worships multiculturalism and rejects a national identity as the sworn enemy of multiculturalism, or one is a rightist racist. Thus anyone who even refers to a national identity of France is quickly vilified and marginalized.

  This is of course a false choice: one can value multiculturalism as an essential part of a national identity without sacrificing the entire notion of a national identity.

  As Braudel notes at the end of Volume Two, France has long been ruled by tiny elites. A mere 242 financiers held contracts to collect taxes for the monarchy in the early 1700s; Braudel notes that “La Haute Banque in Paris, during the Restoration and later, consisted of a mere 25 families.”

  In the highly centralized political power structure of today’s France, the leadership–from Macron down– are all graduates of a few select universities. Like Macron, the leadership was selected early and quickly advanced over lesser elites.

  Globalized, hyper-financialized elitist Capitalism, so dependent on cheap immigrant labor for its servants, has left “deep France” behind, stripped of economic and political power, and relegated to dependency on the welfare state in rural regions (only the favored few and those with state-subsidized housing can afford to live in Paris).

  These are not matters solely of politics and finance; they are manifestations of the elite war on the identity of France, to transform it into a bland, globalized hierarchy in which capital and power benefit the few, a system enforced by state propaganda and public virtue-signaling.

  To quote Slavoj Žižek:

  “The yellow vests movement fits the specific French Left tradition of large public protests targeting the political, more than the business or financial, elites. However, in contrast to the 68’ protests, the yellow vests are much more a movement of France profonde (‘deep France’), its revolt against big metropolitan areas, which means that its Leftist orientation is much more blurred.”

  Here is Andrew Joyce (On Yellow Vests and Monsters):

  “Amidst the sea of evasions, disavowals, and contradictions, it remains the case that the White working class has been abandoned by both the Old Right and the Left. In some cases, the White working class is the reason for the same evasions, disavowals, and contradictions: they are an uncomfortable, and now more visible, reminder of broken promises and unfulfilled obligations.

  Guilluy adds that ‘the economic divide between peripheral France and the metropolises illustrates the separation of an elite and its popular hinterland. Western elites have gradually forgotten a people they no longer see. The impact of the gilets jaunes, and their support in public opinion (eight out of 10 French people approve of their actions), has amazed politicians, trade unions and academics, as if they have discovered a new tribe in the Amazon.’

  I disagree that visibility, presented in passive terms, is the key issue here. In fact, I believe a better analogy would be that of an Amazonian tribe that had been systematically targeted for extinction, and was assumed to have been incapable of mustering any kind of resurgence.

  We shouldn’t forget that it became common practice on the Left to pretend the White working class didn’t exist, and that it was also viewed as explicitly oppositional on the Left and among cosmopolitan elites to offer the White working class, as an ethno-economic group, any kind of material or ideological support.”

  Lastly, here is Christophe Guilluy, author of Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, the Periphery, and the Future of France:

  Employment and wealth have become more and more concentrated in the big cities. The deindustrialised regions, rural areas, small and medium-size towns are less and less dynamic. But it is in these places – in peripheral France (one could also talk of peripheral America or peripheral Britain) – that many working-class people live. Thus, for the first time, “workers” no longer live in areas where employment is created, giving rise to a social and cultural shock. … The globalised metropolises are the new citadels of the 21st century – rich and unequal, where even the former lower-middle class no longer has a place. Instead, large global cities work on a dual dynamic: gentrification and immigration. This is the paradox: the open society results in a world increasingly closed to the majority of working people.”

  The corporate media, a key defender of the self-serving elite, will reject any symbolism in the near-destruction of Notre Dame. But deep down, many sense what cannot be spoken openly: the elites in France have lost the Mandate of Heaven.

  *  *  *

  I just added a new benefit for all subscribers/patrons: a monthly Q&A where I respond to your questions/topics. You get other exclusive benefits with a $1, $5 or $10/month patronage via patreon.com.

  

• China Tests Tactical Laser Similar To US Navy System

  China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) unveiled a tactical laser system with a striking resemblance to a solid-state laser system tested by the US Navy in 2014, according to The Maritime Executive. 

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  Appearing in a promotional video broadcast by state-owned channel CCTV, Beijing’s new laser can be deployed on both land and sea, and can be used for both close-in surface-to-surface combat and air defenses. According to CCTV, the laser could be mounted on the PLA Navy’s Type 055 destroyers as an alternative to the HHQ-10 surface-to-air missile. 

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  As The Maritime Executive notes, Beijing’s system looks limilar to the US Navy’s XN-1 LaWS system that was tested on the USS Ponce in 2014. The Navy reported that the system worked as designed against low-end asymmetric threats, and can be used at low power to dazzle enemies. At higher power it can fry sensors, burn out motors and detonate explosive materials. During one test, a UAV was able to shot down in as little as two seconds. 

  This is just the latest in China’s laser technology. In April, satellite photos revealed that Beijing has what appears to be a sophisticated anti-satellite laser base in Western China. 

  The satellite images were published by Indian Army Col. Vinayak Bhat, whose expertise is often widely cited in western media reports, and show a base with advanced satellite tracking capabilities and facilities which house large-scale lasers located about 145 miles south of the Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

  A full report featuring the satellite imagery was published by the Washington Free Beacon which concluded alarmingly, “China likely is pursuing laser weapons to disrupt, degrade or damage sat­ellites and their sensors and possibly already has a limited capability to employ laser systems against satellite sensors.”

  The Xinjiang base is one of those laser bases that include four main buildings with sliding roofs that Bhat assesses contain high-powered chemical lasers powered by neodymium.

  Bhat estimates that the smaller shed with the sliding roof is a laser tracker. Taken together, the Chinese can fire one to three of the lasers against an orbiting satellite that China is seeking to disrupt.

  Giving credence to the claim, the report cites the US Defense Intelligence Agency which said in its own assessment published in February that China is set to deploy a ground based laser cannon at some point next year. 

  #China #space denial weapons.#PLA has deployed #DEW & #HEL to dazzle/disable/destroy satellites.#EMP & mobile pulse generators being experimented.#RISAT1 & #GSAT6A still fresh in mind.
  Read more:
  Need to harden own equipment.https://t.co/5csGt75rwG pic.twitter.com/04jFLwEpxK

  — 卫纳夜格@Raj (@rajfortyseven) March 23, 2019

   Meanwhile, last July we reported that China has a “laser AK-47” which its manufacturer claimed could set fire to a target from almost one kilometer away (.62 miles). After naysayers doubted the gun’s capabilities, the South China Morning Post featured a test video in response to the critics. 

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The company says the filmed test was not conducted at maximum range, citing “safety reasons, to avoid anyone accidentally walking into the beam” — as the beam is invisible and the device without sound, various objects are shown igniting, including clothing and even a tire. 

  A company spokesman cited by the SCMP said “And after an upgrade it will be the world’s most advanced laser cannon – it will be able to take down a drone several kilometres away.”

  

• From Jesus Christ To Julian Assange: When Dissidents Become Enemies Of The State

  Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

  When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.

   

  In the current governmental climate, where laws that run counter to the dictates of the Constitution are made in secret, passed without debate, and upheld by secret courts that operate behind closed doors, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can render you an “enemy of the state.”

  That list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing.

  Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely the latest victim of the police state’s assault on dissidents and whistleblowers.

  On April 11, 2019, police arrested Assange for daring to access and disclose military documents that portray the U.S. government and its endless wars abroad as reckless, irresponsible, immoral and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

  Included among the leaked materials was gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while American air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The driver’s two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.

  There is nothing defensible about crimes such as these perpetrated by the government.

  When any government becomes almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting—whether that evil takes the form of war, terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity—that government has lost its claim to legitimacy.

  These are hard words, but hard times require straight-talking.

  It is easy to remain silent in the face of evil.

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  What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

  Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.

  And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

  Indeed, it is fitting that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—paid the ultimate price for speaking out against the police state of his day.

  A radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn, Jesus was a far cry from the watered-down, corporatized, simplified, gentrified, sissified vision of a meek creature holding a lamb that most modern churches peddle. In fact, he spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire.

  Much like the American Empire today, the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day had all of the characteristics of a police state: secrecy, surveillance, a widespread police presence, a citizenry treated like suspects with little recourse against the police state, perpetual wars, a military empire, martial law, and political retribution against those who dared to challenge the power of the state.

  For all the accolades poured out upon Jesus, little is said about the harsh realities of the police state in which he lived and its similarities to modern-day America, and yet they are striking.

  Secrecy, surveillance and rule by the elite. As the chasm between the wealthy and poor grew wider in the Roman Empire, the ruling class and the wealthy class became synonymous, while the lower classes, increasingly deprived of their political freedoms, grew disinterested in the government and easily distracted by “bread and circuses.” Much like America today, with its lack of government transparency, overt domestic surveillance, and rule by the rich, the inner workings of the Roman Empire were shrouded in secrecy, while its leaders were constantly on the watch for any potential threats to its power. The resulting state-wide surveillance was primarily carried out by the military, which acted as investigators, enforcers, torturers, policemen, executioners and jailers. Today that role is fulfilled by the NSA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the increasingly militarized police forces across the country.

  Widespread police presence. The Roman Empire used its military forces to maintain the “peace,” thereby establishing a police state that reached into all aspects of a citizen’s life. In this way, these military officers, used to address a broad range of routine problems and conflicts, enforced the will of the state. Today SWAT teams, comprised of local police and federal agents, are employed to carry out routine search warrants for minor crimes such as marijuana possession and credit card fraud.

  Citizenry with little recourse against the police state. As the Roman Empire expanded, personal freedom and independence nearly vanished, as did any real sense of local governance and national consciousness. Similarly, in America today, citizens largely feel powerless, voiceless and unrepresented in the face of a power-hungry federal government. As states and localities are brought under direct control by federal agencies and regulations, a sense of learned helplessness grips the nation.

  Perpetual wars and a military empire. Much like America today with its practice of policing the world, war and an over-arching militarist ethos provided the framework for the Roman Empire, which extended from the Italian peninsula to all over Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe, extending into North Africa and Western Asia as well. In addition to significant foreign threats, wars were waged against inchoate, unstructured and socially inferior foes.

  Martial law. Eventually, Rome established a permanent military dictatorship that left the citizens at the mercy of an unreachable and oppressive totalitarian regime. In the absence of resources to establish civic police forces, the Romans relied increasingly on the military to intervene in all matters of conflict or upheaval in provinces, from small-scale scuffles to large-scale revolts. Not unlike police forces today, with their martial law training drills on American soil, militarized weapons and “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset, the Roman soldier had “the exercise of lethal force at his fingertips” with the potential of wreaking havoc on normal citizens’ lives.

  A nation of suspects. Just as the American Empire looks upon its citizens as suspects to be tracked, surveilled and controlled, the Roman Empire looked upon all potential insubordinates, from the common thief to a full-fledged insurrectionist, as threats to its power. The insurrectionist was seen as directly challenging the Emperor.  A “bandit,” or revolutionist, was seen as capable of overturning the empire, was always considered guilty and deserving of the most savage penalties, including capital punishment. Bandits were usually punished publicly and cruelly as a means of deterring others from challenging the power of the state.  Jesus’ execution was one such public punishment.

  Acts of civil disobedience by insurrectionists. Much like the Roman Empire, the American Empire has exhibited zero tolerance for dissidents such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manningwho exposed the police state’s seedy underbelly. Jesus branded himself a political revolutionary starting with his act of civil disobedience at the Jewish temple, the site of the administrative headquarters of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council. When Jesus “with the help of his disciples, blocks the entrance to the courtyard” and forbids “anyone carrying goods for sale or trade from entering the Temple,” he committed a blatantly criminal and seditious act, an act “that undoubtedly precipitated his arrest and execution.” Because the commercial events were sponsored by the religious hierarchy, which in turn was operated by consent of the Roman government, Jesus’ attack on the money chargers and traders can be seen as an attack on Rome itself, an unmistakable declaration of political and social independence from the Roman oppression.

  Military-style arrests in the dead of night. Jesus’ arrest account testifies to the fact that the Romans perceived Him as a revolutionary. Eerily similar to today’s SWAT team raids, Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night, in secret, by a large, heavily armed fleet of soldiers.  Rather than merely asking for Jesus when they came to arrest him, his pursuers collaborated beforehand with Judas. Acting as a government informant, Judas concocted a kiss as a secret identification marker, hinting that a level of deception and trickery must be used to obtain this seemingly “dangerous revolutionist’s” cooperation. 

  Torture and capital punishment. In Jesus’ day, religious preachers, self-proclaimed prophets and nonviolent protesters were not summarily arrested and executed. Indeed, the high priests and Roman governors normally allowed a protest, particularly a small-scale one, to run its course. However, government authorities were quick to dispose of leaders and movements that appeared to threaten the Roman Empire. The charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious. To the Romans, any one of these charges was enough to merit death by crucifixion, which was usually reserved for slaves, non-Romans, radicals, revolutionaries and the worst criminals.
  Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.” After Jesus is formally condemned by Pilate, he is sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.”  The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry. After being ruthlessly whipped and mocked, Jesus was nailed to a cross.

  As Professor Mark Lewis Taylor observed:

  The cross within Roman politics and culture was a marker of shame, of being a criminal. If you were put to the cross, you were marked as shameful, as criminal, but especially as subversive. And there were thousands of people put to the cross. The cross was actually positioned at many crossroads, and, as New Testament scholar Paula Fredricksen has reminded us, it served as kind of a public service announcement that said, “Act like this person did, and this is how you will end up.”

  Jesus—the revolutionary, the political dissident, and the nonviolent activist—lived and died in a police state. Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.

  Unfortunately, the radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, has been largely forgotten today, replaced by a congenial, smiling Jesus trotted out for religious holidays but otherwise rendered mute when it comes to matters of war, power and politics.

  Yet for those who truly study the life and teachings of Jesus, the resounding theme is one of outright resistance to war, materialism and empire.

  What a marked contrast to the advice being given to Americans by church leaders to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do.

  Telling Americans to march in lockstep and blindly obey the government—or put their faith in politics and vote for a political savior—flies in the face of everything for which Jesus lived and died.

  Ultimately, this is the contradiction that must be resolved if the radical Jesus—the one who stood up to the Roman Empire and was crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be—is to be an example for our modern age.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we must decide whether we will follow the path of least resistance—willing to turn a blind eye to what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the “evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence”—or whether we will be transformed nonconformists “dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.”

  As King explained in a powerful sermon delivered in 1954, “This command not to conform comes … [from] Jesus Christ, the world’s most dedicated nonconformist, whose ethical nonconformity still challenges the conscience of mankind.”

