• $200 Million Ghost Town Of Castles, Created By Turkey's Recession

  More than 500 hundred chateaux have been abandoned at the Burj Al Babas luxury housing development in Turkey after its developer filed for bankruptcy last November. The homes were crafted for wealthy Gulf investors in Turkey’s northern Bolu province, but as soon as the country slipped into an economic recession, the land development project collapsed.

  

  About halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, the Burj Al Babas development will contain 732 chateaux when, or if, it ever finishes.

  

  Started in 2014, hundreds of homes have been left unfinished since the downfall of the Turkish economy in 2018 led to developer Sarot Group to file for bankruptcy in November. The group has debts of $27 million, the AFP elaborates on the housing crisis unfolding in Turkey.

  “Unfinished and empty housing projects are strewn across the country, testimony to the trouble the construction sector, and the wider economy, now finds itself in. The construction sector has been a driving force of the Turkish economy under the rule of [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who has overseen growth consistently above the global average since he came to power in 2003. But the sector contracted 5.3% on-year in the third quarter of 2018.”

  “Three out of four companies seeking bankruptcy protection or bankruptcy are construction companies,” said Alper Duman, associate professor at Izmir University of Economics.

  Clients from Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates purchased 350 of the homes, according to Hurriyet, at $370,000 to $530,000 per unit.

  

  Sarot Group Chairman Mehmet Emin Yerdelen blamed the company’s insolvency issues on deadbeat clients.

  “We couldn’t get about 7.5 million dollars receivables for the villas we have sold to Gulf countries,” Hurriyet quoted Yerdelen as saying. “We applied for bankruptcy protection but the court ruled for bankruptcy. We will appeal the ruling.”

  The group constructed 587 villas before it filed for bankruptcy protection. The court ordered the group to halt all construction for 2019, yet Yerdelen believes the project will restart in the near term.

  “The project is valued at $200 million,” he said. “We only need to sell 100 villas to pay off our debt. I believe we can get over this crisis in four to five months and partially inaugurate the project in 2019.”

  The villas, which here built in the style of miniature French chateaux, are all three stories and look like a medieval fortress.

  Happy #BrutalMonday! Burj Al Babas (Turkey) pic.twitter.com/ydbFDaVgqG

  — Mateo Arquitectura (@mateoarq) January 14, 2019

  While Turkey has seen an economic boom over the last several decades, the country’s economy has been hit with a severe downturn in real estate, inflation skyrocketing, and political turmoil emerging around the slowdown. As for the hundreds of abandoned castles, well, maybe Turkish President Erdoğan could repurpose the site for a new refugee camp.

  

• The World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon Just Rolled Off the Assembly Line

  Authored by James Carroll via TomDispatch.com,

  With the creation of a new “mini-nuke” warhead, the US is making nuclear war all the more probable…

  

  Last month, the National Nuclear Security Administration (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) announced that the first of a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons had rolled off the assembly line at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the panhandle of Texas. That warhead, the W76-2, is designed to be fitted to a submarine-launched Trident missile, a weapon with a range of more than 7,500 miles. By September, an undisclosed number of warheads will be delivered to the Navy for deployment.

  What makes this particular nuke new is the fact that it carries a far smaller destructive payload than the thermonuclear monsters the Trident has been hosting for decades – not the equivalent of about 100 kilotons of TNT as previously, but of five kilotons. According to Stephen Young of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the W76-2 will yield “only” about one-third of the devastating power of the weapon that the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Yet that very shrinkage of the power to devastate is precisely what makes this nuclear weapon potentially the most dangerous ever manufactured. Fulfilling the Trump administration’s quest for nuclear-war-fighting “flexibility,” it isn’t designed as a deterrent against another country launching its nukes; it’s designed to be used.  This is the weapon that could make the previously “unthinkable” thinkable.

  

  There have long been “low-yield” nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear powers, including ones on cruise missiles, “air-drop bombs” (carried by planes), and even nuclear artillery shells — weapons designated as “tactical” and intended to be used in the confines of a specific battlefield or in a regional theater of war. The vast majority of them were, however, eliminated in the nuclear arms reductions that followed the end of the Cold War, a scaling-down by both the United States and Russia that would be quietly greeted with relief by battlefield commanders, those actually responsible for the potential use of such ordnance who understood its self-destructive absurdity.

  Ranking some weapons as “low-yield” based on their destructive energy always depended on a distinction that reality made meaningless (once damage from radioactivity and atmospheric fallout was taken into account along with the unlikelihood that only one such weapon would be used). In fact, the elimination of tactical nukes represented a hard-boiled confrontation with the iron law of escalation, another commander’s insight — that any use of such a weapon against a similarly armed adversary would likely ignite an inevitable chain of nuclear escalation whose end point was barely imaginable. One side was never going to take a hit without responding in kind, launching a process that could rapidly spiral toward an apocalyptic exchange. “Limited nuclear war,” in other words, was a fool’s fantasy and gradually came to be universally acknowledged as such. No longer, unfortunately.

  Unlike tactical weapons, intercontinental strategic nukes were designed to directly target the far-off homeland of an enemy. Until now, their extreme destructive power (so many times greater than that inflicted on Hiroshima) made it impossible to imagine genuine scenarios for their use that would be practically, not to mention morally, acceptable. It was exactly to remove that practical inhibition — the moral one seemed not to count — that the Trump administration recently began the process of withdrawing from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while rolling a new “limited” weapon off the assembly line and so altering the Trident system. With these acts, there can be little question that humanity is entering a perilous second nuclear age.

  That peril lies in the way a 70-year-old inhibition that undoubtedly saved the planet is potentially being shelved in a new world of supposedly “usable” nukes. Of course, a weapon with one-third the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, where as many as 150,000 died, might kill 50,000 people in a similar attack before escalation even began. Of such nukes, former Secretary of State George Shultz, who was at President Ronald Reagan’s elbow when Cold War-ending arms control negotiations climaxed, said, “A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. You use a small one, then you go to a bigger one. I think nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons and we need to draw the line there.”

  HOW CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT?

  Until now, it’s been an anomaly of the nuclear age that some of the fiercest critics of such weaponry were drawn from among the very people who created it. The emblem of that is the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a bimonthly journal founded after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by veteran scientists from the Manhattan Project, which created the first nuclear weapons. (Today, that magazine’s sponsors include 14 Nobel Laureates.) Beginning in 1947, the Bulletin’s cover has functioned annually as a kind of nuclear alarm, featuring a so-called Doomsday Clock, its minute hand always approaching “midnight” (defined as the moment of nuclear catastrophe).

  In that first year, the hand was positioned at seven minutes to midnight. In 1949, after the Soviet Union acquired its first atomic bomb, it inched up to three minutes before midnight. Over the years, it has been reset every January to register waxing and waning levels of nuclear jeopardy. In 1991, after the end of the Cold War, it was set back to 17 minutes and then, for a few hope-filled years, the clock disappeared altogether.

  It came back in 2005 at seven minutes to midnight. In 2007, the scientists began factoring climate degradation into the assessment and the hands moved inexorably forward. By 2018, after a year of Donald Trump, it clocked in at two minutes to midnight, a shrill alarm meant to signal a return to the greatest peril ever: the two-minute level reached only once before, 65 years earlier. Last month, within days of the announced manufacture of the first W76-2, theBulletin’scover for 2019 was unveiled, still at that desperate two-minute mark, aka the edge of doom.

  

  To fully appreciate how precarious our situation is today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientistsimplicitly invites us to return to that other two-minutes-before-midnight moment. If the manufacture of a new low-yield nuclear weapon marks a decisive pivot back toward jeopardy, consider it an irony that the last such moment involved the manufacture of the extreme opposite sort of nuke: a “super” weapon, as it was then called, or a hydrogen bomb. That was in 1953 and what may have been the most fateful turn in the nuclear story until now had just occurred.

  After the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949, the United States embarked on a crash program to build a far more powerful nuclear weapon. Having been decommissioned after World War II, the Pantex plant was reactivated and has been the main source of American nukes ever since.

  The atomic bomb is a fission weapon, meaning the nuclei of atoms are split into parts whose sum total weighs less than the original atoms, the difference having been transformed into energy. A hydrogen bomb uses the intense heat generated by that “fission” (hence thermonuclear) as a trigger for a vastly more powerful “fusion,” or combining, of elements, which results in an even larger loss of mass being transformed into explosive energy of a previously unimagined sort. One H-bomb generates explosive force 100 to 1,000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.

  Given a kind of power that humans once only imagined in the hands of the gods, key former Manhattan Project scientists, including Enrico Fermi, James Conant, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, firmly opposed the development of such a new weapon as a potential threat to the human species. The Super Bomb would be, in Conant’s word, “genocidal.” Following the lead of those scientists, members of the Atomic Energy Commission recommended — by a vote of three to two — against developing such a fusion weapon, but President Truman ordered it done anyway.

  In 1952, as the first H-bomb test approached, still-concerned atomic scientists proposed that the test be indefinitely postponed to avert a catastrophic “super” competition with the Soviets. They suggested that an approach be made to Moscow to mutually limit thermonuclear development only to research on, not actual testing of, such weaponry, especially since none of this could truly be done in secret. A fusion bomb’s test explosion would be readily detectable by the other side, which could then proceed with its own testing program. The scientists urged Moscow and Washington to draw just the sort of arms control line that the two nations would indeed agree to many years later.

  At the time, the United States had the initiative. An out-of-control arms race with the potential accumulation of thousands of such weapons on both sides had not yet really begun. In 1952, the United States numbered its atomic arsenal in the low hundreds; the Soviet Union in the dozens. (Even those numbers, of course, already offered a vision of an Armageddon-like global war.) President Truman considered the proposal to indefinitely postpone the test. It was then backed by figures like Vannevar Bush, who headed the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which had overseen the wartime Manhattan Protect. Scientists like him already grasped the lesson that would only slowly dawn on policymakers — that every advance in the atomic capability of one of the superpowers would inexorably lead the other to match it, ad infinitum. The title of the bestselling James Jones novel of that moment caught the feeling perfectly: From Here to Eternity.

  In the last days of his presidency, however, Truman decided against such an indefinite postponement of the test — against, that is, a break in the nuke-accumulation momentum that might well have changed history. On November 1, 1952, the first H-bomb — “Mike” — was detonated on an island in the Pacific. It had 500 times more lethal force than the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. With a fireball more than three miles wide, not only did it destroy the three-story structure built to house it but also the entire island of Elugelab, as well as parts of several nearby islands.

  In this way, the thermonuclear age began and the assembly line at that same Pantex plant really started to purr.  Less than 10 years later, the United States had 20,000 nukes, mostly H-bombs; Moscow, fewer than 2,000. And three months after that first test, theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved that hand on its still new clock to two minutes before midnight.

  A MADMAN-THEORY VERSION OF THE WORLD

  It may seem counterintuitive to compare the manufacture of what’s called a “mini-nuke” to the creation of the “super” almost six decades ago, but honestly, what meaning can “mini” really have when we’re talking about nuclear war? The point is that, as in 1952, so in 2019 another era-shaping threshold is being crossed at the very same weapons plant in the high plains country of the Texas Panhandle, where so many instruments of mayhem have been created. Ironically, because the H-bomb was eventually understood to be precisely what the dissenting scientists had claimed it was — a genocidal weapon — pressures against its use proved insurmountable during almost four decades of savage East-West hostility. Today, the Trident-mounted W76-2 could well have quite a different effect — its first act of destruction potentially being the obliteration of the long-standing, post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki taboo against nuclear use. In other words, so many years after the island of Elugelab was wiped from the face of the Earth, the “absolute weapon” is finally being normalized.

  With President Trump expunging the theoretical from Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” — that former president’s conviction that an opponent should fear an American leader was so unstable he might actually push the nuclear button — what is to be done? Once again, nuke-skeptical scientists, who have grasped the essential problems in the nuclear conundrum with crystal clarity for three quarters of a century, are pointing the way. In 2017, the Union of Concerned Scientists, together with Physicians for Social Responsibility, launched Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War, “a national grassroots initiative seeking to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy and lead us away from the dangerous path we are on.”

  Engaging a broad coalition of civic organizations, municipalities, religious groups, educators, and scientists, it aims to lobby government bodies at every level, to raise the nuclear issue in every forum, and to engage an ever-wider group of citizens in pressing for change in American nuclear policy. Back From the Brink makes five demands, much needed in a world in which the U.S. and Russia are withdrawing from a key Cold-War-era nuclear treaty with more potentially to come, including the New START pact that expires two years from now. The five demands are:

  1. No to first use of nukes. (Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Adam Smith only recently introduced a No First Use Act in both houses of Congress to stop Trump and future presidents from launching a nuclear war.)

  2. End the unchecked launch-authority of the president. (Last month, Senator Edward Markey and Representative Ted Lieu reintroduced a bill that would do just that.)

  3. No to nuclear hair-triggers.

  4. No to endlessly renewing and replacing the arsenal (as the U.S. is now doing to the tune of perhaps $1.6 trillion over three decades).

  5. Yes to an abolition agreement among nuclear-armed states.

  These demands range from the near-term achievable to the long-term hoped for, but as a group they define what clear-eyed realism should be in Donald Trump’s new version of our never-ending nuclear age.

  In the upcoming season of presidential politics, the nuclear question belongs at the top of every candidate’s agenda. It belongs at the center of every forum and at the heart of every voter’s decision. Action is needed before the W76-2 and its successors teach a post-Hiroshima planet what nuclear war is truly all about.

  

• These Are America's Most Unaffordable Cities For Housing

  Nearly 75% of American households believe the nation is experiencing a housing affordability crisis, according to a recent survey published on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders.

  Affordability appears to be a significant issue for renters and prospecting homeowners.

  

  So realtor.com wanted to find the locations where housing is the most unaffordable.

  What they discovered was not necessarily the most expensive real estate markets. The focus of the report is on regions where residents are spending above 28% of their household income on a place to live.

  As realtor.com warns: “that can be a perilous financial line to walk.”

  “The more you spend on housing the less you have to spend on other things you value and to fund your financial goals,” says Roger Ma, a financial planner at Lifelaidout and New York City–based real estate agent.

  The real estate listings website said some cities made the list because “foreign, out-of-state, and second- and third-home buyers” had inflated prices out of reach of the locals, many of whom are considered to be the poor working class. Other areas are popular with retirees, who have lower incomes or are living on savings. And less expensive places on the list are due to low, local wages and a lack of high-paying jobs.

  To compute the findings, realtor.com examined median monthly housing costs in 500 metros to pinpoint the markets where residents are spending way too much on their homes. They did this by dividing the median monthly expenses for renters and homeowners by the median monthly household income.

  realtor.com presents: America’s Most Unaffordable Cities For Housing 

  

   

  1. Santa Cruz, CA

  Median list price: $895,800
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,840
  Median household income: $73,663
  Share of income going toward housing*: 30%

  2. Miami, FL 

  Median list price: $385,100
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,280
  Median household income: $51,758
  Share of income going toward housing: 29.7% 

  3. Grants Pass, OR

  Median list price: $334,600
  Median monthly housing cost: $918
  Median household income: $40,705
  Share of income going toward housing: 27.1%

  4. Atlantic City, NJ

  Median list price: $240,000
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,290
  Median household income: $57,514
  Share of income going toward housing: 26.9%

  5. New York, NY

  Median list price: $515,100
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,588
  Median household income: $72,205
  Share of income going toward housing: 26.4%

  6. Kahului, HI

  Median list price: $928,800
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,594
  Median household income: $72,743
  Share of income going toward housing: 26.3%

  7. Jacksonville, NC 

  Median list price: $203,300
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,028
  Median household income: $48,162
  Share of income going toward housing: 25.6%

  8. Bellingham, WA

  Median list price: $415,000
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,203
  Median household income: $56,419
  Share of income going toward housing: 25.6%

  9. Barnstable Town, MA

  Median list price: $525,00
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,411
  Median household income: $68,048
  Share of income going toward housing: 24.9%

  10. Carson City, NV

  Median list price: $347,100
  Median monthly housing cost: $1,012
  Median household income: $49,341
  Share of income going toward housing: 24.6%

  Housing is vital to the economic health of the country. This new report should serve as a wake-up call to lawmakers at all levels of government to ease regulatory burdens that drive up the cost of housing and enact sensible policies that will promote affordable living.

  

• History's 10 Most Culturally Significant Dick Pic Scandals

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via RollingStone.com,

  From Jeff Bezos to Anthony Weiner to Brett Favre, a look back at below-the-belt selfies that shook culture…

  

  The AMI-Jeff Bezos scandal is set up to dominate headlines for a while. Who knows where it will lead? In the third world, an oligarch-president proxy war playing out in public like this usually presages a coup.

  If this were Thailand or Uruguay, bookies would already have odds on a Bezos-Mark-Zuckerberg-Sundar-Pichai junta being in power by May.

  This scandal will at least drag us through unprecedented legal and ethical conundrums. Can the president use the surveillance powers of the state to go after political enemies? Can a billionaire intelligence contractor and administrator of one of earth’s largest private data collections – including the so-called “Secret Region” cloud – fight back using his own surveillance trove through a newspaper he owns?

  This story could blur the lines between public and private power to the point of meaninglessness. America could very well find its fate decided by a series of pre-dawn phone calls, after which we’d wake up to find Trump flying to Switzerland, Amazon lieutenants in the Joint Chiefs office and the presidency replaced by an executive board.

  At the center of all of this: a dick pic.

  Nothing could be more American than the fate of our democracy now hanging (!) on what Enquirer editor Dylan Howard euphemistically describes as a “below-the-belt selfie.”

  Seemingly since the birth of the Internet, celebrity jackasses have felt the urge to take pics of their naughty bits and send them, often unsolicited, on the electronic superhighway. One study suggests as many as four in 10 young women have received an unsolicited nude photo from a man.

  The dick-pic scandal really became a thing between 2010 and 2011, with the (listed below) Brett Favre and Anthony Weiner stories. Since then, it’s become so common for men to put their junk online that it really only makes headlines if it’s accidental, political or a slow news day. From Greg Oden to Tyrann Mathieu to Jude Law to countless others, there are so many famous penii online that the headlines have become more interesting than the stories (i.e. “Canada’s Dick Pic Scandal Gets Bigger All the Time”).

  A few recent incidents, however, have become relevant major news stories. In declining order of cultural importance, here they are:

  10. Brett Favre

  What should a wealthy, married professional athlete do when he’s feeling the urge? Obviously send an unsolicited photo of what looks like half a stale donut to a married masseuse who works for your company. Poor Jenn Sterger probably thought she was the first person in history to receive a dong shot from a med school cadaver, but it got worse when she realized the infamous picture belonged to the Jets’ franchise quarterback. The masseuse was subjected to horrific media treatment after that — she actually had to go on TV to say she was not flattered by pictures of Brett Favre’s dick. The Favre incident ended up being a template in many ways for future scandals of this type. The Bezos story already fits on the “selfie-taking male must immediately act like he’s the victim” front, while the “gross-out picture always ends up getting released in NSFW form no matter how hard lawyers try” part of the story is yet to come.

  9. Joe Barton

  The Republican chair of the House Energy Committee has long had a reputation as one of the meanest people in Washington, like LBJ without national ambition. The Texan has also long been one of the most pious peddlers of aw-shucks, hand-over-heart “family values” claptrap in recent history — among other things he was one of the fiercest critics of Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. So there was a powerful cosmic justice angle when Barton was caught sending retch-inducing selfies showing him tugging sausage below his giant pink under-cauldron. He added a text message: “I want you so bad, deep and hard.” The selfie-taker-as-victim narrative kicked in quickly, as it’s been suggested Barton should be protected by a new Texas law against “revenge porn.” Of note: despite being a Republican and just as graphically compromised as his Democratic counterpart, Barton has not been dumped on as much either in Washington or in the national press as Anthony Weiner. This might be because Weiner’s preening and bottomless self-regard was extremely funny, while Barton is just a gross wanking old dude. It might also be a telling indicator of how loathed Weiner was during his time on the Hill.

  8. Kimberly Guilfoyle

  The former Fox anchor — and reputed willing Donald Trump, Jr. paramour — left work last summer amid rumors of bizarre in-office behavior. The Huffington Post, which did a major investigation interviewing 21 unnamed sources, noted: “Six sources said Guilfoyle’s behavior included showing personal photographs of male genitalia to colleagues (and identifying whose genitals they were).” The story also said Guilfoyle frequently complained Jeanine Pirro is too old. So it’s possible people at Fox were shown pictures of a Trump penis against their will. The alleged female dick-pic flasher was a new twist on the usual scandal format.

  7. Tony Clement

  The Canadian version of the Anthony Weiner scandal was, predictably, basically the same story as the American prototype, only less interesting. The Conservative MP exchanged explicit pictures with someone he thought “was a consenting female” but was, he claimed, in fact “an individual or party who targeted me for the purpose of financial extortion.” Vice reported that Clement was a serial Instagram lurker who went on “deep timeline liking sprees” late at night. Though nothing will ever top Weiner’s decision to try “equine therapy” for his sexting addiction, Clement also went into “treatment” for his behavior, holding to what’s become a pattern (my money is on yoga, dolphins, and Alexa lullabies when Bezos inevitably chooses a sexting cure).

  6. Lars Ohly

  In proof that junk-shot scandals are survivable, Sweden’s former Left Party leader Ohly emerged unscathed after he accidentally posted his packaging. Apparently he was trying to show off a tattoo.

  “Ha, ha, I accidentally posted a picture on Instagram that showed more than intended. Now corrected,” he wrote, and that was it.

  No scandal, no horse therapy, no freakout, no major-release documentary. Is everything in Europe easier?

  5. Kanye West

  It’s now officially more embarrassing to be photographed arm in arm with Donald Trump than it is to have your junk on the Internet. Obviously, it depends a little on the picture.

  4. Hulk Hogan

  It wasn’t really a dick pic, but the verbal penis-boasting of the famed wrestler — named Terry Bollea in real life — became a central issue in a landmark case that sank a media empire. Hogan’s attorney Shane Vogt scored crucial points in the lawsuit against Gawker for publishing a sex tape of Hogan sleeping with his best friend’s wife. Former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio answered “no” to the question posed by Vogt, “Mr. Bollea’s penis had no real news value, right?” This case not only resulted in the devastation of Gawker Media (now a shell of itself under the name Gizmodo Media), but it forced Bollea, who had bragged to various radio personalities that Hulk Hogan was carrying a monster in his speedo, to say “I do not have a ten-inch penis,” on camera. It’s on YouTube forever. Note: Hogan’s son Nick is said to have been the first male victim of the hack-and-leak scandal called “the Fappening.”

  3. Robert Mueller’s extremely rumored, extremely alleged possession of Individual 1’s selfie

  In February 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller to great fanfare indicted 13 individuals and three companies connected to the Russian “Internet Research Agency.” It was widely assumed none of the defendants would appear to contest the charges, but one, Concord Management and Catering, did, showing up announcing a willingness to go to trial. Mueller asked permission to delay his own prosecution and was refused, a fact few outlets noticed. Mueller then commenced a long battle over discovery he seems to be winning, successfully arguing to a judge that the Russians are not entitled to what their lawyers call “millions of pages of non-classified discovery.”

  As part of the motions in this case, Concord argued, “Could the manner in which [Mueller] collected a nude selfie really threaten the national security of the United States?”

  This one sentence for the first time attracted real press attention to the case, as reporters ignored the anomaly of Mueller’s seeming reluctance to present evidence in his own case in favor of the remote possibility that he might have a Trump selfie in his possession. Although clearly, the public would have mixed feelings about the existence of such a picture.

  As (again) The Root put it, “Please, for the love of god let this not be a photo of President Mushroom Cap. No one needs to see that. No. One.”

  2. Anthony Weiner

  It was bad enough that a sitting congressman named Weiner was sending unsolicited “nether region” pics to women around the country; it was worse when he did it again after leaving office, this time to a 15-year-old girl. What’s even worse is Donald Trump might now be president because of it. In late 2016, why is the FBI up on Weiner’s laptop if he’s not sexting with a teenager? Do new Hillary Clinton emails come out just before Election Day that year if Weiner wasn’t so proud of his photography? As an excuse for why the Democrats lost, emailgate has always seemed pathetic, but viewed purely through the lens of individual consequences, the butterfly effect of Weiner’s eroto-narcissistic addiction has been amazing. Not only did he help launch Breitbart into national-power status through his humiliating public prostration before the gloating form of Andrew Breitbart himself, but he threw a massive wrench in the 2016 presidential election by exposing his wife’s boss to political tormentors at just the wrong time. There’s not much to say beyond, what an asshole.

  1. Jeff Bezos

  The Bezos story is proof that there is no disincentive that could be invented to prevent men from taking pictures of their penises. Under Washington state law, Bezos’ wife MacKenzie in a divorce could collect half of his 79 million shares of Amazon stock, worth north of $130 billion. She could also massively dilute the worth of Amazon stock by forcing Bezos to sell off his shares to pay her in cash. This means Bezos at some point aimed a camera at his unit, snapped, and thought: I’m gonna risk $65 billion to hit send.

  MacKenzie, a novelist, informed Bezos of her plans to divorce two days after being told an upcoming Enquirer story about his affair with Lauren Sanchez that included “raunchy messages and erotic selfies.”

  Mercifully, we haven’t seen the actual photo yet, but we do seem to be mere minutes from a constitutional crisis.

  So that’s awesome. What’s the over/under on dick-pic scandals in the 2020 race? I put it at two and I’m taking the over. You heard it here first.

  

• Inside The NYPD's Out-Of-Control DNA Collection Practices

  The NYPD is going to great lengths to collect, and permanently store DNA from everyone they can – guilty or innocent, according to the NY Daily News.  

  

  Whether it be going door to door, bribing people with cigarettes, or simply demanding cheek swabs from random passers by, the NYPD has been aggressively compiling an Orwellian crime-fighting DNA database which had over 64,000 profiles as of 2017. 

  Take as an extreme example the police investigation of the Howard Beach jogger case. Before they identified a suspect, the NYPD collected well over 500 DNA profiles from men in the East New York area. Imagine police knocking on doors, in uniform, with a cheek swab in hand, asking residents to prove they didn’t kill the jogger in the nearby park.

  They were willing to do it in East New York. Do you think this would happen on Park Ave.? In Park Slope? Not likely.

  But things get worse from there. For those people excluded from the jogger case, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the city’s crime lab, permanently keeps those profiles in their databank and routinely compares profiles to all city crimes. –NY Daily News

  The Chief Medical Examiner’s office, meanwhile, has justified the supercharged data collection on ambiguous city and state laws – instead preferring to invent their own rules governing how they use someone’s DNA. 

  In short – anyone who has given their DNA to the NYPD will be routinely compared to DNA samples from every rape, murder and any other violent crime run through the system. 

  But wait, you might say – why worry if you’ve done nothing wrong? 

  Because, as the Daily News notes, “DNA has unparalleled power to wrongly accuse. Genetic testing can now reveal a profile based on a few cells, and we shed hundreds of thousands of cells a day. Your DNA can show up in places you’ve never been.“

  For example, the DNA of Lukis Anderson was discovered under the fingernails of a murdered billionaire – which was transferred to the dead man by paramedics that night who had treated both men. Anderson was facing the death penalty before his 2013 exoneration. 

  You might also take a cue from the police themselves. Under their labor contract with the city, rank-and-file officers don’t give the lab their DNA, which means the lab can’t easily rule out possible crime-scene contamination. This means that the officers knocking on doors ask people to volunteer to do what they won’t.

  Basic privacy is another genuine worry. We see every day how our personal information, once set loose upon the internet, can never be recaptured. The past few years have heralded incredible expansions of the uses of DNA. Now imagine what will be possible in 30 years.

  And just when you thought private DNA testing companies were safe (granted, ZH readers generally know better) – FamilyTreeDNA, one of the pioneers of the growing market for “at home”, consumer genetic testing, confirmed a report from BuzzFeed that it has quietly granted the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to its vast trove of nearly 2 million genetic profiles.

  Having been caught abusing client privacy, the company decided to make the best of it and despite the (coming) outrage over privacy abuse, Family Tree officials touted their work with the FBI to BuzzFeed.

  “Without realizing it [Family Tree DNA founder and CEO Bennett Greenspan] had inadvertently created a platform that, nearly two decades later, would help law enforcement agencies solve violent crimes faster than ever,” the company said in a statement.

  What a brave new world!

  

• Mt. Gox Trustee May Have Crashed Bitcoin In 2018, But There Is Still Hope

  Authored by Joseph Young via CoinTelegraph.com,

  The now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox reportedly liquidated around $312 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) throughout February and June of 2018 through a Japanese exchange called BitPoint.

  

  image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

  GoxDox, an organization that was established to assist Mt. Gox creditors, released a photograph of a bank account statement on February 5 showing the alleged transactions sent from BitPoint to the Mt. Gox trustee led by Nobuaki Kobayashi.

  

  If the report of GoxDox is accurate, the trustee went out of his way to disregard the suggestion of Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, who explicitly told the trustee to refrain from selling the company’s BTC holdings. If needed, Powell previously said that the trustee has to liquidate the remaining Bitcoin funds on an over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform to minimize its impact on the price of Bitcoin.

  It is possible that the trustee and the rest of the individuals dealing with the Mt. Gox case were rattled by the circumstances, prematurely liquidating a significant portion of the organization’s assets to move forward with the bankruptcy.

  Was the dump of Mt. Gox the primary cause of Bitcoin’s crash in 2018?

  According to GoxDox, the Mt. Gox trustee began to sell the exchange’s Bitcoin holdings starting in early 2018, possibly even before February. From early February to June, the trustee is said to have sold tens of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin on a weekly basis.

  The researchers said that the frequent wire transfers supposedly initiated from the bank account of BitPoint to that of the Mt. Gox trustee show the trustee’s intent to hide the transactions in an event of a security breach on the side of BitPoint.

  The trustee likely expected a public backlash if it were revealed that the trustee had been selling large amounts of Bitcoin in the public cryptocurrency exchange market, putting the price of BTC at a significant risk of dropping.

  “It seems fair to conclude that the reason for sending frequent wires was to prevent counterparty risk. A hack at BitPoint could expose the MtGox Estate to a loss and the trustee didn’t want to get Goxxed. It follows that the trustee would have instructed BitPoint to wire JPY [Japanese yen] over as soon as he had it. This way, MtGox Estate assets wouldn’t be exposed to any hacking incident at BitPoint.”

  On May 2, based on the data provided by GoxDox, the trustee received 3,822,436,400 yen from BitPoint, worth around $34,845,330. From then on, at an interval of one to four days, the trustee continued to receive tens of millions of dollars from BitPoint.

  Coincidentally, in the exact same time frame, the price of Bitcoin, which initiated a strong recovery from $7,000 to $10,000 from April to May, began to plunge. Since May 4, the price of Bitcoin began to drop substantially against the United States dollar. By the end of June, less than two months since the sell-off of Mt. Gox holdings began, the price of the dominant cryptocurrency dropped from nearly $10,000 to $5,912, by over 40 percent.

  

  In February 2018, when the trustee started to sell BTC on a cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell reaffirmed that the company, which was hired to track the lost coins of the exchange, advised the trustee not to dump millions of dollars worth of BTC in the market.

  “We were explicit about not dumping a large amount of coins on the market. Unfortunately, it looks like the trustee made their own decision or was taking advice from elsewhere — maybe whatever exchange they dumped those coins on. We had zero knowledge of these sales happening until it was announced at the recent creditors’ meeting.”

  The initial correction of the cryptocurrency market in January of last year may have been completely unaffected by the Mt. Gox situation, which cannot be confirmed due to the lack of information presented in the leaked bank statement of the trustee. Some analysts have suggested that the opening of the CME Bitcoin futures market crashed the price of the asset.