  We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians, who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world.  Willingly they sacrificed fame, fortune, and life itself in behalf of a cause they knew to be right.  Quantitatively small, they were qualitatively giants.  Their powerful gospel put an end to such barbaric evils as infanticide and bloody gladiatorial contests.  Finally, they captured the Roman Empire for Jesus Christ… The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.  The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.  In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!

  …Honesty impels me to admit that transformed nonconformity, which is always costly and never altogether comfortable, may mean walking through the valley of the shadow of suffering, losing a job, or having a six-year-old daughter ask, “Daddy, why do you have to go to jail so much?”  But we are gravely mistaken to think that Christianity protects us from the pain and agony of mortal existence.  Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.  To be a Christian, one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tragedy-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way that comes only through suffering.

  In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.  We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds?  Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul saving music of eternity?

  

• Mike 'Dirty Jobs' Rowe Routs America's School System: "We're Obsessed With Credentialing, Not Education"

  Almost exactly a year ago, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe noted that many Americans are dissatisfied with their lives because they no longer appreciate the intrinsic value of work.

  Additionally,  Rowe previously concluded, millions of reasonable people – Republicans and Democrats alike – are worried that our universities are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world. They’re worried about activist professors, safe spaces, the rising cost of tuition, a growing contempt for history, a simmering disregard of the first amendment, and most recently the so-called ‘Varsity Blues’ scandal of systemic elite cheating into prestigious schools.

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  And on the heels of that, Mike Rowe slammed the system on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last night, blasting Americans, and the American establishment for being “obsessed with credentialing, not education.”

  “I think because stuck in this binary box, this or that. Right, blue-collar or white color, good job or a bad job. Higher education or higher alternative education.

  When you only have two choices or you think you only have two choices, then you do one thing at the expense of the other.

  So for instance, you know we have talked about this before, but it just seems so clear now. When four year degree universities needed a P.R. Campaign 40 years ago, they got one.

  But the P.R. Came at the expense of all of the other forms of education. So it wasn’t hey, Tucker get your liberal arts degree because it will give you a broad base of appreciation for humanity. It was come if you don’t go get that degree, you will wind up over here turning a ranch or running a welding torch or doing some kind of consolation prize.

  So we promoted the one thing at the expense of all of the others.

  And that one thing just happened to be the most expensive thing. And so, look come I don’t think the skills set is the mystery. A reflection of what we value.

  7 million — 7 million jobs available and they require training. Yet we are obsessed not really with education, you know. What we are obsessed with this credentialing.

  People are buying diplomas. They are buying their degrees. It is a diploma dilemma, honestly. And it is expensive. It is getting worse. It’s not just the kids holding the note. It is us.”

  All of which confirms his recent Facebook post, directing his frustration at the exorbitant cost of attending college, especially the elite schools that were involved with the scandal:

  You don’t have to be rich or famous to believe your kid is doomed to fail without a four-year degree. Millions of otherwise sensible parents in every tax-bracket share this misguided belief, and many will do whatever it takes to get their kids enrolled in a “good school.” Obviously, those who resort to bribery are in a class by themselves, but what about parents who allow their kids to borrow vast sums of money to attend universities they can’t possibly afford? What about the guidance counselors and teachers who pressure kids to apply for college regardless of the cost? What about the politicians and lobbyists who so transparently favor one form of education at the expense of all the others? What about the employers who won’t even interview a candidate who doesn’t have a degree? Where’s the outrage?

  The cost of college today has almost nothing to do with the cost of an education, and everything to do with the cost of buying a credential. That’s all a diploma is. Some are more expensive than others, but none of them reflect the character of the recipient, none are necessary to live a happy and prosperous life, and none of them come with any guarantees. And yet, the pressure we put on kids to borrow whatever it takes is constant, and precisely why tuition is so costly. It’s also why we have $1.6 trillion of student loans on the books along with a widening skills gap. That’s a bigger scandal, in my opinion.

  Rowe has long been an advocate for trade and blue-collar skilled jobs. In many cases, these careers can earn similar salaries to those earned by college graduates.

  

• Diego Garcia: The "Unsinkable Carrier" Springs A Leak

  Authored by Conn Hallinan via Counterpunch.org,

  The recent decision by the Hague-based International Court of Justice that the Chagos Islands – with its huge U.S. military base at Diego Garcia – are being illegally occupied by the United Kingdom (UK) has the potential to upend the strategic plans of a dozen regional capitals, ranging from Beijing to Riyadh.

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  For a tiny speck of land measuring only 38 miles in length, Diego Garcia casts a long shadow. Sometimes called Washington’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” planes and warships based on the island played an essential role in the first and second Gulf wars, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the war in Libya. Its strategic location between Africa and Indonesia and 1,000 miles south of India gives the U.S. access to the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the vast Indian Ocean. No oil tanker, no warship, no aircraft can move without its knowledge.

  Most Americans have never heard of Diego Garcia for a good reason: No journalist has been allowed there for more than 30 years, and the Pentagon keeps the base wrapped in a cocoon of national security. Indeed, the UK leased the base to the Americans in 1966 without informing either the British Parliament or the U.S. Congress.

  The February 25 Court decision has put a dent in all that by deciding that Great Britain violated United Nations Resolution 1514 prohibiting the division of colonies before independence. The UK broke the Chagos Islands off from Mauritius, a former colony on the southeast coast of Africa that Britain decolonized in 1968. At the time, Mauritius objected, reluctantly agreeing only after Britain threatened to withdraw its offer of independence.

  The Court ruled 13-1 that the UK had engaged in a “wrongful act” and must decolonize the Chagos “as rapidly as possible.”

  “The Great Game” in the Indian Ocean

  While the ruling is only “advisory,” it comes at a time when the U.S. and its allies are confronting or sanctioning countries for supposedly illegal occupations – Russia in the Crimea and China in the South China Sea.

  The suit was brought by Mauritius and some of the 1,500 Chagos islanders who were forcibly removed from the archipelago in 1973. The Americans, calling it “sanitizing” the islands, moved the Chagossians more than 1,000 miles to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they’ve languished in poverty ever since.

  Diego Garcia is the lynchpin for U.S. strategy in the region. With its enormous runways, it can handle B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers, and huge C-5M, C-17, and C-130 military cargo planes. The lagoon has been transformed into a naval harbor that can handle an aircraft carrier. The U.S. has built a city — replete with fast food outlets, bars, golf courses and bowling alleys — that hosts some 3,000 to 5,000 military personnel and civilian contractors.

  What you can’t find are any native Chagossians.

  The Indian Ocean has become a major theater of competition between India, the U.S., and Japan on one side, and the growing presence of China on the other. Tensions have flared between India and China over the Maldives and Sri Lanka, specifically China’s efforts to use ports on those island nations. India recently joined with Japan and the U.S. in a war game — Malabar 18 — that modeled shutting down the strategic Malacca Straits between Sumatra and Malaysia, through which some 80 percent of China’s energy supplies pass each year.

  A portion of the exercise involved anti-submarine warfare aimed at detecting Chinese submarines moving from the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean. To Beijing, those submarines are essential for protecting the ring of Chinese-friendly ports that run from southern China to Port Sudan on the east coast of Africa. Much of China’s oil and gas supplies are vulnerable, because they transit the narrow Mandeb Strait that guards the entrance to the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz that oversees access to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The U.S. 5th Fleet controls both straits.

  Tensions in the region have increased since the Trump administration shifted the focus of U.S. national security from terrorism to “major power competition” — that is, China and Russia. The U.S. accuses China of muscling its way into the Indian Ocean by taking over ports, like Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan that are capable of hosting Chinese warships.

  India, which has its own issues with China dating back to their 1962 border war, is ramping up its anti-submarine forces and building up its deep-water navy. New Delhi also recently added a long-range Agni-V missile that’s designed to strike deep into China, and the right-wing government of Narendra Mori is increasingly chummy with the American military. The Americans even changed their regional military organization from “Pacific Command” to “Indo-Pacific Command” in deference to New Delhi.

  The term for these Chinese friendly ports —”string of pearls” — was coined by Pentagon contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and, as such, should be taken with a grain of salt. China is indeed trying to secure its energy supplies and also sees the ports as part of its worldwide Road and Belt Initiative trade strategy. But assuming the “pearls” have a military role, akin to 19th century colonial coaling stations, is a stretch. Most the ports would be indefensible if a war broke out.

  An “Historic” Decision

  Diego Garcia is central to the U.S. war in Somalia, its air attacks in Iraq and Syria, and its control of the Persian Gulf, and would be essential in any conflict with Iran. If the current hostility by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. toward Iran actually translates into war, the island will quite literally be an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

  Given the strategic centrality of Diego Garcia, it’s hard to imagine the US giving it up — or rather, the British withdrawing their agreement with Washington and de-colonizing the Chagos Islands. In 2016, London extended the Americans’ lease for 20 years.

  Mauritius wants the Chagos back, but at this point doesn’t object to the base. It certainly wants a bigger rent check and the right eventually to take the island group back.

  It also wants more control over what goes on at Diego Garcia. For instance, the British government admitted that the Americans were using the island to transit “extraordinary renditions,” people seized during the Afghan and Iraq wars between 2002 and 2003, many of whom were tortured. Torture is a violation of international law.

  As for the Chagossians, they want to go back.

  Diego Garcia is immensely important for U.S. military and intelligence operations in the region, but it’s just one of some 800 American military bases on every continent except Antarctica. Those bases form a worldwide network that allows the U.S. military to deploy advisors and Special Forces in some 177 countries across the globe. Those forces create tensions that can turn dangerous at a moment’s notice.

  For instance, there are currently U.S. military personal in virtually every country surrounding Russia: Norway, Poland, Hungary, Kosovo, Romania, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. Added to that is the Mediterranean’s 6th Fleet, which regularly sends warships into the Black Sea.

  Much the same can be said for China. U.S. military forces are deployed in South Korea, Japan, and Australia, plus numerous islands in the Pacific. The American 7th fleet, based in Hawaii and Yokohama, is the Navy’s largest.

  In late March, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships transited the Taiwan Straits, which, while international waters, the Chinese consider an unnecessary provocation. British ships have also sailed close to Chinese-occupied reefs and islands in the South China Sea.

  The fight to de-colonize the Chagos Islands will now move to the UN General Assembly. In the end, Britain may ignore the General Assembly and the Court, but it will be hard pressed to make a credible case for doing so. How Great Britain can argue for international law in the Crimea and South China Sea, while ignoring the International Court of Justice on the Chagos, will require some fancy footwork.

  In the meantime, Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth calls the Court decision “historic,” and one that will eventually allow the 6,000 native Chagossians and their descendants “to return home.”

  

• Global Attention Spans Are Shrinking Amid Deluge Of Information

  Thanks to information-overload in a hyperconnected world, people’s attention spans are decreasing, according to a recent study from the Technical University of Denmark. 

  Between social media, a “hectic news cycle” and everything else people have going on, people are spending less time on various topics, based on several metrics studied – including 40 years of movie ticket sales, google searches, Reddit comments and other domains.

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  “We wanted to understand which mechanisms could drive this behavior. Picturing topics as species that feed on human attention, we designed a mathematical model with three basic ingredients: ‘hotness’, aging and the thirst for something new,” says Dr. Philipp Hövel, lecturer for applied mathematics, University College Cork.

  This model offers an interpretation of their observations. When more content is produced in less time, it exhausts the collective attention earlier. The shortened peak of public interest for one topic is directly followed by the next topic, because of the fierce competition for novelty. –EurekAlert

  “The one parameter in the model that was key in replicating the empirical findings was the input rate – the abundance of information. The world has become increasingly well connected in the past decades. This means that content is increasing in volume, which exhausts our attention and our urge for ‘newness’ causes us to collectively switch between topics more rapidly.” 

  One metric studied was how long popular ‘hashtags’ – used to promote topics, remain on Twitter’s “top 50” global daily rankings. 

  In 2013, a hashtag would remain on the top 50 list for an average of 17.5 hours. In 2016, this decreased to 11.9 hours. Of course, we had the chaotic 2016 US election season in which a cocky billionaire predicted to lose wiped the floor with the GOP’s ‘top candidates’ (please clap), before defeating Establishment shoe-in Hillary Clinton in a dramatic upset finish. 

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  And since the 2016 election, news cycles have been a long rolling boil of constant drama – with the left insisting that Trump is an illegitimate, unfit president who was elected with help from Vladimir Putin, and the right insisting that the left is, in not so many words, an intellectually challenged party of conspiracy theorists. 

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  On top of the Trump-Russia hysteria dominating news cycles, we can add add terrorism, mass migration, constant alarm bells over climate change, and 2020 Democratic candidates trying to out-outrage each other, it’s no wonder people can’t focus on things the way they used to. 

  In short, we’re overloaded. 

  “It seems that the allocated attention in our collective minds has a certain size, but that the cultural items competing for that attention have become more densely packed. This would support the claim that it has indeed become more difficult to keep up to date on the news cycle, for example,” according to DTU Compute Professor Sune Lehmann. 

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  Interestingly, the only exceptions to the diminished attention span appear to be Wikipedia and scientific publications. 

  While the study looked at the global attention span as a whole, it would be interesting to see how individual attention spans break down. 

  According to Lehmann; “Our data only supports the claim that our collective attention span is narrowing. Therefore, as a next step, it would be interesting to look into how this affects individuals, since the observed developments may have negative implications for an individual’s ability to evaluate the information they consume. Acceleration increases, for example, the pressure on journalists’ ability to keep up with an ever-changing news landscape. We hope that more research in this direction will inform the way we design new communication systems, such that information quality does not suffer even when new topics appear at increasing rates.”

  

• Respecting 'The Other'

  Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

  One of my old friends’ father was at one time something of a Cold Warrior: he did something or other for the US defense establishment – nuclear submarine-related, if I recall correctly. This work activity apparently led him to develop a particularly virulent form of Russophobia; not so much a phobia as a pronounced loathing of all things Russian. According to my friend, her father would compulsively talk about Russia in overly negative terms. He would also sneeze a lot (allergies, perhaps), and she said that it was often difficult for her to distinguish his sneezes from his use of the word “Russia” as an expletive. But perhaps she was trying to draw a distinction without a difference: her father was allergic to Russia, his allergy caused him to sneeze a lot and also to develop a touch of Tourette’s, thus his sneezes came out sounding like “Russia!”

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  What had caused him to develop such a jaundiced view of Russia? The reason is easy to guess: his work activity on behalf of the government forced him to focus closely on what his superiors labeled as “the Russian threat.” Unfolded a bit, it would no doubt turn out that what Russia threatened was Americans’ self-generated fiction of overwhelming military superiority. Unlike the United States, which had developed any number of plans to destroy the Soviet Union (of which nothing ever came due to said lack of overwhelming military superiority) the Soviet Union had never developed any such plans. And this was utterly infuriating to certain people in the US. Was this truly necessary, or was this an accident?

  We could take into account geopolitical, military or economic considerations, consider the (no longer relevant) clash of socialist vs. capitalist ideologies or any number of other irrelevancies. Or we could find hints of what’s really behind this syndrome from certain efforts to combat it. Consider this lyrics from Sting’s 1985 debut solo album “The Dream of Blue Turtles.” Sting sang soulfully: “I hope the Russians love their children too.” From what mystical source sprang Sting’s forlorn hope? That the Russians may be a race of soulless automatons hell-bent on wanton destruction of all life on Earth, but that perhaps there is just a tiny streak of humanity running through their character—they love their children too—and that it will hold them back? Sting’s Russia is almost pure evil, but not quite, and a tiny speck of goodness is what keeps the world balanced on the edge of destruction.

  Looking at history, a different vista presents itself. Since it first came together as a superethnos (Great Rus) around ten centuries ago, Russia has been consistently attacked and invaded from the west. It has been invaded by the Swedes, the Germans, the Poles/Lithuanians, the French and the Germans again. Note that these are all Northern European ethnic groups; this turns out to be important. All of these incursions the Russians managed to repulse. Russia was also invaded from the east, by a large and diverse group of nomadic peoples collectively known as the Mongols (even though actual ethnic Mongols among them numbered no more than a thousand) and this eventually led to integration and either assimilation or peaceful coexistence.

  Why such a difference? Why are the Russians and the Poles like oil and water in spite of both being Christian, neighbors and speaking a Slavic language. Why did the Russians and the Tatars and other Turkic groups fuse together through intermarriage in spite of vast differences in language, custom, religion and geographic origin? Let us propose a daring hypothesis: the reason is organic. Ethnic compatibilities and incompatibilities are not accounted for by any historical, cultural, religious or economic factors. They may be genetic, but they do not necessarily have anything to do with genealogy (relatedness) but could just as easily result from random mutations. They could be part of an innate friend-or-foe identification system—a rather coarse-grained one, that may have evolved at a time when hominids first progressed beyond bands and tribes and started forming the first ethnic groups.

  This hypothesis may seem outlandish at first, but upon consideration it explains enduring conflicts much better than do any of the other factors—ideological, cultural, religious or economic. Consider the Thirty Years’ War which ravaged Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. Reading historical accounts of it makes it sound as if a set of obtuse theological arguments (far too obtuse for most of the participants to grasp) was resolved largely by slaughtering innocent civilians—an odd way to hold a scholastic disputation. But looking at the result an altogether different purpose becomes clear: that of delineating and separating incompatible ethnicities.

  This incompatibility became clear in the New World. On the one side we have the Catholic Europeans (the Spanish, the Portuguese and, to a lesser extent, the French) who happily went native, intermarrying with native tribes and forming new, racially and ethnically fused nations such as the Mexicans, the Brazilians, the Cubans and so on. On the other side we have Northern European, Protestant Europeans (the English, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Dutch and the Belgians) who refused to intermarry and insisted on forming highly segregated societies that persist to this day.

  Acceptance of exogamy by the Catholics and insistence on endogamy by the Protestants (even unto the promulgation of racist laws against “miscegenation” in the US which were highly regarded and emulated by the German Nazis) cannot be accounted for by differences between Catholic and Protestant religious dogma, since these tendencies persist among the religious and the nonreligious alike. A far simpler explanation is that the Northern Europeans are internally compatible but largely incompatible with other groups while the Southern and Eastern Europeans are compatible with a much larger group. The superficial coincidence between ethnic compatibility and Protestantism/Catholicism is an artifact of the Thirty Years’ War and similar historical accidents.

  What makes the understanding of ethnic compatibilities and incompatibilities important is that if they are ignored the result is a phenomenal amount of mayhem, murder and strife. Incompatible ethnic groups can thrive side by side provided they stay separate and cultivate a healthy respect for The Other. (The plantation economy of the US antebellum South, where a large number of Africans toiled on behalf of a tiny group of Europeans, is hardly such an example). Compatible ethnic groups fuse together through intermarriage and form new nations with no special effort required.

  But history attests that mashing incompatible ethnic groups together through an enforced ideology, be it religious or secular in nature, produces very poor results. Yes, it is possible to boost the rate of intermarriage by shaming those who exhibit racist tendencies while rewarding those who intermarry as a way of signaling their virtuousness, and on the surface the resulting society does not appear broken. What breaks is its sense of itself. Being among compatible people, who accept you and whom you accept unconsciously and unconditionally, creates a sense of harmony and well-being, convincing you that the world is a good place and is to be nurtured and celebrated.

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  But being forced to live among incompatible people, whose acceptance of you, and yours of them, is based on an enforced ideology of sameness contradicted at every turn by your innate sense, creates a sense of disharmony and malaise, leading you to believe that the world is an evil place to be cleansed and purged of all that is offensive, be it your government, your neighbors or ancient statues. The resulting ethnos is a chimera—a nonviable composite entity that is ever in search of a means to destroy itself. The ideologies it generates range from nihilism to violent anarchism, from secessionist movements to revolutionary ones, from apocalyptic cults to devil-worship and from gang rape to cold-blooded mass murder. In historical events such as the Spanish Inquisition or Stalin’s purges, it is a waste of time to look for rational reasons for them. But if instead we examine them as resulting from clashes between incompatible ethnic groups, then a much clearer picture emerges.

  One of the advantages of this approach over trying to pick apart complex and largely irrelevant questions of history, religion, culture and so on is that it can be based on readily available statistics: rate of intermarriage and viability of outcome (in terms of productivity and positive outcomes of the resulting family units). The inability to identify the organic mechanism underlying ethnic differentiation and incompatibility is, of course, a problem. But perhaps this mechanism will eventually be found, once enough evidence has been collected and cross-correlated with DNA samples. In the meantime, there is much more that is already understood about the nature of ethnos as an aspect of the Earth’s biosphere.

  I will have more to say on this topic in the next installment. In the interim, I propose that there is just one safe and valid way to act when you sense another’s otherness: respect the otherness of others – and try to leave them well alone. Set aside your ideology of “humanity as a whole” (should you have one) for it will only cause trouble.

  

• China's Bond Vigilantes Loom As Economic Data Stabilizes

  All hope-filled eyes are straining at tonight’s data deluge from China for signs that confirm the PMI spike (and exports rebound) that fueled the latest leg higher in global stocks and bond yields.

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  Remember, the official narrative is that after a rocky start to the year, the roll out of targeted stimulus has boosted investment, bouyed consumption and helped the manufacturing sector.

  Or put another way, thanks to unprecedented injections of credit and endless fiscal and monetary largesse, Chinese stocks have tracked aggressively higher, following China’s world-leading credit impulse back from the abyss…

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  And thanks to that resurgence of China’s credit impulse (in the face of a Fed that has talked a lot but done nothing), the divergence between US and Chinese macro data performance is at an extreme…

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  And yet – amid all this exuberant indication – China GDP growth is expected to slow in Q1.

  The headliner…

  China Q1 GDP Growth YoY BEAT at +6.4% vs +6.3% expected (and +6.4% prior)

  That is still equal to the weakest Chinese growth on record (at least 27 years), the same as the Q1 2009 plunge lows.

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  And the undercard:

  China March Industrial Production YoY BEAT at +6.5% vs +5.6% expected (up from +5.3% prior)

  China March Retail Sales YoY MEET at +8.3% vs +8.3% expected (up from +8.2% prior)

  China March Fixed Asset Investment YoY MEET at +6.3% vs +6.3% expected (up from +6.1% prior)

  China March Property Investment YoY ROSE to 11.8% from +11.6% YoY prior

  China March Surveyed Jobless Rate FELL to 5.2% from 5.3% prior

  Graphically…

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  All of which could be a problem.

  As Bloomberg notes, for China bonds, already the worst performer among the world’s debt markets this year, things may be about to get worse. The figures tonight on the economy confirm broad improvement for March. That’ll tend to help stocks and sap demand for the safety of government debt. What’s more, the PBOC is adopting a hawkish tone, emphasizing it plans to control excessive money supply amid signs of a recovery. Overnight repo rates just jumped to the highest in 4 years…

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  As Bloomberg notes, much of this year’s rally in bonds and stocks have to do with the PBOC re-opening liquidity tap. But China’s central bank is now stepping back. Here’s the timeline:

  The much anticipated reserve ratio cut on April did not materialise; the PBoC skipped open-market operations for 18 days in a row; this morning, the new MLF PBOC offered is not enough to cover the retiring one.

  All of that suggests the government will have a tough time finding buyers for its 1- and 10-year bonds up for sale Wednesday.

  And with Chinese yields accelerating at an extreme pace, we wonder if China’s unprecedented stimulus (record credit injections and endless fiscal and monetary promises) may be about to bite them in the arse as it appears there is at least one nation left with Bond Vigilantes still standing… who will stymie a fragile economic rebound with a soaring cost of capital and a vicious cycle that PBOC will struggle to escape – withdraw/slow stimulus chatter to avoid incendiary default-inducing rate spike (but face economic and equity market slump), or keep the pedal to the metal blowing bubbles around the world until it all goes pop.

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  In the immortal words of Britney Spears, “oops, they did it again.”

  

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• Turkish Economist Arrested After Insulting Erdogan On Twitter

  Following his party’s embarrassing defeat at the polls earlier this month, where the opposition wrested control of the municipal governments of Istanbul and Ankara, and last month’s destabilizing currency crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is once again cracking down on dissenters, including the few remaining voices in Turkish media who dare criticize him directly.

  According to Bloomberg, Istanbul police briefly arrested and detained the economist Mustafa Sonmez, known for opposing the government’s policies, after he allegedly insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

  Sonmez’s lawyer told the state-run Anadolu press agency that police barged into the economist’s home on Sunday morning, arrested him, and took him to a police station in Istanbul. Sonmez, who has also been working as a columnist and a television commentator, was reportedly questioned about several tweets that were critical of the government’s response to the results of the local elections.

  Sonmez reportedly criticized Erdogan for not recognizing Ekrem Imamoglu as the winner of Istanbul’s mayoral race.  The AKP is demanding a recount and possibly a new vote.

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  His lawyer said that Sonmez was interrogated for a few hours and then released. But just because he was let go doesn’t mean he won’t face a legal case in Turkey.

  Erdogan has been cracking down on the press and freedom of expression in Turkey since the failed July 2016 coup, when Erdogan began a purge that has ensnared tens of thousands of Turks. Turkish police made headlines in late 2016 for shutting down one critical television outlet in the middle of a live broadcast.

  After the arrest, Sonmez tweeted that police burst into his home at three o’clock in the morning, and promised that he wouldn’t be silenced, saying “the water never stops.”

  He later claimed that it was ridiculous that he was detained for alegedly insulting Erdogan when there’s so much substantive criticism to levy at AKP and its policies.

  Sabahın 3 lerinde benim de kapım çalındı, nezarette ağırlandım, ifade sonrası serbestim
  Arayan, ilgilenen herkese teşekkürler.
  Bu su hiç durmaz

  — Mustafa Sönmez (@mustfsnmz) April 14, 2019

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tutturmuşlar bir CB’na hakaret teranesi.
  Yahu benim enerjim kıymetlidir.
  Niye onu gereksiz şeylere harcıyayım?
  AKP genel başkanın yanlış icraatlarını eleştirmek gibi yararlı bir iş varken
  niye hakaret gibi lüzumsuz bir işle vakit kaybedeyim?

  — Mustafa Sönmez (@mustfsnmz) April 14, 2019

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  We imagine that defiant tone will win him plenty of friends in Ankara.

  

• As Notre Dame Burns, European Churches Are Vandalized, Defecated On, & Torched "Every Day"

  Authored by Raymong Ibrahim via The Gatestone Institute,

  Countless churches throughout Western Europe are being vandalized, defecated on, and torched.

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  In February, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, France, and mangled the arms of a statue of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner. In addition, an altar cloth was burned. (Image source: Eutrope/Wikimedia Commons)

  In France, two churches are desecrated every day on average. According to PI-News, a German news site, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018. This represents a 17% increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered— meaning that such attacks are only going from bad to worse.

  Once month ago:

  10 Catholic churches across France attacked in one week https://t.co/oPpdvBzKYD

  — Jack Posobiec ✝️ (@JackPosobiec) April 15, 2019

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  Among some of the recent desecrations in France, the following took place in just February and March:

  • Vandals plundered Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nîmes and used human excrement to draw a cross there; consecrated bread was found thrown outside among garbage.

  • The Saint-Nicolas Church in Houilles was vandalized on three separate occasions in February; a 19th century statue of the Virgin Mary, regarded as “irreparable,” was “completely pulverized,” said a clergyman; and a hanging cross was thrown to the floor.

  • Vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, and mangled the arms of a statue of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner. In addition, an altar cloth was burned.

  • Arsonists torched the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass on Sunday, March 17.

  Similar reports are coming out of Germany. Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. “In this country,” PI-News explained, “there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses, on sacred statues by the wayside, on churches… and recently also on cemeteries.”

  Who is primarily behind these ongoing and increasing attacks on churches in Europe? The same German report offers a hint:

  “Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.'”

  Another German report from November 11, 2017 noted that in the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken:

  “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.” Elsewhere they are described as “young Islamists.”

  Sometimes, sadly, in European regions with large Muslim populations, there seems to be a concomitant rise in attacks on churches and Christian symbols. Before Christmas 2016, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, where more than a million Muslims reside, some 50 public Christian statues (including those of Jesus) were beheaded and crucifixes broken.

  In 2016, following the arrival in Germany of another million mostly Muslim migrants, a local newspaper reported that in the town of Dülmen, “‘not a day goes by’ without attacks on religious statues in the town of less than 50,000 people, and the immediate surrounding area.”

  In France it also seems that where the number of Muslim migrants increases, so do attacks on churches. A January 2017 study revealed that, “Islamist extremist attacks on Christians” in France rose by 38 percent, going from 273 attacks in 2015 to 376 in 2016; the majority occurred during Christmas season and “many of the attacks took place in churches and other places of worship.”

  As a typical example, in 2014, a Muslim man committed “major acts of vandalism” inside a historic Catholic church in Thonon-les-Bains. According to a report (with pictures) he “overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows.” He also “trampled on” the Eucharist.