  The San Francisco Federal Reserve wrote that the time frame of the decline in the price of Bitcoin aligned with the launch of the CME Bitcoin futures market.

  “The rapid run-up and subsequent fall in the price after the introduction of futures does not appear to be a coincidence. It is consistent with trading behavior that typically accompanies the introduction of futures markets for an asset.”

  Others have said that the short-term bubble of BTC initiated by retail traders came to an end, and it was not caused by a specific set of factors.

  But, from February onward, it is believed by traders that the unexpected liquidation of a large chunk of Bitcoin’s circulating supply had a drastic impact on the short-term trend of the asset.

  The trustee was heavily criticized by industry experts including GoxDox researchers, who said that Mt. Gox creditors need to demand an explanation from the trustee to clarify the reasoning behind the dismissal of the advice of Kraken.

  “Simple possession of a crypto license is not suitable criteria for selecting an expert. A non-expert judge’s approval does not equate to a sound plan. Reliance on an appeal to authority is never a substitute for good judgment.”

  How does Mt. Gox move on from here?

  On Jan. 22, Brock Pierce, a cryptocurrency investor and the co-founder of Blockchain Capital, who played a vital role in the development of EOS, revealed an ambitious plan to revive Mt. Gox and to repay all of the creditors of the exchange.

  While the exchange is said to have around $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin, with the supposed sale of more than $300 million worth of Bitcoin in 2018, it remains unclear precisely how much BTC the exchange currently possesses. It is not possible, given the circumstances of Mt. Gox, to repay all of the creditors through the sale of the company’s existing BTC.

  Instead, Brock Pierce, who claims to acquire Mt. Gox for 2 BTC from Mark Karpeles and Jed McCaleb in 2014, decided to try to reopen the exchange and pay the creditors using the equity of the company.

  As a first step, Pierce condemned the work of the Mt. Gox trustee and prevented the trustee from liquidating the company’s holdings with his authority over the company, according to the official statement of GoxRising, a British Virgin Islands-based company established to oversee Mt. Gox:

  “Acknowledging that the Mt. Gox trustee had done a laudable job of managing an unwieldy estate, the group suggested that the inherent limitations on the trustee’s discretionary powers as a fiduciary, prevented him from maximizing creditor returns going forward.”

  At the North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC), Pierce further explained that the company intends to revive Mt. Gox through a unified Civil Rehabilitation Plan, a law in Japan that forces lenders of a company to change the terms of the loan. In the upcoming months, the company is expected to pay out $1.2 billion in BTC to creditors as fast as possible and move on with resuming operations.

  One hurdle worth $16 billion

  Mt. Gox could distribute its $1.2 billion Bitcoin holdings in the next two months and rush the process of obtaining a license from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) to begin operating as a regulated cryptocurrency exchange.

  But blockchain incubator CoinLab reportedly filed a $16 billion claim against Mt. Gox, alleging Mt. Gox of breaching a contract with the company. Previously, CoinLab filed a $75 million lawsuit. Last week, according to a leaked document, the firm bumped up its lawsuit to a 16 billion claim.

  

  In an event in which the claim is approved by the court, even with a compromise, it could result in the loss of a significant portion of the exchange’s $1.2 billion holdings of BTC.

  Following the filing of the complaint, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell expressed his disappointment.

  Powell stated there are claims from insiders that the lawsuit is stopping the exchange from distributing the funds to creditors.

  “I’m disappointed to hear that this lawsuit is responsible for holding up payouts, and that any judgement for CoinLab would be treated on par with the depositor victims. I think people are having a hard time getting their heads around the $75m+ claim given that common perception is that CoinLab never performed and owes $5m+ back to MtGox. If the deal had been carried out, it might be CoinLab on the hook for the shortfall of client deposits.”

  The core issue with the lawsuit is that it is filed against the creditors of Mt. Gox, not the exchange itself. “This lawsuit today is not CoinLab vs. Mt. Gox, but CoinLab vs. the MtGox customers, now [current] creditors, who have done nothing to deserve being involved in this,” Karpeles said in 2017. As such, if the lawsuit continues on, it will be the creditors with the $1.2 billion holdings of Mt. Gox that will have to settle with the lawsuit for $16 billion.

  Will creditors get their money back and could Mt. Gox continue to affect the price of Bitcoin?

  If the $16 billion complaint filed by CoinLab remains as the only hurdle in settling creditor funds, it is likely that creditors will receive their share of the Mt. Gox Bitcoin holdings by the latter half of 2019.

  The distribution of funds would primarily depend on the result of a court hearing or a settlement of the lawsuit and the outcome of the case could certainly affect the amount of BTC that is distributed to the creditors.

  Once the $1.2 billion holding is distributed, then it will be in the hands of individual or retail traders. There still exists a possibility that the creditors could immediately sell the BTC in the exchange market, which may have a similar effect as the reported Mt.Gox’s trustee sell-off in February of last year.

  But, it is highly improbable that the creditors would dump all of their newly obtained BTC in the exchange market in the short term, especially during a period in which BTC is demonstrating resilience in its low price range and is down by more than 80 percent since its all-time high.

  

• Is China Building Space Weapons To Attack US Satellites?

  Here’s something that could really put a damper on US-China trade talks.

  Two weeks after DNI Dan Coats warned about US adversaries expanding “their use of space-based reconnaissance, communications and navigations systems,” Bloomberg reported that China’s recent development of “sophisticated” capabilities for “satellite inspection and repair” and “space debris cleanup” might actually be a ruse for something far more nefarious.

  

  At least some of these capabilities “could also function” as weapons against US satellites, the Defense Intelligence Agency has said. Because the technology used to clean up space debris could easily serve a “dual purpose.”

  The increase in what’s essentially orbiting garbage that could damage or destroy a satellite “has implications for policymakers worldwide and is encouraging the development of space debris removal technology,” the agency said Monday in an unclassified publication on threats to U.S. satellites.

  But “this technology is dual-use because it could be used to damage another satellite,” it said.

  China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the allegations were “groundless,” though it acknowledged that, since the US has itself acknowledged the importance of developing space weapons, this could lead to their becoming a “reality.”

  “Recently the U.S. has defined outer space as a battlefield and announced the establishment of an outer space force,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a briefing in Beijing. “So this may lead to the reality of the weaponization and endangerment of outer space.”

  To be sure, as it multiplies, the issue of space debris is becoming an increasingly serious problem.

  Of about 21,000 large objects in space that are least 10 centimeters (4 inches) in size that are tracked and cataloged in Earth’s orbit, only about 1,800 are active satellites, according to the defense agency. The rest is debris, including parts of spacecraft.

  More than a third of all recorded debris is from two events: China’s use of a missile in 2007 to destroy a defunct satellite and the accidental collision between a U.S. communications satellite and a defunct Russian one in 2009.

  From 1998 through 2017, the International Space Station, which is in low Earth orbit, maneuvered at least 25 times to avoid potential orbital collisions, the intelligence agency said.

  Of course, China and the US aren’t alone in purportedly developing space weapons. Russia has been pursuing them, too. Luckily, the Pentagon budget has set aside money to start building that first “Space Force” base.

  It certainly might make one wonder: How far away are we from “Death Star” levels of destruction?

  

• Insect Apocalypse: The Global Food Chain Faces Major Extinction Event And Scientists Don't Know Why

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  Scientists are telling us that we have entered “the sixth major extinction” in the history of our planet.  A brand new survey of 73 scientific reports that was just released has come to the conclusion that the total number of insects on the globe is falling by 2.5 percent per year.  If we stay on this current pace, the survey warns that there might not be “any insects at all” by the year 2119.  And since insects are absolutely critical to the worldwide food chain, that has extremely ominous implications for all of us.

  

  I write a lot about the inevitable collapse of our economic systems, but it could definitely be argued that our environment is already in a very advanced stage of “collapse”.  According to this new research, insects are going extinct at a rate that is “eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles”…

  The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.

  More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.

  Perhaps the entire world will come together and will stop destroying the planet and we can reverse this trend before it is too late.

  Unfortunately, you and I both know that this is extremely unlikely to happen.

  And if it doesn’t happen, the researchers that conducted this scientific review insist that the consequences will be “catastrophic to say the least”…

  The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: “The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet.

  “Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades,” they write. “The repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least.”

  The clock is ticking, and time is running out for our planet.

  Assuming that we could somehow keep the global insect decline from accelerating even more, we probably only have about 100 years before they are all gone…

  Chillingly, the total mass of insects is falling by 2.5 percent annually, the review’s authors said. If the decline continues at this rate, insects could be wiped off the face of the Earth within a century.

  “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none,”study co-author Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, an environmental biologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, told The Guardian.

  So what would a planet without insects look like?

  Well, according to Francisco Sánchez-Bayo of the University of Sydney, millions upon millions of birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish would “starve to death”…

  One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. “If this food source is taken away, all these animals starve to death,” he said. Such cascading effects have already been seen in Puerto Rico, where a recent study revealed a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years.

  And without bees and other pollinators, humans would be in a world of hurt.  You may have heard that Albert Einstein once said the following…

  “If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

  With that statement in mind, I would like for you to consider what this new study discovered about the decline of bee colonies in the United States…

  The study suggested that bee species in the UK, Denmark, and North America have taken major hits — bumblebees, honey bees, and wild bee species are all declining. In the US, the number of honey-bee colonies dropped from 6 million in 1947 to 2.5 million just six decades later.

  We aren’t there yet, but a food chain cataclysm is literally right around the corner.

  So why is all of this happening?

  Modern methods of agriculture, urbanization and pesticides are some of the factors being blamed, but the truth is that scientists don’t actually know exactly why insects are dying off so quickly.

  And none of those factors directly impact our oceans, and yet scientists have discovered that phytoplankton is declining at an exponential rate.  As a result of that decline, seabird populations have been plummeting at a pace that is extremely alarming.  The following comes from Chris Martenson…

  Fewer phytoplankton means less thiamine being produced. That means less thiamine is available to pass up the food chain. Next thing you know, there’s a 70% decline in seabird populations.

  This is something I’ve noticed directly and commented on during my annual pilgrimages to the northern Maine coast over the past 30 years, where seagulls used to be extremely common and are now practically gone. Seagulls!

  Next thing you know, some other major food chain will be wiped out and we’ll get oceans full of jellyfish instead of actual fish.

  A global collapse is not something that is coming in the distant future.

  A global collapse is here, and it is happening right in front of our eyes.

  Our environment is literally dying all around us, and without our environment we cannot survive.

  If humanity cannot solve this crisis, and we all know that they cannot, then an extremely apocalyptic future awaits for all of us.

  

• Warmongers In Their Ivory Towers

  While it seems the mainstream media paused last week’s avalanche of attacks on progressive Hawaiian Democratic rep. Tulsi Gabbard, which painted her as a Russian stooge for daring to oppose Washington’s addiction to regime change wars abroad, in favor of new controversy surrounding another progressive, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and charges of anti-Semitism leveled at her for criticism of pro-Israel money in US politics, Gabbard hasn’t let up a bit in terms of the intensity of her attacks on the warmongering establishment within both parties. In a new televised message Gabbard excoriated the pundit class for constantly dreaming up “new places for people to die”.

  Gabbard released the half-minute video on Tuesday appropriately called “Warmongers in their ivory towers” wherein the US Army reserve officer and Iraq War veteran slammed the Washington culture of “powerful” decision-makers who “sit in ivory towers” and send other people’s children to war, while themselves never stepping close to a battlefield.

  The message — which is all the more powerful given she has likely personally lost friends in the Iraq and Afghan “endless wars” — is reminiscent of Ron Paul’s fearless attacks on the neocons during the 2012 Republican primary debates as “chicken hawks”. Paul, also a veteran, brought the term into national consciousness.

  It denotes those who advocate for US overseas military conflicts and foreign adventurism yet who avoided all military service in their careers. At that time Congressman Paul called out Newt Gingrich after Gingrich smeared Paul’s non-interventionism position as “dangerous”. 

  “When Newt Gingrich was called to service in the 1960s in the Vietnam era, guess what he thought about danger? He chickened out on that and got deferments and didn’t even go,” Paul said related to the primary debates in a 2012 CNN interview, and added, “Some people call that kind of program a chicken hawk, and I think he falls into that category.”

  We remarked previously that Gabbard, as a rare Congressional voice who has personally experienced the ravages of one recent regime change war and its lasting consequences for both common Iraqis and the American people, has emerged as a “Ron Paul of the Left” of sorts (at least on foreign policy that is).

  And like Paul before, she could emerge in 2020 as a rare voice spotlighting Washington’s addiction to regime change and “endless wars” abroad, and the military-industrial complex’s fueling America’s “global policeman” mentality, and its blindly obedient cheerleaders in the mainstream media. This will at the very least make the foreign policy debate during the next election — usually a mere single point of view establishment echo chamber — more interesting. 

  This is especially true given that she’ll likely unleash her “warmongers in their ivory towers” who think up “new places for people to die” attacks on her warmonger opponents during the Democratic debates. Seeing this is certainly something to look forward to. 

  * * * 

  Meanwhile the “chicken hawk” phenomenon is given deeper treatment in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin In The Game, a key passage of which is quoted below:

  “Now some innocent people, Yazidis, Christian minorities, Syrians, Iraqis, and Libyans had to pay a price for the mistakes of these interventionistas currently sitting in their comfortable air-conditioned offices. This, we will see, violates the very notion of justice from its pre-biblical, Babylonian inception. As well as the ethical structure of humanity.

  Not only the principle of healers is first do no harm (primum non nocere), but, we will argue: those who don’t take risks should never be involved in making decisions.

  This idea is weaved into history: all warlords and warmongers were warriors themselves and, with few exceptions societies were run by risk takers not risk transferors. They took risks –more risks than ordinary citizens. Julian the Apostate, the hero of many, died on the battlefield fighting in the never-ending war on the Persian frontier. One of predecessors, Valerian, after he was captured was said to have been used as a human footstool by the Persian Shahpur when mounting his horse. Less than a third of Roman emperors died in their bed –and one can argue that, had they lived longer, they would have fallen prey to either a coup or a battlefield.”

  And more…

  “The interventionistas case is central to our story because it shows how absence of skin in the game has both ethical and epistemological effects (i.e., related to knowledge). Interventionistas don’t learn because they are not the victims of their mistakes.“

  

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• Turkish Government Wages War With "Price-Gouging Terrorist, Traitors" As Food Inflation Soars

  Food prices in Turkey have been soaring since the lira’s sharp, violent depreciation last summer. The rise in prices is not only a result of the currency’s depreciation which made the Turkish lira one of the worst performing currencies in the world, but is also a result of price gouging that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, feeding on itself, over the last 6 months.

  According to Bloomberg, the price of eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes in Turkey has jumped 81%, 53% and 39% monthly, respectively. Overall, food inflation in Turkey is at 31% annualized. 

  

  These soaring prices haven’t gone unnoticed by the Erdogan regime, and instead of focusing on the underlying economic deterioration, the Turkish government has instead started targeting vendors who raise prices, labeling price gougers “traitors” and “terrorists”. 

  But this rhetoric isn’t working, so Erdogan is backing up threats with fines: and so, the Turkish government has started cracking down and issuing fines after raiding wholesale food markets in five provinces on February 6, uncovering exorbitant price increases of up to 800%.

  To avoid price manipulation, the administration is seeking to eliminate (not literally, yet) middlemen by purchasing vegetables directly from farmers and selling them at lower prices in major cities. Government run vendor tents are up and running at numerous locations as of Monday and sales will soon be expanded to include cleaning products.

  Meanwhile, in addition to the depreciation of the Lira, flash floods in Antalya have also contributed to food shortages, pushing prices even higher. Despite this, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak dismissed the idea that weather is in any way to blame.

  “The inflation reduction campaign is perceived to distort relative prices and to be unsustainable,” a recent Bank of America report read.

  

  One potential wild card: municipal elections in Turkey are just two months away and the fight against inflation will be the hallmark issue, as surging food costs have disproportionately hit poorer sections of the 82 million people that live in Turkey – many of whom have traditionally been supporters of the President’s party. In taking the fight to local areas and warehouses, President Erdogan is trying to make a statement that he is going to fight inflation with the same vigor that the country has used to defend itself militarily in the past. In fact, this being Erdogan, it is probably not a surprise that the Turkish president compared food producers and retailers to terrorists.

  Erdogan said Sunday: “The government will finish off those terrorizing wholesale food markets in no time, the way it finished off those terrorists in caves.”

  “Our inspections will continue across Turkey at full steam to give no respite to opportunists,” Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan said.

  Of course, since none of the government’s actions will have any tangible impact, it is only a matter of time before social discontent hits a plateau, and what until recently has been the most stable middle-eastern regime suddenly finds itself scrambling to preserve control. In fact just yesterday, the first hints of instability emerged, when during Erdogan’s first election rally, voters interrupted the Turkish president demanding job contracts. His reply: “Dont expect anything from us. We gave everything. Don’t provocate. I’m not an ordinary leader.” We soon may find out just how extraordinary Turkey’s freshly-heckled leader truly is.

  Voters interrupt #Erdogan‘s first local election rally, demanding job contracts. His reply: ‘Dont expect anything from us. We gave everything. Don’t provocate. I’m not an ordinary leader.’

  Is the man of the people losing touch? #Turkey pic.twitter.com/fs5TjTsOm8

  — Melvyn Ingleby (@MelvynIngleby) February 10, 2019

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

• "A Coup Is A Coup" – Why Venezuela's Guaido Doesn't Have A Constitutional Leg To Stand On

  Authored by Roger Harris via Counterpunch.org,

  Donald Trump imagines Juan Guaidó is the rightful president of Venezuela. Mr. Guaidó, a man of impeccable illegitimacy, was exposed by Cohen and Blumenthal as “a product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers.”

  Argentinian sociologist Marco Teruggi described Guaidó in the same article as “a character that has been created for this circumstance” of regime change.

  Here, his constitutional credentials to be interim president of Venezuela are deconstructed.

  

  Educated at George Washington University in DC, Guaidó was virtually unknown in his native Venezuela before being thrust on to the world stage in a rapidly unfolding series of events. In a poll conducted a little more than a week before Guaidó appointed himself president of the country, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old.

  To make a short story shorter, US Vice President Pence phoned Guaidó on the evening of January 22rd and presumably asked him how’d he like to be made president of Venezuela. The next day, Guaidó announced that he considered himself president of Venezuela, followed within minutes by US President Trump confirming the self-appointment.

  A few weeks before on January 5, Guaidó had been installed as president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, their unicameral legislature. He had been elected to the assembly from a coastal district with 26% of the vote. It was his party’s turn for the presidency of the body, and he was hand-picked for the position. Guaidó, even within his own party, was not in the top leadership.

  Guaidó’s party, Popular Will, is a far-right marginal group whose most enthusiastic boosters are John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, and Mike Pompeo. Popular Will had adopted a strategy of regime change by extra-parliamentary means rather than engage in the democratic electoral process and had not participated in recent Venezuelan elections.

  Although anointed by Trump and company, Guaidó’s Popular Will Party is not representative of the “Venezuelan opposition,” which is a fractious bunch whose hatred of Maduro is only matched by their abhorrence of each other. Leading opposition candidate Henri Falcón, who ran against Maduro in 2018 on a neoliberal austerity platform, had been vehemently opposed by Popular Will who demanded that he join their US-backed boycott of the election.

  The Venezuelan news outlet, Ultimas Noticias, reported that prominent opposition politician Henrique Capriles, who had run against Maduro in 2013, “affirmed during an interview that the majority of opposition parties did not agree with the self-swearing in of Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country.”  Claudio Fermin, president of the party Solutions for Venezuela, wrote “we believe in the vote, in dialogue, we believe in coming to an understanding, we believe Venezuelans need to part ways with the extremist sectors that only offer hatred, revenge, lynching.” Key opposition governor of the State of Táchira, Laidy Gómez, has rejected Guaidó’s support of intervention by the US, warning that it “would generate death of Venezuelans.”

  The Guaidó/Trump cabal does not reflect the democratic consensus in Venezuela, where polls consistently show super majorities oppose outside intervention. Popular opinion in Venezuela supports negotiations between the government and the opposition as proposed by Mexico, Uruguay, and the Vatican. The Maduro administration has embraced the negotiations as a peaceful solution to the crisis facing Venezuela.

  The US government rejects a negotiated solution, in the words of Vice President Pence: “This is no time for dialogue; this is time for action.” This intransigent position is faithfully echoed by Guaidó. So while most Venezuelans want peace, the self-appointed president, backed by the full force of US military power, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that it was possible to “end the Maduro regime with a minimum of bloodshed.”

  The Guaidó/Trump cabal’s fig leaf for legitimacy is based on the bogus argument that Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution gives the National Assembly the power to declare a national president’s “abandonment” of the office. In which case, the president of the National Assembly can serve as an interim national president, until presidential elections are held. The inconvenient truth is that Maduro has shown no inclination to abandon his post, and the constitution says no such thing.

  In fact, the grounds for replacing a president are very clearly laid out in the first paragraph of Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution and do not include fraudulent or illegitimate election, which is what the cabal has been claiming. In the convoluted logic of the US government and its epigones, if the people elect someone the cabal doesn’t like, the election is by definition fraudulent and the democratically elected winner is ipso facto a dictator.

  The function of adjudicating the validity of an election, as in any country, is to be dealt with through court challenges, not by turning to Donald Trump for his approval.

  And certainly not by anointing an individual from a party that could have run in the 2018 election but decided to boycott.

  The Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), which is the separate supreme court branch of the Venezuelan government has certified Maduro’s reelection, as have independent international observers. Further, no appeal was filed by any of the boycotting parties, while all participating parties – including opposition ones – signed off on the validity of the election after the polls closed.

  The far-right opposition has boycotted the high court as well as the electoral process. They contest the legitimacy of the TSJ because some members of the TSJ were appointed by a lame duck National Assembly favorable to Maduro, after a new National Assembly with a majority in opposition had been elected in December 2015 but not yet seated.

  Even if President Maduro were somehow deemed to have experienced what is termed a falta absoluta (i.e., some sort of void in the presidency due to death, insanity, absence, etc.), the National Assembly president is only authorized to take over if the falta absoluta occurs before the lawful president “takes possession.” However, Maduro was already “in possession” before the January 10, 2019 presidential inauguration and even before the May 10, 2018 presidential election. Maduro had won the presidency in the 2013 election and ran and won reelection last May.

  If the falta absoluta is deemed to have occurred during the first four years of the presidential term, the vice president takes over. Then the constitution decrees that a snap election for the presidency must be held within 30 days. This is what happened when President Hugo Chávez died while in office in 2013. Then Vice President Nicolás Maduro succeeded to the presidency, called for new elections, and was elected by the people of Venezuela.

  If it is deemed that the falta absoluta occurred during the last two years of the six-year presidential term, the vice president serves until the end of the term, according to the Venezuelan constitution. And if the time of the alleged falta absoluta is unclear – when Maduro presided over “illegitimate” elections in 2018, as is claimed by the far-right opposition – it is up to the TSJ to decide, not the head of the National Assembly or even such an august authority as US Senator Marco Rubio. Or the craven US press (too numerous to cite), which without bothering to read the plain language of the Bolivarian Constitution, repeatedly refers to Guaidó as the “constitutionally authorized” or “legitimate” president.

  As Alfred de Zayas, United Nations independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, tweeted: “Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution is inapplicable and cannot be twisted into legitimizing Guaidó’s self-proclamation as interim President. A coup is a coup.”

  

• Russia Declares State Of Emergency After Northern Islands Invaded… By Polar Bears

   

  A state of emergency has been declared in a remote Russian settlement on the Polar archipelago of Novaya Zemla after more than 50 polar bears recently rolled into town in search of food, and started wreaking havoc for the locals.

  People are fearful of going outside since the aggressive bears are more than capable of mauling a human to death.

  This has made daily life in the arctic village even more difficult.

  

  Residents of the remote village are “afraid to go outside” and “daily life is in turmoil”, according to Aleksandr Minayev, deputy head of the local administration.

  “Parents are wary of letting children to go to schools and kindergartens,” he made clear.

  However, locals cannot shoot the bears because they are an endangered species. The Russian agency tasked with protecting natural resources denied a request by local officials to shoot the bears.

  Zigansha Musin, the head of the local government authority, said “I have been in Novaya Zemlya since 1983, yet I’ve never seen such a massive polar bear invasion.”

  He added that the polar bears are “literally chasing people and even entering the entrances of residential buildings” as one of the videos posted to YouTube shows.

  In the village, 52 polar bears have been spotted entering settlements occupied by people. There have been numerous reports of the wild animals attacking people, entering residences and offices buildings, and rooting through trash.

  One official said that six to ten bears can regularly be spotted in the village proper. Schools and nurseries have filed statements saying they are worried about their security.

  One resident said the bears are no longer afraid of people and have become “insolent.”

  “There are no more enemies. That is they became insolent. This is scary. When they walk under your window at night, it is creepy.”

  The town, which boasts about 2,000 residents, is mostly occupied by Russian military personnel. So far, the government in Moscow has promised to send in a team of specialists to deal with the bears.

  

• Rethinking America's Military Industrial Complex

  Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The US Military Industrial Complex no longer needs neither actual wars nor the threat of war for its own survival. This factor could actually change dynamic of this institution/bureaucracy in our lifetimes and it may actually be changing as we speak.

  Very often something will evolve and become ubiquitous to the degree that we forget its origin. Putting a dead tree in your house on Christmas is a good example, few people think of why this is done, they just do it because it has been done for a long time and thus seems completely natural and important to do so every year. A justification for doing it is no longer needed, it is something done by default. In some ways the necessity to start questionable wars of luxury is much like that Christmas tree – an odd tradition that is not of an importance or value anymore.

  In order to break this down we need to go back to the start.

  It is hard for people in our times, especially foreign people to understand the fact that the United States was not a massive military power until WWII. Today sole hyperpower was at a time not that long ago a much different nation militarily and foreign policy speaking. In 1914 at the start of the Great War in Europe the territorially massive United States had a total armed forces of around 166,000 men. From 1776 until that point the manpower of US forces was minimal by European standards. That America of those times was an isolated self-focused America that many today long for. When the US entered WWI shedding the binds of its isolationist tendencies it bulked up to nearly 3,000,000 soldiers by the end of 1918. However, directly after the Great War finally ended the military severely deflated itself back down much closer to its original size.

  “The Good War” in the 1940’s was the final nail in the isolationist coffin as American forces would forever remain in the millions of men after the defeat of Germany and Japan by the Allies.

  The 1940s are the point where the permanent military industrial complex that we know of today starts to take hold. Slightly later it got the name by which we call it today thanks to a speech by President Eisenhower at the very tail end of his presidency in 1961. Sadly Mr. Eisenhower did nothing to stop the growth of the war-machine only choosing to warn us about it with nearly no time left in office. One would have expected bold action from a man known for his bravery and cunning.

  The ideological justification for retaining a massive US military in peacetime was Communism. A global Communist threat seemed like something grand enough to be worth throwing away a large portion of America’s traditional (and very successful) identity.

  As time went on wars of questionable origins in Korea and Vietnam continued to provide proof of the need for massive military spending and continued expansion.

  With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90’s American forces could have (in theory) reduced in size as there was no longer any real geopolitical competitor to the US. This was a “turning point” moment when America could possibly have gone back to being the America that was and scaled down to a few hundred thousand men under the umbrella of a few thousand nuclear warheads and enough billions of dollars to make sure that the US would never “fall behind” from a weapons standpoint.

  But this was not to be. Washington chose to go with “Global Hegemon” America and has not looked back. But at this point massive military spending still required some sort of reason to spend hundreds of billions per year. Iraq and Afghanistan were enough justification to keep millions of men in uniforms on bases all over the world mostly doing pushups and cleaning the toilets in a “global war on terror”.

  Now there is a new “Russian threat” that is hard for politicians to define or prove exists but is just juicy enough for them it is still call for increasing defense spending or build system X in European country Y that they can’t find on a map.

  

  As we can see since WWII, the US military has gone from dealing with direct threats (Germany, Japan) to direct threats via proxy (The Soviet Union in Korea/Vietnam) to overinflated threats (Iraq, Afghanistan) to fake threats (today’s Russia). I would argue and even offer that at this point there is no political means nor will to ever go “back” to the isolated America. That America as a concept is dead and both the politicians and the public understand and support the US having a massive military. No threat is needed any more as having a massive military is no longer even a question. It is a default position like seeing the world as round – only a tiny handful of lunatics of zero influence could argue otherwise and debating with them is pointless.

  Furthermore as we have seen any politician who goes against the military industrial complex (MIC) is deemed a traitor and “against the troops”.

  This current state of things is actually very good from the standpoint of peace and America’s reputation. Since war is no longer necessary to justify the MIC the US is much more free to not engage in warfare. In fact war is completely unnecessary. At some point advertisements for automobiles had to stop mentioning their superiority to horses. We are at the same point with the MIC. Politicians and the mainstream media do not need to search for/create enemies because they are no longer needed. The US military is to be forever massive and expensive and profitable and it may even become very peaceful because of this. Why work when you can make billions doing virtually nothing?

  

• Walter Jones, Congressman Behind "Freedom Fries" Who Turned Anti-War Firebrand, Dies At 76

  Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. died at the age of 76 on Sunday after an extended illness for which was a granted a leave of absence from Congress last year.

  The Republican representative for North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district since 1995 had initially been a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and even became well-known for getting french fries renamed as “freedom fries” in the House cafeteria as a protest against French condemnation of the US invasion. 

  

  However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision, and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington’s military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute.

  Remembering Jones as a tireless advocate of peace, Ron Paul notes that he “turned from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war. His passing yesterday is deeply mourned by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception.” The Ron Paul Institute has also called him “a Hero of Peace” for both his voting record and efforts at shutting down the “endless wars”. 

  And Antiwar.com also describes Jones as having been among the “most consistently antiwar members of Congress” and a huge supporter of their work:

  By 2005, Jones had reversed his position on the Iraq War. Jones called on President George W. Bush to apologize for misinforming Congress to win authorization for the war. Jones said, “If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn’t have voted for that resolution.”

  Jones went on to become one of the most antiwar members of Congress, fighting for ending US involvement in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

  Also the BBC describes Rep. Jones’ “dramatic change of heart” concerning the Iraq war starting in 2005, after which he began reaching out to thousands of people who had lost loves ones in combat.

  Rep. Walter Jones led an effort in the House to call French Fries “Freedom Fries” instead, but came to profoundly regret his role in supporting Bush’s war. 

  

  Noting that “no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq” and that the war was justified by the Bush administration based entirely on lies and false intelligence, the BBC describes:

  At the same time, Mr Jones met grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the war. This caused him to have a dramatic change of heart, and in 2005 he called for the troops to be brought home.

  He spoke candidly on several occasions about how deeply he regretted supporting the war, which led to the deaths of more than 140,000 Iraqi and American people.

  “I have signed over 12,000 letters to families and extended families who’ve lost loved ones in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,” he told NPR in 2017. “That was, for me, asking God to forgive me for my mistake.”

  In total he represented his district for 34 years, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in Congress. He took a leave of absence last year after a number of missed House votes due to declining health.

  * * *

  Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. turned from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war. His passing yesterday is deeply mourned by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception. He was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute. What kind of a man was he? We remember Walter Jones in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report.

  

• Johnstone: How To Tell If Someone Is Controlled Opposition

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  Every day in my article comments and social media I get people warning me that this or that journalist, activist or politician is “controlled opposition”, meaning someone who pretends to oppose the establishment while covertly serving it. These warnings usually come after I’ve shared or written about something a dissident figure has said or done, and are usually accompanied by an admonishment not to ever do so again lest I spread their malign influence. If you’ve been involved in any kind of anti-establishment activism for any length of time, you’ve probably encountered this yourself.