  For similar examples in other European countries, please see here, here, here, here, and here.

  In virtually every instance of church attacks, authorities and media obfuscate the identity of the vandals. In those rare instances when the Muslim (or “migrant”) identity of the destroyers is leaked, the perpetrators are then presented as suffering from mental health issues. As the recent PI-News report says:

  “Hardly anyone writes and speaks about the increasing attacks on Christian symbols. There is an eloquent silence in both France and Germany about the scandal of the desecrations and the origin of the perpetrators…. Not a word, not even the slightest hint that could in anyway lead to the suspicion of migrants… It is not the perpetrators who are in danger of being ostracized, but those who dare to associate the desecration of Christian symbols with immigrant imports. They are accused of hatred, hate speech and racism.”

  

• Forget Iran & Saudi Arabia, China Dominates The World Executions League Table

  Great news, world citizens, 2018 saw a 31 percent decrease in executions, according to Amnesty International’s annual review of countries using the death penalty. Excluding China, 690 people are known to have been executed around the world, a decline on 2017’s 993.

  But, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, China is the world’s top executioner by far and it’s believed that thousands of people are put to death every despite accurate figures remaining a state secret.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Iran comes second after China with 253 people thought to have been executed last year. That is still a significant reduction on 2017 when more than 500 people had their death sentences carried out. The decline in Iran has been attributed to a change in the countries anti-narcotic laws. Other countries known for high numbers of executions also saw noticeable declines including Iraq, Pakistan and Somalia.

  Despite the reduction in executions by the worst perpetrators, a small number of states are still bucking the trend. They include developed nations like Japan and Singapore who both reported their highest execution totals for years. Thailand has also resumed executions after nearly a decade while the United States also saw a minor increase in 2018.

  

• CJ Hopkins: Assange & Uncle Tom's Empire

  Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

  I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but, given the arrest of Julian Assange last week, and the awkward and cowardly responses thereto, I felt it necessary to abandon my customary literary standards and spew out a spineless, hypocritical “hot take” professing my concern about the dangerous precedent the U.S. government may be setting by extraditing and prosecuting a publisher for exposing American war crimes and such, while at the same time making it abundantly clear how much I personally loathe Assange, and consider him an enemy of America, and freedom, and want the authorities to crush him like a cockroach.

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  Now I want to be absolutely clear. I totally defend Assange and Wikileaks, and the principle of freedom of the press, and whatever. And I am all for exposing American war crimes (as long as it doesn’t endanger the lives of the Americans who committed those war crimes, or inconvenience them in any way). At the same time, while I totally support all that, I feel compelled to express my support together with my personal loathing of Assange, who, if all those important principles weren’t involved, I would want to see taken out and shot, or at least locked up in Super-Max solitary … not for any crime in particular, but just because I personally loathe him so much.

  I’m not quite sure why I loathe Assange. I’ve never actually met the man. I just have this weird, amorphous feeling that he’s a horrible, disgusting, extremist person who is working for the Russians and is probably a Nazi. It feels kind of like that feeling I had, back in the Winter of 2003, that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, which he was going to give to those Al Qaeda terrorists who were bayonetting little babies in their incubators, or the feeling I still have, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Trump is a Russian intelligence asset who peed on Barack Obama’s bed, and who is going to set fire to the Capitol building, declare himself American Hitler, and start rounding up and murdering the Jews.

  I don’t know where these feelings come from. If you challenged me, I probably couldn’t really support them with any, like, actual facts or anything, at least not in any kind of rational way. Being an introspective sort of person, I do sometimes wonder if maybe my feelings are the result of all the propaganda and relentless psychological and emotional conditioning that the ruling classes and the corporate media have subjected me to since the day I was born, and that influential people in my social circle have repeated, over and over again, in such a manner as to make it clear that contradicting their views would be extremely unwelcome, and might negatively impact my social status, and my prospects for professional advancement.

  Take my loathing of Assange, for example. I feel like I can’t even write a column condemning his arrest and extradition without gratuitously mocking or insulting the man. When I try to, I feel this sudden fear of being denounced as a “Trump-loving Putin-Nazi,” and a “Kremlin-sponsored rape apologist,” and unfriended by all my Facebook friends. Worse, I get this sickening feeling that unless I qualify my unqualified support for freedom of press, and transparency, and so on, with some sort of vicious, vindictive remark about the state of Assange’s body odor, and how he’s probably got cooties, or has pooped his pants, or some other childish and sadistic taunt, I can kiss any chance I might have had of getting published in a respectable publication goodbye.

  But I’m probably just being paranoid, right? Distinguished, highbrow newspapers and magazines like The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vox, Vice, Daily Mail, and others of that caliber, are not just propaganda organs whose primary purpose is to reinforce the official narratives of the ruling classes. No, they publish a broad range of opposing views. The Guardian, for example, just got Owen Jones to write a full-throated defense of Assange on that grounds that he’s probably a Nazi rapist who should be locked up in a Swedish prison, not in an American prison! The Guardian, remember, is the same publication that printed a completely fabricated story accusing Assange of secretly meeting with Paul Manafort and some alleged “Russians,” among a deluge of other such Russiagate nonsense, and that has been demonizing Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite for several years.

  Plus, according to NPR’s Bob Garfield (who is lustfully “looking forward to Assange’s day in court”), and other liberal lexicologists, Julian Assange is not even a real journalist, so we have no choice but to mock and humiliate him, and accuse him of rape and espionage … oh, and speaking of which, did you hear the one about how his cat was spying on the Ecuadorean diplomats?

  But seriously now, all joking aside, it’s always instructive (if a bit sickening) to watch as the mandarins of the corporate media disseminate an official narrative and millions of people robotically repeat it as if it were their own opinions. This process is particularly nauseating to watch when the narrative involves the stigmatization, delegitimization, and humiliation of an official enemy of the ruling classes. Typically, this enemy is a foreign enemy, like Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, Milošević, Osama bin Laden, Putin, or whoever. But sometimes the enemy is one of “us” … a traitor, a Judas, a quisling, a snitch, like Trump, Corbyn, or Julian Assange.

  In either case, the primary function of the corporate media remains the same: to relentlessly assassinate the character of the “enemy,” and to whip the masses up into a mindless frenzy of hatred of him, like the Two-Minutes Hate in 1984, the Kill-the-Pig scene in Lord of the Flies, the scapegoating of Jews in Nazi Germany, and other examples a bit closer to home.

  Logic, facts, and actual evidence have little to nothing to do with this process. The goal of the media and other propagandists is not to deceive or mislead the masses. Their goal is to evoke the pent-up rage and hatred simmering within the masses and channel it toward the official enemy. It is not necessary for the demonization of the official enemy to be remotely believable, or stand up to any kind of serious scrutiny. No one sincerely believes that Donald Trump is a Russian Intelligence asset, or that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite, or that Julian Assange has been arrested for jumping bail, or raping anyone, or for helping Chelsea Manning “hack” a password.

  The demonization of the empire’s enemies is not a deception … it is a loyalty test. It is a ritual in which the masses (who, let’s face it, are de facto slaves) are ordered to display their fealty to their masters, and their hatred of their masters’ enemies. Cooperative slaves have plenty of pent-up hatred to unleash upon their masters’ enemies. They have all the pent-up hatred of their masters (which they do not dare direct at their masters, except within the limits their masters allow), and they have all the hatred of themselves for being cooperative, and … well, basically, cowards.

  Julian Assange is being punished for defying the global capitalist empire. This was always going to happen, no matter who was in the White House. Anyone who defies the empire in such a flagrant manner is going to be punished. Cooperative slaves demand this of their masters. Defiant slaves are actually less of a threat to their masters than they are to the other slaves who have chosen to accept their slavery and cooperate with their own oppression. Their defiance shames these cooperative slaves, and shines an unflattering light on their cowardice.

  This is why we are witnessing so many liberals (and liberals in leftist’s clothing) rushing to express their loathing of Assange in the same breath as they pretend to support him, not because they honestly believe the content of the official Julian Assange narrative that the ruling classes are disseminating, but because (a) they fear the consequences of not robotically repeating this narrative, and (b) Assange has committed the cardinal sin of reminding them that actual “resistance” to the global capitalist empire is possible, but only if you’re willing to pay the price.

  Assange has been paying it for the last seven years, and is going to be paying it for the foreseeable future. Chelsea Manning is paying it again. The Gilets Jaunes protestors have been paying it in France. Malcolm X paid it. Sophie Scholl paid it. Many others throughout history have paid it. Cowards mocked them as they did, as they are mocking Julian Assange at the moment. That’s all right, though, after he’s been safely dead for ten or twenty years, they’ll name a few streets and high schools after him. Maybe they’ll even build him a monument.

  

• Mapping 40 Years Of Nautical Piracy

  For millennia, voyaging on the open seas has been a dangerous and risky endeavor.

  Between the powerful forces of Mother Nature and self-made obstacles stemming from human error, there is no shortage of possible calamities for even the bravest of sailors.

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, for most of human history, perhaps the biggest fear that sailors grappled with was that of piracy. A run in with such marauders could lead to the theft of valuable cargo or even possible death, and it’s a threat that carries on even through modern times.

  Hotbeds of Modern Piracy

  Today’s map comes from Adventures in Mapping and it aggregates instances of piracy over the last 40 years based on the database from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

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  View the full-size version of the infographic by clicking here

  It should be noted that all individual events can be seen on this interactive map, which is what we will use to look at current hotbeds of piracy in more depth below.

  1. The Strait of Malacca

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  The Strait of Malacca is one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, and also one of the most notorious.

  A key chokepoint that sits between Malaysia and Indonesia, the Strait of Malacca is as narrow as 25 miles wide while also seeing a quarter of the world’s traded goods shipped through it every year. As a result, the strait and surrounding area are a frequent target for modern piracy.

  Example account: (September 2002)
  “The 1,699-ton Malaysian-flag tanker (NAUTICA KLUANG) was hijacked 28 Sep at 0300 local time while underway off Indonesia in the vicinity of Pulau Iyu Kecil at the southern tip of the Strait of Malacca. The pirates, armed with guns and machetes, tied up the crew and locked them in cabins. When the crew freed themselves at 0900, 29 Sep, the thieves had transferred the ship’s cargo of 3,000 tons of diesel oil, damaged communications equipment, and renamed it (CAKLU). “

  2. The Horn of Africa

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  When many people think of modern piracy, they think of the coast of Somalia. While those waters are often avoided, the nearby areas can be just as problematic.

  In particular, the Bab el Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, is a target for modern piracy. Similarly, the waters just off of Yemen are quite treacherous as well.

  Example account: (January 1991)
  “Somali pirates attached MV Naviluck off Somalia, killing three Filipino crewmen and setting fire to the vessel. Three boatloads of armed Somali pirates boarded the vessel on 12 Jan 91 took the crew ashore and killed three of them. The captain said the vessel was attacked off Xaafuun while on her way from Mombasa to Jeddah. He declined to specify the cargo. The surviving crew were made to jump overboard, and were later rescued by M Stern TRLR Dubai Dolphin.”

  3. The Gulf of Guinea

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  While we hear the most about Somalian pirates, the Gulf of Guinea that sits south of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana in West Africa is also a well-known hotbed.

  Tanker theft of petroleum products being shipped to and from Nigerian refineries is rampant, creating an ongoing concern for companies operating in the region.

  Example account: (June 2013)
  “On 13 June, the Singapore-flagged underway offshore supply vessel MDPL CONTINENTAL ONE was boarded and personnel kidnapped at 04-02N 008-02E, approximately 7 nm southwest of the OFON Oil Field. Two fiberglass speedboats, each with 2 outboards engines, each carrying 14 gunmen in wearing casual t-shirts and no masks, launched an attack. The pirates were armed with AK47’s. After stealing personal items and belongings, four expat crew were kidnapped (Polish Chief Engineer) and three Indians (Captain, Chief Officer, and Bosun).”

  4. The Caribbean

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  The Caribbean has a longstanding history with piracy – and while things have died down considerably since the peak, there are still isolated incidents that occur, especially with yachts.

  Most incidents happen off the coast of Venezuela, or in and around the islands on the eastern side of the sea, such as Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, and Grenada.

  Example account: (March 2016)
  “On 4 March, near position 13-16N 061-16W, several gunmen boarded a yacht anchored at Wallilabou in southwestern St. Vincent. During the course of the boarding, a German citizen aboard the yacht was killed and another person was injured. Authorities are investigating the incident.”

  

• America's War Against Iran & Venezuela's "Deep States" Is Going Public

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

  The US’ desire to dismantle the network of Iranian influence in Latin America and specifically in Venezuela speaks to its commitment to counter the regional sway of its rivals’ “deep states”, though it’s hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War, let alone clothe it in “anti-terrorist” and “anti-criminal” rhetoric.

  US Secretary of State Pompeo recently reiterated his rhetoric that Iran is a “global threat”, this time basing it on his claims that the country’s network of influence in Latin America is supporting “transnational crime” and “terrorism”. This comes shortly after Washington designated the IRGC as a “terrorist” organization and approximately half a year since the Justice Department began investigating Iranian ally Hezbollah’s alleged links to drug cartels as a follow-up to the scandalous Obama-era “Operation Cassandra“.

  Taken together, it’s clear that the US desires to dismantle Iran and Venezuela’s supposedly interconnected influence networks in Latin America as the next step in fortifying “Fortress America“, and while “deep state” wars such as this one have been going on for decades, it’s hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War when the US used to make similar claims about the USSR and its communist proxies.

  Evidently, the US isn’t shy about ushering in a new era of “deep state” wars whereby Great Powers such as itself (which is presently the leading one in the world) openly work to thwart the networks of influence established by its regional rivals’ on the grounds that the military-intelligence wings of their “deep states” are engaged in “criminal” and “terrorist” activities that threaten the world at large. It’s no secret that the CIA has been involved in these exact same activities for years, but getting bogged down in “feel-good” “whatabouttism” isn’t the purpose of this analysis even though it’s still important to point that out since it shows that the Trump Administration’s “hyper-realist” foreign policy is centered on the notion that “might makes right” and that double standards don’t matter as long as a state is strong enough to implement them with minimal consequences to its interests.

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  If successful in what it’s setting out to do, then the US will undoubtedly expand its operations against Venezuela and Iran’s “deep states” to include Russia and China’s as well, with the first-mentioned being relevant because of the emerging role that it plays in strengthening “Democratic Security” across the “Global South” in counteracting America’s regime change influence whereas the latter is importantly leading the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) that will tie all of its partner states together in a “community of shared destiny” that revolutionizes 21st-century geopolitics.

  Russian influence is already on the decline in Latin America except for in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba, though China’s is on the ascent and poses the largest long-term threat to the “New Monroe Doctrine”, which is why it’ll probably be targeted next. Given the pattern being established through the public crusades against against Venezuela and Iran’s “deep states”, the US will likely attack China’s using similar “criminal”- or “corruption”-related rhetoric too, at the very least.

  

• A Global Rally Killer Has Emerged In China

  Back in early October, the market catalyst that killed the US rally and sent stocks tumbling into a brief bear market after Powell warned that the neutral rate was a “long way away”, was the sudden spike in yields, which surged above 3.3%, breaking out above long-term resistance, and leading to renewed speculation that the 30 year long bull market in bonds is (again) officially over.

  But while US yields have remained stubbornly low, perhaps in anticipation of rate cuts and/or QE4, perhaps due to increased buying from foreigners due to sliding FX hedging costs, there is one place where yields have recently soared much higher: the same place whose massive credit expansion in the past three months has led to renewed hopes for global “green shoots”, and speculation that the economic slump is now over – China.

  After surging in the the first two weeks of April at the fastest pace in more than 2 years, on Monday Chinese ten-year yields rose to 3.38% Monday, extending their highest levels this year. And while for much of the recent advance Chinese equities were willing to ignore the spike in interest rates, in the past week Chinese stocks have been ominously toppy, and have continued to slide in Tuesday’s session.

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  As a result, and perhaps due to fears that Chinese liquidity is again getting too tight, on Tuesday the PBOC broke its streak of 18 consecutive days without open market interventions, and injected a net of 40 billion yuan via 7 day reverse repos. That plus concerns that the Chinese central bank will not cut rates as previously consensus had expected, stocks have topped out, even as 10Y yields have continued marching higher, and hit 3.40% in early Tuesday trading, the highest level since mid-December. In other words as Bloomberg’s Wes Goodman writes, while the PBOC says it will keep good control of the money supply, “yields may have more to rise even if the central bank is trying to temper the pace of the advance.”

  The risk is that if yields rise even higher, the rally in Chinese stocks – which has outperformed all major markets in 2019 – is now officially over.

  And, all else equal, it does appears that Chinese liquidity will shrink even more in the coming weeks, and local markets will face tighter credit conditions this quarter than in 1Q after the PBOC indicated the current pace had gone beyond its target. That, as Yinan Zhao cautions, is going to add to the pain for slumping sovereign bonds as investors face an uncertain economic outlook and reduced chances for stronger easing.

  1Q credit growth at 10.7% was way above the PBOC’s goal to keep it “in line with the pace of nominal GDP,” a range it specifically emphasized in yesterday’s policy statement. It usually doesn’t go into that much detail on credit growth goals.

  The PBOC emphasized a need for a balanced approach. Given 10-year yields are rising at the fastest pace in more than 2 years, that’s perhaps not the message fixed-income investors would have been hoping for.

  But wait, there’s more: while US traders are casting a fearful eye on just how bad the EPS contraction in Q1 earnings season will be (and whether it will recover in Q2 and onward) in China it will be far worse.  Indeed, the sharp Monday slump in Chinese small caps “underscores the dangers for mainland stock markets as what could be an ugly earnings season kicks off and steals the limelight from stimulus hopes”, as Bloomberg’s Kyoungwha Kim writes today.

  Here’s the punchline: while US stocks are expected to post a roughly 4% drop Y/Y, China small cap earnings will be a massacre, with Q1 EPS on the ChiNext board forecast to slump 29% y/y, following a 12% drop in the prior quarter. That’s in line with China’s dour Jan.-Feb. economic data. Paradoxically, as earnings tumbled, the ChiNext index soared by over 35% during the same period, so any disappointment in earnings will lead traders to rush for the exits… especially if rates keep rising as liquidity shrinks. This will keep markets volatile in April, especially as the ChiNext’s double top formation sets the gauge up for a correction.

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  The silver lining in China, just like in the US, is that any earnings recession is expected to be brief: in Q2 earnings are already predicted to rebound, largely thanks to the recent VAT cut, with overall 2019 EPS growth for the ChiNext seen at 52%.

  Whether or not that happens will ultimately depend on whether Chinese interest rates keep rising from here, and will also likely determine the fate of the global rally which, all else equals, is now entering extremely overbought territory.

  

• US Government Won't Care About Your Definition Of Journalism After The Assange Precedent Is Set

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  Since I published my last article about about the idiotic “Assange isn’t a journalist” smear, this talking point has become more and more commonplace in online discourse. It’s very important to defenders of the political status quo for us all to believe that Assange is not a journalist, because otherwise that would mean they’re cheering for a dangerous precedent which would allow for the prosecution of journalists who exposed the truth about US government malfeasance. And that would mean cognitive dissonance, which all defenders of the political status quo spend most of their day-to-day mental energy running away from.

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  So in the past few days, editorials like this one from free press avatar Peter Greste have popped up all over the place with their own definitions of what journalism is in order to argue why that label can’t possibly apply to Assange. All of these definitions ultimately boil down to the argument that because Assange doesn’t publish leaks in a way that they feel journalism ought to be practiced, it isn’t journalism and therefore sets no legal precedent for journalists around the world. As though the US government is going to be consulting their feelings about what specifically constitutes journalism the next time they decide to imprison a journalist for doing what Assange did.

  It doesn’t work that way, sugar tits. Assange is being prosecuted by the Trump administration for standard journalistic practices, he stands no chance of receiving a fair trial, and it is very likely that he will be hit with far more serious charges for his activities once on US soil. The next time the US government, under Trump or someone else, sees another journalist anywhere in the world doing something similar to what Assange did, there will be nothing stopping them from saying, “We need to lock that person up like we did Assange; they’re doing the same sort of thing.”

  It’s just so amazingly arrogant how people imagine that the way their feelings feel will factor into this in any way. Like the US Attorney General might show up on their doorstep one day with a clipboard saying “Yes, hello, we wanted to imprison this journalist based on the precedent we set with the prosecution of Julian Assange, but before doing so we wanted to find out how your feelings feel about whether or not they’re a real journalist.”

  You won’t get to define how the US government will interpret what constitutes journalism in the future. Only the US government will. It’s amazing that this isn’t more obvious to more people.

  Also, the question “is X a ‘journalist’?” – as though it’s a credentialed, licensed status like being a doctor or lawyer – is deceitful. The First Amendment’s press freedom protects *an activity* available to everyone – not just a designated priesthood called “journalists.”

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 12, 2019

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  In reality, journalism has always been and will always be defined as an activity. It’s not like being a doctor. If you happen to witness a car crash and you give CPR on the scene, you are not a doctor in that moment, but if you take some photos and post them online with a summary of what you saw then you are engaging in the act of journalism and all the legalities and rules of journalism apply to you.

  The particular journalistic activities that the US is currently trying to extradite Assange for is encouraging a source to give him more documents and conspiracy to help Manning hide her identity so that she would not be persecuted for her heroic act of whistleblowing. In other words, Assange was attempting to make sure Manning’s leaks had enough impact to justify the risk, and also to try and make sure she wasn’t caught and tortured for it.

  As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out on Twitter, the indictment describes an activity that all investigative journalists partake in all the time. A source offers you some docs and you see a gap that needs to be filled, you will ask them to get them for you. A source fears they will be found out and you do what you can to hide their identity. That’s journalism at its most raw and dangerous and important. Check out the film Spotlight to see a fairly true version of what the journalists at the Boston Globe had to do in order to expose the pedophile ring of the Catholic Church. These high level crimes must be exposed for people’s safety, but the higher the level the crime, the more risk there is in its exposure.

  To be clear, you only have to engage in these kinds of activities when you are exposing the most powerful people with the most political clout for the most heinous of crimes. Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning suspected she was risking years of torture if she was found out, and history has since proved them both correct.

  So of all the many enraging aspects of all of this extraordinary act of Nice Guy Fascism, one of them is the constant bloviation of the mainstream media elite with their endless personal definitions of what makes a one journalist. You’d think they were quaffing wine at an opening and wanking on about whether the paintings in the gallery were really art. “This journalist is not a journalist, my five year old son could paint that!” they grandstand to any poor bastard within earshot while inhaling olives and patting the waitress on the bum.

  Not sure indiscriminate dumping of thousands of classified documents is “investigative journalism” – also being a patsy of Russia to damage Clinton in favour of Trump is hardly heroic. #Assange?

  — Paul Bongiorno (@PaulBongiorno) April 12, 2019

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  Julian Assange is no journalist: don’t confuse his arrest with press freedom https://t.co/9pYr7jgTng

  — Lenore Taylor (@lenoretaylor) April 13, 2019

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  “To be clear, Julian Assange is not a journalist, and WikiLeaks is not a news organisation.” Strong stuff from @PeterGreste https://t.co/HriMYQgcIW

  — Samuel Clark (@sclark_melbs) April 12, 2019

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  These people have obviously had their personal opinions taken far too seriously for far too long. It’s truly the hallmark of someone whose mother put too many of their crappy crayon drawings on the fridge when you think that your precious little homespun definition of what constitutes journalism will serve as a legal precedent in the years to come. No one will care about your feelings regarding who is a real journalist or not when the long arm of the US empire reaches out across the planet and nabs the next guy for exposing inconvenient truths about the US military-industrial complex or US corporate interests. No one is going to grant you a sit-down and consult you about your oh-so-fascinating ruminations about the next journalist they wish to use Assange’s precedent on.

  It’s obvious to any journalist who doesn’t have their head up their ass that this is the beginning of the end of the fourth estate. Want to expose the US corporate corruption fueling the degradation and desecration of your environment in your particular province in the world? Oh well, uh-oh, now you’ve found yourself on a plane to Gitmo.

  Journalism is an activity. It is bringing the detrimental activities of the powerful to the light, regardless of how you do it, whether it’s through the legacy media, publishing documents, or making a Facebook post. The powerful are not entitled to a private space where they can abuse humans or resources. They don’t get to commit crimes in secret just because they are rich or in government. Journalism is the only way the everyday person has any window into what the powerful are doing to them, doing to their planet, doing with their tax money, and doing in their name.

  So in every way it is probably even worse if you don’t consider Assange a journalist. This precedent puts every single person on earth in danger. That means you can be nabbed wherever you may be on the globe for helping a whistleblower, and I’m sorry to say to all you impassioned bloviators, you will not be consulted on how your feelings feel about whether they fit your dubious definition of what a journalist is, because journalism is an activity, not an elitist club of which you have been the self-proclaimed gatekeeper for so long.

  These narcissistic wankers are a severe danger to press freedom and they need to put their personal proclivities aside and start fighting a very dangerous legal precedent that is being set right before our eyes.

  *  *  *

  Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon orPaypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

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• A History Of Revolution In U.S. Taxation

  As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”

  While this quote was penned in 1789, Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross notes that his words still ring true today. U.S. taxation has changed over time, but it has always existed in some shape or form for over 250 years.

  U.S. Taxation: 1765 to Today

  In today’s infographic from New York Life Investments, we explore the history of U.S. taxation – from its colonial roots to its recent reform.

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  The modern American tax code has little resemblance to its early iterations.

  Over the last few centuries, Americans have battled against British taxation, faced sky-high tax rates to fund war efforts, and enjoyed tax cuts designed to boost economic growth.

  A Timeline of U.S. Taxation

  Today, total U.S. tax revenue exceeds $3.4 trillion. Below are some notable events that have shaped modern American taxation.

  Colonial Roots: 1765 to 1783

  1765 – Stamp Act
  In its first direct tax on the colonists, Britain places a tax on all paper – including ship’s papers, court documents, advertisements, and even playing cards.

  1767 – Townshend Revenue Act
  Importation duties are placed on British products such as glass, paint, and tea. The taxes are expected to raise £40,000 annually, (£6,500,000 in 2018 GBP). As hostilities continue to bubble up, colonists argue for “No taxation without representation”. Although taxes are imposed on the colonists, they aren’t able to elect representatives to British parliament.

  1770 – The Boston Massacre
  British troops occupy Boston to end the boycott on British goods. The March 5th Boston Massacre sees five colonists killed. By April, all Townshend duties are repealed except for the one on tea.

  1773 – The Tea Act (May 10)
  Britain grants the struggling British East India Company a monopoly on tea in America. While no new taxes are imposed, this angers colonists as it is seen as a thinly veiled plan to gain colonial support for the Townshend tax while threatening local business.

  1773 – The Boston Tea Party (December 16)
  Three ships arrive in Boston carrying British East India Company tea. Colonists refuse to allow the unloading of the tea, throwing all 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbour.

  1775-1783 – The American Revolutionary War
  Growing tensions between Britain and the colonists erupt in a full-scale war. After eight long years, Britain officially recognizes the independence of the United States.

  A Free Nation: 1787 to 1943

  1787 – The U.S. Constitution
  Congress gains the “power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.” The government primarily earns revenue from excise taxes and tariffs, including an “importation tax” on slaves.

  1791-1794 – Whiskey Rebellion
  Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Secretary of Treasury, leads the implementation of a whiskey excise tax. In 1794, whiskey rebels destroy a tax inspector’s home. President Washington sends in troops and quells the rebellion.

  1862 – The Nation’s First Income Tax
  To help pay for the Civil War, President Lincoln legislates the nation’s first income tax.

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  Over the coming years, income tax is repealed and reinstated twice.

  1913 – 16th Amendment
  As World War I looms the 16th amendment is ratified, allowing for taxation without allocation according to state populations. An income tax is permanently introduced for both individuals and corporations, and the first Form 1040 is created.

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  At this time, less than 1% of the population is paying income tax.

  1918 – The Revenue Act
  Tax rates skyrocket to pay for World War I efforts. The top tax rate is 77%.

  1935 – Social Security Act
  In light of the Great Depression, the Social Security Act introduces:

  • An old-age pension program

  • Unemployment insurance

  • Funding for health and welfare programs

  To fund the programs, a 2% tax is shared equally by an employee and their employer.

  1942 – The Revenue Act
  Described by President Roosevelt as “the greatest tax bill in American history”, the Act increases taxes and the numbers of citizens subject to income tax. Total personal and corporate income tax revenue more than doubles:

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  1943 – Current Tax Payment Act

  It becomes mandatory for employers to withhold taxes from employees’ wages and remit them four times per year.

  Modern Times: 1961 to 2018

  1961 – Beginning of The Computer Age
  The National Computer Center at Martinsburg, West Virginia is formally dedicated to assisting the IRS in its shift to computer data processing.