  

  Paranoia pervades dissident circles of all sorts, and it’s not entirely without merit, since establishment infiltration of political movements is the norm, not the exception. This article by Truthout documents multiple instances in which movements like the 1968 Chicago DNC protest and Peter Camejo’s 1976 anti-establishment presidential campaign were so heavily infiltrated by opaque government agencies that one out of every six people involved in them were secretly working for the feds. This trend of infiltration is known to have continued into the current day with movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, and we’d be ignorant not to assume that this has been at least as rampant in online circles where people organize and disseminate ideas and information.

  So it’s understandable that people are extremely vigilant about prominent figures in dissident circles, and it’s understandable that people feel paranoid. Over and over again we see shining anti-establishment movements fizzle or rendered impotent, often seemingly with the help of people we once trusted, and it’s hard not to get frustrated and become suspicious of anyone who starts shining bright in antiwar, leftist, or other dissident circles.

  The trouble with this paranoia and suspicion is that it doesn’t seem to function with any kind of intelligence. I have received such “controlled opposition” warnings about pretty much every prominent dissident figure in the English-speaking world at one time or another, and if I believed them all there’d be no one in the world whose words I could share or write about, including my own. I myself have been accused at different times of being a “plant” for the CIA, the Russians, Assad, the Chinese Communist Party, the Iranian mullahs, the alt-right, Trump, Pyongyang, and the Palestinians, which if all true would make me a very busy girl indeed. Since I know I’m not a plant for anybody, I know for myself that such accusations don’t come from a place of insight with any degree of reliability, and I’ve therefore had to find my own way to navigate this confusing landscape.

  So since I know that infiltration and manipulation happens, but I don’t find other people’s whisperings about “controlled opposition” useful, how do I figure out who’s trustworthy and who isn’t? How do I figure out who it’s safe to cite in my work and who to avoid? How do I separate the fool’s gold from the genuine article? The shit from the Shinola?

  Here is my answer: I don’t.

  I spend no mental energy whatsoever concerning myself with who may or may not be a secret pro-establishment influencer, and for good reason. There’s no way to know for sure if an individual is secretly scheming to sheep dog the populace into support for the status quo, and as long as government agencies remain opaque and unaccountable there will never be a way to know who might be secretly working for them. What I can know is (A) what I’ve learned about the world, (B) the ways the political/media class is lying about what I know about the world, and (C) when someone says something which highlights those lies. I therefore pay attention solely to the message, and no attention to what may or may not be the hidden underlying agenda of the messenger.

  In other words, if someone says something which disrupts establishment narratives, I help elevate what they’re saying in that specific instance. I do this not because I know that the speaker is legit and uncorrupted, but because their message in that moment is worthy of elevation. You can navigate the entire political/media landscape in this way.

  Since society is made of narrative and power ultimately rests in the hands of those who are able to control those narratives, it makes no sense to fixate on individuals and it makes perfect sense to focus on narrative. What narratives are being pushed by those in power? How are those narratives being disrupted, undermined and debunked by things that are being said by dissident voices? This is the most effective lens through which to view the battle against the unelected power establishment which is crushing us all to death, not some childish fixation on who should or shouldn’t be our hero.

  Have no heroes. Trust nobody but your own inner sense-maker. If someone says something that disrupts establishment narratives based on what you understand those narratives to be, go ahead and help throw what they’re saying into the gears of the machine. Don’t make a religion out of it, don’t get attached to it, just use it as a weapon to attack the narrative matrix.

  This by the way is also a useful lens to look through in spiritual development, if you’re into that sort of thing. When you enter spiritual circles concerned with enlightenment, you’ll see all sorts of debates about what teachers are really enlightened and which ones are just pretending, and these conversations mimic precisely the exact kinds of debates you’ll see in marginalized political circles about who’s the real deal and who’s controlled opposition. But the truth is there’s no way to know with certainty what’s going on in someone else’s head, and the best thing to do is to stop concerning yourself with who has and has not attained some special realization or whatever and just focus on what they’re saying. If a spiritual teacher says something which helps you notice something you’d never noticed before about consciousness or perception, then use what they said and maybe stick around to see if they have anything else useful to say. If not, move on.

  There’s no reason to worry about what journalists, activists and politicians are coming from a place of authenticity if you know yourself to be coming from a place of authenticity. As you learn more about the world and get better at distinguishing fact from narrative, you will get better and better at seeing the narrative matrix clearly, and you’ll come to see all the things that are being said about what’s going on in the world as weapons in the battle of narrative control. Pick up whatever weapons seem useful to you and use them in whatever ways they’ll be useful, without wasting energy concerning yourself with the individuals who created them. Call the bullshit what it is and use the truth for what it is.

  Or maybe I’m fulla shit! Maybe I myself am being paid to say these things by some powerful influencer; you can’t know for sure. All you can know is what’s useful for you. If you really find it useful to try and organize individual dissident figures into “hero” and “controlled opposition” boxes, if that genuinely helps you take apart the system that’s hurting us all, you’d know that better than I would. But if you find what I’m saying here useful, pick it up and add it to your toolbox.

  *  *  *

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• Reddit Users Wage 'Meme War' Against Beijing After Tencent Investment

  Reddit have responded with alarm following reports that Chinese tech giant Tencent participated in a $300 million funding round for the website, with users fearing that the company might push Reddit to start censoring content on behalf of Beijing.

  And they’re responding in the best way they know how: Making memes mocking the Chinese government.

  

  According to Bloomberg, Tencent Holdings invested in the funding round, which valued the site at $3 billion, despite the fact that Reddit is banned in China. And, in typical Reddit fashion, users of the site responded by publishing images that are banned in China, like Winnie the Pooh (banned because users have mocked its resemblance to President Xi) and images of the famous “tank man” from the Tiananmen Square massacre. A concerted effort by a small group of Reddit users helped push the memes on to Reddit’s vaunted front page.

  

  Winnie the Pooh

  Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told BBG that Reddit’s focus on the video game community is part of what drew the two companies together.

  “Video games are one category that’s really popular on Reddit,” Huffman told CNBC.

  

  A spokeswoman for Reddit declined to comment on the controversy to Bloomberg.

  One Reddit user quipped, “I thought it would be nice to post this picture of “Tank Man” at Tienanmen Square before our new glorious overlords decide we cannot post it anymore.”

  But if Reddit users decided to abandon the site en masse, where, exactly would they go?

  Back to 4Chan?

  

• Making Globalism Great Again – Did Trump Fold To The Deep State?

  Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

  Maybe Donald Trump isn’t as stupid as I thought. I’d hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn’t help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and “the brink of fascism” that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election. I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn’t find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer. Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz, or any other Nazi stuff … which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we’ve been subjected to for the last two years.

  So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a “normal” president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire … the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under.

  

  I’m referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven’t been “regime changed” yet. Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan “opposition,” but which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.

  Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist “international community” is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by “Make America Great Again.” Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or Ukrainian democracy.

  This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to “make it great again” (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly).

  Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. “America” is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling … themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela.

  The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected him. Only the empire’s official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other uncooperative countries) are objecting to this “democratic” coup. The global financial system (i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela’s assets, and is attempting to transfer them to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.

  What is happening has nothing to do with America … the “America” that Americans believe they live in and that many of them want to “make great again.” What is happening is exactly what has been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.

  Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with America, or the lives of actual Americans. “America” is not to going conquer Venezuela and plant an American flag on its soil. “America” is not going to steal its oil, ship it “home,” and parcel it out to “Americans” in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.

  What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don’t they? Well, sure they do, but here’s the thing … there are no “American” oil corporations. Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron, ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these companies “American,” or that Deutsche Bank is a “German” bank, or that BP is a “British” company?

  And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself, honestly, what have the “American” regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts for all those transnational “American” investment banks? Or the billions “America” provides to Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian Islamists is benefiting “the American people.” How much of that Saudi money are you seeing? And, wait, I’ve got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you’re paying some “American” insurance corporation to not really cover you.

  For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as “Americans,” “Germans,” “Greeks,” and so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them. Which is why we are experiencing a “neo-nationalist” backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called “new populism” … these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the fish doesn’t know that. It didn’t even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked up out of the water.

  In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone else is going to “Make America Great Again.” Global capitalism will continue to remake the world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit jobs in order to buy things we don’t need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing the police, who they will need to maintain “public order” … you know, like they are doing in France at the moment, by beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.

  Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed,” but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.

  

• Target App Lured Customers With Lower Prices, Which Mysteriously Increased As Users Approached Store

  Target updated its smartphone app last Wednesday after a two-month investigation by Minneapolis TV station KARE-TV discovered the retail giant was advertising certain items for one price outside of stores, only to hike the price when a person entered a Target – in one case, by as much as nearly $150. 

  The station dubbed it the “parking lot price switch.”

  For instance, Target’s app price for a particular Samsung 55-inch Smart TV was $499.99, but when we pulled into the parking lot of the Minnetonka store that price suddenly increased to $599.99 on the app.

  To test this further, we selected 10 products on the Target app at random, ranging from toys to bottled water to vacuum cleaners. We found that when we entered the store, four of the 10 products jumped up in price on the app.

   

  An Apple Watch band went up $2, a Shark vacuum went up $40, a Graco child car seat jumped $72 and a Dyson vacuum shot up $148 on the app while inside the store.

  Our list of 10 items was a total of $262 cheaper in the back of the parking lot on the app with no indication that the prices had changed.  –KARE-TV

  The difference boiled down to Target offering a lower price online vs. in-store, however the online-only pricing wasn’t made clear. As KARE-TV noted, “Even if you scan the bar codes of the products on the shelves, which Target suggests customers do to see Cartwheel coupon offers on the app, the app gives no indication that certain prices were far cheaper at Target.com.”

  In a statement emailed to the station, Target said: “The Target app shows in-store pricing while in store, and online pricing while on the go. If a guest finds any item for a lower price across any of the ways they can shop Target, we’ll price match it.” 

  Oh really?

  George John – a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management thinks Target’s explanation is lacking.

  “That particular experiment reveals so many interesting facts about our retail environment,” said John. “Somebody at Target programmed in an algorithm which says someone who is 50 feet within the store is willing to pay more. The most reasonable explanation is that you just revealed your commitment to buying the product, you’re in the store, or in the parking lot. If you are further away, you haven’t quite committed, so I’m going to give you a juicier deal. That’s why the price went up when you got closer to the store.”

  How does the app know you’ve entered a store? 

  When you download the Target app, it asks you if it can access your location. Enabling this allows you to see stores near you, and when you are inside a store it will show you where to go for specific items and deals. What Target does not clearly tell customers is it appears this function also triggers price changes as you approach the store. –KARE-TV

  KARE-TV was first alerted to the “parking lot price switch” by Target shopper Miranda Artz, who noticed the phenomenon while buying an electric razor last spring. 

  “It was $99.99 in the store, so I bought it,” said Artz – only to find that the product was $69.99 on her Target app in the parking lot. 

  Artz went back in the store to deal with customer service, and noticed that the price had jumped back to $99.99. When she went back out to the parking lot, she noticed the price drop again, so she took a screenshot to show customer service, which then refunded the difference. 

  “I think it’s a little deceptive,” said Artz. 

  Artz said there was a time when Target’s app would alert you to a lower online price, if available, when you scanned a product in store. She said that seemed to change last spring.

  Target would not confirm if it used to do this, nor would it confirm when its in-store vs. online price switches started taking effect on the app.

  “You should meet the expectations of the customer. If the customer believes they are getting an in-store price, say it is the in-store price,” said John. 

  There is one quick and easy way to ensure your Target app does not switch any prices when you walk into the store. In the app, click on your name icon in the bottom right of the screen and scroll down to “app settings.” Click “Location” and switch it to “Never.” This switch will no longer permit the app to see your geolocation, and in this setting the app will always show the online prices of products, even if you are standing inside the store. –KARE-TV

  KARE-TV repeated the experiment at Best Buy, Walmart and Macy’s, however none of them were found to alter prices between inside and outside of stores. 

  

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• Sweden Extends Border Controls, Citing "Continued Threat To Public Order"

  A few short months after Sweden was harshly criticized over its border controls in a Schengen report released in September, the country announced this week that it will extend border control measures for an additional three months.

  “The decision is based on the government’s assessment that there is a threat to public order and internal security in Sweden,” a government press release stated. 

  In autumn 2015, Sweden introduced border checks on car and train traffic at the Öresund Bridge, as well as at ports in Varberg, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsingborg and Trelleborg. The measures were in response to the large influx of migrants into the country. 

  And, as The Local reports, last summer, the checks were expanded to 12 new spots, including some of Sweden’s largest airports, after criticism that border controls were poorly manned and that those carrying out the checks lacked the necessary knowledge.

  

  Now, an additional 100 border officers will be added to the existing team of 400 by the end of the year. Stockholm border police will also aim to increase the number of border checks and improve equipment and training for staff. Border officers working at Arlanda Airport will also now be able to call on the entire Stockholm police region’s resources when needed.

  In announcing the extension of border controls on Thursday, Interior Minister Mikael Damberg indicated that the Swedish measures would not be necessary if there was a united European approach to border security. 

  “Sweden is one of a handful of countries that continue to have internal border controls due to lack of border controls at the Schengen’s external borders,” he said. 

  Just be careful if you start discussing this increased border security – which some might call racist – since, as we detailed previously, the see-something-say-something mantra is alive and well in Sweden… Head of online hate speech monitoring group “Näthatsgranskaren” Tomas Åberg receives tax funds for mass reporting pensioners and others who write critically about migration on Facebook.

  

  And now he claims that his reports to the police have resulted in almost 150 hate speech convictions.

  “1,218 police reports 2017-2018. 144 hate speech sentences, from 214 notifications. Many are waiting for prosecution!”, writes “Näthatsgranskaren” (The Online Hate Speech Monitor) on Twitter.

  

• "Get Over It!" Pepe Escobar Warns The 21st Century Will Be Asian

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  The greatest merit of Parag Khanna’s new book, The Future is Asian, is to accessibly tell the story of a historical inevitability – with the extra bonus of an Asian point of view. This is not only a very good public service, it also blows out of the water countless tomes by Western “experts” pontificating about Asia from an air-con cubicle in Washington.

  

  Asia hands from the West tend to be extremely protective of their extra-territoriality. In my case, I moved to Asia in 1994, and Singapore was my first base. In time I found out – along with some of my colleagues at Asia Times – nothing would ever compare to following the ever-developing, larger than life Asian miracle on the spot.

  Khanna has always been in the thick of the action. Born in India, he then moved to the UAE, the West, and is now a resident in Singapore. Years ago we spent a jolly good time in New York swapping Asia on-the-road stories; he’s a cool conversationalist. His Connectography is a must read.

  Khanna found a very special niche to “sell” Asia to the Western establishment as a strategic adviser – and is very careful not to ruffle feathers. Barack Obama, for instance, is only guilty of “half-heartedness”. When you get praise from Graham Allison, who passes for a Thucydides authority in the US but would have major trouble understanding Italian master Luciano Canfora’s Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L’Esilio, you know that Khanna has done his homework.

  Of course, there are a few problems. It’s a bit problematic to coin Singapore “the unofficial capital of Asia”. There’s no better place to strategically follow China than Hong Kong. And as a melting pot, Bangkok, now truly cosmopolitan, is way more dynamic, creative and, let’s face it, funkier.

  In 1997 I published a book in Brazil titled 21st: The Asian Century, based on three years of non-stop on-the-road reporting. It came out only a few days before the Hong Kong handover and the collapse of the baht that sparked the Asian financial crisis – so the book’s argument might have been seen as passé. Not really; once the crisis was over, the development push by the Asian tigers was overtaken by China. And 10 years later, slightly before the Western-made global financial crisis, the road to the Asian Century was more than self-evident.

  Khanna hits all the right tones and multiple overtones stating the case that the Asian century “will…” begin when Asia crystallizes into a whole greater than “the sum of its many parts”. It’s already happening, and it’s a wise choice to set the point of no return towards an Asia-led new world order at the first Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in May 2017 in Beijing.

  Yet throughout the book Khanna feels the need to take immense pain showing frightened Anglo-American readers that China won’t lead the Asian future; there will be no “Chinese tianxia, or harmonious global system guided by Chinese Confucian principles”.

  And that offers room for references to the push by the US and its allies to “deter China”, or the push by “Japan, India, Australia and Vietnam” to “counter China aggression”. Not to mention credit to the pathetic notion of “clash of civilizations”. But, on a whole, Khanna nails it.

  “By joining BRI, other Asian countries have tacitly recognized China as a global power – but the bar for hegemony is very high.”

  No East and West

  Within the scope of an article, and not a book, it’s possible to show that this epic story is not about hegemony, but connectivity.

  First of all, there’s no East and West; as Edward Said has shown, this is essentially inherited from Eurocentrism and colonialism, starting way back when the Ancient Greeks situated the western borders of Asia in the eastern Mediterranean.

  Asia, the term, comes from the ancient Assyrian assu – which means rising sun. A clear distinction between East and West was stamped by the end of the 3rd century, at the time of Diocletian, when the Roman empire was cut in half following a meridian from Dalmatia to Cyrenaica, a partition confirmed at the death of Theodosius 1 in 395 AD.

  The East then organized itself around Constantinople while the West was divided and regarded as Europe, a distinct unity under Charlemagne (800 AD). What’s interesting is that in contrast with China – self-defined as the center of the world – neither the Roman Empire nor Islam saw themselves as such, admitting the existence of other quite populated worlds: China and India.

  The notion of a “continent” only came up in the 16th century, based on the tri-partition Europe-Asia-Africa made by the Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean, adopted by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and ratified by the “discovery” of the New World: the Americas. So once again, “continent” is a Western invention.

  Eurasia is essentially a giant, elliptical, unified space. Crack geographers tend to see it to the north – from Central Asia up to the northwest of India – as the realm of caravan routes, Silk Roads, cosmopolitan oases, steppes and deserts crisscrossed by nomads.

  To the south, it’s a sort of monsoon “shawl” draped over a unique ocean; maritime routes through straits; and cosmopolitan ports and warehouses.

  Southeast Asia enjoys a unique status, squeezed in a historical and cultural pincer movement between two major forces, constituted in an independent manner from one another as two major civilizations; India to the west and China to the northeast.

  The inner logic of all this immense space is mutation, trade exchanges, and migrations. So Eurasia is essentially unified as two major “on the move” spaces; continental and steppe (on horseback), plus maritime (via navigation). Historically, between these two corridors, we find the creative hubs of civilizations and more durable empires: China, the Indian world, Persia/Iran, the Arab world, the Byzantine-Ottoman empire.

  Hard node of history

  In one of his exceptional books, French geographer Christian Grataloup conclusively shows how Eurasia is a geo-historic entity – exhibiting a “system of inter-relations from one end to another”. Yes, it’s all about connectivity, as the Chinese are stressing with the New Silk Roads or BRI.

  Already by the 15th century, every society in Eurasia exhibited the same presence of cities, writing, monetary exchange. So it’s possible to conceive a common history, from the Mediterranean to Japan, for over two millennia. Grataloup’s intuition is breathtaking. “This is the hard node of world history”.

  Historically, it’s all about the confluence of eastern routes in the north, the Silk Roads at the center, and southern routes, mostly the Spice Route. In the central segment of the major axis, decisive innovations occurred; the first villages, the first forms of agriculture, writing, the birth of the State. As the great Mongol caravan empire, built around the Silk Roads in the 13th century, fractured, while societies in the extremities of Eurasia developed maritime power.

  Khanna offers myriad details on the key fact; that the Eurasian space is finally being rearranged, rebuilt via economic development, along transversal axes configured as economic corridors; the result of a modernization process that started in Japan in the second half of the 19th century to expand to all of East and Southeast Asia, then China, and finally India. The genius of the BRI project is to make it happen.

  The Chinese ambition to be the economic leader of the Eurasia ensemble – by land and by sea – is a unique development in the region’s history, combining the continental approach of the Mongol empire of the steppes, or the Russia empire, with the maritime approach of the West, especially via the British Empire.

  But contrary to Western imperialism, it’s all based on economy and culture. So, China will have a lot of work mastering the art of soft power. Time though is on the BRI side; the horizon is 2049 – not profits in the next quarter. Maritime routes in the north like the Arctic Silk Road, and via the South China Sea and Indian Ocean to the south, will envelop Eurasia, which will articulate itself in the center over high-speed rail and highway corridors of the New Silk Roads and the upgraded Trans-Siberian links.

  They call it Euro-Asia in Beijing, and they call it Greater Eurasia in Moscow. The whole process is historically inexorable, already forging the future – call it Asian or Eurasian.

  

• Arizona Wants To Declare Porn A Public Health Crisis 

  A Republican state lawmaker in Arizona is disturbed about the proliferation of erotic images and videos online and their “toxic” effect on human behavior, has introduced a bill that would declare pornography a public health crisis.

  The bill, first introduced by state Rep. Michelle Udall, R, passed through the Arizona House Committee of Health & Human Services on Thursday, the first major obstacle in its path to a possible full vote, AZ Central reported.

  

  The bill has no legal ramifications but states that porn “perpetuates a sexually toxic environment that damages all areas of our society.”

  “Like the tobacco industry, the pornography industry has created a public health crisis,” Udall told lawmakers last week. “Pornography is used pervasively, even by minors.”

  Udall’s bill states the minors exposed to pornographic websites can develop “low self-esteem, eating disorders and an increase in problematic sexual activity at ever-younger ages.”

  The bill indicates that scientific research has shown pornography to be biologically addictive.

  “Potential detrimental effects on pornography users include toxic sexual behaviors, emotional, mental and medical illnesses and difficulty forming or maintaining intimate relationships,” the measure states.

  The bill also says excessive porn watching can alter human behavior, which may lead to extreme or violent sexual acts.

  It “normalizes violence and the abuse of women and children by treating them as objects, increasing the demand for sex trafficking, prostitution and child porn,” the bill reads.

  Udall’s opponents agree that too much porn is bad for humans; however, they point out the bill misses the underlying problem.

  “If we really want to look at this, we should start with education. It’s embarrassing that we are one of the states that does not have medically accurate sex education. In testimony, they were trying to blame everything on pornography. That is a stretch,” said Democrat Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley, who is sponsoring a different bill, HB2577, that focuses on medically accurate sex education.

  “I don’t disagree that the bill needs more teeth,” said Rep. Jay Lawrence, R-Scottsdale, who voted for the bill, according to the Arizona Republic. “That is our goal.”

  The bill is being prepared for a vote in the GOP-majority Arizona House of Representatives. Similar bills are being introduced in eleven states declaring porn a public health crisis.

  

• Harsh Turkish Condemnation Of Xinjiang Cracks Muslim Wall Of Silence

  Authored by James M. Dorsey via Mid East Soccer blog,

  In perhaps the most significant condemnation to date of China’s brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its north-western province of Xinjiang, Turkey’s foreign ministry demanded this weekend that Chinese authorities respect human rights of the Uighurs and close what it termed “concentration camps” in which up to one million people are believed to be imprisoned.

  

  Calling the crackdown an “embarrassment to humanity,” Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said the death of detained Uighur poet and musician Abdurehim Heyit had prompted the ministry to issue its statement.

  Known as the Rooster of Xinjiang, Mr. Heyit symbolized the Uighurs’ cultural links to the Turkic world, according to Adrian Zenz, a European School of Culture and Theology researcher who has done pioneering work on the crackdown.

  Turkish media asserted that Mr. Heyit, who was serving an eight-year prison sentence, had been tortured to death. 

  Mr. Aksoy said Turkey was calling on other countries and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to take steps to end the “humanitarian tragedy” in Xinjiang.

  The Chinese embassy in Ankara rejected the statement as a “violation of the facts,” insisting that China was fighting seperatism, extremism and terrorism, not seeking to “eliminate” the Uighurs’ ethnic, religious or cultural identity.

  Mr. Aksoy’s statement contrastèd starkly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration six months earlier that China was Turkey’s economic partner of the future. At the time, Turkey had just secured a US$3.6 billion loan for its energy and telecommunications sector from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).

  The Turkish statement constitutes the first major crack in the Muslim wall of silence that has enabled the Chinese crackdown, the most frontal assault on Islam in recent memory. The statement’s significance goes beyond developments in Xinjiang.

  Turkey denounces China’s mass detention of 1M Uighur Muslims to force them to renounce Islam, calling it “a great embarrassment for humanity.” Turkey notes they are “are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in concentration centers and prisons.” https://t.co/I7JB12JvHD pic.twitter.com/zawdl67ECW

  — Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) February 10, 2019

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

  Like with Muslim condemnation of US President Donald J. Trump’s decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Turkey appears to be wanting to be seen as a spokesman of the Muslim world in its one-upmanship with Saudi Arabia and to a lesser degree Iran.

  While neither the kingdom or Iran are likely to follow Turkey’s example any time soon, the statement raises the stakes and puts other contenders for leadership on the defensive.

  The bulk of the Muslim world has remained conspicuously silent with only Malaysian leaders willing to speak out and set an example by last year rejecting Chinese demands that a group of Uighur asylum seekers be extradited to China. Malaysia instead allowed the group to go to Turkey.

  The Turkish statement came days after four Islamist members of the Kuwaiti parliament organized the Arab world’s first public protest against the crackdown.

  By contrast, Pakistani officials backed off initial criticism and protests in countries like Bangladesh and India have been at best sporadic.

  Like the Turkish statement, a disagreement between major Indonesian religious leaders and the government on how to respond to the crackdown raises questions about sustainability of the wall of silence.

  Rejecting a call on the government to condemn the crackdown by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top clerical body, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla insisted that the government would not interfere in the internal affairs of others.

  The council was one of the first, if not the first, major Muslim religious body to speak out on the issues of the Uighurs. Its non-active chairman and spiriitual leader of Nahdlaltul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization, Ma’ruf Amin, is running as President Joko Widodo’s vice-presidential candidate in elections in April.

  The Turkish statement could have its most immediate impact in Central Asia, which like Turkey has close ethnic and cultural ties to Xinjiang, and is struggling to balance relations with China with the need to be seen to be standing up for the rights of its citizens and ethnic kin.

  In Kazakhstan, Turkey’s newly found assertiveness towards China could make it more difficult for the government to return to China Sayragul Sautbay, a Chinese national of ethnic Kazakh descent and a former re-education camp employee who fled illegally to Kazakhstan to join her husband and child.

  Ms. Sautbay, who stood trial in Kazakhstan last year for illegal entry, is the only camp instructor to have worked in a reeducation camp in Xinjiang teaching inmates Mandarin and Communist Party propaganda and spoken publicly about it.

  She has twice been refused asylum in Kazakhstan and is appealing the decision. China is believed to be demanding that she be handed back to the Xinjiang authorities.

  Similarly, Turkey’s statement could impact the fate of Qalymbek Shahman, a Chinese businessman of Kazakh descent, who is being held at the airport in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent after being denied entry into Kazakhstan.

  “I was born in Emin county in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to a farming family. I wanted to go to Kazakhstan, because China’s human rights record was making life intolerable. I would have my ID checked every 50 to 100 meters when I was in Xinjiang, This made me extremely anxious, and I couldn’t stand it anymore,” Mr. Shahman said in a video clip sent to Radio Free Asia from Tashkent airport.

  A guide for foreign businessmen, Mr. Shahman said he was put out of business by the continued checks that raised questions in the minds of his clients and persuaded local businessmen not to work with him.

  Said Mr. Zenz, the Xinjiang scholar, commenting on the significance of the Turkish statement:

  “A major outcry among the Muslim world was a key missing piece in the global Xinjiang row. In my view, it seems that China’s actions in Xinjiang are finally crossing a red line among the world’s Muslim communities, at least in Turkey, but quite possibly elsewhere.”

  

• Rape, Murder, & A Suspicious Suicide: Jailed "Psychic Surgeon" To Stars Ran Gruesome Sex Slave Farms

  A 76-year-old Brazilian faith healer who turned himself in to authorities following more than 600 sexual abuse claims has been accused of running sex slave farms used for child trafficking, then killing the mothers after 10 years of birthing. 

  

  Known as the “John of God” and the “psychic surgeon,” Joao Teixeira de Faria started his “spiritual hospital” in 1978, the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola – named after Saint Ignatius, one of the 37 spirits Faria claimed would inhibit his body during psychic healing sessions, according to The Sun. In 1979, a benefactor secured land for him in a small town of Abadiânia, Brazil, where he has been receiving over 10,000 visitors a month. 

  

  Faria rose to international fame after Oprah Winfrey sat down with him in a 2010 interview. His high profile clients are rumored to include supermodel Naomi Campbell, former President Bill Clinton and singer Paul Simon. 

  

  John of God’s “spiritual surgeries” would often involve scraping people’s eyeballs without anesthetics, or inserting scissors of forceps inside people’s noses to cure various conditions. His accusers say he took it much further – instructing them to face away from them before performing sexual acts to “cure” them, allegations Faria denies. 

  

  In December, four women came forward on Brazilian television to accuse Faria of abusing them during sessions, including Dutch choreographer Zahira Lienke Mous, who says she learned of Faria from Oprah Winfrey’s interview.

  Speaking on TV Globo, three of the women described their encounters with Faria to host Pedro Bial on condition of anonymity. Dutch choreographer Zahira Lieneke Mous decided to be named, and said that during one of her trips to see the healer to be cured of the trauma of previous sexual assault, he took her into a back room and had her masturbate him. He then had her pick out a gemstone from a set and granted special treatment. She has also accused him of raping her during another session.

  …

  São Paolo businesswoman Aline Salih told local newspaper Folha de São Paulo in an article that published on Monday that a similar incident had happened to her. –BuzzFeed News

  Following the broadcast, Brazilian prosecutors announced that more than 200 women had come forward with similar claims, leading for prosecutors for the state of Goias to call for his arrest. 

  Meanwhile, Faria’s own daughter – Dalva Teixeira, claims that he abused and raped her between the ages of 10 and 14, and that he only stopped after she became pregnant by one of his employees. The subsequent beating she received from “John of God” caused her to miscarry, she says. 

  

  “My father is a monster,” stated Teixeira. 

  Disturbingly, the 38-year-old Brazilian activist who brought Faria down, Sabrina Bittencourt, mysteriously “committed suicide” last Saturday in Lebanon while she was on the run and “living under protection.” 

  

  Bittencourt said she had received reports of Faria’s sex slave operation in which newborns were sold for up to £40,000 ($51,000 USD) in the United States, Europe and Australia. 

  She claimed Faria would offer money to poor girls aged 14 to 18 to go and live in mineral mines or farms he owns in the Brazilian states of Goias and Minas Gerais.

  There they would become sex slaves and be forced to get pregnant, then their babies would be sold to the highest bidder.

  “In exchange for food, they were impregnated and their babies sold on the black market,” she said.

  “Hundreds of girls were enslaved over years, living on farms in Goias, and served as wombs to get pregnant, for their babies to be sold.

  “These girls were murdered after 10 years of giving birth. We have got a number of testimonies.” –The Sun

  Bittencourt’s eldest son, Gabriel Baum, confirmed her death on Facebook with a note that read: “She took the last step so that we could live. They killed my mother.“

  “We said goodbye in Paris, she traveled to Barcelona for a few days to create the protection network for Brazilians of exile and returned to Lebanon with her girlfriend. It was one of the countries she loved!” Gabriel posted to Facebook.

  

  

• Dummy's Guide To Decoding The Doublespeak On Syria

  Authored by Peter Ford via 21stCenturyWire.com,

  The prospect of US withdrawal from Syria has taken the use of doublespeak by frothing neocons and their liberal interventionist fellow travellers to a new level…

  

  Here to help the confused observer is a glossary of some of the most frequently used key terms and their true meanings, along with guidance on usages deemed taboo in Western policy-making and media circles. 

  Entrenched. As in: ‘We have to stop Iran getting more entrenched in Syria’. Meaning: ‘Supportive’. Without Iran and Hizbollah helping Syria government forces ISIS and Al Qaida would be ruling the roost in Syria today. Do not say: ‘Israel is becoming more and more entrenched in the West Bank and Golan’.

  Forward deployment. ‘US troops are in forward deployment in the Al Tanf enclave on the Syria – Iraq border’. Meaning: Occupation. The US troops have no mandate to be there, not even the approval of the US Congress.

  Engagement. ‘Ambassador Jeffrey is the Secretary’s Envoy for Syria Engagement’. Meaning: Disengagement. Much to his chagrin, the archetypal hawk Jeffrey had his pledge to the effect that the US was in Syria for the duration unsaid by the president within hours of his uttering it. Since then he appears to have lost his tongue.

  Vacuum. ‘The US will be leaving a vacuum when it pulls troops out’. Meaning: Restoration of law and order. Once the US stops blocking the way the Syrian government will return to the currently US-controlled territory and will keep ISIS down, as it is doing in the rest of Syria, and Turkey out.

  Syria. ‘ With the withdrawal he’s handing Syria over to the Russians and the Iranians’. Meaning: The one and a half provinces of Syria (Hasakeh and part of Deir Ez Zor) currently controlled by the US. Blinkered Western armchair strategists are blind to the fact that Russia and Iran are already influential in the larger part of the country controlled by the Syrian government.

  Land bridge. ‘We must stop Iran from creating a land bridge across Syria by keeping troops in Al Tanf’. Meaning: We know journalists are too lazy to look at a map so we ignore the fact that semi-US occupied Iraq, helpfully characterised this week by President Trump as a big spy base, stands between Iran and Syria. Anyway Iran could use other crossing points besides Al Tanf if it got tired of resupplying Hizbollah by air.

  Lose. ‘How the US lost Syria’. Meaning: Win. Syria was never ‘ours’, as President Trump has also helpfully explained. By leaving, the US does itself a huge favour, avoiding another 19 year unwinnable war like Afghanistan.

  Malign. ‘Pompeo lashed Iran’s malign behaviour destabilising the region’. Meaning: Helpful, beneficient. Without Iran and Hizbollah Syria would not be almost rid of ISIS.

  For. ‘At this crucial juncture we need a serious policy for Syria’. Meaning: Against. Almost invariably those wanting a policy for another country are scheming up some evil. Even well-meaning folk can unconsciously slip into this condescending neo-imperialist mode. Never say: ‘I wonder if Syria has a policy for the UK, which seems unstable.’

  Regime. ‘The Syrian regime’. Meaning: Government. Never say: ‘The Saudi regime’, except in the immediate aftermath of a particularly gruesome murder of a critic with Western connections.

  Stabilise. ‘Our programmes support local administrations aimed at helping to stabilise the areas outside Syrian government control’. Meaning: Destabilise, help engineer partition.

  Destabilise. ‘Russia’s provision of S-300 missiles will destabilise the situation with Israel’. Meaning: Stabilise. These purely defensive missiles will help deter any reckless politicians with the feds breathing down their necks from launching yet more air-borne attacks on Syria.

  Safe zone. ‘Turkey wants a safe zone 20 miles deep all along the border with Syria’. Meaning: Danger zone. Currently the border is quiet. A Turkish incursion or attempted insertion of proxy forces would be bloodily resisted by the Kurds. The Syrian government can guarantee the area stays quiet, given a chance.

  Embolden. ‘US withdrawal will embolden Iran and Russia’. Meaning: Not kowtowing to US regional hegemony. Never say: ‘Western support for Israeli bombing of Syria has emboldened Netanyahu’.

  And finally, a gloss on the propagators of many of the above terms:

  Think tank. The likes of Washington Institute for the Middle East, Heritage Foundation, Henry Jackson Society, Chatham House, RUSI. Meaning: Bilge tanks. Generously funded perches for neocons resting between regime change assignments and academics for hire, producing garbage predictions proven wrong time and time again and rewarded with new commissions.

  

• China Programming AI Drones To Autonomously Murder Without Human Input

  China is programming new autonomous AI-powered drones to conduct “targeted military strikes” without a human making the decision to fire, according to a new report by the Center for a New American Security, a US national security think tank. 

  

  Authored by Gregory C. Allen, the report is a comprehensive look at Chinese AI (and American officials’ underestimation of it). Allen notes that drones are becoming increasingly automated as designers integrate sophisticated AI systems into the decision-making processes for next-generation reconnaissance and weapons systems. Before writing his analysis, Allen participated in a series of meetings “with high-ranking Chinese officials in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leaders of China’s military AI research organizations, government think tank experts, and corporate executives at Chinese AI companies.” 

  “Though many current generation drones are primarily remotely operated, Chinese officials generally expect drones and military robotics to feature ever more extensive AI and autonomous capabilities in the future,” writes Allen. “Chinese weapons manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of combat autonomy.“

  “The specific scenario described to me [by one anonymous Chinese official] is unintentional escalation related to the use of a drone,” said Allen in a Wednesday report by The Verge. 

  As Allen explains, the operation of drones both large and small has become increasingly automated in recent years. In the US, drones are capable of basic autopilot, performing simple tasks like flying in a circle around a target. But China is being “more aggressive about introducing greater levels of autonomy closer to lethal use of force,” he says. One example is the Blowfish A2 drone, which China exports internationally and which, says Allen, is advertised as being capable of “full autonomy all the way up to targeted strikes.” –The Verge

  “Mechanized equipment is just like the hand of the human body. In future intelligent wars, AI systems will be just like the brain of the human body,” said Zeng Yi, a senior executive at Chinese’s third largest defense manufacturer, who believes AI will be at the core of warefare in the future. 

  “AI may completely change the current command structure, which is dominated by humans,” and instead fall under the control of an “AI cluster.” 

  Targeted Precision Strikes

  Chinese military drone manufacturer Ziyan’s Blowfish A2 can be armed with either missiles or machine guns depending on the customer’s preferences, and “autonomously performs complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection and fixed-range reconnaissance, and targeted precision strikes.”

  

  

  “The point made to me was that it’s not clear how either side will interpret certain behaviors [involving autonomous equipment],” said Allen. “The side sending out an autonomous drone will think it’s not a big deal because there’s no casualty risk, while the other side could shoot it down for the same reason. But there’s no agreed framework on what message is being sent by either sides’ behavior.“

  

  The concerns are amplified when you consider advancing autonomy, according to The Verge. How will a warning shot fired by a drone or a robot be interpreted, for example? Will it be understood that it was an autonomous action, or that of a human? And what then? 

  In essence, says Allen, countries around the world have yet to define “the norms of armed conflict” for autonomous systems. And the longer that continues, the greater the risk for “unintentional escalation.”

  “I think that’s a real and legitimate threat,” says Allen. –The Verge

  In November, a Chinese state-owned company unveiled its CH-7 autonomous drone at a 2018 airshow in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. Its chief designer, Shi Wen, says that the aircraft can “fly long hours, scout and strike the target when necessary,”according to CBS News.

  “Very soon, I believe, in the next one to two years, (we) can see the CH-7 flying in the blue skies, gradually being a practical and usable product in the future,” said Shi. 

  With a wingspan of 22 meters (72 feet) and a length of 10 meters (33 feet), the swept-wing CH-7 is the size of a combat aircraft and its single engine can propel it at roughly the speed of a commercial jet airliner.

  …

  While the CH-7’s ultimate effectiveness remains to be determined, if exported, it would “mark another step-change for China, which has traditionally not offered its cutting-edge technology to foreign customers,” Roggeveen said.

  Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, now the world’s main distributor of armed drones. –CBS News

  An unmanned aerial vehicle believed to be the CH-7 is displayed at the booth of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. ahead of the Airshow China 2018 in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province on Sunday. (Photos: Yang Sheng/GT) https://t.co/gHdJeCSrxN pic.twitter.com/mxFhZUX07B

  — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) November 4, 2018

  

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  Allen concludes that “The U.S. policymaking community ought to make it a priority to be equally effective at translating, analyzing, and disseminating Chinese publications on AI for the insights they provide into Chinese thinking.”

  

• How A Fake Eyelash Boom Is Propping Up Kim Jong-Un

  Authored by Jan Bauer via SafeHaven.com,

  Russia and China may be the first to come to mind in reference to violating sanctions against North Korea, but the list is actually a bit longer, and fairly more complicated – and the end of the day, our out-of-control vanity has led to a boom in fake eyelashes that have been helping to prop up the North Korean government.

  

  In late January, California-based cosmetics company ELF agreed to pay a nearly US$1m fine to settle civil liabilities for importing fake eyelashes containing materials from North Korea in breach of sanctions.

  The U.S. Treasury Department said that between 2012 and 2017, the company imported 156 shipments of false eyelash kits, valued at $4.43 million from two suppliers located in the People’s Republic of China that contained materials sourced by North Korean suppliers.

  ELF (eyes, lips, face), with annual revenues of $295 million, faced more than $40 million in penalties, but the treasury took mitigating circumstances into account; namely, the small amount involved and the fact that the company itself reported the sanctions violation after a self-audit of third-party suppliers.

  “This enforcement action highlights the risks for companies that do not conduct full-spectrum supply chain due diligence when sourcing products from overseas, particularly in a region in which North Korea as well as other comprehensively sanctioned countries or regions, is known to export goods,” the Treasury said.

  “Until January 2017, ELF’s compliance program and its supplier audits failed to discover that approximately 80 percent of the false eyelash kits supplied by two of ELF’s China-based suppliers contained materials from the DPRK,” it added.

  On top of that, the company’s stock has lost 51 percent of its value since it was first floated in September 2016. Based on its latest results, sales are down 11 percent compared to the same period last year.

  Beyond eyelashes, North Korea has proven quite resources at evading sanctions, with indications that it’s mastered smuggling.

  A recent UN report notes that sanctions against North Korea were “ineffective,” with authorities there still able to acquire illegal shipments of oil products, sell banned coal and violate the arms embargo.

  The report also said that despite the imposed sanctions, North Korean financial institutions continue to operate in at least five countries, while the country’s diplomats help their country evade sanctions by controlling bank accounts in multiple countries.

  The UN experts who compiled the report detailed violations across several countries, including Bulgaria, China, Germany, India, Myanmar, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania and Uganda.

  On the lower level of sanctions-busting, other luxury goods that have made it to North Korea including sparkling wine and spirits from Germany, wine and vermouth from Italy, and perfume and cosmetics from Bulgaria.

  A Singapore-based company has been stocking department stores in Pyongyang, the capital, with luxury items from Japan and Europe.

  Last year, the US government published guidance for US companies to detect certain of North Korea’s “deceptive” practices in avoiding U.S. sanctions.

  While the sanctions are enforced by the prosecution or sanctioning companies that do business with North Korea, outsourcing the production and supply chains can be hard to spot—as with ELF’s fake eyelashes.

  A Wall Street Journal report from December last year explains that many U.S. banks and companies are unwillingly participating in a network in which North Korea uses proxies with hidden government ties across the globe to facilitate payments and transactions.

  U.S. companies outsource production to Asian companies, but even they exploitlow labor and material costs in jurisdictions like North Korea where manufacturers can save up to 75 percent.

  The Trump administration has led the drive at the United Nations to impose a series of tough economic sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear tests and missile launches in 2017.

  

• It Was The Brother: Michael Sanchez Identified As Source Of Leaked Bezos "Dick Pic"

  Last week, we reported that Jeff Bezos’ investigation into who leaked steamy text messages exchanged between himself and his mistress, former “So You Think You Can Dance?” host Lauren Sanchez, had zeroed in on a likely – if unfortunate – source: Sanchez’s brother, Hollywood manager Michael Sanchez. Sanchez supported President Trump during the 2016 race, and at the time, sources from within Bezos’ camp were saying that they believed Sanchez had leaked the texts for “political” reasons.

  Well, one week later, and the story of the investigation has been blown wide open by Bezos’ publication of emails exchanged between lawyers for AMI and the lead attorney for his investigators, where not only did AMI detail the contents of the unpublished texts (which apparently included what millennials would call a “dick pic” sent by the world’s richest man), but Bezos accused the owner of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him into dropping his investigation, as well as walking back allegations that the Enquirer’s campaign was politically motivated (either by its allegiance to Trump, or the Saudi government).

  

  And now, the Daily Beast, which has led the pack on scoops related to Bezos’ investigation, has seemingly confirmed that investigators’ initial suspicions about the source of the leak were correct: According to several AMI insiders, Sanchez was in fact the tabloid’s source.

  The brother of Jeff Bezos’ mistress, Lauren Sanchez, supplied the couple’s racy texts to the National Enquirer, multiple sources inside AMI, the tabloid’s parent company, told The Daily Beast. Another source who has been in extensive communication with senior leaders at AMI confirmed that Michael Sanchez first supplied Bezos’ texts to the Enquirer.

  AMI has previously refused to identify the source of the texts, but a lawyer for the company strongly hinted at Sanchez’s role during a Sunday morning interview on ABC. “The story was given to the National Enquirer by a reliable source that had given information to the National Enquirer for seven years prior to this story. It was a source that was well known to both Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez,” attorney Elkan Abramowitz told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

  Asked directly whether Sanchez was the source, Abramowitz said, “I can’t discuss who the source was. It’s confidential within AMI.” An AMI spokesperson declined to comment for this story. Asked directly more than a half-dozen times whether or not he supplied the texts to the Enquirer, Sanchez declined to do so.

  The report also suggests that, to Bezos, at least, this isn’t news: A source from within AMI said that Bezos’ team had likely already identified the source of the leak, and that Sanchez didn’t steal the texts, but obtained them by some other, likely legitimate, means.

  Sanchez is reportedly close with several Trumpworld figures, including Roger Stone and pro-Trump pundit Scottie Nell Hughes (whose private emails were once leaked to AMI). 

  His tweets indicate that Sanchez has also been a vocal supporter of the president:

  For anyone too stupid or too bitter to admit Mueller’s pack of @POTUS-hating @TheDemocrats is leading an out-of-control witch hunt, read about @jerome_corsi.

  Muellerism = McCarthyism@realDonaldTrump @AlanDersh @JudgeJeanine @TuckerCarlson@CNN @FoxNews @MSNBC @RTAmericaNews pic.twitter.com/OhkArB7dBF

  — Michael Sanchez (@mikey2go) December 4, 2018

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  Though he also denied the allegations that he was the source of the leak:

  Gavin de Becker, @JeffBezos right hand man, spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories, “dog whistle” smears, with on-the-record quotes to trashy tabloids; all while his boss owns @washingtonpost & @Amazon. Huh? Remind me, who was in charge of security? #Truth pic.twitter.com/Idg2osaPfP

  — Michael Sanchez (@mikey2go) February 1, 2019

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  The jury is still out on whether a “government entity” was involved in the leak of Bezos’ intimates, as his lead investigator reportedly believes. But whether it’s true or not, Sanchez’s reported involvement will likely make for an awkward Thanksgiving in the Sanchez household this year.

  Now, we wait to learn how Bezos and his mistress are going to handle this stunning betrayal…

  

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• Venezuela Is An Opportunity For Russia And China To Change The World

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  Nothing better illustrates Washington’s opposition to democracy and self-determination than the blatantly public coup Washington has organized against the properly elected president of Venezuela.

  

  Washington has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government for years. Washington wants the state owned oil company to be privatized so that it can fall into the hands of US oil companies. That would ensure Washington’s control over Venezuela. Transferring the wealth out of the country would prevent any economic development from inside the country. Every aspect of the economy would end up in the hands of US corporations. The exploitation would be ruthless and brutal.

  Venezuelans understand this, which is why Washington, despite wrecking the Venezuelan economy and offering enormous bribes to the Venezuelan military, has not yet been able to turn the people and the troops against Maduro.

  Moon of Alabama’s explanation of Washington’s attack on Venezuela gives you a truer picture that differs completely from the lies voiced by the American and European politicians and presstitute media, a collection of whores who are devoid of all integrity and all morality and lie for their living.

  I am not as confident as Moon of Alabama that Venezuela’s effort dating back to Chavez to be a sovereign country independent of Washington’s control can survive. Washington is determined to teach all of Latin America that it is pointless to dream of self-determination. Washington simply will not permit it.

  Maduro, despite being the duly elected president with the mass of the people and military behind him, apparently lacks the power to arrest the American puppet who, despite the absence of any law or election as a basis, has declared himself to be president, thus creating a Washington-backed “government” as an alternative to the elected one. The inability of Maduro to defend democracy from within is a sign of the weakness of his office. How can Maduro possibly be a dictator when he is helpless in the face of open sedition?

  If Russia and China quickly established a military presence in Venezuela to protect their loans and oil investments, Venezuela could be saved, and other countries that would like to be independent would take heart that, although there is no support for self-determination anywhere in the Western World, the former authoritarian countries will support it. Other assertions of independence would arise, and the Empire would collapse.

  Venezuela is an opportunity for Russia and China to assume the leadership of the world, but I doubt the Russian and Chinese governments have the vision to seize the opportunity and, thereby, fundamentally change the world.

  Putin is wasting his breath when he correctly criticizes Washington for its violations of international law. In Washington’s view, law is what serves American interest.

  Here is Moon of Alabama’s analysis:

  The opposition in Venezuela will probably use access to that ‘frozen’ money to buy weapons and to create an army of mercenaries to fight a ‘civil’ war against the government and its followers. Like in Syria U.S. special forces or some CIA ‘contractors’ will be eager to help. The supply line for such a war would most likely run through Colombia. If, like 2011 in Syria, a war on the ground is planned it will likely begin in the cities near that border.

  

  The U.S. is using the pretext of ‘delivering humanitarian aid’ from Columbia to Venezuela to undermine the government and to establish a supply line for further operations. It is another attempt to pull the military onto the coup plotter’s side…

  Read more here…

  

• Another Big Reason Not To Buy A Chinese Smartphone

  Given the constant stream of anti-China propaganda (true or not), security and privacy concerns are likely top of mind for many when considering whether a Chinese smartphone will be their next purchase. However, there is, perhaps, an even more important – health-related – reason to think twice…

  For most people nowadays, their smartphone is within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. It’s in their pocket while they’re at work, it’s in their hand on the train ride home and it’s on their bedside table as they go to sleep. And, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, with this level of proximity and usage, many can’t quite shake the niggling feeling that they might be risking damage to themselves in the long run.

  While conclusive longitudinal research on the effects of cell phone radiation is still hard to come by, for those looking to hedge their bets, this infographic shows the phones that emit the most radiation when held to the ear while calling.

  The German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz) has a comprehensive database of smartphones – new and old – and the level of radiation they emit.

  The current smartphone creating the highest level of radiation is the Mi A1 from Chinese vendor Xiaomi. Another Chinese phone is in second place – the OnePlus 5T. In fact, the two companies are represented heavily in this list, with 8 of the top 16 handsets being made by one of them. Premium Apple phones such as the iPhone 7 and the recently released iPhone 8 are also here to be seen, though, as are the latest Pixel handsets from Google.

  While there is no universal guideline for a ‘safe’ level of phone radiation, the German certification for environmental friendliness ‘Der Blaue Engel’ (Blue Angel) only certifies phones which have a specific absorption rate of less than 0.60 watts per kilogram. All of the phones featured here come in at more than double this benchmark.

  To take a look at the other end of the scale, we also have a list of the phones emitting the least radiation…

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  “probably nothing”, right?

  

• How To Legalize Cannabis Throughout America

  Authored by Senator Mike Gravel via ConsortiumNews.com,

  The process that ended Prohibition provides a template…

  

  In the interest of full disclosure, I have been on the board of Cannabis Sativa, Inc., for five years, including four years as CEO.  I presently serve as CEO of THC Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  My earlier professional life included being speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives and two terms representing Alaska in the U.S. Senate.  These combined experiences equip me to address some of the problems caused by the U.S. anti-drug campaign.

  One of the great domestic political tragedies since the last century is the war on drugs initiated by President Richard Nixon, part of which placed cannabis (marijuana) on the list of Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

  

  U.S. Coast Guard crews in 2015 offload narcotics seized in eastern Pacific with street value of $22 million. (Chief Petty Officer Luke Pinneo)

  Nixon, seeking to shore up his position opposing cannabis, appointed Raymond Shafer, the recently retired governor of Pennsylvania, to head a commission to study the negative effects of marijuana on the American populace.  Nixon was incensed when the Shafer Commission’s 1972 report showed no negative effects from the use of marijuana on society and called for it to be decriminalized. 

  The report was promptly shelved; and Nixon, supported by his religious backers, executed his plan of drug prohibition, interdiction and punishment without the slightest medical or legal rationale, to punish young Americans protesting his continuation of the Vietnam War.

  A Failed ‘War’  

  The war on drugs has not ended drug use or trafficking. Instead it has ravaged the lives of untold Americans and bloated our prison system.  It has fostered massive illegality over the decades.

  But in 1996 the citizens of California passed Proposition 215 authorizing the use of cannabis for medical purposes, finally breaching the barriers of ignorance and prejudice about cannabis.

  Other states followed California’s lead, some via a grassroots initiative process and others by the vote of courageous legislatures.  This state-by-state development of the cannabis industry has created inconsistencies that are further complicated by the illegality that the federal government casts over the industry. This is most obvious where the cannabis industry is denied the banking services vital to any economic enterprise for fear of federal prosecution.

  

  On a recent visit to Sacramento to express my support for public banking, which would offer a solution, I met with Fiona Ma, California’s newly elected state treasurer. She invited me to discuss various concepts using public banking and the state’s private banking system. She asked me to critique a recent study addressing cannabis banking and public banking.

  My experience with the cannabis industry and my knowledge of the Constitution led me to set aside the industry’s banking problems at this time and focus on the fundamental problem — the federal government’s war on drugs. The plan I propose to finally end it is based upon a strong precedent.

  The federal government’s prohibitions of alcohol and of cannabis have both been abject failures, severely damaging American society. The prohibition of alcohol lasted 13 years, while the prohibition of cannabis has endured a little more than six decades.  

  The process that ended alcohol prohibition is the template for the way we can now end the prohibition of cannabis — with a constitutional amendment.  Since prohibition of alcohol was put in place by the 18th Amendment, it required an amendment to repeal it.  This had never been done before — repealing one amendment with another amendment.

  Section of Article V

  There was another first. The nation was in a hurry to repeal prohibition, so to ratify their repeal of the 18th Amendment it chose a never-before used section of Article V: 

  The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress.

  The section “… by Conventions in three fourths thereof …” of Article V,  above, was used for the first time to repeal the 18thAmendment, which was enacted on Jan. 16, 1919, by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress and “… the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states.”   

  

  (Library of Congress)

  The Amendment to prohibit the sale of alcohol went into effect on Jan. 17, 1920. During the 1920s Americans increasingly came to see Prohibition as unenforceable.

  In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt, as a presidential candidate, called for the repeal of Prohibition.  On Feb. 20, 1933, two-thirds of both Houses of Congress voted to repeal the 18th  Amendment, including the repeal of certain elements of the Volstead Act, which enabled federal enforcement. However, rather than submit the resolution to three-fourths of the state legislatures, it was submitted to ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states, a process noted in Article V: “… by Conventions in three fourths thereof …”

  This process had never been used before or since and substantially shortened the time for ratification to a little more than eight months when ratified by the requisite number of state conventions on Dec. 5, 1933.

  In 1932 the country had 48 states. Therefore, after two-thirds of the Congress voted for the resolution, it took three-fourths, or 35 state conventions, to ratify the 21stAmendment.

  

  Medical marijuana Acapulco gold. (Wikimedia)

  With today’s 50 states, it would require 38 states –– three-fourths –– to ratify the two-thirds resolution enacted by the Congress to repeal the designation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug.

  Since 33 states have legalized some form of cannabis and additional states are looking at legalization, it is highly likely that five more states would join an effort to remove cannabis from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

  I believe an amendment to repeal the war on drugs could easily secure the two-thirds vote in the House. However, if blocked by the majority leader in the Senate or if Vice President Mike Pence refused to sign the resolution, another section of Article V could be used:  “… on theApplication of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several states …” 

  A national campaign initiated by the political leadership of California and the cannabis industry would already be securing agreements of three-fourths (38 states) to ratify the resolution.  A simultaneous effort could approach the same 33 states (two-thirds) to approve the resolution.

  California legislators and its officials, having led the nation in 1996 with Proposition 215, can now lead the nation in securing the ratification of an amendment to remove cannabis from Schedule 1.  I am convinced that the ratification of an Amendment can be secured within a year.

  

• More Than Half Of Homes In These Zip Codes Are "Seriously Underwater"

  Roughly 12 years after the US housing market meltdown entered its most acute phase in 2007, a shocking number of American homes are still “seriously underwater”, according to the latest US real-estate market report from ATTOM.

  And with the housing market embroiled in its worst slump since the recovery began, many of those who have continued paying their mortgages month after month, even though they owe more than the value of their homes, likely won’t find any respite from this situation – at least not any time soon.

  Per ATTOM‘s data, the states with the highest share of mortgages that were seriously underwater included Louisiana (20.8%), Mississippi (16.9%), Arkansas (15.9%), Illinois (15.6%) and Iowa (15.2%). And among all of the 7,590 zip codes with at least 2,500 properties examined in the report by ATTOM, there were a total of 27 where more than half of all properties with a mortgage remained seriously underwater, including zip codes in Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis, Atlantic City, Virginia Beach and Detroit.

  

  (Map courtesy of Bloomberg)

  Of these, the zip codes with the highest share of seriously underwater homes were: 08611 in Trenton, New Jersey (70.3%); 63137 in Saint Louis, Missouri (64.8%); 60426 in Harvey, Illinois (62.3%); 38106 in Memphis, Tennessee (60.5%); and 61104 in Rockford, Illinois (59.6%).

  

  Meanwhile, sates with the highest share of equity rich properties – where the combined estimated amount of loans secured by the property was 50% or less of the property’s estimated market value – included California (43.6%); Hawaii (39.3%); New York (34.2%); Washington (34.2%); and Oregon (32.9%).

   

  

• Facebook: The Government’s Propaganda Arm?

  Authored by Jeff Charles via Liberty Nation,

  The social media giant has a disturbing number of former Obama officials in key positions of authority over content…

  

  Imagine for a moment what it would look like if the federal government launched its own social media network. Every day, Americans could freely use the platform to express their views on everything from economic theory to the best tips for baking peanut butter cookies. They could even discuss their political views and debate the important issues of the day.

  But what if the government were empowered to determine which political views are appropriate and which are too obscene for the American public? Well, it looks like this is already happening. Of course, the state has not created a social media network; they didn’t have to. It appears the government is using Facebook – the world’s largest social media company – to sway public opinion.

  The Government’s Fingers In Facebook

  The Free Thought Project recently published a report revealing that Facebook has some troubling ties to the federal government and that this connection could be enabling former state officials to influence the content displayed. The social media provider has partnered with various think tanks which receive state funding, while hiring an alarming number of individuals who have held prominent positions in the federal government.

  Facebook recently announced their partnership with the Atlantic Council – which is partly funded by tax dollars – to ensure that users are presented with quality news stories. And by “quality,” it seems that they mean “progressive.” The council is well known for promoting far-left news sources, including the Xinhua News Agency, which was founded by the Communist Party of China. Well, that’s reassuring. What red-blooded American capitalist doesn’t want to get the news from a communist regime?

  But there one aspect of this story is even more troubling: the government-to-Facebook pipeline. The company has employed a significant number of former officials in positions that grant them influence over what content is allowed on the platform.

  Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s Head of Cybersecurity Policy, prosecuted cybercrimes at the Department of Justice under President Obama. Now, he is responsible for determining who gets banned or suspended from the network. But that’s not the worst of it. He also spearheaded the company’s initiative to scrub anti-war content and “protest” movements. In a blog post, Gleicher wrote: “Some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption.” He continued, “We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people.”

  The company has also hired others who served in key positions in the Obama administration. Some of these include:

  • Aneesh Raman: Former speechwriter

  • Joel Benenson: Top adviser

  • Meredith Carden: Office of the First Lady

  To make things more interesting, Facebook has also hired neocons to help them determine the type of content that is being published. So if you happen to be a conservative that isn’t too crazy about interventionism, your views are not as welcome on the network as others. After all, how many times have you heard of people being banned for posting pro-war or socialist propaganda?

  Are Private Companies Truly Private?

  The notion that government officials could be using positions of power in the private industry to advance a statist agenda is disturbing, but the fact that most Americans are unaware of this is far worse. It would be inaccurate to argue that the government is controlling Facebook’s content, but the level of the state’s involvement in the world’s biggest social media company is a disturbing development.

  This is not the only case of state officials becoming involved with certain industries. This trend is rampant in the certain industries in which individuals move back and forth between private organizations and the FDA. For example, Monsanto, an agricultural and agrochemical company, has been under scrutiny for its ties to the federal government.

  It is not clear if there is anything that can be done to counteract inappropriate relations between the government and certain companies – especially organizations with the level of influence enjoyed by the likes of Facebook. But it essential that the public is made aware of these relations, otherwise the state will continue to exert influence over society – with Americans none the wiser.

  

• Florida Man Charged In $100 Million Fraud, Triggered Largest Ever Bank Collapse In Puerto Rico 

  A pharmaceutical executive whose lavish Miami lifestyle included fancy automobiles, private jets, yachts, and luxury homes, was found guilty of  federal fraud charges in connection with a $100 million scheme more than a decade ago that triggered the 2010 collapse of Westernbank, one of Puerto Rico’s most prominent banks at the time, reported the US Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs.

  

  Jack Kachkar, 55, was convicted earlier this month of eight counts of wire fraud affecting a significant financial institution following a 21-day trial before U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham in Miami. Kachkar is expected to serve decades behind bars; the sentencing will be held on April 30.

  “Jack Kachkar’s fraud caused substantial harm to the 1,500 employees of Westernbank and the people of Puerto Rico,” said U.S. Attorney Fajardo Orshan. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office remains committed to the prosecution of those individuals and corporations that use Miami and other South Florida communities as their base to operate multinational fraud schemes.”

  “Today’s verdict holds the defendant accountable for orchestrating fraudulent schemes that resulted in more than $100 million in losses to insured institutions and the FDIC as receiver,” said Inspector General Lerner. “The FDIC Office of Inspector General remains committed to investigate cases of deception and swindles that undermine the integrity of financial institutions, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to bring to justice those who commit such offenses.”

  “IRS Criminal Investigation will always pursue investigations like this where Mr. Kachkar, for his own personal benefit, orchestrated such a large scheme at the expense of one of Puerto Rico’s largest banks and its 1,500 employees,” said IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Palma.  “This investigation shows that the appearance of success can be a mask for a tangled financial web of lies, and we are proud to be part of the prosecution team that is bringing Mr. Kachkar to justice.”

  “HSI San Juan will continue working with our local, state and federal partners to investigate and prosecute these types of cases as well as those involving violations to the more than 400 federal statutes that we investigate, “ said HSI Special Agent in Charge Arvelo.  “This man was responsible for one of the largest fraud schemes ever recorded in the banking business in Puerto Rico and he will pay the consequences.”

  “This defendant’s greed was powerful enough to destroy a bank, taking with it the jobs of approximately 1,500 hard working citizens of Puerto Rico,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Leff.  “The FBI thanks the US Attorney’s Office for sending an equally strong message that most fraud schemes will eventually lead to a prison cell.”