  1986 – Tax Reform Act
  The Tax Reform Act:

  • Lowers the top individual tax rate from 50% to 28%

  • Increases taxes on capital gains from 20% to 28%

  • Reduces corporate tax breaks

  The revisions are designed to make the tax code simpler and fairer.

  1992 – Electronic Filing
  Taxpayers who owe money are given the option to file electronically.

  2001 – Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act
  President George W. Bush implements large tax cuts:

  • Creates a new lowest individual tax rate of 10%
  • Reduces the top individual tax rate from 39.6% to 35%
  • Doubles child tax credit from $500 to $1,000* (*From $700 to $1,400 in 2019 dollars)

  2017 – Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  President Trump signs off on reductions in tax rates, while some deductions are made more restrictive.

  For example, State and Local Taxes (SALT) deductions are capped at $10,000. Residents in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey, California and Connecticut could see substantially higher tax bills.

  The Future

  U.S. taxation policy remains a contentious issue and shifts depending on who is in the White House.

  Investors need to stay informed on current legislation, so they can engage in proactive financial planning and minimize their tax obligations.

  

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• Turkey And Russia Create A $1 Billion Join Investment Fund

  Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily has confirmed Russia and Turkey have agreed to create a “Russia-Turkey Investment Fund” following President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Moscow early last week, where he met with President Putin to more broadly discuss technological cooperation, closer military ties and the future of action and local ceasefires in Syria. 

  The initiative was announced by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, and Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF) last week connected to the summit.

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  “At the initial stage the investments in the funds’ projects will amount to 200 million euros. The total size of the Russia-Turkey Investment Fund is 900 million euros,” the RDIF said in a statement. 

  The agreement of the new cooperative venture was signed in the presence of Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and will be central to assisting joint Russian-Turkish projects in the areas of technology, healthcare, and urban infrastructure. 

  “This is an important milestone for TWF and we believe initiating investments through RTIF in focused sectors will cement the relationship of both sovereign investment funds and further strengthen the relationship between Turkey and Russia,” the managing director of the Turkey Wealth Fund, Zafer Sönmez, said in a media release.

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  The TWF is described as follows: 

  Turkey’s wealth fund, established in 2016, holds the total or part of shares of several Turkish companies such as flag carrier Turkish Airlines, telecommunications giant Türk Telekom, state-owned lenders Ziraat and Halk, Turkish Petroleum and Borsa Istanbul.

  Its portfolio also includes the petroleum pipeline company BOTAŞ, the postal services company PTT, and the national lottery Milli Piyango.

  According to the fund’s website, its mission is to develop and increase the value of the country’s strategic assets and consequently provide resource for our country’s primary investments.

  More broadly, the newly established Russia-Turkey Investment Fund further suggests that Turkey is fast moving into Moscow’s orbit. 

  For starters, Putin and Erdogan have already met multiple times this year, which doesn’t bode well for the White House’s ultimatum weeks ago saying that “Turkey must choose.” 

  It appears Turkey’s “choice” is becoming evident. Washington and Ankara have been in a diplomatic showdown and crisis surrounding blocked orders of Lockheed’s F-35 stealth fighter due to Turkey’s plan to receive Russian S-400 anti-air defense systems this summer. 

  Erdogan again affirmed last week amid US ultimatums, “those who ask or suggest we backtrack don’t know us,” and told reporters just after meeting with Putin, “If we sign a deal on an issue, that’s a done deal. This is our sovereign right, no one can ask us to back down.’’

  

• Rogue State? – Britain Railing Against International Norms & Laws

  Via TruePublica.org.uk,

  Leaving aside Britain’s past, most particularly that of empire, the country is not just continually moving towards authoritarianism it is beginning to demonstrate all the early signs of a rogue state. These are strong words but the actual definition of a rogue state is –  “a nation or state regarded as breaking international law and posing a threat to the security of other nations.” Examples such as the illegal invasion of Iraq, Syria and latterly Libya are very clear. Irrespective of the technicalities, they all broke the rules of International laws or norms. But other examples demonstrate how lawless Britain as a state really is.

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  Chagos

  Here, an entire population were forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people were dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and then demolished. To achieve this, Britain maliciously threatened the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of its Independence.

  Recently, the International Court of Justice found that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful by a majority of 13 to 1. Britain rejected this ruling.

  Ex British ambassador Craig Murray wrote – “this represents a serious escalation in the UK’s rejection of multilateralism and international law and a move towards joining the US model of exceptionalism, standing outside the rule of international law. As such, it is arguably the most significant foreign policy development for generations. In the Iraq war, while Britain launched war without UN Security Council authority, it did so on a tenuous argument that it had Security Council authority from earlier resolutions. The UK was therefore not outright rejecting the international system. On Chagos it is now simply denying the authority of the International Court of Justice; this is utterly unprecedented.”

  Weapons and war crimes

  Britain’s arms and munitions sales are now regularly in the news. Even The Lords international relations committee said that British weapons were “highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties” in various countries where illegal wars, acts of genocide and war crimes are being committed. A quick online search lists numerous examples.

  Israel

  Then there is Britain’s relationship with Israel, which is taking a battering due to internal politics and finger-pointing over claims of racism. Fundamentally though, the issue is about war crimes being committed against the Palestinian people. British arms sales to Israel is at best questionable, especially the news that British made sniper rifles were used to kill and injure thousands of Palestinians recently. But Britain’s support in this genocidal war again goes against all international norms where the conflict is described by Amnesty International as an “abhorrent violation of international laws.” It added that – “This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be wilful killings constituting war crimes.”

  In addition, UK policy is allowing trade with ‘Israeli’ goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The British government has stated that it does not even keep a record of imports into the UK from these illegal Israeli settlements. Acquiescing in this illegal trade by an occupying power is a violation of international law. The December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution, to which the UK agreed:

  ‘reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”

  Libya

  Mark Curtis, a British foreign policy expert and historian writes about Britain’s illegal attack of a soverign state – Libya: “British bombing in Libya, which began in March 2011, was a violation of UN Resolution 1973, which authorised member states to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to use ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent attacks on civilians but did not authorise the use of ground troops or regime change promoted by the Cameron government. That these policies were illegal is confirmed by Cameron himself, who told Parliament on 21 March 2011 that the UN resolution ‘explicitly does not provide legal authority for action to bring about Gaddafi’s removal from power by military means.” Today, Libya is a failed state and overrun by militant factions.

  Extrajudicial assassinations and even a kill list

  Reprieve’s report entitled Britain’s Kill List accused the Conservative government of extreme deception of parliament. Officially, Britain has never had a so-called ‘kill list’ but David Cameron had to admit to an extrajudicial assassinations programme in the Middle East, which we at TruePublica reported. All such killings break the most fundamental of international laws and norms as detailed HERE.

  The Reprieve introductory paragraph reads -“On September 7th, 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron came to Parliament and announced a “new departure” for Britain, a policy of killing individuals the Security Services and the military do not like, people placed on a list of individuals who the UK (acting along with the US and others) have identified and systematically plan to kill. The mere admission that there is a Kill List certainly should, indeed, have been a “departure” for a country that prides itself on decency. Unfortunately, it was not a “new departure” at all, as we had been doing it secretly for more than a decade.”

  Statelessness

  Britain has once again broken international norms. The goals of UNHCR’s stateless campaign, a Global Action Plan to End Statelessness 2014 – 2024 introduced a guiding framework comprised of 10 Actions to be undertaken by states. In the case of high-profile ‘ISIS Bride’ runaway from Bethnal Green to Baghuz, Shamima Begum, the UK disregarded Actions 4 and 9:

  Action 4: Prevent denial, loss or deprivation of nationality on discriminatory grounds.

  Action 9: Accede to the UN Statelessness Conventions.

  But Britain’s has its own laws. Section 40(2) of the 1981 British Nationality Act states the Home Secretary won’t make any individual rendered stateless as a result. Under this, the UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship breaks UK law and international norms.

  Political prisoner

  Then, there is the persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, which is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington until his arrest by British police yesterday. By definition, Assange is the only political prisoner in western Europe.  A United Nations legal panel ruled that Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty” and that his detention was illegal.

  Assange has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize every year since 2010. His really big crime was releasing film of an American helicopter gunship killing civilians and journalists in Iraq. Britain is more than just complicit of it attack of fundamental and important press freedoms in arresting him.

  Assange’s lawyer criticised the British government for being poised to arrest and extradite Assange to the United States. “That a government would cooperate with another state to extradite a publisher for publishing truthful information outside its territory sets a dangerous precedent here in the UK and elsewhere,” she said. “No one can deny that risk. That is why he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy.”

  Surveillance

  The UK government’s record on bulk data handling for intelligence purposes saw the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that state surveillance practices such as those practised in Britain violated human rights law. United National Special Rapporteur on Privacy Joe Cannataci said Britain was setting a bad example to the world and that Britain’s surveillance techniques on its own citizens was – “worse than Orwell’s 1984.” The highest courts in Britain have ruled against the government on mass surveillance.

  In 2014, British spies were (illegally) granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to documents. The documents were made public as a result of a legal case brought against the British government by Libyan families who allege that they were subjected to extraordinary rendition and torture, where Britain was proven to be in violation of international laws, in a joint British-American operation that took place in 2004.

  A lawyer, in this case, said – “It could mean, amazingly, that the government uses the information they have got from snooping on you, against you, in a case you have brought. This clearly violates an age-old principle of English law set down in the 16th century – that the correspondence between a person and their lawyer is confidential.”

  In addition, just one of the many operations carried out by the British state was called Optic Nerve. It illegally went about capturing images from webcams of millions of completely innocent citizens accused of nothing. Between 3% and 11% of the images captured by the webcams were sexually explicit in nature and deemed “undesirable nudity.” The public has not been reassured that these files still exist or not that were taken to build an illegal facial recognition system the government had not declared.

  Surveillance operations such as – Muscular, Socialist, Gemalto, Three Smurfs, XKeyScore, Upstream and Tempora are all examples of extreme surveillance systems being used in Britain that would be completely unknown if it had not been for Edward Snowden – another political prisoner. All such operations would be deemed illegal in court and of breaking international laws or norms in normal democratic countries.

  Health and Safety

  In 2015, the Government pushed through a law that exempted a large number of self-employed people from the protection of the Health and Safety at Work Act. The Government managed to get away with reducing the level of protection because the self-employed are not covered by the European “Framework Directive”, which is the regulation that sets minimum standards that countries have to comply with.

  At the time the TUC pointed out to the Government that there were other international laws that the UK had signed up to in many other non European countries that did cover the self-employed including those of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Council of Europe.

  Disability

  The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities examined the British government’s progress in fulfilling its commitments to the UN convention on disabled people’s rights, to which the UK has been a signatory since 2007.

  Its report concludes that the UK has not done enough to ensure the convention, which enshrines the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and to enjoy social protection without discrimination – is reflected in UK law and policy.

  Although it praises some initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh governments to promote inclusion, it is scathing of the UK government’s inconsistent and patchy approach to protecting disability rights and its failure to audit the impact of its austerity policies on disabled people.

  Trust

  Breaking international laws and norms has a long-term effect, mainly that of detriment to national security, long-term interests and trust. There is an assumption, of course, that international law cannot be enforced but in today’s world, international sanctions can be as damaging as using force. Those sanctions could be economic or diplomatic in nature. And if Britain wants to be an international player, it very strongly needs to appreciate and adhere to international laws and norms.

  

• China Could Turn Taiwan Into The Next Lebanon: State Media Warns

  Via AlMasdarNews.com

  China has issued another firm warning to Taiwan amid the ongoing turmoil between the two east Asian nations.

  According to the Chinese publication The Global Times, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has many options on the table, including the possibility of turning Taiwan into another Lebanon.

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  “The PLA has many choices, including crossing the ‘middle line,’ flying over the Taiwan island and even turn Taiwan into a Lebanon-like situation,” the newspaper said. “These choices don’t necessarily lead to war. They are enough to force Taiwan authorities to readjust their radical policies.”

  The “Lebanon-like situation” is a reference to the fourteen-year-long (1975-1989) civil war in which the small Levantine country became a battleground for foreign entities like Israel, Syria, and the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO).

  Israel ultimately used Lebanon to fight their proxy war against the Palestine Liberation Organization, while also curbing Syria’s influence from the southern part of the country.

  “Washington is choosing the wrong place, time and opponent to flex its muscle in Taiwan Straits,” warned Global Times. If the U.S. military stations forces in Taiwan, China will attack, the article said. If the U.S. sells advanced fighters like the F-16V to Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army will respond.

  Meanwhile, the National Interest reported that this warning came in response to U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton complaints about Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossing the middle line of the Taiwan Strait.

  “It marked the first time in almost twenty years that Chinese aircraft have done this, with Taiwanese fighters scrambling to intercept them,” the National Interest added.

  

• Frankenstein Designer Kids: What You Don't Know About Gender-Transitioning Will Blow Your Mind

  Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Puberty-blocking drugs, mastectomies, vaginal surgery and fake penises – all with zero chance of reversal – these are just some of the radical experimental methods being used on children. The madness must stop.

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  Imagine that you are the parent of a five-year-old boy who innocently informs you one day that he is a girl. Of course, the natural reaction would be to laugh, not phone up the nearest gender transitioning clinic. You have no idea how your little boy came to believe such a thing; possibly it was through something he heard at the daycare center, or maybe a program he saw on television. In any case, he insists that he ‘identifies’ as a female.

  Eventually, possibly at the encouragement of your local school, you pay a visit to a physician. You hope this medical professional will be able to provide you and your child with some sound counseling to clear up his confusion. Prepare yourself to be disappointed. Your doctor will be forced, according to state and medical dictate, to follow the professional guidelines known as ‘affirmative care.’ It sounds nice and harmless, doesn’t it? In fact, the program could be best described as nothing short of diabolical.

  The Medical Harms of Hormonal and Surgical Interventions for Gender Dysphoric Children

  Following the ‘affirmative care’ approach, the doctor is required to follow the child’s lead, not vice-versa, as many people believe the doctor-patient relationship in this particular case would best work. In other words, if the child tells the doctor that he believes he is a girl, the doctor must comply with that ‘reality’ no matter what biology tells him or her to be the case. But this is just the beginning of the madness.

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  As the child’s parent, you will be encouraged to start referring to your son as your ‘daughter,’ and even permit him to choose a feminine name, as well as matching clothes. Teachers will be instructed to let your son use the girl’s bathroom while at school. The question of the social stigma attached to such a lifestyle change, complete with bullying, is rarely brought into the equation. Therapists will seldom discuss with the parents the social implications of such a mental and physical change; indeed, many will insist the changes are ‘reversible’ should the child one day have a change of heart. If only things were that easy.