  According to the trial evidence, from 2005 to 2007, Kachkar was the CEO of-of Inyx Inc., a publicly traded specialty pharmaceutical products and technologies company. The fraud began in early 2005, Kachkar entered into a series of loan agreements with Westernbank in exchange for collateral in assets of Inyx and its subsidiaries. Under the loan agreements, the bank advanced money based on Inyx’s customer invoices from “actual and bona fide” sales to Inyx customer.

  However, the evidence showed that Kachkar organized a scheme to defraud Westernbank by creating dozens of fake customer invoices worth tens of millions of dollars.

  

  During the course of the scheme, Kachkar falsified and deceived Westernbank loan officers about imminent repayments from its international lenders to continue the scheme of pumping more credit into Inyx.

  Kachkar distorted additional collateral to Westernbank executives, including numerous mines in Mexico and Canada worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  The evidence showed that the additional collateral was worth a fraction of that presented by Kachkar.

  Westernbank lent about $142 million, primarily based on false and fraudulent customer invoices to Kachkar over the two years. The evidence showed he diverted tens of millions of dollars for his benefit, including “a private jet, luxury homes in Key Biscayne and Brickell, Miami, luxury cars, luxury hotel stays, and extravagant jewelry and clothing expenditures,” said the DOJ.

  At the end of the scheme, in the summer of 2007, Westernbank declared a default on the Inyx loans, ultimately suffered losses of more than $100 million. Shortly after, the losses triggered a series of catastrophic events leading to Westernbank’s collapse.

  

• Apocalyptic Sounds In The Sky: No Explanation For "Mysterious Booms And Flashes Of Light" All Across America

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

  For weeks, Americans all over the country have been rattled by extremely loud booming sounds that seem to have no explanation, and they are often accompanied by “mysterious flashes of light”. 

  

  These strange booms are shaking homes and rattling windows, and some witnesses say that they sound like cannons being fired.  And even though the “mystery booms” and accompanying flashes of light have been captured on camera all across the nation, so far the authorities do not have a reasonable explanation for why they are happening.  Unfortunately, it does not appear that this strange phenomenon is going to go away any time soon.  In fact, the Sun is reporting that the frequency of these “mystery booms” appears “to have gathered pace over the past week”…

  MYSTERY booming sounds have been shaking houses and terrifying residents after “flashes of light” were spotted across America.

  Experts have been left baffled by a spate of seismic booms from Arizona to New York that appear to have gathered pace over the past week.

  Over this last weekend, this mystery started to get much more national attention after an incident in Rhode Island on Saturday was followed by one in New York City on Sunday…

  On Saturday, loud bangs were reported in Rhode Island, where Jeremy Braza’s doorbell captured a video and audio of a loud noise over a three minute period.

  “The whole house shook,” he told TurnTo10.com. “It woke my wife up, woke up all my children.”

  The following night an explosion was heard in New York, accompanied by a mysterious flash in the sky.

  “What the heck was that boom or explosion in park slope Brooklyn?”, asked Matt Wasowski on Twitter.

  But of course this is not just an east coast phenomenon.  For example, a “loud boom” that was reported in Tennessee on January 31st was heard across three separate counties…

  It began on January 31 when residents of three separate counties in Tennessee reported hearing a loud boom around 11:30 a.m. Local chemical plants were contacted but reported nothing anomalous. Authorities in Bradley, McInn, and Polk counties are still investigating what could have caused such a powerful noise.

  And during that same time frame, numerous North Carolina residents called authorities to report “unexplained loud blasts and booms”…

  That same day, local news in North Carolina reported that people in Wake and Franklin counties have been calling law enforcement agencies to report unexplained loud blasts and booms that keep them awake at night. Two homeowners even reported that the booms are so powerful that they have briefly lost power as a result of the tremors. So far, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office has been unable to pinpoint the source of the booms.

  A few days later, “strange explosion-like sounds” were being reported by numerous residents in New Orleans…

  The mystery surrounding the strange explosion-like sounds heard by residents in the metro area continues to grow. Late Monday night, several were heard in Lakeview, one of which was caught on camera by Eyewitness News.

  A story that began in Mid-City, has taken crews to Harahan, River Ridge and Wagaman. Now we go to Lakeview, where late Monday night, the mysterious ‘booms’ were heard again.

  Are you starting to see a pattern?

  Large booming sounds are being reported all over the nation, and often those large booming sounds are being accompanied by massive flashes of light.  But in every case, the authorities have absolutely no idea what is causing this to happen.

  And in case you were wondering if this was just happening in the eastern half of the country, here is a little taste of what has been going on in Tucson, Arizona…

  Faye DeHoff wrote, “first it was a major rattle…like a huge truck about to plow into my home…then the boom..that shook my windows…I was sure some of them were broken but they didn’t…my dog jumped up! I’m at River & Campbell.”

  Ray C. Merrill wrote, “Oracle and Roger, it was shaking pretty good, and long enough for me to watch the blinds dance around, then get up and walk to the doorway, and it was still shaking.”

  There was a similar sensation last week on Thursday, Jan 31 at 8:51 a.m. The same phenomenon; a rumble causing homes to shake and windows to rattle. I felt this one too on the northwest side and once again, so did so many others on Facebook all across Tucson and surrounding areas.

  Some news reports are referring to these strange sounds as “seismic booms”, but there are no corresponding seismic events to back up that claim.

  At this point we have a complete and total mystery on our hands.  On YouTube, Jason A has done a great job of compiling news reports about these “mystery booms” from all over America, and you can watch his video right here.

  We have entered a period of time when we should expect the unexpected.  Things are strange and they are going to get a whole lot stranger.  We aren’t always going to be able to explain what is happening, but without a doubt our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and that growing instability is going to cause great chaos in the months and years ahead.

  I wish that I knew what was causing all of these “mystery booms”, but I don’t.  Thankfully they don’t appear to be causing any serious damage, and hopefully that won’t change.

  Let’s just hope that all of this “shaking” is not leading up to something much bigger, because it isn’t going to take much to push America into a state of utter chaos right now.

  

• Chicago Mayor Proposes Paying 1,000 Residents $1,000 A Month "With No Strings Attached"

  When it comes to US cities in dire financial straits, one stands out: the one that has the nation’s leading murder rate, dreary lake-effect weather, endemic corruption and financial mismanagement. It is also the city that experienced the highest daily population exodus in the US (following by and New York and Los Angeles), losing 156 residents a day (strictly due to migration, not murder in case there is confusion) a day in 2017. We are talking of course, about Chicago.

  

  Chicago is also the city that has the country’s bleakest retirement future, as each Chicagoan would have to pony up $140,000 to make the city’s pension system solvent.

  

  If that wasn’t enough, Chicago is resorting to outright ponzi schemes to fund itself, proposing the issuance of $10 billion in debt to “fund” the $28 billion shortfall in the pension fund that goes toward the police, firefighters and other municipal employees.

  So within this fortress of fiscal rectitude, what is Chicago’s next plan? Why to literally hand out money.

  According to ABC 7 Chicago, select Chicago families could start collecting a $1,000 check every month with no strings attached, according to a new proposal from a task force created by Mayor Emanuel.

  The purpose of the pilot program proposed by the “Chicago Resilient Families Task Force“, which is the latest incarnation of the “basic income”/helicopter money utopia that has gripped America’s left in recent months, despite glaring examples on the global arena that basic income simply does not work to boost overall living standards, is a noble one – to break the cycle of poverty by giving 1,000 struggling Chicagoans $1,000 a month. Supporters of the program say people could use the extra cash to cover unexpected emergencies, increase their savings and improve their health.

  According to the 50-page proposal, “guaranteed income can have powerful effects: significant reductions in poverty; ability to cover an unexpected emergency; improved school attendance; an increase in savings; and improvements to health and well-being. These are goals every Chicagoan can get behind.”

  To justify the plan, the pilot program included a scatterplot chart showing historical basic income programs in the world, and how they compare to the Chicago proposal, which among others includes that of Iran and Finland.

  

  Which brings us to the key question: where will money come from. In a nutshell, the proposal sees funds coming from a mix of city funds and philanthropic charity, although as even the pilot program points out, there is a “critical next step”:

  Financial considerations rank as one of the most crucial facets of conducting a policy pilot. It is clear that funding must be secured and insulated from being diverted elsewhere before the pilot has started. Subjects must be informed well in advance as to the minimum time line for their disbursement. Funding for policy pilots generally comes from two main sources: philanthropic  organizations or from a government budget. Other sources may include grant or “in-house” funding (whereby the research organization may itself finance the pilot). Policy pilots and other such experimental endeavors tend to be funded via philanthropic, grant, and in-house sources. Of course, policy pilots tend to look to several sources of funding to meet budgetary requirements.

  And the punchline: “Determining who will take ownership of the pilot and lead fundraising is a critical next step.” This is an issue because as we discussed just a few hours earlier, a recent basic income program in Finland ended up being a bust from an economic standpoint as no new jobs were created, even if it was – predictably – a smashing hedonic success as participants were quite happier, as one would expect when getting money for free.

  Alas, when it comes to the socioeconomic consequences, it appears that basic income, whether wrapped in an MMT, Helicopter Money, or simply charity wrapper, is a failure:

  “The recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market”, Ohto Kanninen, research coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research, said in a statement.

  Give people free money for doing nothing, with no conditions, and they will be happier to sit around all day in non-productive utopia.

  And some even bad news for Chicago, which was quick to point out the Finnish basic income trial as a case study: Finland’s social affairs minister, Pirkko Mattila, conceded on Friday that the government has no plans to roll out the scheme across the whole country.

  As a reminder, in 2017, Swiss voters rejected a proposed universal income in a referendum after critics slammed the idea as rewarding the lazy and the feckless (and Finland just abandoned their Universal Basic Income experiment). However, in Chicago, a city so broke it needs to issue new debt just to pay interest on its existing debt, and where it is difficult to see how any economic initiative could possibly make the situation any worse, it just might work. After all, Chicago truly has nothing left to lose.

  

• Why MMT (Ultimately) Doesn't Matter

  Authored by Peter Earle via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Last year, internet searches for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) numbered approximately 100 per month; in the years and decades before that, the weekly total searches numbered mostly in single digits. Yet in the first few weeks of this year, searches have topped 100 per day and seem to be on an uptrend. People who’ve never heard the term “chartalism” are speaking — and acting — as if a new and groundbreaking discovery has been made; “a new kind of science” in the realm of economics, situated neatly upon the doorsill of a new decade. It’s perplexing to see a theory which holds that governments can’t really go broke because they can always create more currency capture imaginations, if still largely on the periphery of discourse.

  

  For years, Austrian School perspectives have been taken to task for failing to “predict” (which, in fact, they have and continue to). Yet MMT not only doesn’t predict anything; it fails to explain the state of nature better than existing, prevailing models. Social science, like its physical counterpart, advances by virtue of two key determinants: phenomenological explanations which are demonstrably superior to existing ones, and funerals. Even neoclassical economists, regularly critical of Austrian, monetarist and other views, hold that — as has been demonstrated in every era, within every culture, and upon every continent — bad monetary and/or fiscal policies ultimately result in economic breakdown and destitution.

  Whether the rapid decline and ultimate disappearance of the individual propensity to hold a fiat currency are purely monetary, entirely psychological, or a combination of the two, the circumstances leading to it reappears consistently throughout history. Every one of the scores of known cases of hyperinflation dating back over 700 years bears witness to a reckless, breakneck campaign of money creation preceding it.

  Blaming psychology for hyperinflationary episodes also, and far more ominously, hints at the same conclusion which virtually all collectivist governments come to after their starry-eyed schemes initially fail: that human nature, not the hubris that attends attempts to overthrow the fundamentals of supply and demand, is at fault. And thus that human beings, and not policy, needforceful readjustment.

  Holding that inflation — of either the ‘vanilla’ or hyper- varieties — is overwhelmingly the product of wars or exogenous events is also wholly misleading. It is always and only the political reaction to exogenous events which determines economic outcomes.

  Such an approach also bypasses the issue of the garden variety of inflationary outbreak. To be sure, while it would surely not be as ruinous nor as fast-acting as classic hyperinflation, a rise in inflation to a “mere” 8%, 15%, or 20% per annum would have a sizably adverse impact upon individuals living on fixed incomes, financial markets, and general economic calculation: the functioning of firms, markets for goods and services, and the financial choices of families, communities, and organizations.

  Furthermore, MMT is invariably (and almost exclusively) invoked proximate to incomprehensibly expensive government program proposals: a so-called Jobs Guarantee (estimated cost approaching, and likely exceeding, $1T per year), “Medicare for All” (estimated cost: $32T over ten years), and a “Green New Deal” (estimated costs ranging from $7T to $13T to $49T to implement).

  (Also: considering that MMT contemplates a “closed loop” whereby money is created and later taxed away, it is likely that any practical implementation will necessarily subsume cashlesseconomy diktats.)

  Add to all of this the bunker mentality of many MMT proponents, who frequently refuse to discuss the assumptions upon which MMT operates by dismissing those who question them as disingenuous – and there is more than enough reason to suspect that MMT is not new, far from scientific, and explains nothing. It is at best a scientistic vehicle that exists only to provide an academic imprimatur for unlimited government spending.

  Yet I’m not worried about MMT.

  Actually, I am – a little. History demonstrates that betting against the willingness of people – Americans, specifically, who have the greatest record of fawning over political and economic views which defenestrate the very basis of the prosperity which gives both the leisure time and technological reach to permit intellectual flights of fancy – to embrace that which flies in the face of demonstrable evidence, is a sucker’s bet.

  One of the major dangers of powerful states – indeed, states in general – is that with a single vote or the stroke of a pen a lot of damage can be done. But any pain will only be temporary.

  It comes down to one word: Bitcoin. Actually, I should be more specific: crypto.

  At this very moment, there are hundreds of independent teams of developers in dorm rooms, garages, basements, apartments, rented offices, and other such locations working on both subtle tweaks to existing cryptocurrency issues and wholly new coins and assets: thousands, maybe tens of thousands of individuals, all over the world, silently but inexorably expanding the bounds within which individuals can extricate and divorce their personal lives from the inimical policy implementations of expanding states.

  At ten years old, the list of places where Bitcoin — and crypto more generally — has been the single bulwark between people and utter ruin grows annually. As long ago as 2013, Bitcoin (then less than $100) surged as individuals banked in Cyprus used it to escape the bank levy — a ploy in which politicians explicitly sought to seize private deposits in order to paper over their policy errors and banks’ losses owing to them.

  All across Africa, South America, and Asia — and regardless of Bitcoin’s exchange rate at the time — the unbanked have, owing to the ubiquity of mobile and cell phone ownership, been able to engage in saving, consuming, remittances and entrepreneurialism despite previously insurmountable sanctions, financial surveillance, and fees associated with transfers, banking, etc.

  In Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Turkey, and anywhere else that economic hardships have surfaced — over time, or overnight — Bitcoin and crypto more generally have given individuals the opportunity to safeguard their economic liberty and in some cases their very lives. In places where economic life is viable but burdensome, cryptocurrency access provides an outlet.

  Time may prove this incorrect, but at present MMT seems to be little more than a pernicious, academically-garbed attempt to overcome the unwelcome (and repeatedly evinced) fact that governments are as tied to economic limits as firms and individuals are. But a more fundamental truth precedes this: if implemented, and whether at that time Bitcoin, another crypto issue, or another, yet-undiscovered innovation has surfaced, liberty will always find a way to triumph — even when the utopian plans of authoritarian regimes are briefly in control.

  

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• American Suspension Of INF Treaty Is Aimed At China

  Authored by Anatoly Karlin via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  So it’s done. The US has suspended its participation in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Russia soon followed suit. This almost certainly spells an end to this late Cold War relic, which banned the two superpowers from deploying ground-launched ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500km. There have been recriminations all round. But in the end, so far as two of the world’s three most greatest military Powers are concerned, upholding the INF Treaty could never have been done exactly to the letter.

  

  The US has specified Russia’s Novator 9M729 (NATO designation: SSC-8) as the offending missile that finally prompted US action. Russian nuclear weapons analyst Pavel Podvig has noted that it is very similar to the Russian Navy’s Kalibr-NK cruise missile, which has a range well beyond 500 km and has been touted as a potential “carrier killer”. Podvig goes on to speculate that if the US had observed a test of the 9M729 from a land-based Iskander-M launcher – even if on just a single occasion – then all of them “would have to be eliminated” by the formal terms of the treaty. This is obviously not something that Russia could reasonably be expected to carry out.

  Moreover, any number of US missile systems can be considered to be in breach of the INF Treaty. For instance, the Russians have argued that America’s AEGIS Ashore program – a ground-based cruise missile, for all intents and purposes – can also be considered to be in systemic breach of the INF Treaty. Incidentally, this system was itself enabled by America’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, under the George W. Bush administration.

  Trump has been taking heat for the INF withdrawal from the usual quarters. For instance, the top comment on this story at r/politics – a bastion of online Trump/Putin Derangement Syndrome – lambasts the US President for spoiling America’s image and letting down its allies instead of sanctioning Russia. (Naturally, no mention of where exactly it says that breaking the Treaty is grounds for such). In reality, dissatisfaction with the INF Treaty had been building up for years within the previous Obama administration, and NATO has released a statement of support for Trump’s decision. There is no significant division on this matter either within US political circles, or its transatlantic allies.

  Because at the end of the day, rhetoric to the contrary, nobody really cares about the INF Treaty within Europe. Force levels on both sides of the border between the West and Russia – which has moved 1,000-1,500 km to the east, in large part thanks to NATO’s broken promises not to expand – are at a small fraction of Cold War levels. Few seriously believe that Russia has any territorial designs on the Baltics, and even on the off chance that it does, it’s not like the 9M729 is going to make any cardinal difference.

  However, it is with respect to the balance of power in the West Pacific that the restrictions imposed by the INF on the US – but not on China – come into play. While consensus expert opinion holds that the US still retains dominance in the South China Sea vis-à-vis China, its margin of superiority is shrinking year by year. In a 2015 report, the RAND Corporation estimated that the number of US air wings required to defeat a surge of attacking Chinese aircraft over Taiwan increased from just a couple in 1996 to 30 by 2017. In a subsequent report released in the following year, we see the balance of power in potential China-US conflict scenarios shift from a terminal Chinese disadvantage in 1996, to parity over Taiwan by 2017 (though they believe that the US still holds a decisive advantage in a conflict over the Spratly Islands). Even so, it is especially notable that the only two categories in a conflict over Taiwan in which RAND now considers China to hold an advantage – “Chinese attacks on air bases” and “Chinese anti-surface warfare” – are both spheres in which intermediate-range ballistic missiles would play an important role.

  This is not just my supposition. In another 2016 RAND report, tellingly titled “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable”, this consideration is stated openly and forthrightly:

  “US land-based missiles from 500 km to 5,500 km are prohibited by the INF treaty, whereas the Chinese missiles are not, giving China a significant advantage.”

  It has long been obvious that the US (correctly) regards China as the real long-term threat to its global hegemony. Meanwhile, Russia is a mere nuisance, a “dying bear” that is ever approaching collapse, in the wake of which Moscow will have no choice but to sign up to America’s China containment project. (Sure, this sounds like a crazy ideological narrative, and it is – but the US policy of alienating Russia and drawing it into a quasi-alliance with China is even crazier – just ask Kissinger). But like it or not, this really is how the American elites think, and it can’t be denied that there is a certain logic to it.

  In this context, withdrawal from the INF Treaty – with Russia’s alleged violations as pretext – is just the logical next step to the military component of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, one that the US is entirely happy to continue and follow through with. It really is as banal as that.

  

• 5 Key Innovations Driving The Future Of Cannabis

  It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention.

  As cannabis breaks into the mainstream, Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh points out that the complex web of regulations surrounding the plant may well be what compels the industry to think outside the box.

  Today’s infographic from Valens GroWorks highlights some of the most anticipated areas of technology-based disruption in “cannabiz” – the business behind cannabis.

  

  POTENTIAL INDUSTRY GAME-CHANGERS

  As the cannabis industry grows, the business behind it must grow as well – and to get an edge, industry players are investing in new technologies and innovative practices that could be industry game-changers.

  Here are some of the most disruptive moves happening that could shape the future of cannabis:

  AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

  As consumers become more discerning, they’ve come to demand premium quality cannabis. That’s why many indoor growers are exploring various means to improve the productivity of cannabis plants.

  • Cloud-controlled lights
    Using cloud-based IoT technology, cultivators can remotely adjust the colors and cycles of growing lights that cannabis plants are exposed to in their operations. Such precise control ensures consistency in plant quality.
  • Tissue culture
    Essentially, tissue culture is the multiplication of a single cannabis tissue into hundreds of identical ones. While this method is impressive, it’s incredibly tricky to get right at scale.

  Biotech breeding is another upcoming trend to watch out for. Just like the ubiquitous GMO foods you can find in a grocery store, the genetic manipulation of cannabis plants to strengthen specific effects could take the industry by storm.

  NOVEL DELIVERY

  Millions of patients in North America rely on medical cannabis, which will only intensify as states continue to legalize its use. For the longest time, prescribed cannabis has relied on smoking – but extraction technology is introducing new delivery methods.

  • Vaporizer Pens
    These pocket-sized pens can deliver a controlled cannabis dose, with lower chances of including dangerous chemicals. The latest models include Bluetooth capabilities and smartphone apps to customize vape temperatures, among other features.
  • Oils and Tinctures
    Cannabis concentrates, packaged into capsules or as liquid, can be used in vape pens or ingested directly. They also provide a small, controlled cannabis dose, and act fast in a patient’s system.

  CONSUMER PRODUCTS

  Recreational consumers won’t be left behind. This growing segment is enjoying cannabis-based products in a myriad of ways, made possible by new extraction technologies.

  • Nano-technology
    Water soluble oils demonstrate their potent effects quickly through the bloodstream, instead of relying on the slow-acting respiratory or digestive systems.
  • Topicals
    With a wide range of skincare products in the market, these cannabis-infused lotions can applied to the skin’s surface, where they are absorbed for a relaxing effect.

  CASHLESS PAYMENTS

  Despite the increasing legality of “cannabiz”, many businesses and their customers prefer to deal with cash. Financial institutions are also wary of investing in cannabis, as it’s still perceived as risky in certain circles.

  To that end, fintech has stepped up to the plate. Secure and automated transactions can be made and processed via the blockchain, potentially creating an anonymous and convenient way for consumers and companies to transact.

  DATA AND ANALYTICS

  Cannabis is finally coming out of hiding, but records around point-of-sale transactions are still lacking. Providing context for such data to give it meaning is difficult, but lucrative.

  Leveraging big data to track the cannabis supply chain has secondary advantages of easing the regulatory process, and putting customer demand into perspective. What’s more, digital transaction data on these consumers also offers future opportunities for businesses to address their needs.

  As the cannabis space steadily progresses, cannabis companies that respond and adapt to these broad trends of tech innovation will be poised for success.

  Tech innovation and ongoing R&D are ingredients that the industry needs to continue to mature and grow.

  – Michael Garbuz, CannRoyalty Corporate Strategist

  

• How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump's Coup In Venezuela

  Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  On Monday, February 5th, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the 14 countries of the Lima Group — who had actually formed themselves under her direction into this new group on 8 August 2017 in order to overthrow and replace Venezuela’s current President Nicholas Maduro — have now been joined (though she didn’t say to what extent) by the EU, and by 8 other individual countries. She stated:

  “Today, we have been joined by our Lima Group partners, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia. We have also been joined in our conversations with our partners from other countries, for this Lima Group ministerial meeting. These include Ecuador, the European Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”

  She, along with US President Donald Trump, had, all along, been the actual leaders of this international diplomatic effort, to violate the Venezuelan Constitution blatantly, so as to perpetrate the coup in Venezuela.

  

  Her active effort to replace Venezuela’s Government began with her formation of the Lima Group, nearly two years ago.

  Canada’s Ottawa Citizen headlined on 19 August 2017, “Choosing Danger”, and their reporter Peter Hum interviewed Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Rowswell, who was then retiring from the post. Rowswell said that Venezuelans who wanted an overthrow of their Government would continue to have the full support of Canada’s Government:

  “‘I think that some of them were sort of anx­ious that it (the em­bassy’s support for hu­man rights and democ­racy in Venezuela) might not con­tinue after I left,’ Rowswell said. ‘I don’t think they have any­thing to worry about be­cause Minister (of For­eign Af­fairs Chrys­tia) Free­land has Venezuela way at the top of her pri­or­ity list.’”

  Maybe it wasn’t yet at the top of Trump’s list, but it was at the top of hers. And she and Trump together chose whom to replace Venezuela’s President, Nicholas Maduro, by: Juan Guaido. Guaido had secretly courted other Latin American leaders for this, just as Freeland had already done, by means of her secretly forming the Lima Group.

  On 25 January 2019, the AP bannered “AP Exclusive: Anti-Maduro coalition grew from secret talks” and reported that the man who now claims to be Venezuela’s legitimate President (though he had never even run for that post), Juan Guaido, had secretly visited foreign countries in order to win their blessings for what he was planning:

  In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to brief officials on the opposition’s strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro’s expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally.

  Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido [9 January 2019] the night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony [on 10 January 2019] to offer her government’s support should he confront the socialist leader [Maduro], the Canadian official said. Also active was Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela and has received more than two million migrants fleeing economic chaos, along with Peru and Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

  To leave Venezuela, he sneaked across the lawless border with Colombia, so as not to raise suspicions among immigration officials who sometimes harass opposition figures at the airport and bar them from traveling abroad, said a different anti-government leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security arrangements.

  During the last days in office of Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela Rowswell, US President Donald Trump went public with his overt threat to invade Venezuela. On 11 August 2017, McClatchy’s Miami Herald bannered “Trump was making friends in Latin America — before he raised Venezuela ‘military option’”, and Patricia Mazzei reported that “President Donald Trump’s unexpected suggestion Fridaythat he might rely on military force to deal with Venezuela’s pressing political crisis was an astonishing statement that strained not only credulity but also the White House’s hard-won new friendships in Latin America.” Even a spokesperson from the Atlantic Council (which is the main PR agency for NATO) was quoted as saying that “US diplomats, after weeks of carefully building the groundwork for a collective international response, suddenly find their efforts completely undercut by a ridiculously over the top and anachronistic assertion. It makes us look imperialistic and old-time. This is not how the US has behaved in decades!” However, Peru’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Luna, was just as eager for a coup in Venezuela as were Trump and Freeland.

  On 26 October 2017, Peru’s Gestion TV reported that Luna was the co-Chair of the meeting of the Lima Group in Toronto, which Freeland chaired, and that (as translated into English here) “Luna added that the objective of the meeting of the Group of Lima ‘is to create a propitious situation’ so that the regime of Nicolás Maduro ‘feels obligated to negotiate’ not only an exit to the crisis, ‘but also an exit to his own regime’.” This gang were going to make Maduro an offer that he couldn’t refuse. So, the Lima Group, which was founded by Luna and by Freeland, was taking the initiative as much and as boldly as Trump was, regardless of what NATO might think about it. The topic of that news-report, and its headline, was “Peru proposes Grupo de Lima to involve the UN to face the Venezuelan crisis.”

  Four days later, Freeland and Luna met privately at the UN, in New York, with the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. Inner City Press reported that “The title of the meeting is ‘the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter’ [see it here] and the briefer will be not USG [Under Secretary General] Jeffrey Feltman but his Assistant, ASG [Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs] Miroslav Jenca.” Jeffrey Feltman was the person who, in the secretly recorded 27 January 2014 phone-conversation in which US President Barack Obama’s agent, Victoria Nuland — planning and overseeing the February 2014 coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President — instructed the US Ambassador to Ukraine, that, after Ukraine’s President is ousted, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk was to be appointed as Ukraine’s ‘interim’ leader as the new Prime Minister, to replace the President. She also said: “I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning; he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry. … He’s now gotten both Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. That would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and to have the UN help glue it, and, you know, fuck the EU.” So, the still Under Secretary General of the U.N, Mr. Feltman, is still America’s fixer there, who “glues” whatever the US President orders the UN to do, and his Assistant was filling in for him that day. Therefore, if Trump and Freeland turn out to be as successful as Obama was, then the UN will “glue” the outcome. Chrystia Freeland happens also to be a friend of Victoria Nuland, and a passionate supporter of her coup in Ukraine.

  Freeland’s parents were Ukrainian and supported the Nazis during World War II. Cameron Pike headlined about Freeland at The Saker, on 2 February 2019, “Canada’s Nazi Problem” and opened:

  In the 1960’s the Polish government, still reeling from their role as the main course of the European ‘meat-sandwich’ that was the second world war, went on the hunt for Nazi aiders and abettors who destroyed their people. Contrary to what mainstream readers are allowed to know, WWII Nazi and Waffen SS leaders, Goebbels’s publishers and editors (otherwise known as propagandists), willing and outright Nazi collaborators and vicious killers, made their way out of conquered Germany to the United States [under CIA direction] and to Canada, under MI-6 direction, [and Canada] took in 2000 of them. Most of them ‘made their way’ to Ontario and Alberta. One of them even became the President of the University of Alberta. I repeat, one of them EVEN BECAME THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA. … It was this former Waffen SS soldier-turned University President who created the Ukrainian Studies department at the U of A. … Michael Chomiak, another of these significant Nazis who were never caught, lived out his days after the war as a farmer in Alberta. His Nazi identification documents were uncovered by the Polish Government in the 1960’s. “Chomiak’s records show he was trained in Vienna for German espionage and propaganda operations, then promoted to run the German press machine for the Galician region of Ukraine and Poland during the 4-year occupation. So high-ranking and active in the Nazi cause was Chomiak that the Polish intelligence services were actively hunting for Chomiak until the 1980s – without knowing he had fled for safety to an Alberta farm in Canada.” [Editing note: Please see link for John Helmer’s extensive work on uncovering Freeland’s Nazi family history.] Poland was on the hunt but lost the trail because he was well hidden by their WWII ‘ally’, the British, unbeknownst to my fellow peaceful Canadians.

  Chomiac was Chrystia Freeland’s father. Chrystia Freeland loves him very much and is unshakably loyal to his memory and to his far-right beliefs, which she proudly supports. She also is a close friend of George Soros, who likewise is entirely unembarrassed at, and unapologietic about, his having, as a supposed Christian child in Hungary, helped the Nazis take the property of other Jews, before they were sent off to the concentration camps. He chose to do that — help the Nazi regime — rather than die as a Jew himself. Of course, subsequently, he founded the rabidly anti-Russian Open Society Foundation and other political ‘charities’ to tax-exempt his global political donations. Soros, too, is a passionate supporter of the US coup in Ukraine and of Ukraine’s far-right, and helped to finance (tax-exempt via his International Renaissance Fund) Obama’s Ukrainian coup by being one of the three top donors to Hromadske TV, which propagandized for slaughtering at least one and a half million of the people in the far eastern region of Ukraine, where Obama’s imposed far-right Ukrainian government was totally rejected. It’s the region that had voted over 90% for the Ukrainian President whom Obama-Nuland overthrew, and George Soros was a top funder of such exterminationist propaganda. So, it’s reasonable that his fellow anti-Russian fanatic, Freeland, is a friend of his.

  That’s the “liberal” side of fascism. The “conservative” side of it is represented by such people as John Bolton and the Koch brothers.

  Of course, the man whom the US and Canadian regimes and the Lima Group are trying to install as Venezuela’s President, Juan Guaido, had been well groomed for that job, but not by political and electoral experience, of which he has almost none, but by his foreign sponsors. On 29 January 2019 the Gray Zone Project bannered “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader”, and their two star investigative journalists, Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, opened: “Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.” This report also noted that “The ‘real work’ began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington, DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [and the IMF is a central part the operation that’s described in John Perkins’s now-classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man] who spent more than a decade working in the Venezuelan energy sector, under the old oligarchic regime that was ousted by Chávez.” Moreover, ”Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.” Etc. This is how ‘democracy’ now functions. It’s not democracy — it is fascism. The euphemisms for it are “neoliberalism” and “neoconservatism.”

  Regardless of whether or not the Trump-Freeland-Luna program for Venezuela succeeds, democracy and human rights won’t be advanced by it; but, if it succeeds, the fortunes of US-and-allied billionaires will be. It’s part of their global privatization program.

  PS: If you want to understand what was the historical context where Inner City Press reported that “The title of the meeting is ‘the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter’”; then Luk Van Langenhove has summarized that context, by saying: “Few invocations of Chapter VIII’s provisions were made during the cold war period. But when the bipolar world system collapsed and spawned new global security threats, the explosion of local and regional armed conflicts provoked a renewed interest in regional organizations and their role in the maintenance of regional peace and security. The United Nations was forced to acknowledge its inability to solely bear the responsibility for providing peace and security worldwide.” So, “during the cold war period,” this provision of the UN Charter remained virtually inactive. Then, suddenly, after 1991, when the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance to counter America’s NATO military alliance, all ended (with no concessions being made on the American side), America could no longer use ‘communism’ as a ‘justification’ to invade or perpetrate coups against foreign governments that were friendly toward or else allied with Russia. So, now, this provision of the UN’s Charter became activated by the US and its allies, in order to be able to say that The West’s coups and invasions aren’t actually to build-out the US empire, but are instead for (in the terms of this part of the UN’s Charter) “the maintenance of international peace and security” — so as to ‘authorize’ coups and international invasions by the US and its vassal nations, such as are the members of NATO. This is what US President G.H.W. Bush had in mind to rely upon, when he told the leaders of the US regime’s vassal states, secretly at Camp David, on the night of 24 February 1990, that the ‘Cold War’ would now continue secretly on the US-allied side, against Russia and against any nation’s leaders (such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and Viktor Yanukovych) that aren’t hostile toward Russia, by Bush’s saying then to them, that no compromise must ever be allowed “with Moscow,” because “To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn’t.” In other words, whereas the UN had been set up by FDR to evolve ultimately into the global democratic federation of nation-states — a democratic world-government — so as to become the sole possessor of control over all strategic weaponry, and thus to become the democratic republic of the entire world authorized to settle international disputes peacefully, the subterranean Nazis and other fascists whom US President Truman and the Bilderberg group represented, were determined that the US and its vassal nations would ultimately become the dictatorship over all nations, the entire world. That’s what Ukraine, and now Venezuela, and many other US coups and invasions, are — and have been — really about. It’s about the ‘peace’ of the graveyard, NOT any democracy, anywhere at all.

  That’s their dream. They want to monopolize the corruption everywhere, not to end it, anywhere. And that’s why they distort and blatantly lie about Venezuela’s democratic constitution now, just as they did about Ukraine’s democratic constitution in February 2014. It’s, essentially, a lawless international gang of billionaire thugs. It is the international Deep State. It consists of the under 2,000 people who are international billionaires in the US and secondarily in the US-allied countries, and of those billionaires’ millions of hirees. 585 of those under-2,000 are Americans. But the wealthiest person on the planet isn’t even listed on any of the standard lists of billionaires, and he is the King of Saudi Arabia. That person is the US aristocracy’s #1 international ally, because ever since the 1970s when gold no longer backed the US dollar but instead oil did, that person’s decisions have enabled the US dollar to continue as being the world’s reserve currency, no matter how big the US economy’s trade deficits are, and no matter how high the US Government’s fiscal deficits are.

  Below those billionaires (and trillionaire), and below their millions of hirees, are the billions of serfs; and, below those, at the very bottom, are the approximately 40 million slaves, and the many millions imprisoned — virtually all of whom have extremely low (if any) net worth at all, since slavery and imprisonment are, in the real world, only for the very poor, not at all for the international gangsters, except for a very few exceptions (such as, perhaps, “El Chapo”).

  The billionaires command, and the governments obey; that’s ‘democracy’, and it’s ‘the rule of law’, today. Everything to the contrary is propaganda, such as that what Trump-Freeland-Luna want for Venezuela is to decrease corruption and to increase democracy and human rights.

  At least the more blatant fascist John Bolton was honest when he said on January 28th: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” But he would have been lots more honest if he had acknowledged, instead, that “It will make a big difference to the United States billionaires economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” This is all that the fascists ever really cared about. Mussolini called it “corporationism.” Now, decades in the wake of the Allies’ supposed ‘victory against fascism’ — against the Axis powers — in WW II, we all (at least the realists) are acknowledging that we clearly are staring in the face the raw fact that fascism has finally won, or at least very nearly totally won, in the world.

  Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito, died; but their ideological followers today rule the world, and FDR would be turning in his grave.

  

• In Rare Interview, Ivanka Trump Says She's "Not Worried" About Mueller Indictments

  Despite serving as a senior advisor to her father (alongside her husband, Jared Kushner), Ivanka Trump has managed to avoid the media spotlight since the early days of her father’s administration, when a flurry of leaks focused on the battle for influence between Ivanka, Jared and former Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn and the nationalist contingent led by Steve Bannon.

  But in a rare interview with ABC’s “The View” that comes just days after President Trump committed to passing paid family leave during his State of the Union address – and after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff intimated that her brother, Don Jr., may have perjured himself during closed-door testimony to the Intelligence Committee – Ivanka told her interviewer that she’s “not worried” about Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicting her, or any members of her family, being indicted by Mueller.

  

  Asked “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman whether she’s worried about “anyone in your life that you love being involved” in the probe, Ivanka replied that she has “zero concern” about any future indictments.

  “Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love being involved?” Huntsman asked.

  “I’m not. I’m really not,” Ivanka replied.

  She also said she knew little about talks between the Trump Organization and Russia back in 2015 about the possibility of building a Trump Tower Moscow. She also backed up her father’s characterization of the Moscow deal as something that was merely “floating around” and that it was not “an advanced project.”

  “Literally almost nothing,” she said when asked about her knowledge of the deal. “We were an active business.”

  “There was never a binding contract. I never talked to the – with a third party outside of the organization about it. It was one of – I mean we could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Nobody visited it to see if it was worth our time. So this was not exactly like an advanced project.”

  Reports that Mueller’s probe may soon be ending have stoked speculation that the special counsel might be closing in on indicting more members of Trump’s inner circle, with Don Jr. and Jared frequently speculated as potential subjects of indictments.

  Watch the interview below:

  

• The U.S. Faces A Catastrophic Food Supply Crisis In America As Farmers Struggle

  Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

  American farmers are battling several issues when it comes to producing our food.  Regulated low prices, tariffs, and the inability to export have all cut into the salaries of farmers.  They are officially in crisis mode, just like the United States’ food supply.

  

  “The farm economy’s in pretty tough shape,” said John Newton, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation.

  “When you look out on the horizon of things to come, you start to see some cracks.”

  Average farm income has fallen to near 15-year lows under president Donald Trump’s policies, and in some areas of the country, farm bankruptcies are soaring.  And with slightly higher interest rates, many don’t see borrowing more money as an option.  “A lot of farmers are going to give the president the benefit of the doubt, and have to date. But the longer the trade war goes on, the more that dynamic changes,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, according to Politico.

  With no end to the disastrous trade war in sight, many farmers have traveled to Washington to share their plights with the president himself hoping that he’ll end the trade war that’s exacerbating an already precarious food crisis.  Farmers make up a fairly large chunk of president Trump’s base, and an unwillingness to put food production in the United States first could be detrimental for Trump reelection chances in 2020. It could also be the beginning of a catastrophic food shortage.

  

  The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis warned back in November of rising Chapter 12 bankruptcies used by family farmers to restructure massive amounts of debt. The Fed said that the strain of low commodity prices “is starting to show up not just in bottom-line profitability, but in simple viability.” The increase in bankruptcies was driven by woes in Wisconsin’s dairy sector, which shrunk by about 1,200 operations, or 13 percent, from 2016 to October 2018.

  “You’ve had farms that have gone out of business, that have gone bankrupt because of this trade war,” said Kuehl of Farmers for Free Trade.

  “There’s a lot of farmers going through tough conversations right now with their lenders.”

  And so far, the government’s solution to the problem they created is to give more welfare to farmers, placing the burden on the backs of taxpayers.

  As the government continues to pass the burden onto others while destroying the food industry, things could very well reach apocalyptic levels.  Nothing will see this country spiral into complete disarray like a lack of food. Alarmingly, scientists have already said that the global food supply system is broken.

  

  To put it simply, government interference in the agriculture industry is responsible for the food crisis we all are about to face.

  

• "WTF Is Going On In Downtown LA?": Army War Drills Continue Across Los Angeles

  Having started on Monday, the US Army continues its war drills across the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area through Saturday with the goal of enhancing Army Special Forces skills by “operating in urban environments”, Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.

  

  Residents around Los Angeles may hear sounds associated with the field training exercise, including helicopters and weapon simulations, according to the statement.

  “The local terrain and training facilities in Los Angeles provide the Army with unique locations and simulates urban environments the service members may encounter when deployed overseas,” the Army told CBS.

  Downtown Los Angeles residents were shocked Monday night when a fleet of Boeing A/MH-6M Little Bird and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters swooped in around them.

  👀WTF is going on in downtown Los Angeles??? 👀 Multiple military helicopters landing on the street!!!#QAnon pic.twitter.com/jlUmBkfPRb

  — Uche (@ThatsUche) February 7, 2019

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

  A commercial parking lot across the street from the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 14, at 1000 W Olympic Blvd, was the epicenter of some intense war simulations Tuesday night.

  MILITARY EXERCISE: The U.S. Army is conducting military training in the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach areas tonight until Feb. 9. Downtown LA residents are reporting seeing helicopters and hearing explosions. @MizSkellington pic.twitter.com/8Mmgn2FdTK

  — CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) February 5, 2019

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

  Newchopper4 Bravo was overhead as Special Forces performed training exercises in the parking lot, then were extracted by helicopters before taking off over the 110 Freeway while police blocked nearby intersections.

  Not every day that you see the @USArmy training in downtown LA and landing helicopters close to @STAPLESCenter and LA Live. https://t.co/mXi8qNpgKn pic.twitter.com/b7HvhwjO3V

  — NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) February 6, 2019

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

  There were other field training exercises that were on the perimeter of the city, away from populated areas and toward the San Pedro Bay port Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning.

  The Army leased space in an industrially zoned area around the Port of Los Angeles near Terminal Island for field training exercises Wednesday night, according to Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the L.A. port. Port operations at Long Beach, the second largest port in the US, were not affected, port spokesman Lee Peterson told the Los Angeles Times.

  Sanfield said residents living on houseboats in marinas around Wilmington were notified they might hear helicopters, explosions, and simulated assault rifle fire.

  “There is no replacement for realistic training. Each location selected enables special operations teams and flight crews to maintain maximum readiness and proficiency, validate equipment and exercise standard safety procedures. The training is essential to ensure service members are fully trained and prepared to defend our nation overseas.”

  The Army Special Operations Command conducts multiple urban field training exercises around the country, said Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, a spokesman for the command group.

  “It wouldn’t be unheard of to train in Boston or Miami,” he said.

  “It takes a lot of planning and coordination to do this safely.”

  This is not the first time residents of a major metropolitan area across the US have experienced a military exercise. For instance, in 2015, Texas residents prepared for Jade Helm 15, an army training exercise which took place in multiple states.

  As to what exactly the Army was preparing for by simulating war drills on the streets of Los Angeles was beyond our comprehension. One thing that is obvious: the Army is preparing for more conflict, whether with a foreign adversary or, more troubling, social unrest on the streets of America?

  

• 35 Mind-Blowing Facts About America That Previous Generations Never Would Have Believed

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  The only thing that seems to be constant in our society is change, and today America is changing at a pace that is more rapid than we have ever seen before.  But is that a good thing or a bad thing? 

  

  For a moment, I would like for you to imagine what it would be like for a group of average Americans from 1919 to suddenly be transported to our time.  How do you think that they would feel about what we have become?  Certainly they would be absolutely amazed by our advanced technology, but beyond that they would almost certainly have very strong opinions about the current state of our society.  Similarly, if any of us were suddenly transported 100 years into the future, I am sure that we would be completely and utterly shocked by how things had changed.  The decisions that we make today are going to echo long into the future, and if we make very bad decisions there might not be a future for our country at all.

  The following are 35 mind blowing facts about America that previous generations of Americans never would have believed…

  #1 Approximately one-fourth of the entire global prison population is in the United States.

  #2 By the time an American child reaches the age of 18, that child will have seen approximately 40,000 murders on television.

  #3 The average U.S. adult “logs 6 hours, 43 minutes of total screen time daily”.

  #4 Approximately 96 percent of all Americans use the Internet.

  #5 According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 56,000 bridges in the United States are currently “structurally deficient”.  What makes that number even more chilling is the fact that vehicles cross those bridges a total of 185 million times a day.

  #6 In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.

  #7 The Pentagon has more square footage of office space than any other office building in the entire world.

  #8 The state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of Rhode Island.  But Rhode Island has a significantly larger population than Alaska does.

  #9 Alaska has a longer coastline than all of the other 49 U.S. states put together.

  #10 The city of Juneau, Alaska is about 3,000 square miles in size. It is actually larger than the entire state of Delaware.

  #11 The average age of America’s dams is now 52 years.

  #12 The average supermarket in the United States wastes about 3,000 pounds of food each year.

  #13 There are more than 75 million dogs in the United States, and that number is constantly growing.

  #14 Montana has three times as many cows as it does people.

  #15 The grizzly bear is the official state animal of California. But no grizzly bears have been seen in the state since 1922.

  #16 The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaii.

  #17 More than 2 million Americans work for Wal-Mart.

  #18 Half of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year.

  #19 According to one recent survey, 37 percent of all Americans eat fast food every 24 hours.

  #20 One study found that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.

  #21 Almost one-third of all Millennials are still living with their parents.

  #22 The suicide rate in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 1999.

  #23 Women have earned at least 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in the United States for 18 years in a row.

  #24 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would have the fifth largest GDPon the entire planet.

  #25 America does not have a single airport that is considered to be in the top 25 in the world.

  #26 Today, a million Americans are living in their RVS, and that number is rising with each passing year.

  #27 More than 100 churches in the United States are dying every single week.

  #28 The original name of the city of Atlanta was “Terminus“.

  #29 There are three towns in the United States that have the name “Santa Claus“.

  #30 There is actually a town in Michigan called “Hell“, and during the recent polar vortex it actually froze over.

  #31 Almost one-third of all land in the United States is owned by the federal government.

  #32 More than 27 million acres of U.S. farmland is owned by foreigners.

  #33 Congestion on our highways costs Americans approximately 101 billion dollars a year in wasted fuel and time.

  #34 According to Bloomberg, it is being projected “that by 2025, shortfalls in infrastructure investment will subtract as much as $3.9 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product.”

  #35 In 1980, the U.S. national debt had just surpassed the one trillion dollar mark.  In 2019, we are about to surpass the 22 trillion dollar mark with no end in sight.

  These days, just about everyone that tries to step forward and shake up the system is slapped with heavy criticism.

  But at least they are trying to do something.

  Holding an important position does not make you a leader.  Rather, being a leader is about having a positive vision for the future and doing whatever you can to achieve that vision.

  We have way too many “leaders” out there that are simply filling seats.  Our country is literally falling apart at the seams, and all they can think about is protecting their careers.

  America desperately needs change, but unfortunately we have very few change agents.  So we continue to steamroll toward our date with destiny, and time is not on our side.

  

• Meet The Rich Kids Of Venezuela

  Like every socialist state in the history of the world, the children of Venezuela’s socialist elite spend their time galavanting around Europe and fanning themselves with 100-dollar-bills while the people immiserated by their family’s policies starve in the streets.

  Maria Gabriella, the oldest daughter of former leader Hugo Chavez, is Venezuela’s richest woman, according to the Daily Mail. She reportedly is worth some $4 billion, thanks to a fortune that has been secreted away in European bank accounts. The wealthy socialite earned her fortune while serving as Venezuela’s first lady when her father was still alive.

  

  Former Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Maria Gabriella

  But while Gabriella relies on diplomatic immunity (she is Venezuela’s alternative ambassador to the UN), her younger sister Rosines Chavez fled the country for Paris more than two years ago after a photo of her flaunting dollar bills went viral, provoking widespread outrage. Now, the 21-year-old Rosines is enjoying the luxe life in Paris as a student at the Sorbonne.

  

  Rosines Chavez

  But if Chavez’s children are behaving badly by the standards of socialism (where being rich is a sin and being a billionaire is a policy error), the children of Chavez’s successor are doing even worse.

  Nicolas Maduro’s stepsons Yoswal Gavidia Flores and Walter Gavidia Flores recently managed to blow $45,000 on an extravagant 18-night stay at the Ritz hotel in Paris, where rooms cost $591 a night, and breakfast is an extra $40.

  

  Yoswal Gavidia Flores and Walter Gavidia Flores

  Moreover, while Maduro’s sons were partying in Paris, six out of ten Venezuelans reported having a relative who went without in order to feed their family, while one in 12 families in the country have been forced to scavenge for food in dumpsters.

  Their hotel bill, according to the DM’s calculations, was equivalent to the monthly wages of 2,000 Venezuelans.

  Maduro himself has been criticized for his largesse, recently appearing in a video at a banquet hosted by the Turkish restaurateur better known as “Salt Bae”.

  

  Salt Bae and Nicolas Maduro

  But only one of the rich kid’s of Venezuela has an Instagram presence on par with the wealthy offspring of American and European elite. And that’s the daughter of Maduro’s second-in-command Diosdado Cabello. Cabello’s daughter Daniela has achieved Internet fame thanks to her stunning beauty and celebrity lifestyle, which she shares with her boyfriend, the Latin pop-singer Omar Acedo.

  

  Daniela Cabello

  

  Daniela Cabello

  To be sure, not all of Venezuela’s rich kids have it so lucky: Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores are languishing in a US jail, where they will remain for the duration of an 18-year sentence, after they were caught trying to smuggle $20 million worth of cocaine into the USA via Haiti.

  

• US Military Fuel Tanks Threaten Aquifer In Hawaii

  Authored by Ann Wright via ConsortiumNews.com,

  A major spill of jet fuel in 2014 should have shut down this aging, leaking, storage complex…

  The North Korean missile scare in Hawaii a year ago was alarming.  But that fear has abated. Once again the greatest perceived threat to the island of Oahu comes  from our own U.S. military.

  A massive complex of 20 U.S. military storage tanks is buried in a bluff called Red Hill that overlooks Honolulu’s primary drinking water supply, 100 feet below.

  The walls on the 75-year-old jet fuel tanks are now so thin that the edge of a dime is thicker.  Each of the underground tanks holds 12.5 million gallons of jet fuel; 225,000,000 gallons in total.

  In 2014, 27,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked through a weak spot on a tank that had been repaired with a welded patch.  The welding gave way and the fuel entered the the water supply.  

  

  An Ohau beach.

  Drinking water is currently safe to drink, but traces of petroleum chemicals are being detected in the groundwater near the tanks.  

  Leaks have been going on for years. Studies have documented them since 1947. The continued corrosion of the tank liners constantly risks a catastrophic fuel release. 

  Concerned citizens on the island have for decades been trying to get the U.S. Navy to remove the tanks. The military’s position is that the fuel tanks are of strategic importance to U.S. national security and are being maintained as well as 75-year old tanks can be.

  Formidable Opponent

  The military is a formidable political opponent here.

  Military expenditures in Hawaii—direct and indirect combined— generate $14.7 billion into Hawaii’s economy, creating more than 102,000 jobs. Military procurement contracts amount to about $2.3 billion annually, making it a prime source of contracting opportunities for hundreds of Hawaii’s small businesses, including significant military construction projects.

  The state of Hawaii is one of the most militarized states in the nation. Oahu is one of the most militarized islands. It has seven major U.S. military bases, including Pearl Harbor Naval and Hickam Air Force, headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.

  

  U.S. Marines in exercise at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, 2004. (Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Jane West, U.S. Navy)

  The island has a total of 36,620 military personnel spread over the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard.  When the 64,000 military family members and military contractors are added to the active duty military, the military-industrial complex on Oahu numbers about 100,000, 10 percent of Oahu’s total population of 988,000.

  The U.S. has acknowledged the medical problems the contamination of the drinking supply caused at another community; the huge U.S. Marine Base at Camp Lejeune, N. C., and Marine Corps Air Station in New River, North Carolina.

  From 1953 through 1987, tens of thousands of Marines and their families were exposed to two on-base water wells that were contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE), benzene, vinyl chloride among other compounds from on-base leaking storage tanks and an off-base dry cleaner. 

  At long last, the Veterans Administration has acknowledged the dangerous situation on the bases in North Carolina that was ignored for decades.  The VA has declared that a large number of diseases are caused by the chemicals and that military and family members who have contracted these diseases and who are still living will be compensated. 

  

  On the other side of the country from North Carolina, the Navy has already closed down one complex of underground jet fuel storage tanks at Point Loma, California, which had 54 storage tanks.  The riveted seams on the underground tanks began leaking as they aged.  When 1.5 million gallons of fuel spilled from the site in 2006, the U.S. Navy was decided to replace the tanks.

  Question of When, Not If 

  For us on Oahu, the bottom line is that when —not if —the massive jet fuel storage tanks leak into the aquifer of Honolulu, city, state and federal officials must be held accountable. The public has given them plenty of warning of their concerns. 

  In Flint, Mich., officials also knew that the drinking water was contaminated. They didn’t do anything to stop the community from using it. Remarkably, no Flint official has gone to jail yet, but the community is demanding accountability for malfeasance in office—which would be the same in Honolulu when disaster strikes on the jet fuel storage tanks. 

  I will make this personal. 

  I am 72 years old and served 29 years in the U.S. military. I retired 20 years ago.  The 20 jet fuel storage tanks are 75 years old and have served each of those 75 years and are still serving. 

  At 72, I have had the normal number of aches and pains including a hip replacement that didn’t turn out the best and skin cancer surgery that left skin grafts and patches on my face, head and leg.

  At 75, the 20-story jet fuel storage tanks also have had aches and pains as well as their skin getting thinner and thinner due to seven decades of corrosion.   Patching of the thin skin of the Red Hill jet fuel tanks didn’t turn out so well either, with the welding on one of the patches giving way in 2014. 

  Those of us in our 70s, whether we are fuel tanks or humans, know all about leaks—it’s a hazard of age.

  I retired from the U.S. Army after 29 years of service.  After 75 years of service, it’s time to retire the leaking Red Hill Storage tanks—and protect our precious water supply.

  *  *  *

  If you value this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.

  

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• Brandon Smith: A Secular Look At The Destructive Globalist Belief System

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

  Over many years of investigating the mechanics of global events and the people behind them I have become perhaps a little obsessed with one particular subject – the source and motivations of evil. This fascination does not stem from a simple morbid curiosity, but a strategic need to understand an enemy. Much like an exterminator needs to understand the behavior of cockroaches to be effective, I seek to understand the behavior and nature of organized evil.

  One very important fact that must first be made clear in people’s minds is that evil does indeed exist. Establishment propaganda has spent immense time, effort and capital attempting to condition society into believing that evil is nothing more than a social construct – an opinion. Evil is supposedly in the eye of the beholder; a product of religious conditioning. This is a falsehood. Just like concepts of beauty, concepts of evil are actually inherent in our psyches from birth. The “eye of the beholder” is irrelevant.

  Two particular areas of human psychology support this fact:

  First, as the work of Carl Jung (and by extension anthropologists like Joseph Campbell) exposed, all human beings no matter where in the world they are born, from the most isolated tribe in the Amazon to the largest metropolis in America, carry the same archetypal symbols in their psyche. That is to say, we ALL have the same psychological elements in our minds regardless of environment.

  This fact alone is so overwhelming to modern man that some people refuse to even acknowledge it as a possibility. We have been trained like lab rats to see only one path through the maze; we have been told over and over again that everything is “relative”; that each person is entirely a product of environment and that we all start out empty as “blank slates”.

  The vicious attacks on Carl Jung by the establishment (including lies that he cooperated with the Nazis) tell me that Jung was very close to the mark. He had stumbled upon something very dangerous to the establishment; something that could derail their conditioning of the public.

  Second, the undeniable existence of the human conscience suggests that we are born with an understanding of duality. Meaning, just as Jung discovered, our psyches contain inherent concepts of good and evil that influence our decisions and reactions. Jung referred to evil, or psychologically destructive impulses, as the ‘personal shadow’ and the ‘collective shadow’.

  The vast majority of people have an intuitive relationship with good and evil. They feel anxiety when confronted with evil actions or thoughts, and they feel personal guilt when they know they have done something evil to other people. Some might call this a “moral compass”. I would refer to it as part of the soul or spirit.

  In any case, there is a contingent of people in the world that do not have it – a small percentage of the population that is born without conscience, or that finds it easy to ignore conscience. We’ll get to those people in a moment, but first, we should probably define what evil is.

  Evil is first and foremost any action that seeks to destroy, exploit or enslave in the name of personal gain or gratification. Unfortunately, evil actions are often misrepresented as advantageous for the group, thereby making them morally acceptable. The needs of the many supposedly outweigh the needs of the few, and thus evil is rationalized as a means to a “positive end” for the “greater good”.

  In most cases, however, destructive actions do not end up serving the interests of the majority, and only end up giving more wealth and power to an elitist minority. This is not a coincidence.

  Evil begins with the denial of the existence of conscience, or the denial of the existence of choice. Each person is born with a capacity or freedom to choose. We can listen to conscience, or we can ignore it. We can do good, or we can do evil. Evil tells us the choice is relative and that morality is relative; that there is no difference between a good choice and a bad choice, or, that the evil choice is the only choice.

  Beyond ignoring conscience, we must also define the motivation that drives evil. Psychology would suggest that destructive self serving actions stem from an obsessive desire to obtain or control things we cannot or should not have. Interestingly, this is also what some religions teach us, but let’s stick to a secular examination.

  As mentioned earlier, there is a group of people in the world who do not see good and evil the way most of us do. Their psyche functions in a completely different way, without the filter of conscience. These people exhibit the traits of narcissistic sociopaths.  Full blown high level narcissistic sociopaths represent around 1% to 5% of the total human population, and most of them are born, not made by their environment. Also, 5% to 10% of people hold latent traits of either narcissism or sociopathy that generally only rise to the surface in an unstable crisis environment.

  I have written extensively on narcissistic sociopaths and the globalist establishment in numerous articles. I have also outlined how such people, contrary to popular belief, are not isolated from one another. They do in fact organize into groups for mutual gain.

  

  There is an ideology or system of belief that argues for the exact opposite of what conscience tells us is “good”, and that system is Luciferianism. In fact, luciferianism appears to be the source influence for most existing destructive “isms” in our society today (including socialism and globalism).  It is my theory that luciferianism is a religion or cult designed by sociopathic narcissists for the benefit of sociopathic narcissists.

  It is sometimes difficult to identify the true “sacraments” behind luciferianism because, for one, luciferians refuse to admit that the system is a religion at all. They prefer to call it a philosophy or methodology, at least in public. The system also seems to encourage active disinformation in order to dissuade or mislead non-adherents. The historic term for this religious secrecy is “occultism”. I would call it “elitism”.

  There are some foundational beliefs that luciferians do openly admit to. First and foremost, the goal of luciferianism is to attain godhood. That is to say, they believe that SOME human beings have the capacity to become gods through the accumulation of knowledge.

  I have written about the insanity of the goal of godhood in the past, outlining how quantum physics and Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Proof make total scientific and mathematical observation and understanding of the universe impossible. But mathematical reality does not stop luciferian circles from destructively chasing that which they cannot have.  By extension, scientific knowledge not tempered by discipline, wisdom and a moral compass can lead to catastrophe.  Material knowledge is invariably abused by those seeking godlike power.

  The notion of self-worship is a core trait of sociopathic narcissists; Luciferianism just codifies it as if it is a virtue. Another problem with the idea of becoming a god is that one inevitably develops a desire for followers and worshipers. What is a savior, after all, without a flock? But how does a human being gain a flock and become more a god? Through force or through trickery?

  Second, luciferians claim they seek to elevate the power of the individual in general. In the minds of many people this doesn’t sound like a negative at all. Even I have argued for the importance of individualism in the midst of societal controls. That said, any ideology can be taken to extremes.

  The pursuit of individual gratification can be pushed too far, to the point that the people around us begin to suffer. Because of the elitist nature of luciferianism, they are not necessarily seeking the elevation of ALL individuals, just certain “deserving” individuals. There is a tendency to view non-adherents as “inferior”; stupid people that should be sheared like sheep by those who are chasing a superior dream of personal godhood.

  This attitude can also be seen in the common actions of narcissistic sociopaths, who have no qualms about conning or exploiting people around them as resources, feeding off others like parasites. They treat this as an acceptable practice because they see themselves as special; they are destined to achieve more than the ignorant rabble. They are meant to do great things, and their image is meant to be cemented in the foundations of history.

  The elitism of luciferianism is hardly hidden. Luciferians claim that they have no interest in converting other people.  Instead, adherents have to be “smart enough” to come to the belief system on their own. However, their goal of influencing the public through social and political spheres is rather evident.

  Political gatekeepers, though not openly luciferian, tend to let slip their affiliations at times. Saul Alinsky, a high level leftist organizer and democrat gatekeeper, praises the rebellious Lucifer in the personal acknowledgments of his political manual ‘Rules For Radicals’, in which he says:

  “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

  Luciferianism is also prevalent in globalist institutions. For example, the UN seems to be highly involved in the ideology through groups like Lucis Trust, a publishing house founded by Alice Bailey, an avid promoter of luciferianism who also owned the Lucifer Publishing Company. Lucis Trust was originally headquartered at the UN building in New York, and still runs a private libraryof occult books out of the UN today.

  Former UN directors like Robert Muller were tied closely with Lucis Trust and the work of Alice Baily and openly promote luciferianism. Muller was central to the UN’s global education policies for children and formed numerous branch agencies with the intent of global governance. You can read Robert Muller’s white papers on the formation of a global government on his website Good Morning World.

  Luciferians approach global governance like they do everything else – with heavy propaganda spin. Muller argues that the goal must be pitched to the public through the idea of “protecting the Earth”. In other words, he believed environmentalism was the key to convincing the masses of the need for total centralization of power into the hands of globalist institutions. Luciferian ideals are sugar coated in a host of flowery and noble sounding motifs. But what are they really all about?

  Some luciferians adopt a Gnostic stance on the figure of the devil and only claim to appreciate the concept as mythology rather than the devil existing as a literal force.   Some gnostic texts depict Satan as the “good guy” and God the “bad guy” in the story of Genesis; God being a ruthless slave master and the serpent as the “liberator” bringing knowledge of the material world to mankind.  Lucifer is presented as a kind of Prometheus; the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.

  This “Lucifer as heroic savior” narrative is very common.  Manly P. Hall, 33rd Degree Freemason and influential New Age writer is quoted as saying in his collection of writings titled ‘The All Seeing Eye’:

  “Lucifer represents the individual intellect and will which rebels against the domination of Nature and attempts to maintain itself contrary to natural impulse. Lucifer, in the form of Venus, is the morning star spoken of in Revelation, which is to be given to those who overcome the world.”

  One Luciferian model describes God as an archetypal concept only, a mythological comfort blanket that helps us to face the loneliness of existence. They do not believe a corporeal God figure exists, though, one wonders how they can reconcile the existence of inherent psychological archetypes with that notion? Where did archetypes come from if there is no creative design or intended meaning to humanity?