  Let’s pause for a moment and ask what should be the most obvious question, especially among medical professionals: ‘Is it not terribly naive to support the fleeting belief of a child, who still believes in Santa Claus, that he/she is the opposite sex? Isn’t there a very high possibility that the child is just confused and the thought will pass? Moreover, why did we never hear about such episodes just 10 years ago, yet today we are led to believe it is some sort of epidemic?’ Instead of working with the child and his newfound identity from such an obvious approach, in the majority of cases the child will be placed on the fast-track to gender transitioning. This is where the horror story begins.

  One parent, ‘Elaine,’ a member of the advocacy group Kelsey Coalition whose daughter underwent “life-altering medical interventions,” came to understand that the transition is immensely harmful to the future health and well-being of her child.

  “Once the teenage years begin, affirmative care means giving young people cross-sex hormones,” Elaine said during a panel discussion organized by the Heritage Foundation.

  “Girls as young as twelve are prescribed testosterone for lifetime usage, while boys are given estrogen. These are serious hormonal treatments that impact brain development, cardiovascular health and may increase the risk of cancer.”

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  This leads us to the operating table, where adolescents, lacking the mental maturity necessary to make such a huge life-altering choice, are exposed to the knife of irreversible surgical manipulation. Double mastectomies on girls, for example, as well as the fashioning of false penises derived from flesh borrowed from other parts of the body, are just some of the unprecedented procedures now available.

  Elaine mentioned the high-profile story of one Jazz Jennings, who was diagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria’ and raised as a girl since the age of five. He was treated with hormones at the age of eleven, and at the age of 17, Jazz underwent surgery to remove his penis and create a simulated vagina out of his stomach lining.

  “After surgery, Jazz’s wounds began separating and a blood blister began to form. An emergency surgery was performed. According to Jazz’s doctor, ‘As I was getting her on the bed, I heard something go ‘pop.’ When I looked, the whole thing has split open.’”

  Elaine called the case of Jazz a “medical experiment on a child” that “has been playing out on television for the past 12 years.” It should be noted that a similar drama-packed scenario captivated the nation with the high-profile, made-for-television sexual transition of Caitlyn Jenner, born Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist, who was quite possibly the greatest American athlete of all time.

  The obvious question is ‘how many impressionable children, many experiencing their own bodily changes in the form of puberty, were persuaded to decide in favor of gender transitioning (something that a child could have only heard about from some external media or source, unless the parents engage in such odd discussion topics at the dinner table) after watching these celebrity persona?’ By now, few people would doubt the powerful influence that TV celebrities have over people, and especially adolescents. In fact, that is the entire notion behind the idea of a ‘positive role model.’ I am not sure Caitlin Jenner would qualify for such a part.

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  According to Michael Laidlaw, M.D., these children, who are experiencing what the medical community has dubbed ‘gender dysphoria,’ will move beyond their condition either naturally or with the assistance of a therapist. Meanwhile, according to Laidlaw, citing studies, many of the girls and boys who display symptoms have neuro-psychiatric conditions and autism.

  “Social media and YouTube, things like that, binge-watching YouTube videos of transitioners seem to be playing a role…as well as contagion” in popularizing the idea among the masses.

  The movement is predicated upon the modern liberal idea of ‘gender identity,’ which has been defined as a “person’s core internal sense of their own gender,” regardless as to what the biological facts of their sex prove.

  Dr. Laidlaw presented perhaps the best case against parents and their children rushing to the conclusion that their children need puberty blockers, for example, or extreme doses of hormones, when he discussed what happens when a person is diagnosed with cancer.

  “If a child or somebody you knew had cancer, would you want pathology results, would you want imaging to prove [the condition] before you give harmful chemotherapeutics,” he asked. Yet we are allowing children and adolescents to undergo irreversible chemical and surgical procedures without being able to see any evidence that shows the presence of ‘the opposite sex’ in the patient.

  In other words, the medical community is monkey-wrenching with not only Mother Nature, but with the lives of children, with radical and irreversible experiments that have not been proven to promote the happiness and wellbeing of those on the receiving (or subtracting) end.

  “We are giving very harmful therapies on the basis of no objective diagnosis,” Dr. Laidlaw said.

  Laidlaw was forced to repeat what has been widely known for millennia.

  “There are only two sexes,” he said.

  “Sex is identified at birth, nobody assigns it. Doctors don’t arbitrarily assign this person to be a boy and this person to be a girl. We all know how to identify it.

  “I would say ‘ask your grandmother who doesn’t read the scientific journals, and they will tell you exactly how to identify boys from girls.’”

  

• Why The Death Of 'King Dollar' Would Benefit American Workers

  Though the Saudis have denied it, reports last month that the Kingdom was privately threatening to ditch the dollar as the currency of choice for its oil trade have helped reignite speculation that the greenback could soon lose its reserve currency status, as a few financial luminaries have warned.

  Though many mainstream financial analysts categorically dismiss the idea that the dollar’s dominance is in any way under threat, reports about the threats to the petrodollar have prompted many to question how exactly, does the average American benefit from the dollar’s reserve currency status, and would the greenback’s fall from grace have a negative, or positive, impact on the livelihood of the averagee American worker?

  Well, economist Steve Keen has a few theories about what might happen if the dollar stops being the vessel via which a large plurality of global trade is conducted. And he shared his views with Erik Townsend during this week’s episode of MacroVoices.

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  When most people think about the risks associated with the dollar losing its reserve status, runaway inflation probably ranks high on the list. But Keen believes these risks are probably overblown,for several reasons. First, importers often hedge out foreign exchange risk between two and five years out. And even once the dollar’s weakness starts to bite, company’s will often simply absorb some of the margin pressure to maintain market share. While prices might move marginally higher, Keen doubts the outcome would destabilize large swaths of the US economy, as the reserve alarmists have warned.

  The real impact would be felt by Americans wanting to travel overseas, who would see their purchasing power collapse as the costs of traveling abroad skyrocket.

  Erik: Now, most of the products that you see at Walmart in the United States are imported from China. It seems to me that, if this were to occur and there was a marked devaluation of the US dollar versus other currencies, that would result in a massive inflation shock in the real economy in the US because we don’t have the manufacturing capacity to make widgets in the United States. That’s all gone offshore, to the detriment, perhaps, of the American worker.

  But we don’t have that capacity. So if, all of a sudden, we have to pay much higher prices in dollars in order to generate the same price in yuan or yen or whatever for the imported goods, doesn’t that result in a really big inflation shock inside the US?

  Steve: It can. Inflation shocks, you have to look at them in a proper empirical context.

  And most economists simply assume any currency devaluation will lead to an equivalent inflation spike in the country that is devaluing.

  What actually happens quite frequently is firms will try to – first of all, you have long-term contracts determining prices that are often set out two to five years in advance, particularly for industrial goods.

  But mainly we have importers putting a markup on their imports for their profit level. They are willing to cut their markup to hang onto market share to some extent. So you don’t see a 100% pass-through of that sort of thing. You might see 30% pass-through. So if you had a 10-15-20% devaluation in the economy in the American dollar, then you could see, yes, a 5 or 7 maybe – I wouldn’t say going beyond 10% – spike in the inflation rate.

  But, yes, you could see that spike occurring. And it would also – obviously cramp the style of any Americans wanting to go on overseas holidays. So there would definitely be a decrease in the American living standards. And it would bring home to people, too, the extent to which you have been deindustrialized and relied upon this exorbitant privilege to get over it. If the exorbitant privilege goes, then you wear the full consequences of being deindustrialized in the last 25 years.

  Similarly, worries that a weaker dollar would cause interest rates in the US to skyrocket are also overblown, Keen believes. Just look at Japan: Interest rates have been mired near zero for 15 years now, regardless of what’s been happening with the yen. Because it’s not the external market that sets interest rates in the US – that’s now the Federal Reserve’s job.

  Steve: So I can see it as giving America quite a severe jolt. But it won’t be something which causes interest rates to go sky-high. They will still be held in a band by the Federal Reserve. You might see rises in corporate rates and so on, but not large rises in the rates on American government debt.

  Circling back to the inspiration for this topic, Townsend asked Keen if he really believes the Saudis seriously considering ditching the dollar, or if these leaks are merely idle threats. Keen believes it’s the latter, given how dependent the Saudis are on American support in the form of both supplying arms and purchasing oil. The real risk for the dollar lies in Europe and China. Europe’s search for an alternative to SWIFT, which was inspired by Trump’s decision to ditch the Iran deal, was a major catalyst for this.

  As Trump’s belligerence toward America’s enemies and allies has made the dollar’s reserve status “intolerable” for many, Keen believes there’s a “one in three” chance that the dollar loses its reserve status within ten years.

  Erik: Steve, let’s come to the current risks that the US dollar faces in terms of maintaining its reserve currency status and talk about how real they are. Is this talk from Saudi Arabia just saber-rattling? Or are they really serious about ditching the dollar? Likewise, we had another comment last week from, I believe it was a former undersecretary of the UN, calling for a global currency to replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Are these things really at risk of actually happening?

  Or is this just talk?

  Steve: I think it’s at risk of happening. I don’t think the Saudis are going to go through with it though, because they’re incredibly intimately tied up with American military power and it would just be too dangerous for them to do that. But I know China and Russia and, to some extent, Europe are talking about it because they are sick of the extent to which this is being used as a bullying tool by America. Particularly – just one recent example – the decision not to let Iran use the SWIFT system for international payments.

  That could never have happened if the American dollar wasn’t the reserve currency. And you get American imposing its political will on the rest of the world using the fact that it’s the reserve currency. And of course that’s become intolerable under Trump. So I think the odds are, let’s say, one in three of a serious breakdown in that in the next 10 years.

  That’s not to say that this couldn’t be stopped, but the more the US tries to impose its will on the rest of the world, the more likely other world powers will rebel.

  But it could also be prevented. It’s one of these things – it doesn’t have the weight of financial numbers behind it like I could see with the credit crunch back in 2008 to say a crisis is inevitable.

  But, certainly, there will be strains on the system and the American dominance can’t be guaranteed. And the more America now tries to assert that dominance, the more likely it is to encourage one of those alternatives to be developed.

  As history has proven time and time again, no reserve currency reigns forever…

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  …So, With America’s allies and enemies looking for ways to mitigate their reliance on the dollar, what, ultimately, would be the impact if the world decides to ditch the greenback?

  While the decline in demand would probably cause the dollar to weaken, that could benefit the American working class. Given that President Trump’s confrontation approach to diplomacy has caused this process to accelerate, as Europe, Russia and China have repeatedly, this is one way in which what Keen describes as Trump’s leveraging America’s reserve-currency status as a “thug’s tool” (by threatening sanctions against its enemies), could circuitously benefit the working class Americans who make up a large portion of his base.

  Obviously, it’s going to mean a reduction in demand for American dollars on foreign exchange markets, which must mean a fall in the price over time. And it will be complicated by the usual spot and hedge markets and so on. But, yes, seeing a fall in the value of the dollar, unless America’s financial sector could no longer use the fact that it was American to have the power it has over financial institutions elsewhere in the world, so that the scale of the financial sector would be pulled back, your manufacturing sector would be more competitive. But, as you know, you don’t have the industrial pattern you used to have.

  You’ve still got some outstanding corporations and outstanding technological capability. But you don’t have that machine tool background. The skilled workers that used to exist there aren’t there anymore. So there would be a serious shock to America with more expensive goods to be imported from overseas and a slow shift towards having a local manufacturing capability, making up for the damage of the last 25 years.

  I can see a lot of social conflict out of that as well, but a positive for the American working class, who really have been done over in the last quarter century. And that’s partly the reason why Trump has come about. And, ironically, Trump is part of the reason why this might come to an end, given how much he’s used his bombast and the American reserve currency status as a thug’s tool in foreign relations rather than an intelligent person’s tool.

  In summary, although every reserve currency in history has lost its status as its economic dominance has faded, the US might be the first to lose that status because of an organized rebellion that it helped provoke via its willingness to use sanctions and other tools as a weapon for punishing its adversaries and rewarding its friends.

  Listen to the full interview below:

  

• Caitlin Johnstone Warns Trump Supporters Are Hurting Assange With Their 4-D Chess Talk

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  At a time when everyone should be out in the streets shaking the earth and protesting the Trump administration’s prosecution of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, those who continue to support this president have one message and one message only when it comes to the WikiLeaks founder: Don’t do anything. Relax, wait and see, trust Trump, and don’t do anything. Trump is about to save Assange, and save us all. Do nothing.

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  Who do you guys think this strategy benefits, exactly?

  These are all people who say they support Assange and WikiLeaks, who say they support free speech and oppose the deep state, and yet what they are doing today hurts Assange and helps the unelected power establishment known as the deep state just as much as the hysterical Russiavape dupes who are overtly smearing Assange today.

  To be clear, not everyone who voted for Trump is doing this; many are aggressively opposing this administration’s prosecution of Assange and vocally withdrawing all support for him. But the ones who are engaged in the behavior I’m describing are all helping to kill the loud and aggressive opposition to Assange’s imprisonment which is so desperately needed right now, and they’re helping everyone they claim to oppose. The pussyhat-wearing Assange haters and the MAGA hat-wearing Assange lovers are on the same side on this issue, mindlessly working toward the exact same agenda: the permanent imprisonment of a truth-telling journalist.

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  Every time President Trump advances a longstanding evil agenda of America’s permanent government, I see my social media notifications swarmed with Trump supporters telling me that it is actually a good thing, because it’s secretly a brilliant strategic chess move that the 45th president is taking against the deep state.

  When I say that this happens every time, I’m not being hyperbolic to make a point. I mean it happens every single time, without a single, solitary exception, always. It happens with such clockwork reliability that I preemptively addressed it in the article I wrote when Julian Assange was arrested, saying, “I am going to have a zero tolerance policy for QAnon cultists who try to tell me that this is actually 5-D chess by Trump to overthrow the Deep State. Stay out of my comments, stay out of my social media notifications, stay the hell away from me, and please rethink your worldview.”

  I said this because I knew it was coming, and indeed it did. All sorts of theories have been concocted since Assange’s arrest which people cite as proof that Trump is actually protecting Assange with his administration’s indictment and extradition request, instead of working to imprison a journalist for exposing US war crimes, which is actually what’s happening.

  They tell me that Trump is bringing Assange to America for trial because he can only pardon him after he’s been convicted. This is false. A US president can pardon anyone at any time of any crime against the United States, without their having been convicted and without their even having been charged. After leaving office Richard Nixon was issued a full presidential pardon by Gerald Ford for “all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9,1974.” Nixon had never been charged with anything. If Trump were going to pardon Assange he could have done it at any time since taking office, instead of issuing a warrant for his arrest in December 2017 and executing it on Thursday after a series of international legal manipulations. A pardon is not in the plans.