  More discreet Luciferians sometimes argue that the mythological figure of Lucifer is separate from the Christian image of “Satan”. The name “Lucifer” is not mentioned directly in the bible in reference to Satan (though the phrase “morning star”, the direct translation of the word “lucifer” is mentioned in reference to Satan). But this argument seems rather coy and disingenuous to me. For centuries the term Lucifer has been synonymous with the devil in the public consciousness. Luciferians seem to be trying to separate themselves from the negative connotations associated with satanism through a twisted form of wordplay and semantics.

  But why would they care?  Unless, of course, they are seeking to influence public consciousness and they realize that it’s hard to sell people on satanism, so they want to put a different face on an old and ugly idea.  Satanists often refer to Lucifer and Satan in the same breath as being the same figure. In this documentary, Anton LaVey, a well known representative in satanic and luciferian circles, does exactly that.

  LaVey seems to be treated as an annoyance by the more marketing conscious luciferian groups. I suspect that his public bluntness about what luciferian beliefs actually involve is seen as too honest. These people believe in secrecy and initiation.  They don’t like their darker side on display for the whole world to see and to judge.

  A direct antithesis to someone like Anton LaVey would be Michael Aquino, a military intelligence officer specializing in psychological warfare who was a member of LaVey’s satanic church but left to start his own more marketable Temple Of Set. Aquino is best known for a tactical thesis on psychological warfare he wrote with General Paul Vallely (credited in the paper as “Paul E Valley”) called ‘From Psyop To Mind War’. The thesis outlines the use of propaganda and other strategies to turn a target population against itself, to either destroy that population or control it more easily without ever having to use outright military force.

  Aquino’s Mind War showcases the luciferian belief in “magic”, but not magic in the way popular culture understands it.  Luciferians believe in the power of magic words and symbols in the form of psychological key phrases and archetypes.  That is to say, they have adopted the use of archetypal psychology, but where psychologists like Carl Jung used archetypal psychology to heal people with mental and emotional illnesses, luciferians use archetypes to manipulate and control public thought.

  This is often done through popular culture and films.  Truthstream Media has produced an excellent documentary on this subject that I highly recommend.

  There are more obvious examples such as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, in which androids rebel against their slave master and creator and eventually murder him.  Then there is more subversive entertainment like Netflix’s Series Of Unfortunate Events, which starts out as a fun comedic children’s tale but ends with a display of essentially every aspect of luciferian belief right down to elitism as a necessary practice, moral relativism, an unhelpful and controlling god figure surrounded by sycophants, and even a serpent carrying an apple containing the “knowledge” to save the protagonists from a horrible fate.

  The duplicity of luciferianism alone should be enough to make people wary of its promises and arguments. Humanity has spent the better part of 2000 years trying to remove the influences of secretive occult elitism (the high priest class) from our political and social structures. Yet, these people are relentless in their desire for power.

  Regardless of the positive spin that luciferians adopt for their ideology, the fruits of their activities speak much louder than propaganda. Through their efforts towards globalism, what I see is a cancerous desire for control over civilization and of every aspect of human thought. I also see a perversion of nature as they seek to obtain what they call “godhood”. Transhumanism and genetic tampering carry all the hallmarks of the luciferian ideal. Regardless of one’s religious affiliations, it is hard to find anything of value in their system. Everything about it is an affront to inherent conscience. It can only become acceptable to the majority through deception.

  If you have to lie about the motives of your philosophy in order to get people to adopt your philosophy, then your philosophy must be dangerously incomplete or outright cataclysmic.

  *  *  *

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• Walmart Nation: Mapping America's Biggest Employers

  In America, approximately 150 million people are currently employed, doing everything from neurosurgery to greeting customers at your local Walmart Supercenter.

  While there is a breathtaking variety of jobs out there, Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley points out that a few large-scale organizations stand out as the top employer in each state.

  THE LARGEST EMPLOYER IN EACH STATE

  The U.S. is the third most populous country in the world, so it takes a lot of manpower to keep the government running. It’ll come as no surprise that, in most states, either the state or federal government is the top employer. California alone employs a quarter of a million federal workers.

  New York State is a unique case as NYC’s municipal workforce is the top employer.

  Technically, the largest employer on the planet is the U.S. Department of Defense, and in eight states, there are more active military personnel than any single private employer.

  NON-GOVERNMENT EMPLOYERS

  When we exclude direct government and military employment, a few trends emerge. Universities and hospitals – there is often some overlap between the two – are top employers in nearly half of the states.

  In a handful of cases, the top employer reflects an industry that is well known in the region. General Motors, for example, is still the top employer in Michigan. In Nevada? MGM Resorts International, with over 55,000 employees.

  When it comes to large-scale employment, there’s one regional trend that stands out the most – the broad blue expanse of Walmart country.

  
  View the high resolution version of today’s graphic by clicking here.

  WALMART NATION

  Walmart is the biggest company in the world by revenue, and there are over 3,500 Walmart Supercenters spread around the United States alone. It takes about 1% of private sector workforce in the United States to keep this massive fleet of big box stores running. In Arkansas, that figure jumps up to 4%, with about one-third of the total retail workforce employed at the retail giant.

  Here’s a full look at the 21 states where Walmart is the top employer.

  

  WHAT ABOUT AMAZON?

  When we talk about the retail industry, it’s impossible to avoid discussing Amazon. The e-commerce company is growing at an impressive clip, and is now the second largest private employer in the country, with over half a million employees.

  That said, even with the acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon still has a long way to go to catch up to Walmart’s massive employee count. The company’s reliance on contract workers and supply chain automation means that this map is unlikely to turn orange in the near future.

  

• No Complex Society Can Be Socialist

  Authored by Kai Weiss via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Authoritarian movements, both from the left and the right, are on the rise again around the world. In an age where the process of creative destruction takes place faster than ever before, people look for help, for someone to finally make sense of the supposed chaos and bring order back into life. Thus, many have moved to strong leaders in a search for stability, particularly in the West.

  As Donald Trump noted in his State of the Union address, some people are even calling for socialism, despite a long history of terrible failure and evil.

  “Tonight,” he said, “we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”

  Indeed no complex society can be.

  

  One of the 20th century’s great thinkers, Friedrich A. von Hayek, always despised such top-down systems of economic planning. Works like his most popular The Road to Serfdom are a strong rebuke to such authoritarian systems, and his concept of the spontaneous order, perhaps the most significant of his many groundbreaking ideas, provides an alternative vision of an order that does not exist when a strongman is in place.

  One of his lesser-known essays, “Kinds of Order in Society,” which was published in 1981, sheds further light on Hayek’s conception of different orders, and explains how the search for security through a big government will always stay fruitless.

  In Hayek’s opinion, an order of some sort is obviously needed in society:

  “A complete absence of an order cannot be seriously maintained.”

  To have no order whatsoever would lead to chaos. But which kind of order is most suitable to coordinate millions of activities a day “is the central problem of social theory and social policy.”

  Order, Two Kinds

  There are two kinds of order.

  One is that of the spontaneous, or polycentric, order, “which, though it is the result of human action, has not been created by men deliberately arranging the elements in a preconceived pattern.”

  In the other, the organization, “relations between the parts” are instead arranged “according to a preconceived plan” by some central planner.

  While most people think that ordered activities are the result of such a planner, much of the order “of which we speak is, however, not of this kind.” Indeed, much of what we take for granted is not ordered deliberately, such as the world of physics or biology. Still, even in social phenomena the spontaneous order is clearly active, as in language, where the fact that social phenomena “possess an order which nobody has deliberately designed and which we have to discover, is now generally recognized.”

  In the field of the social sciences, however — regardless of whether in politics, economics, or culture — the concept of organization, of a mastermind directing life, still often dominates in hearts and minds. It is in human affairs, nonetheless, where we find the most impressive examples of spontaneous order, such as the market.

  In Hayek’s words, the division of labor on which our economic system rests is the best example of such a daily renewed order. In the order created by the market, the participants are constantly induced to respond to events of which they do not directly know.” Indeed, the market system is “an order which consists of the adaptation of the multitudinous circumstances which no single person can know completely.”

  In today’s global market, coordinating mechanisms like the price system have evolved spontaneously, and while no one is in charge, the trillions upon trillions of transactions and interactions still take place almost flawlessly. It is tempting to think that someone is in charge of it, if only an invisible hand. But spontaneous orders do not only come into being in the market, but in social life in general. Indeed, many social rules, mores, habits, and traditions evolve in such a bottom-up process.

  This does not mean that no type of deliberately created order is necessary at all. While the rule of law, the general and absolutely necessary rules of a society, may come into being spontaneously as well, it needs to be enforced in some way. That rule of law should not direct every minute detail in society, but rather simply create the framework in which the spontaneous order can exist and unfold and which leaves “the individual to create his own position.” For Hayek, this organization seems to be the state, though he does, in this essay, leave the door open for any organization that could enforce the rule of law (so, if it has that ability, perhaps also some other social institution may serve that function).

  What would be a big mistake, however, is if we put too much trust in this organization and look to this institution to actively impede the spontaneous ordering process. In primitive, tribal societies it may be “conceivable that all activities are governed by a single mind.” But in societies that go beyond that, the organizational approach will quickly hit its boundaries, if only for the reason that no single mind could know and control all activities in that society.

  “There is no such thing as a fully planned society of any degree of complexity.”

  Modern society is so complex and global today for the simple reason that “it was not dependent on organization but grew as a spontaneous order.”

  Down with Ordnungsgestaltung

  Those that demand a government that actively plans human affairs because social life has become too complex today to still be left alone commit a fatal error. Hayek writes, “The fact is rather that we can preserve an order of such complexity only if we control it not by the method of ‘planning,’ i.e., by direct orders, but on the contrary aim at the formation of a spontaneous order based on general rules.”

  Doing otherwise, by demanding the German approach of Ordnungsgestaltung (i.e. order creation), would merely lead to catastrophe in the long run. This conception of law “is the conception prevailing in totalitarian states,” and while those demanding order creation might not advocate totalitarianism themselves, they possibly will still get it sooner or later.

  Thus, Hayek’s conception of the spontaneous order, merely complemented to a small extent by an organization to provide a general framework, is an argument against authoritarianism of any sort, especially today, as society has grown even more complex and thus more complicated, making central planning even more utopian. But not only this: the spontaneous order is also an important argument in favor of freedom.

  As Hayek himself writes, “In the social field it provided the foundation for a systematic argument for individual liberty.”

  

• "They're Running Out Of Options" – Farm Bankruptcies Surge To 10-Year High As Trade War Bites

  The Farm Belt helped cement President Trump’s historic electoral triumph over Hillary Clinton. But even before Trump started his trade war with China nearly one year ago, Trump’s protectionist bent has added to the collective woes of farmers, who were already struggling with low prices for corn, soy beans and other agricultural commodities.

  China’s decision to purchase millions of soybeans (after orders ground to halt late last year following another round of tariffs) offered some relief to soybean producers who were teetering on the brink even with President Trump’s farm bailout money in hand. But even if negotiations result in a lasting agreement, it might not be enough to save hundreds of American family farms from collapsing into bankruptcy, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a story published Wednesday.

  

  According to a WSJ analysis of federal data, the number of farmers filing for bankruptcy has climbed to its highest level in a decade…

  

  …driven by a lasting slump in agricultural commodity prices due in large part to the rise of rival producers like Brazil and Russia.

  Bankruptcies in three regions covering major farm states last year rose to the highest level in at least 10 years. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, had double the bankruptcies in 2018 compared with 2008. In the Eighth Circuit, which includes states from North Dakota to Arkansas, bankruptcies swelled 96%. The 10th Circuit, which covers Kansas and other states, last year had 59% more bankruptcies than a decade earlier.

  And Trump’s trade wars – not just with China, but more broadly – aren’t helping.

  Trade disputes under the Trump administration with major buyers of U.S. farm goods, such as China and Mexico, have further roiled agricultural markets and pressured farmers’ incomes. Prices for soybeans and hogs plummeted after those countries retaliated against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs by imposing duties on U.S. products like oilseeds and pork, slashing shipments to big buyers.

  Low milk prices are driving dairy farmers out of business in a market that’s also struggling with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. cheese from Mexico and China. Tariffs on U.S. pork have helped contribute to a record buildup in U.S. meat supplies, leading to lower prices for beef and chicken.

  Because of this, the level of farm debt is approaching levels last seen in the 1980s.

  

  The stress on American farmers is also affecting agribusinesses giants like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill, who are feeling the heat even as lower crop prices translate into less-expensive raw materials for the commodity buyers.

  What’s worse is that even after working side jobs to try and make ends meet, some farmers are still winding up more than $1 million in debt.

  Mr. Duensing has managed to keep farming, hiring himself out to plant crops for other farmers for extra income and borrowing from an investment group at an interest rate twice as high as offered by traditional lenders. Despite selling some land and equipment, Mr. Duensing remains more than $1 million in debt.

  “I’ve been through several dips in 40 years,” said Mr. Duensing. “This one here is gonna kick my butt.”

  Even more shocking than the number of bankruptcies, the number of farms that continue to operate while losing money has risen to more than half of all farms, even as the level of productivity has never been higher.

  More than half of U.S. farm households lost money farming in recent years, according to the USDA, which estimated that median farm income for U.S. farm households was negative $1,548 in 2018. Farm incomes have slid despite record productivity on American farms, because oversupply drives down commodity prices.

  And bankers who lend to farms warn that there will likely be more bankruptcies to come as more producers “are running out of options.”

  Agricultural lenders, bankruptcy attorneys and farm advisers warn further bankruptcies are in the offing as more farmers shed assets and get deeper in debt, and banks deny the funds needed to plant a crop this spring.

  “We are seeing producers who are running out of options,” said Tim Koch, senior vice president at Omaha, Neb.-based Farm Credit Services of America, which lends to farmers and ranchers in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

  Perhaps the only silver lining – if you can even call it that – is that bankruptcy lawyers in states where farms are prevalent are doing their best business in years.

  Mounting stress in the Farm Belt has meant big, if somber, business for the region’s bankruptcy attorneys. In Wichita, Kan., the firm of bankruptcy attorney David Prelle Eron filed 10 farm bankruptcies in 2018, the most it has ever handled in one year. Wade Pittman, a bankruptcy attorney based in Madison, Wis., said his firm filed about 20 farm bankruptcies last year, ahead of past years, and he said he expects the numbers to continue to rise as milk prices remain stagnant.

  Joe Peiffer, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based attorney, said his office is the busiest—and most profitable—it has ever been. Just before Christmas, he sent letters to eight farmers declining to represent them because he didn’t have sufficient staff to handle their cases promptly. He is doubling his office space and interviewing new attorneys to join the firm.

  One factor driving bankruptcies is tighter lending standards, said Mr. Peiffer, including at agricultural banks, which are under pressure from regulators to exercise greater caution over their farm-loan portfolios.

  “I’m dealing with people on century farms who may be losing them,” said Mr. Peiffer, whose own father sold his farm in the late 1980s.

  One anecdote featured in the story recalls the rash of suicides among NYC cab drivers, who have struggled to pay the hefty loans attached to their taxi medallions thanks to the rise of Uber, Lyft and other ride sharing apps.

  Darrell Crapp, the fifth-generation owner of a hog and cattle farm in Lancaster, Wis., returned to his home one day with a queasy feeling in his stomach, only to find his wife unconscious on their bathroom floor. She had swallowed a handful of pills. She survived, but Crapp attributed the incident to financial stressors as their farm teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

  It was a Sunday in April 2017 when a queasy feeling in Darrell Crapp’s stomach sent him rushing home. He found his wife, Diana, lying crumpled on the floor of their Lancaster, Wis., bathroom. She had swallowed a handful of pills.

  Overwhelmed with debt and with little prospect of turning a profit that year, the Crapps knew BMO Harris Bank NA wouldn’t lend them money to plant. The bank had frozen the farm’s checking account.

  Mrs. Crapp managed the fifth-generation corn, cattle and hog farm’s books. She had stayed up nights drafting dozens of budgets to try to stave off disaster, including 30-day, 60-day and 90-day budgets.

  “It was too much for her,” Mr. Crapp, 63, said of his wife, who survived the incident.

  Crapp Farms filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy the next month, with a total debt of $36 million.

  After filing for bankruptcy, the last of Crapp’s land, a 197-acre patch that was homesteaded by his ancestors in the 1860s, will be auctioned off in the near future.

  And after all that, Crapp may still need to declare Chapter 12 bankruptcy, a personal bankruptcy provision available to farmers and fishermen, to wipe his remaining debts.

  “We haven’t won very many battles,” said Mr. Crapp. “The bank pretty much owns us.”

  Unfortunately for American farmers hoping to reclaim the market share they’ve lost during the trade war with China, even if Trump can strike a trade deal with the Chinese that mandates purchases of US agricultural products – which the Chinese have already pledged to do – there’s still another wrinkle: Japan recently signed a revamped version of the TPP that will offer preferential treatment to Australia, New Zealand and other rivals to American farmers, potentially sealing off another market from US agricultural products.

  

• Meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The Republicans Secret Weapon For 2020

  Having been mocked by her own leadership (and much of social media) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) – the little socialist that could – faces the final condemnation tonight as The Wall Street Journal surveyed the Bronx Congresswoman’s “Green New Deal” resolution… and was left in hysterics, with Kimberley Strassel tweeting:

  “By the end of the Green New Deal resolution (and accompanying fact sheet) I was laughing so hard I nearly cried. If a bunch of GOPers plotted to forge a fake Democratic bill showing how bonkers the party is, they could not have done a better job. It is beautiful. “

  Leaving the outspoken reporter with only one conclusion:

  ” The Republican Party has a secret weapon for 2020. It’s especially effective because it’s stealthy: The Democrats seem oblivious to its power. And the GOP needn’t lift a finger for it to work.

  All Republicans have to do is sit back and watch 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez . . . exist.“

  

  And while we already highlighted the most shocking proposals from the “Green New Deal,” we leave it to Strassel to destroy it line by line…

  AOC, as she’s better known, today exists largely in front of the cameras. In a few months she’s gone from an unknown New York bartender to the democratic socialist darling of the left and its media hordes. Her megaphone is so loud that she rivals Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the face of the Democratic Party. Republicans don’t know whether to applaud or laugh. Most do both.

  For them, what’s not to love? She’s set off a fratricidal war on the left, with her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, this week slamming the “radical conservatives” among the Democrats holding the party “hostage.” She’s made friends with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain’s Labour Party, who has been accused of anti-Semitism. She’s called the American system of wealth creation “immoral” and believes government has a duty to provide “economic security” to people who are “unwilling to work.” As a representative of New York, she’s making California look sensible.

  On Thursday Ms. Ocasio-Cortez unveiled her vaunted Green New Deal, complete with the details of how Democrats plan to reach climate nirvana in a mere 10 years. It came in the form of a resolution, sponsored in the Senate by Massachusetts’ Edward Markey, on which AOC is determined to force a full House vote. That means every Democrat in Washington will get to go on the record in favor of abolishing air travel, outlawing steaks, forcing all American homeowners to retrofit their houses, putting every miner, oil rigger, livestock rancher and gas-station attendant out of a job, and spending trillions and trillions more tax money. Oh, also for government-run health care, which is somehow a prerequisite for a clean economy.

  It’s a GOP dream, especially because the media presented her plan with a straight face – as a legitimate proposal from a legitimate leader in the Democratic Party. Republicans are thrilled to treat it that way in the march to 2020, as their set-piece example of what Democrats would do to the economy and average Americans if given control. The Green New Deal encapsulates everything Americans fear from government, all in one bonkers resolution.

  

  It is for starters, a massive plan for the government to take over and micromanage much the economy. Take the central plank, its diktat of producing 100% of U.S. electricity “through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” by 2030. As Ron Bailey at Reason has noted, a 2015 plan from Stanford envisioning the goal called for the installation of 154,000 offshore wind turbines, 335,000 onshore wind turbines, 75 million residential photovoltaic (solar) systems, 2.75 million commercial solar systems, and 46,000 utility-scale solar facilities. AOC has been clear it will be government building all this, not the private sector.

  And that might be the easy part. According to an accompanying fact sheet, the Green New Deal would also get rid of combustion engines, “build charging stations everywhere,” “upgrade or replace every building in U.S.,” do the same with all “infrastructure,” and crisscross the nation with “high-speed rail.”

  Buried in the details, the Green New Deal also promises government control of the most fundamental aspects of private life. The fact sheet explains why the resolution doesn’t call for “banning fossil fuels” or for “zero” emissions across the entire economy—at least at first. It’s because “we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast” (emphasis mine).

  This is an acknowledgment that planes don’t run on anything but fossil fuel. No jet fuel, no trips to see granny. It’s also an acknowledgment that livestock produce methane, which has led climate alarmists to engage in “meatless Mondays.” AOC may not prove able to eradicate “fully” every family Christmas or strip of bacon in a decade, but that’s the goal.

  Finally, there is the one little problem of how to pay for all this ‘free shit’ – never you mind says AOC, that’s what taxes-on-the-rich and a printing press are for…

  …the resolution is Democratic math at its best. It leaves out a price tag, and is equally vague on what kind of taxes would be needed to cover the cost. But it would run to tens of trillions of dollars. The fact sheet asserts the cost shouldn’t worry anyone, since the Federal Reserve can just “extend credit” to these projects! And “new public banks can be created to extend credit,” too! And Americans will get lots of “shared prosperity” from their “investments.” À la Solyndra.

  At least some Democrats seem to be aware of what a danger this is, which is why Ms. Pelosi threw some cold water on the Green New Deal this week. They should be scared. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a freight train gaining speed by the day—and helping Republicans with every passing minute.

  Finally, it is worth noting that, on the day AOC unveiled her socialist utopian dream for Amerika – and the way she hopes to pay for it – the sovereign risk of the United States of America surged…

  

  

• Trump To Sign Order Banning Chinese Telecom Equipment Next Week

  What is a quick, efficient way for Trump to signal to China, ahead of the upcoming March 1 deadline to reach a trade deal with Beijing, that contrary to media speculation that the US president will “drop tariffs without any concessions” from Beijing, he will do no such thing? One way is by signing an executive order banning Chinese telecom equipment from US wireless networks just a few days before March 1. And, according to Politico, that’s exactly what Trump plans on doing, right before a major industry conference at the end of February, and also just before the March 1 deal deadline.

  According to three sources, the administration plans to release the directive, part of its broader effort to protect the U.S. from cyber threats, before MWC Barcelona, formerly known as Mobile World Congress, which takes place Feb. 25-28; the actual signing of the long-delayed order may take place as soon as next week.

  “There’s a big push to get it out before MWC,” said an industry source familiar with the matter, who also requested anonymity to speak candidly.

  By signing the order ahead of the world’s largest conference for the wireless industry, the White House hopes “to send a signal that future contracts for cutting-edge technology must prioritize cybersecurity.” The order will surely also further roil the Trump administration’s already tense relationship with Beijing, especially if the U.S. push erodes Chinese firms’ significant European market share.

  The reason behind the White House’s push is because with many countries eager to deploy next-generation 5G wireless networks to power the rapidly proliferating internet of things, Chinese firms such as Huawei and ZTE are aggressively pushing to build these networks — at a lower cost than virtually all of their competitors. And so, with these 5G build-outs looming, Trump admin officials want “to move the needle” with their security messaging, said the source close to the administration.

  “Contracts are going out now,” this person told POLITICO. “Extra stigma could change the situation out in the countries on this major decision.”

  “We’re going to be asking people to do things, but the U.S. legal and regulatory environment hasn’t really closed the circle yet on this issue,” said Paul Triolo, who leads the consulting firm the Eurasia Group’s global technology practice. “So there’s a lot of pressure now to get this EO out there.”

  While the White House did not comment for the Politico report, National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis effectively confirmed the story, stating that the U.S. was “working across government and with our allies and like-minded partners to mitigate risk in the deployment of 5G and other communications infrastructure.”

  Ironically, the order which is also meant to drum up support against Chinese 5G technology against US allies, may result in the latest diplomatic schism with Europe. Earlier today, in what was most likely a sign of defiance at the Trump administration, Handeslblatt reported that – in direct contravention with White House signaling – the German government wants to avoid excluding products offered by Huawei the build-out of the next generation 5G network in Germany. Government sources had told Reuters that German ministers on Wednesday discussed how to safeguard security in future 5G mobile networks, amid intense debate over whether to shut Huawei out of the market. To this chancellor Merkel responded that Germany “needs guarantees” that Huawei would not hand data to the Chinese state before it can take part in building fifth-generation networks that would link everything from vehicles to factories at far greater speeds.

  It wasn’t immediately clear just how Huawei can “guarantee” that it would put a Chinese Wall, pardon the pun, between its operations and Beijing. Huawei has set up information security labs in Germany and Britain aimed at building confidence that its equipment does not contain “back doors” exposing networks to cyber spies and on Wednesday offered to build a similar center in Poland. So far nobody has determined that these labs are spy centers themselves.

  So even with Germany preemptively declaring a mutiny to a US-led effort for a global boycott of Huawei, State Department officials are warning their foreign counterparts about 5G security as often as possible according to Politico.

  “We’re raising it at the highest diplomatic levels,” Rob Strayer of the State Department said Wednesday during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’re making sure that the most senior policymakers in governments are aware of the momentousness of this decision and what is at stake in the decision they’re about to make.”

  But where the situation gets tragicomic is that while Washington is eager to ban Huawei technology, the U.S. still hasn’t developed an alternative, Huawei-free vision for the massive, complicated and high-stakes global 5G buildout.

  Trump administration officials are still “trying to understand the full range of options,” John Costello, director of strategy, policy, and plans at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said at the CSIS event.

  In any case, the message to Europe about 5G, according to the second industry source, has been, “Go slow. There’s no need to rush into this. We need to figure out how to do this now.”

  Right now, U.S. telecom companies have “no clear guidance on how to proceed” with a 5G buildout that excludes Huawei, which controls 28% of the global telecom equipment market. So, if Trump signs the telecom directive before MWC, the U.S. will be able to attend the conference armed with fresh evidence of its commitment to the issue. Or, in the case of Germany, lack thereof.

  The administration’s desire to make a strong impression at MWC is so great that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had planned to attend the event, according to a Politico source.

  This person said that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of Trump’s closest outside advisers, “called Pompeo and said, ‘What the hell are we doing on 5G?’” (Gingrich did not respond to a request for comment, and State declined to discuss its delegation.)

  For now, besides boycotting China’s 5G products, nobody really knows.

  

• One Step Closer To Nuclear Oblivion: US Sabotages The INF Treaty

  Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The Trump administration announced on February 1 that the country was suspending its participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty) for 180 days pending a final withdrawal. Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu, announced on Saturday that the Russian Federation is also suspending its participation in the treaty in a mirror response to Washington’s unilateral decision.

  

  The INF treaty was signed by the US and the USSR in 1987 at the height of negotiations that had begun years earlier and directly involved the leaders of the two countries. The treaty entered into force in 1988, eliminating missiles with a range of 500-1,000 kilometers (short to medium range) and 1,000-5,500 km (intermediate range). The treaty has always concerned land-based launchers and never sea- or air-launched missiles, a legacy of a bygone era where most nuclear warheads were positioned on missiles launched from the mainland. In subsequent years, thanks to technological advances, solutions like submarines, stealth bombers and the possibility of miniaturizing nuclear warheads became increasingly important in the military doctrines of both the US and Russia, nullifying the basis on which the INF treaty was initially signed, which was to avert a direct confrontation between Washington and Moscow on the European continent.

  The INF treaty, together with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty (SALT treaty), signed by Washington and Moscow on the issue of long-range missiles, aimed to create a safer global environment by seeking to avoid the prospect of a nuclear exchange. It was also aimed at reducing the number of nuclear warheads owned by the US and the USSR, as well as generally reducing proliferation in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In particular, the INF treaty guaranteed a lasting peace on the European continent through Washington not deploying nuclear weapons in Europe aimed at the USSR and Moscow in turn not deploying systems capable of eliminating these European-based US missiles. The initial promoters of an INF agreement were obviously the European countries, who would have found themselves in the middle of a nuclear apocalypse in the event of war between Moscow and Washington.

  With 1970s technology, the time between the launch and impact of a missile with a range of 500-5500 km was about 10-12 minutes; that was the amount of time Moscow and Washington’s leaders had during the Cold War to decide whether to retaliate and thereby launch WWIII. With today’s technology, the time to decide would probably be reduced to less than 5 minutes, making it all the more difficult to avert a nuclear exchange in the event of an accident or miscalculation. The INF treaty was thus a life-insurance policy for humanity that decreased the statistical probability of nuclear provocation or of an accident.

  During the Cold War, the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was central to the nuclear doctrines of the two great powers. The INF treaty served the purpose of taking concrete steps towards greatly reducing the possibility of mutually assured destruction.

  With the unilateral withdrawal from the treaty by the US, all these safeguards and guarantees are lost, with all the consequences that ensue from such a reckless as dangerous act.

  The American and European mainstream media have applauded the withdrawal from the INF, in the same way that they have applauded Trump whenever he has been pro-war. Former CIA and military personnel, as well as the former CEO’s of major arms manufacturers, have been eager to share their views as “experts”, literally invading television programs and thereby showing why they are paid lots of money to lobby for the military-industrial complex. They praised Trump’s move, blaming Moscow for the ending of the treaty, but in the end revealing the covert geopolitical reason why Washington decided to end the deal, namely, the fact that China is not bound by the same treaty.

  These vaunted experts on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News alluded to the danger of Washington being bound by such a treaty while Beijing was not, thereby limiting Washington’s options in the Asia-Pacific. Trump and his staff view the INF treaty as an intolerable imposition that ties America’s hands in its efforts to contain China.

  US foreign policy, especially under this administration, sees every kind of agreement, past or future, as a concession, and therefore a sign of weakness. Trump and his generals drafted the National Defense Posture, stating that the time of great-power competition is back and that Washington’s peer competitors were Moscow and Beijing. The return of great-power competition is an excuse to “strengthen the military”, as Trumps loves to say, and his decision is in line with the new defense posture review Trump approved, seeking to confront every adversary in any domain by all means. The newly announced Space Force is a reflection of this, seeking to put weapons in space in violation of all existing treaties. At the same time, the development of tactical nuclear weapons also expands the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, pushing the envelope on the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons. These new programs will end up draining even more money from taxpayers to fill the coffers of shareholders, CEOs and lobbyists for the big arms manufacturers.

  To justify the withdrawal from the INF, the military-industrial complex, which drives US foreign policy, needed a suitable justification. Of course in a time of anti-Russia hysteria, the choice was obvious. Since 2014, the attention of so-called US experts has been focused on the 9M729 missile in particular, an evolution of the 9M728, used by the Iskander-K weapons system, a Russian technological gem with few equals.

  NPO Novator, the company that produces the 9M729, reassures that the missile does not violate the INF treaty and has a range shorter than the 500 km limit (470 km). Moscow even organized an exhibition open to the public, with the missile on display along with its main features, inviting Washington to officially send its experts to view the characteristics of the 9M729. Washington refused, knowing full well that the missile does not violate the the INF, preferring instead to use the 9M729 as an excuse to abandonment the treaty.

  Washington will suspend its participation in the treaty within 180 days, and Moscow has responded with an identical measure. With hysteria surrounding Russia (Russiagate) and the impossibility of Trump and Putin engaging in dialogue following the complete sabotaging of relations between Moscow and Washington, it is almost impossible that a fruitful dialogue can be created to seal a new agreement in the remaining 180 days. This, however, is not even the basic objective of the Trump administration. Unofficially, Trump says that he would rather include Beijing in the agreement with Moscow. But knowing that this goal is impossible to achieve, he is pursuing his broader objective of withdrawing the US from all major treaties, including the INF treaty.