  Another common belief I keep encountering is that Trump is bringing Assange to America to get him to testify about his source for the 2016 Democratic Party emails in exchange for a pardon, thereby revealing the truth about Russiagate’s origins and bringing down Clinton and Obama. This is false. Everyone who knows anything about Assange (including the Trump administration) knows that he will never, ever reveal a source under any circumstances whatsoever. It would be a cardinal journalistic sin, a violation of every promise WikiLeaks has ever made, and a betrayal of his entire life’s work. More importantly, imprisoning a journalist and threatening him with a heavy sentence to coerce him into giving up information against his will is evil. If you believe your president is doing that, the last thing you should be doing is cheering for him.

  But that isn’t what Trump is doing. Trump is pursuing the imprisonment of a journalist for exposing US war crimes, so that he can scare off future leak publishers and set a legal precedent for their prosecution.

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  I’ve been engaging people in debates on this subject online so I can understand their arguments well enough to address them, and what I’ve learned is that they don’t really have any. Those who believe Trump is actually secretly helping Assange and helping the American people by prosecuting a journalist have no basis for their belief other than pure faith that Trump is good, therefore anything he does must be good. It’s the exact mirror image of Russiagate hysterics, and it benefits the exact same corrupt establishment.

  The mental contortions that people are doing to avoid the cognitive dissonance between their support for Assange and their support for Trump is truly something to behold. For the last 24 hours QAnon adherents have been telling me that Assange holding a Gore Vidal book when arrested is an undeniable signal that he’s in coordination with the Trump campaign to bring down the Deep State, and that I’m crazy for being unable to see that. Turns out it was actually a book that Assange wanted to read while he was waiting to be processed at the courthouse, which makes sense since Vidal’s “History of the National Security State” covers a subject that Assange has devoted his entire life to.

  QAnon is such a brilliant propaganda construct. With some cryptic posts on an anonymous message board, whoever is behind that psyop has succeeded in manipulating a vocal and impassioned sector of Trump’s base into applauding every single step he’s taken in advancing the dystopian agendas of his predecessors as a brilliant 4-D chess move against the establishment. I’ve been told that his bombing of Syria actually took out an Iranian nuclear base, that he’s helping to free the Venezuelan people without harming anyone, that he’s fighting the deep state in Iran, that his dangerous escalations against Russia are just a show because he and Putin are working together (a comical overlap with the Russiagate crowd), and last year they were telling me that Assange isn’t in the embassy at all because Trump had already covertly rescued and pardoned him. There are people who honestly believe that there is a revolution against the establishment underway which is being led by a plucky alliance between the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Israel, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It’s that bad.

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  QAnon followers make up a minority of Trump’s base, but the insanity of the QAnon psyop bleeds into the greater MAGA crowd and helps normalize the kind of thinking which leads people to conclude that a blatant prosecution of a journalist for telling the truth about the US political construct is actually a strategic maneuver against the establishment. The enthusiastic promotion of this narrative has an undeniable and pernicious chilling effect on opposition to Assange’s wrongful imprisonment, which should be an issue upon which the right and the true left agree.

  I’ve never pushed away Trump supporters because I believe isolating into ideological echo chambers makes the left impotent and stupid, and many of them have followed me since I started this gig because they agree with some of what I’ve got to say. I don’t know how many MAGA people I still have in my readership after all the stuff I’ve been writing about their president, but those of you who are still out there, please, for the love of God help get this idea out there. This is a time where everyone who supports WikiLeaks should be flooring the gas pedal, and all the “Don’t do anything, trust the plan, wait and see” rhetoric is keeping one foot on the brakes.

  Assange should have been pardoned already, long ago, if not by Obama then by Trump. There is no excuse whatsoever for this not to have happened already, let alone for Assange to be behind bars at the behest of this administration. Stop saying “wait and see”. We’ve already seen. The time to protest is now. Get your foot off the brakes, and aggressively demand that your president cease doing what he is doing. Make this an election issue. Trump can’t afford to lose his base, but if you keep saying “wait and see” the narrative manipulators will keep moving back the line you’d sworn you’ll never let him cross until before you know it you’ve got another four years of another Bushbama while Assange remains locked in a cage.

  Don’t let them do this to you. Use your power now.

  *  *  *

  Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

  Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  

• The Truth About Brexit In 135 Words

  Confused about Brexit? Here is One River’s Eric Peters summarizing everything you need to know in exactly 135 words:

  * * *

  “They’re all liars mate,” said my London cabbie. “May was a Remainer. How were we going to get a good deal when our negotiators don’t want to leave?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “They’ll stall until they can say it’s not what people want no more — happened in every country that ever wanted a referendum or held one,” he said.

  “The EU paid to move a Land Rover factory from the Midlands to Slovakia where they earn 5 pound for every 25 we make – so our boys are out of work and the company makes more profit. How’s that right?,” he said.

  “For every two pound we put into the EU, we get one back.”

  So I asked if Brtiain held another referendum, which way it’d go? “We’re split in two mate, we’re absolutely shattered.”  

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• Chinese Tycoon’s Son Buys $3.8 Million Bugatti In Vancouver With Dad’s Credit Card, Complains About Taxes

  Almost exactly two years ago, at the peak of the Vancouver housing bubble which was the result of an unprecedented money-laundering funds flow by Chinese oligarchs and tycoons into the Western Canadian real estate market, we brought you “The Rich Chinese Kids Of Vancouver“, which as the title suggests, profiled the spoiled offspring of some of China’s richest.

  You will know them by their Lamborghinis: hundreds of young Chinese immigrants, along with a handful of Canadian-born Chinese, have started supercar clubs whose members come together to drive, modify and photograph their flashy vehicles, providing alluring eye candy for their followers on social media.

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  Because they are rich, they are confident they own the town: “occasionally, the need for speed hits a roadblock. In 2011, the police impounded a squadron of 13 Lamborghinis, Maseratis and other luxury cars, worth $2 million, for racing on a metropolitan Vancouver highway at 125 miles per hour. The drivers were members of a Chinese supercar club, and none were older than 21, according to news reports at the time.”

  Since those crazy days of 2016, the Chinese invasion of Vancouver has eased (certainly crushing the local real estate market as noted in ““Ghastly” Vancouver Home Sales Crash By 46%, Lowest Since 1985“), and following the imposition of some substantial, if hardly draconian, anti-money laundering measures by Canada as well as real estate purchasing curbs, the rich Chinese kids of Vancouver phenomenon – which just accidentally coincided with the second great cryptocurrency bubble – gradually faded into the background.

  But it certainly did not die and every now and then we get a stark reminder of just how much funds China’s “0.1%” transfers overseas (in fears that China’s own economic collapse is only a matter of time). A reminder such as this one from the South China Morning Post, which writes that the son of a Chinese tycoon is buying a C$5.1 million (US$3.8 million) custom Bugatti sports car in Vancouver, using his daddy’s Union Pay credit card, according to a picture of the invoice the young man posted on Instagram to complain about Canadian taxes.

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  In a move that could make even the Kardashians blush, Ding Chen published a copy of the bill bearing his father Chen Mailin’s name on his Instagram stories, with an exasperated message overlaid in Chinese: “These taxes … my heart feels tired”.

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  The photo, which was posted around noon on Thursday and set to vanish 24 hours later, had been roughly edited to scrawl out most figures, except the taxes.

  But, as the SCMP calculates, the 5% federal goods and services tax of C$210,404.25 reveals a pre-tax price of C$4.2 million (US$3.1 million), the approximate list price of a Chiron. Additional provincial taxes of C$697,939 (US$522,100) bring the total purchase price to about C$5.1 million.

  The cherry on top: the bill includes a 1.7 per cent Union Pay fee, which, if imposed on the pre-tax price, would work out to C$71,400 alone – about the price of a BMW M3.

  Perhaps fearing retaliation from China’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, just one hour after the SCMP article was published, Chen’s Instagram account was closed or locked down.

  To be sure, the image will spark some serious inquiries from the Chinese Communist Party which will want to inquire just how the junior tycoon managed to pay using his daddy’s “gas card”: the problem is that after an aggressive crackdown against money-laundering by Beijing in 2016 and 2017, China’s Union Pay credit cards have been the subject of increasing scrutiny as a conduit for money out of the mainland. China has an annual cash export limit of US$50,000, and Union Pay says it enforces an annual overseas cash withdrawal limit of 100,000 yuan (US$14,880).

  Yet while overseas purchases of more than 1,000 yuan (US$149) must be reported to Chinese regulators, there is no general limit on spending, and there is no suggestion that the purchase of the car is improper.

  The bill, from Vancouver Bugatti dealer Weissach Group according to a visible phone number, was issued to Chen Mailin, whose name was clearly displayed. The address of his home on Vancouver’s Drummond Drive was whited-out but still readable.

  The address is that of a palatial home purchased by Chen Mailin in 2015 for C$51.8 million (then US$40 million), in what was then believed to have been the biggest residential transaction ever conducted in Canada.

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  But who is Chen Mailin (i.e. “daddy”)?

  As often happens in China, his rags to riches story is yet another shocker: the 49-year-old Jiangsu province businessman is a former duck farmer who founded what is now a skyscraper-building property and investment conglomerate, Nanjing Dingye Investment Group, of which he is chairman. He is a former member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s legislative advisory body. And, citing a corporate disclosure, the SCMP notes that Chen Mailin is also a permanent Canadian resident (just in case Beijing decided to issue a fatwa on the nouveau-riche billionaire).

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  Ding Chen – who bears a striking resemblance to Chen Mailin – is the businessman’s son, according to the tycoon’s assistant at Chunghwa Investment company in Vancouver. The assistant told the South China Morning Post on Thursday to call Ding Chen on Friday at a nominated time, but the call went through to voicemail and has not yet been returned.

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  Patrick Kam, a salesman for Weissach Group, Bugatti’s official dealer in Vancouver, said only one Bugatti Chiron had been sold and delivered in Vancouver. “It’s a very esoteric car,” he said.

  Curiously, Kam said that particular car had not been bought with a Union Pay card. But he said he was “not at liberty to discuss sales that may or may not be in the works”. Still, a Union Pay credit card would indeed be accepted at Weissach if someone wanted to use it to buy a C$4 million car, or any luxury vehicle. “Yeah, it’s a regular mode of payment that we take,” said Kam.

  Just as profiled in our post from April 2016, Ding Chen’s Instagram feed is filled with scenes of conspicuous consumption across the world, including a $30 million Bombardier Challenger jet with his name, “Ding”, emblazoned on the tail in Montreal; straphanging on the Hong Kong MTR with an Audemars Piguet watch on his wrist; and posing in Gucci leisure wear in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Shanghai.

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  Other photos apparently show his new Bugatti Chiron in various stages of completion as it undergoes extensive customisation. “It’s on its way. #bugatti #chiron #w16,” he posted on February 26, with a photo of a mostly dismantled Chiron in a laboratory-like workshop. “The next stage!” he posted on March 12, with a photo of a Chiron, still wheelless but with body work attached.

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  Ding Chen’s big-spending father, meanwhile, has been the subject of media scrutiny in Vancouver ever since buying the Drummond Drive home. As we noted at the time, Chen Mailin was mentioned in a 2012 Canadian court ruling in which prominent Vancouver realtor Julia Lau claimed he was a friend who loaned her C$30,000 out of C$131,000 in undeclared cash. The money had been seized by Canadian border authorities in 2010 from a car broker named Jason Edward Lee as he tried to board a flight to Las Vegas.

  Lau said the money was intended to replace funds she had already given Lee, via wire transfer, to buy her a Porsche in the US. Lee claimed the wired funds never arrived in his account.

  The judge in the case found that Lee had instead “squandered” the wired funds at a casino.

  Lee, who told Canadian authorities the C$30,000 came from a “loan shark”, according to the ruling, was found dead of a heroin overdose in the boot of his car, with zip ties around his wrists and ankles, about a month after Canadian authorities seized the cash. There was no suggestion in the court case that Chen Mailin is a “loan shark”.

  Meanwhile, business as usual continues as China’s wealthiest can’t wait to transfer their savings offshore, even as Beijing, now facing its first current account deficit in modern history, is desperate to open up its own corrupt and crony capital markets to yield-starved foreign investors who in turn will make sure that Ding Chen ends up buying many more Bugattis before he too is mysteriously found deceased of a “heroin overdose” in the boot of some (super)car himself.

  

• NY Dems Reject Tuition Aid For Gold Star Kids After Doling Out millions For Illegal Students

  Authored by Rob Shimshock via Campus Reform,

  New York State Assembly Democrats denied hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition money to relatives of Gold Star veterans on Tuesday but granted $27 million for illegal aliens’ college tuition in a state budget earlier in April.

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  In a 15-11 vote, New York’s Assembly Higher Education Committee decided not to allocate more money to a $2.7 million program that currently helps 145 students related to or dependent on disabled and deceased combat veterans to pay college tuition, the New York Post reported.

  “We will make every effort to ensure going forward, we have some additional resources allocated to the program so that as an entitlement, it is not falling short of the needs of our military families,” Democrat Assemblywoman Deborah Glick said, according to the Post.

  Not all Democrats opposed the veteran funding bill, however.

  “I voted for the bill because I think it’s important, especially after that FDNY firefighter was killed in Afghanistan, so heartbreaking,” Democrat Assemblywoman Judy Griffin said, reported the Post.

  “But I voted yes knowing the bill would be held because it was a tough budget year and as the chairwoman said, there just wasn’t the funding in the budget. But now we know for next year, [so] we will make it a priority and hopefully pass it.”

  New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo also signaled that he would support the bill, which provides merit-based awards with a $24,250 ceiling per student, if it made it past the Assembly, according to Stars and Stripes.

  “We have a moral obligation, a social obligation to help those families who lost their provider, their loved one, in service to this nation,” Cuomo said, according to Stars and Stripes.

  “Assemblywoman Glick should be ashamed of herself,” Republican state Sen. Robert Ortt, who sponsored the proposed funding, said.

  “We set aside $27 million dollars for college for people that are here illegally…apparently $2.7 million is all that the families of soldiers who are killed, get. If you’re a child of a fallen soldier, you do not rank as high and you know that by the money.”

  This comes after Campus Reform highlighted in a video earlier this week how a lesser-known federal statuteprohibits illegal immigrants from receiving “any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit.” 

  Currently, 18 states, including New York offer such benefits to illegal immigrant students. 

  

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