  In the specific case of withdrawing from the INF, there is little need to raise a big hue and cry as was the case with the Paris Agreement, as the media-intelligence-military apparatus has a lot to gain from this. This just goes to show how the MSM and their rolled-out “experts” thrive on war and the money that is to be made from it. There is a major psyop going on to convince the American public that the withdrawal from the INF treaty, and the resulting arms race with major nuclear-armed countries, is apparently the best way to keep America safe!

  The withdrawal from the INF treaty opens the gates for a new nuclear-arms race that will bring great advantages to arms industries, with great returns for shareholders, executives and CEOs, all paid for by the American taxpayer. It is more than probable that the official defense budget in 2020, having to cover for the development of weapons previously prohibited by the INF treaty, could be more than 800 billion dollars, seeing an increase of tens of billions of dollars in the space of 12 months.

  Moscow has for several years been accusing the US of malfeasance regarding various aspects of nuclear-weapons agreements. Russia’s defence minister stated to Tass News Agency:

  “Two years before making public unfounded accusations against Russia of alleged INF Treaty violations, Washington not only took a decision, but also started preparations to production of missiles of intermediate and shorter range banned by the Treaty. Starting already June 2017, the program of expansion and upgrade of production facilities with the aims of developing intermediate and shorter range missiles banned by the Treaty was launched at Raytheon’s plant in the city of Tucson, Arizona. The plant is a major diversified enterprise of the US aerospace industry that produces almost all types of missile weapons. Over the past two years the space of the plant has increased by 44% – from 55,000 to 79,000 square meters, while the number of employees is going to rise by almost 2,000 people, according to official statements. Almost at the same time as production facilities expanded, on November 2017, Congress provided the first tranche amounting to $58 mln to Pentagon, directly pointing at the development of a land-based missile of intermediate range. Consequently, the nature and time of the works demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the US administration decided to withdraw from the INF Treaty several years before unfounded accusations against Russia of violating the Treaty were made public.”

  The unilateral withdrawal by George W. Bush from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) in 2002, citing the need for the US to protect itself from countries belonging to the Axis of Evil (Iran, Iraq, North Korea), was an excuse to deploy the Aegis system (land- or sea-based) in strategic areas around the Russian Federation, so as to diminish Moscow’s deterrent capacity for a nuclear second strike.

  The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) is designed to be able to theoretically intercept Russian missiles in their initial boost phase, the period when they are the most vulnerable. Moscow has been openly questioning the rationale for the Aegis system deployed in Romania. According to Russian military experts, the possibility of reprogramming the system from defensive to offensive, replacing the conventional warheads used for intercepting missiles with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, could be undertaken within an hour, without the Russian Federation possibly being aware of it. Putin has cited this specific case and its technical possibility more than once when pointing out that the US is already in violation of the INF treaty by deploying such systems in Romania.

  The US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty in 2002 in order to be able to disguise the deployment of an offensive system under the guise of an ABM system for the purported purposes of defending against Iran, thereby de facto violating the INF treaty, an excess of arrogance and presumption. Such perfidy caused Putin to make his famous 2007 Munich speech, where he warned the US and her allies of the consequences of reneging on such treaties and agreements. Deploying defensive systems close to the Russian border that can easily be converted into offensive ones with a nuclear capacity was a red line that could not be crossed.

  At the time the West ignored Putin’s warnings, dismissive of the Russian leader. But only a few months ago, the Russian Federation finally showed the world that the warnings issued in 2007 were not empty bluster. Hypersonic weapons, a submarine drone and other cutting-edge systems were presented by Putin in March 2018, shocking Western military planners and analysts who had not taken Putin seriously back in 2007. These new technological breakthroughs provide Russia with the ability to eliminate targets by kinetic, conventional or nuclear means. Such offensive deployments near the Russian border as the ABM systems in Romania can now be eliminated within the space of a few minutes, with no possibility of being intercepted.

  Putin recently said:

  “The (US) has announced research and development works, and we will do the same. I agree with the Defense Ministry’s proposals to start the work on ‘landing’ Kalibr missiles and developing a new area to create a land-based hypersonic missile with intermediate range.”

  Putin has already put his military cards on the table, warning 10 years ago what would happen if Washington continued in its duplicitous direction. As Putin said in March 2018: “They did not listen to us in 2007. They will listen to us now”.

  The consequences of withdrawing from the INF treaty fall most heavily on the shoulders of the Europeans. Federica Mogherini indicated deep concern over Washington’s decision, as well as the new super-weapons that were either being tested or were already operational in Russia, causing consternation amongst the Western military establishment that had thought that Putin was bluffing in March 2018 when he spoke about hypersonic weapons.

  The US military-industrial complex is rejoicing at the prospect of money rained down as a result of this withdrawal from the INF treaty. But in Europe (with the exception of Romania and Poland), nobody is too keen to welcome US missiles that have no defense against Russian hypersonic weapons. NATO’s trans-Atlantic arms lobby will try to push as many European countries as possible towards a new Cold War, with US weapons deployed and aimed at Moscow. It will be fun to see the reactions of European citizens facing the prospect of being annihilated by Russian missiles simply to please the CEOs and shareholders of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. No doubt there will be some European politicians in countries like Poland keen to scream about the “Russian threat”, ready to throw tens of billions worth of Polish taxpayers’ money into useless and ineffective projects for the purposes of pleasing their American friends.

  Are US generals even aware of how idiotic it is for the US to withdraw from the INF for Washington? Moscow is already ahead in the development of such systems, both land-based but above all sea- and air-launched, without forgetting the hypersonic variants of its conventional or nuclear missiles. Washington has a huge gap to close, exacerbated by the fact that in spite of heavy spending over many years, there is little to show for it as a result of massive corruption in the research-and-development process. This is not to mention the fact that there are few European countries willing to host offensive missile systems aimed at Russia. In reality, there is little real advantage for Washington in withdrawing from the INF treaty, other than to enrich arms manufacturers. It diminishes US military options strategically while expanding those of Beijing and Moscow, even as the latter oppose Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the treaty.

  The hope of expanding the INF treaty to include the US, Russia, China and the EU appears slim due to Washington’s intransigence. Washington only aims to increase expenditure for the development of weapons prohibited by the treaty, and in strategic terms, improbably hopes to find some Asian and European countries willing to host these systems aimed against China and Russia.

  The world is certainly more dangerous following Washington’s decision, heading in a direction where there are less and less rules while there are more nuclear powers. For decades, the United States has been trying to achieve nuclear supremacy by overcoming the limitations of MAD, whereby Washington would be able to carry out a decapitating nuclear first strike without worrying about an opponent’s ability to launch a retaliatory second strike. It is precisely this type of thinking that is bringing humanity closer to the brink of destruction from a nuclear accident or miscalculation. The miniaturization of nuclear warheads and the apparently limited nature of “tactical nukes” further encourages the justification for using such weapons.

  Moscow’s decision in 2007 to develop state-of-the-art weapons and focus on new technologies like hypersonic missiles guarantees that Russia and her allies have an effective deterrent against the attempts of the US to alter the nuclear balance of power, which otherwise threatens the future of humanity.

  The withdrawal from the INF treaty is another worrying sign of the willingness of the US to push the world to the brink of catastrophe, simply for the purposes of enriching the CEOs and shareholders of it arms manufacturers through a nuclear arms race.

  

• US Military Finally Sets Target Date For "Full Withdrawal" From Syria

  Here it is finally. The time has arrived for the fabled, confused and precarious US troop withdrawal from Syria despite the best efforts of neocons and interventionistas to permanently stall and alter course, per a new Wall Street Journal report that dropped late in the day Thursday: “the military plans to pull a significant portion of its forces out by mid-March, with a full withdrawal coming by the end of April.”

  But you might be forgiven for remaining skeptical with a “believe it when I see it” approach, as President Trump first announced a “rapid withdrawal” on Dec. 19 which quickly became “no timeline” in the weeks that followed — though it depended on who in the administration or Pentagon was asked — with many determined to quash Trump’s prior campaign promises of “bring our boys home.” But now the WSJ speaks with a new confidence that this time it’s for real: 

  The U.S. military is preparing to pull all American forces out of Syria by the end of April, even though the Trump administration has yet to come up with a plan to protect its Kurdish partners from attack when they leave, current and former U.S. officials said.

  

  What’s hanging the balance, and of concern for US officials, is the unresolved fate of the Kurds who are now looking down the barrels of the Turkish army and the head-chopping knives of their jihadi ‘rebel’ allies on the ground, poised to invade formerly US-occupied space in Syria. 

  The WSJ report, citing US officials, says that Washington and Ankara have “made little headway” on the Kurdish issue after a series of diplomatic cold shoulders, including John Bolton being personally snubbed by Turkish president Erdogan last month while Bolton was visiting Turkey for talks. The US has aimed to avert a direct fight (in which the Kurds would face slaughter or certain retreat), but simultaneously to prevent its Kurdish allies on the ground from entering the embrace and protection of Assad.

  Something has to give, so could it be that Trump is willing to accept Kurdish rapprochement with Damascus? It could very well be headed toward a “look the other way situation” on this front, as the WSJ notes “the U.S. military withdrawal is proceeding faster than the political track.”

  “The bottom line is: Decisions have to be made,” one U.S. official told the WSJ. “At some point, we make political progress, or they’re going to have to tell the military to slow down, or we’re going to proceed without a political process.”

  However, the WSJ also noted that the Pentagon has yet to comment: “We are not discussing the timeline of the U.S. withdrawal from Syria,” said a Pentagon spokesman.

  It should be noted that Trump’s latest rhetoric seems a preparation for quick pullout, or big coming announcement: “It should be formally announced sometime, probably next week, that we will have 100% of the caliphate,” the president said Wednesday during an anti-ISIL coalition speech at the State Department. 

  According to the WSJ report, some 2,000 US service members would withdraw as follows: 

  Under the working military plans, the U.S. would pull all troops out in the coming weeks — including about 200 Americans working out of a base in southern Syria [al-Tanf] that has served as an informal check on Iran’s expansionist ambitions in the region, the current and former U.S. officials said.

  And on Tuesday, the commander of U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Joseph Votel, said in testimony before Senate Armed Services Committee, “I am not under pressure to be out by a specific date, and I have not had any specific conditions put upon me,” Gen. Votel said, but crucially he added, “The fact is the president made a decision, and we are going to execute his orders here to withdraw all forces from Syria.”

  Per Trump’s words on Wednesday, will an April “complete exit” be announced from the mouth of the president himself next week, at which point the Pentagon and administration hawks will no longer able to stall? 

  

• Slum By The Bay

  Authored by John Stossel, op-ed via Townhall.com,

  San Francisco is one of the richest cities it the world. It’s given us music, technology and elegant architecture.

  

  Now it gives us filthy homeless encampments.

  One urban planner told me, “I just returned from the Tenderloin (a section of San Francisco). It’s worse than slums of India, Haiti, Africa!”

  So I went to San Francisco to make a video about that.

  I’ve never seen slums in Africa, but I’ve seen them in Haiti and India.

  What I saw in San Francisco looked similar. As one local resident put it, “There’s shit everywhere. It’s just a mess out here.”

  There’s also lots of mental illness. One man told us, “Vampires are real. I’m paranoid as hell.” San Francisco authorities mostly leave the mentally ill to fend for themselves on the street.

  Other vagrants complain about them.

  “They make it bad for people like us that hang out with a sign,” one beggar told us.

  San Francisco is a pretty good place to “hang out with a sign.” People are rarely arrested for vagrancy, aggressive panhandling or going to the bathroom in front of people’s homes. In 2015, there were 60,491 complaints to police, but only 125 people were arrested.

  Public drug use is generally ignored. One woman told us,

  “It’s nasty seeing people shoot up — right in front of you. Police don’t do anything about it! They’ll get somebody for drinking a beer but walk right past people using needles.”

  Each day in San Francisco, an average of 85 cars are broken into.

  “Inside Edition” ran a test to see how long stereo equipment would last in a parked car. Their test car was quickly broken into. Then the camera crew discovered that their own car had been busted into as well.

  Some store owners hire private police to protect their stores. But San Francisco’s police union has complained about the competition. Now there are only a dozen private cops left, and street people dominate neighborhoods.

  We followed one private cop, who asked street people, “Do you need any type of homeless outreach services?”

  Most say no. “They love the freedom of not having to follow the rules,” said the cop.

  And San Francisco is generous. It offers street people food stamps, free shelter, train tickets and $70 a month in cash.

  “They’re always offering resources,” one man dressed as Santa told us.

  “San Francisco’s just a good place to hang out.”

  So every week, new people arrive.

  Some residents want the city to get tougher with people living on the streets.

  “Get them to the point where they have to make a decision between jail and rehab,” one told us.

  “Other cities do it, but for some reason, San Francisco doesn’t have the political will.”

  

  For decades, San Francisco’s politicians promised to fix the homeless problem.

  When Sen. Dianne Feinstein was mayor, she proudly announced that she was putting the homeless in hotels: “A thousand units, right here in the Tenderloin!”

  When California Governor Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, he bragged, “We have already moved 6,860 human beings.”

  Last year, former Mayor Mark Farrell said, “We need to fund programs like Homeward Bound.”

  But the extra funding hasn’t worked.

  One reason is that even if someone did want to get off the street and rent an apartment, there aren’t many available.

  San Francisco is filled with two- and three-story buildings, and in most neighborhoods, putting up a taller building is illegal. Even where zoning laws allow it, California regulations make construction so difficult that many builders won’t even try.

  For years, developer John Dennis has been trying to convert an old meatpacking plant into an apartment building — but it has taken him four years just to get permission to build.

  “And all that time, we’re paying property taxes and paying for maintenance,” says Dennis.

  “I will do no more projects in San Francisco.”

  People in San Francisco often claim to be concerned about helping the poor. But their many laws make life much tougher for the poor.

  

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• How A U.S. Nuclear Strike Works

  If President Trump decided to launch a nuclear strike, how swiftly could he put things in motion? Would he have the sole power alone to launch a nuclear missiles?

  

  Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that, according to an analysis undertaken by Bloomberg, the U.S. president’s power is absolute in this situation – he or she gives the order and the Pentagon is obliged to go along with it.

  The following infographic provides an overview of the steps necessary to make it happen.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  It can take as little as five minutes from the president’s decision to strike to intercontinental missiles launching from their silos.

  When it comes to submarine-launched weapons, however, it takes a little bit longer – approximately 15 minutes.

  

• The 12-Step Method Of Regime Change

  Authored by Vijay Prashad via Counterpunch.org,

  On 15 September 1970, US President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger authorised the US government to do everything possible to undermine the incoming government of the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Nixon and Kissinger, according to the notes kept by CIA Director Richard Helms, wanted to ‘make the economy scream’ in Chile; they were ‘not concerned [about the] risks involved’. War was acceptable to them as long as Allende’s government was removed from power. The CIA started Project FUBELT, with $10 million as a first installment to begin the covert destabilisation of the country.

  

  CIA memorandum on Project FUBELT, 16 September 1970.

  US business firms, such as the telecommunication giant ITT, the soft drink maker Pepsi Cola and copper monopolies such as Anaconda and Kennecott, put pressure on the US government once Allende nationalised the copper sector on 11 July 1971. Chileans celebrated this day as the Day of National Dignity (Dia de la Dignidad Nacional). The CIA began to make contact with sections of the military seen to be against Allende. Three years later, on 11 September 1973, these military men moved against Allende, who died in the regime change operation. The US ‘created the conditions’ as US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger put it, to which US President Richard Nixon answered, ‘that is the way it is going to be played’. Such is the mood of international gangsterism.

  

  Phone Call between Richard Nixon (P) and Henry Kissinger (K) on 16 September 1973.

  Chile entered the dark night of a military dictatorship that turned over the country to US monopoly firms. US advisors rushed in to strengthen the nerve of General Augusto Pinochet’s cabinet.

  What happened to Chile in 1973 is precisely what the United States has attempted to do in many other countries of the Global South. The most recent target for the US government – and Western big business – is Venezuela. But what is happening to Venezuela is nothing unique. It faces an onslaught from the United States and its allies that is familiar to countries as far afield as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The formula is clichéd. It is commonplace, a twelve-step plan to produce a coup climate, to create a world under the heel of the West and of Western big business.

  

  Step One: Colonialism’s Traps.

  Most of the Global South remains trapped by the structures put in place by colonialism. Colonial boundaries encircled states that had the misfortune of being single commodity producers – either sugar for Cuba or oil for Venezuela. The inability to diversify their economies meant that these countries earned the bulk of their export revenues from their singular commodities (98% of Venezuela’s export revenues come from oil). As long as the prices of the commodities remained high, the export revenues were secure. When the prices fell, revenue suffered. This was a legacy of colonialism. Oil prices dropped from $160.72 per barrel (June 2008) to $51.99 per barrel (January 2019). Venezuela’s export revenues collapsed in this decade.

  Step Two: The Defeat of the New International Economic Order.

  In 1974, the countries of the Global South attempted to redo the architecture of the world economy. They called for the creation of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that would allow them to pivot away from the colonial reliance upon one commodity and diversify their economies. Cartels of raw materials – such as oil and bauxite – were to be built so that the one-commodity country could have some control over prices of the products that they relied upon. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), founded in 1960, was a pioneer of these commodity cartels. Others were not permitted to be formed. With the defeat of OPEC over the past three decades, its members – such as Venezuela (which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves) – have not been able to control oil prices. They are at the mercy of the powerful countries of the world.

  Step Three: The Death of Southern Agriculture.

  In November 2001, there were about three billion small farmers and landless peasants in the world. That month, the World Trade Organisation met in Doha (Qatar) to unleash the productivity of Northern agri-business against the billions of small farmers and landless peasants of the Global South. Mechanisation and large, industrial-scale farms in North America and Europe had raised productivity to about 1 to 2 million kilogrammes of cereals per farmer. The small farmers and landless peasants in the rest of the world struggled to grow 1,000 kilogrammes of cereals per farmer. They were nowhere near as productive. The Doha decision, as Samir Amin wrote, presages the annihilation of the small farmer and landless peasant. What are these men and women to do? The production per hectare is higher in the West, but the corporate take-over of agriculture (as Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Senior Fellow P. Sainath shows) leads to increased hunger as it pushes peasants off their land and leaves them to starve.

  Step Four: Culture of Plunder.

  Emboldened by Western domination, monopoly firms act with disregard for the law. As Kambale Musavuli and I write of the Democratic Republic of Congo, its annual budget of $6 billion is routinely robbed of at least $500 by monopoly mining firms, mostly from Canada – the country now leading the charge against Venezuela. Mispricing and tax avoidance schemes allow these large firms (Canada’s Agrium, Barrick and Suncor) to routinely steal billions of dollars from impoverished states.

  Step Five: Debt as a Way of Life.

  Unable to raise money from commodity sales, hemmed in by a broken world agricultural system and victim of a culture of plunder, countries of the Global South have been forced to go hat in hand to commercial lenders for finance. Over the past decade, debt held by the Global South states has increased, while debt payments have ballooned by 60%. When commodity prices rose between 2000 and 2010, debt in the Global South decreased. As commodity prices began to fall from 2010, debts have risen. The IMF points out that of the 67 impoverished countries that they follow, 30 are in debt distress, a number that has doubled since 2013. More than 55.4% of Angola’s export revenue is paid to service its debt. And Angola, like Venezuela, is an oil exporter. Other oil exporters such as Ghana, Chad, Gabon and Venezuela suffer high debt to GDP ratios. Two out of five low-income countries are in deep financial distress.

  Step Six: Public Finances Go to Hell.

  With little incoming revenue and low tax collection rates, public finances in the Global South has gone into crisis. As the UN Conference on Trade and Development points out, ‘public finances have continued to be suffocated’. States simply cannot put together the funds needed to maintain basic state functions. Balanced budget rules make borrowing difficult, which is compounded by the fact that banks charge high rates for money, citing the risks of lending to indebted countries.

  Step Seven: Deep Cuts in Social Spending.

  Impossible to raise funds, trapped by the fickleness of international finance, governments are forced to make deep cuts in social spending. Education and health, food sovereignty and economic diversification – all this goes by the wayside. International agencies such as the IMF force countries to conduct ‘reforms’, a word that means extermination of independence. Those countries that hold out face immense international pressure to submit under pain of extinction, as the Communist Manifesto (1848) put it.

  Step Eight: Social Distress Leads to Migration.

  The total number of migrants in the world is now at least 68.5 million. That makes the country called Migration the 21st largest country in the world after Thailand and ahead of the United Kingdom. Migration has become a global reaction to the collapse of countries from one end of the planet to the other. The migration out of Venezuela is not unique to that country but is now merely the normal reaction to the global crisis. Migrants from Honduras who go northward to the United States or migrants from West Africa who go towards Europe through Libya are part of this global exodus.

  Step Nine: Who Controls the Narrative?

  The monopoly corporate media takes its orders from the elite. There is no sympathy for the structural crisis faced by governments from Afghanistan to Venezuela. Those leaders who cave to Western pressure are given a free pass by the media. As long as they conduct ‘reforms’, they are safe. Those countries that argue against the ‘reforms’ are vulnerable to being attacked. Their leaders become ‘dictators’, their people hostages. A contested election in Bangladesh or in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in the United States is not cause for regime change. That special treatment is left for Venezuela.

  Step Ten: Who’s the Real President?

  Regime change operations begin when the imperialists question the legitimacy of the government in power: by putting the weight of the United States behind an unelected person, calling him the new president and creating a situation where the elected leader’s authority is undermined. The coup takes place when a powerful country decides – without an election – to anoint its own proxy. That person – in Venezuela’s case Juan Guaidó – rapidly has to make it clear that he will bend to the authority of the United States. His kitchen cabinet – made up of former government officials with intimate ties to the US (such as Harvard University’s Ricardo Hausmann and Carnegie’s Moisés Naím) – will make it clear that they want to privatise everything and sell out the Venezuelan people in the name of the Venezuelan people.

  Step Eleven: Make the Economy Scream.

  Venezuela has faced harsh US sanctions since 2014, when the US Congress started down this road. The next year, US President Barack Obama declared Venezuela a ‘threat to national security’. The economy started to scream. In recent days, the United States and the United Kingdom brazenly stole billions of dollars of Venezuelan money, placed the shackles of sanctions on its only revenue generating sector (oil) and watched the pain flood through the country. This is what the US did to Iran and this is what they did to Cuba. The UN says that the US sanctions on Cuba have cost the small island $130 billion. Venezuela lost $6 billion for the first year of Trump’s sanctions, since they began in August 2017. More is to be lost as the days unfold. No wonder that the United Nations Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy says that ‘sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela’. He said that sanctions are ‘not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes’. Further, Jazairy said, ‘I am especially concerned to hear reports that these sanctions are aimed at changing the government of Venezuela’. He called for ‘compassion’ for the people of Venezuela.

  Step Twelve: Go to War.

  US National Security Advisor John Bolton held a yellow pad with the words 5,000 troops in Colombia written on it. These are US troops, already deployed in Venezuela’s neighbour. The US Southern Command is ready. They are egging on Colombia and Brazil to do their bit. As the coup climate is created, a nudge will be necessary. They will go to war.

  None of this is inevitable. It was not inevitable to Titina Silá, a commander of the Partido Africano para a Independència da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) who was murdered on 30 January 1973. She fought to free her country. It is not inevitable to the people of Venezuela, who continue to fight to defend their revolution. It is not inevitable to our friends at CodePink: Women for Peace, whose Medea Benjamin walked into a meeting of the Organisation of American States and said – No!

  It is time to say No to regime change intervention. There is no middle ground.

  

• It "Haunts My Life": Americans Over-60 Owe $86 Billion In Student Loan Debt They Can't Discharge In Bankruptcy

  A generation of Americans over 60 years old owe $86 billion in student loan debt, according to a new write-up by the Wall Street Journal. This stunning sum is comprised not only of older people who took out loans for their children, but also some who took out loans for themselves during the last recession, under the guise that it would bolster their employment prospects.

  About 93% of all new private student loan money to undergrads during the current academic year included parent or adult signatures, which is up from 74% in 2008. Federal loans account for more than 90% of student debt, but the private market for these loans is also growing.

  

  According to the report, borrowers in their 60s owed an average of $33,800 in 2017, which is up 44% from 2010. Total student loan debt was up 161% for people aged 60 and older in the seven years preceding 2017. This was the biggest increase for any age group over that span of time.

  The result has been the monetary suffocation of a generation. Some people are even having their Social Security checks garnished. The federal government, who also happens to be the largest student loan lender, garnished the Social Security benefits or tax refunds of more than 40,000 people aged 65 or older in 2015 because of defaulting on student loan debt. That figure is up an astounding 362% from the decade prior.

  

  The article profiles people like Anmte Grgas-Cice, who is 66 years old and owes about $29,000 in student loans. His only income is $1600 a month that he gets from Social Security, which he saw garnished for some of last year because he wasn’t paying his student loans.

  He says that his decision to go back to school continues to “haunt his life”. In 2003 and 2004, he signed up for loans to go to the Art Institute in New York to study culinary art and restaurant design. His plans in the industry fell through and he is currently unemployed.

  He limits himself to about $7 a day for food and relies on financial help from family to survive. “I put all my money to better myself,” he stated.

  

  Student loan debt makes up one of the biggest chunks of the overall increasing debt burden of this generation. People 60 and older in the United States owe around $615 billion combined in credit cards, auto loans, personal loans and student loans as of 2017. That figure is up 84% since 2010.

  The debt, made available by low interest rates and monetary policy that puts the stock market before common sense, is not fixing the problems created by the 2008 recession, but rather it’s making them worse for people of this generation. Between 2010 and 2017, people in their 60s accelerated their borrowing in nearly every category.

  This has resulted in seniors having to work longer and harder just to service the debt they have taken on. And even though this generation is also accounting for a larger share of US bankruptcy filings, student loan debt is rarely dischargeable in bankruptcy.

  

• Dick Morris: How The Clintons Made Money From Huawei

  Authored by Dick Morris, op-ed via WesternJournal.com,

  When Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 through an extradition warrant from the United States, American media described in detail how the company had apparently conspired to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran.

  Huawei has long been involved in helping terrorist states and seemingly seeking to thwart U.S. sanctions. Meng is the daughter of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei.

  As details of Huawei’s complicity with Iran emerge, it is time to look back on the Clinton family and its close relationship with Huawei. When their connection was first exposed more than a decade ago, it just seemed like another shady Clinton deal. But now, it becomes clear that Huawei has been central to the Iranian efforts to evade first U.N. and then U.S. sanctions.

  

  The Clintons were apparently conspiring with the enemy.

  Huawei has long been a bad actor in undermining U.S. foreign policy. The company has had a deep and long term relationship with the Clinton family.

  Huawei and the Clintons’ ties began when Terry McAuliffe, the Clintons’ top fundraiser and future governor of Virginia, bought a Chinese car company – GreenTech Automotive – and moved it to the U.S. in the hopes that it would produce electric cars.

  McAuliffe got Huawei to invest in GreenTech through a financing firm called Gulf Coast Funds Management, headed by Hillary’s brother, Tony Rodham. Gulf Coast, boasting the Rodham name, agreed to help Huawei get visas for its top executives under the EB-5 program, which awards visas to those who invest at least $500,000 in the U.S. to create jobs.

  The feds had already turned Huawei down because of its links to the Chinese military.

  Huawei’s misdeeds are plentiful.

  It helped Saddam Hussein install fiber optic cables in violation of U.S. sanctions.

  It also helped the Taliban by installing a phone system in Kabul, Afghanistan.

  It stole proprietary material from U.S. high-tech company Cisco Systems. This material ended up in Chinese hands.

  In 2013, Huawei tried to sell telecom equipment made by Hewlett-Packard to Iran in defiance of sanctions. And, until a few weeks ago, the parent company of Huawei’s Iranian business partner was partly owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is playing the key role in Iran’s nuclear program.

  According to the South China Morning Post, the U.S. action against Huawei “will severely damage, even cripple, the Chinese company. Of Huawei’s 92 core suppliers, 33 are U.S. corporations, including chip makers Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Marvell and Micron. If Washington now prohibits these companies from selling to Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant will struggle to survive.”

  And, if their full role in the liaison with Huawei comes out, so will Bill and Hillary.

  

• China To Build 4 Nuclear Aircraft Carriers In Bid To Rival US Superiority

  A bombshell new report outlines an expected Chinese military game-changer that could catapult its navy to rival global US power on the high seas. In a push to compete with US naval power, China plans to build four nuclear-powered aircraft carriers expected to be operational by 2035. With China’s current single carrier group commissioned in 2012 and another domestic-built carrier on the way (undergoing sea tests), this would bring Chinese naval strength up to six carrier battle groups. 

  By comparison the United States has 11 nuclear-powered carriers in operation (and 9 other amphibious warfare ships that could be considered small carriers). Such a rapid advance in Beijing’s sea capabilities would far outpace other countries except for the US, as no other country has more than two. Currently the only other active nuclear powered carrier in the world today is France’s Charles de Gaulle, though India also has plans to build one, and Russia is in an exploratory phase. 

  

  The South China Morning Post (SCMP) cites multiple Chinese military experts, some of them with close ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in its latest report on Beijing’s massive long term strategic shift in defense planning. The PLA announced major changes last month which aim to transform it into a modern fighting force taking its focus away from land-based fighting which has defined much of the 20th century since WWII while boosting its navy, air force and new strategic units focused on emerging hi-tech threats such as cyberwarfare. 

  For starters all future carriers are expected to have electromagnetic catapults, a current high-tech feature of American carriers, per the report:

  All of China’s new carriers were expected to be equipped with electromagnetic catapults similar to those used by the United States, the experts said. The US’ electromagnetic aircraft launch system, known as EMALS, can launch more aircraft more rapidly than the older diesel systems.

  This is part of a major push, one naval expert and retired PLA destroyer naval officer named Wang Yunfei told the SCMP, to “close the gap” with US capabilities: “The country needs to keep developing until it is at the same level as the United States,” he said. 

  Though it might be expected that China’s current economic slowdown amidst an ongoing and unpredictable trade war with the US could put a temporary halt to the ambitious plans, the Chinese analysts noted that military authorities have promised that under no circumstances would investment in the projects be cut: “Even if the economic downturn has an effect, we can adjust proportions in total military expenditure to make sure naval modernization keeps going,” Wang said. “For example, we can cut the number of new tanks.

  “The budget for military modernization will not be cut, even if [Beijing] decided to [use force to] reunify Taiwan,” the military analyst continued. “In a war scenario, [Beijing] may reduce spending on things like infrastructure, but it would increase military expenditure.” Wang further described that Chinese engineers were developing a next-generation carrier-based fighter, another planned stealth fighter in addition to the Chengdu J-20.

  

  The carrier plans are part of President Xi Jinping’s recent order the PLA to rapidly modernize by 2035 and compete at the top of world powers by 2050, which another China-based military expert, Song Zhongping, acknowledged would be a massive leap closer to the US Navy’s clear superiority; however, he cautioned that lack of Chinese naval combat experience remains a “key shortcoming”. 

  “China’s aircraft carrier technology and its carrier-based fighter jets will be developed to match the same generation of their American counterparts, but hardware build-up is only part of the picture,” he said. Song Zhongping continued, according to the SCMP: “The standard of warships’ crew training and damage control have remained key shortcomings of the PLA Navy, because they has not had as much real combat experience as the Americans.”

  

  But regardless, significant development toward a future planned-for four nuclear carriers added to the PLA would most certainly be alarming to US defense planners. Nuclear carriers are capable of traveling anywhere in the world, assuming the water is deep enough, for somewhere between 20 and 40 years without refueling — a huge naval advantage. 

  With China’s army now elsewhere reported to be taking a backseat in terms of defense prioritization, Beijing is expected to continue shifting away from mere homeland-based defensive posture to engaging threats by air and sea, increasingly in disputed waters in places like the East and South China, and in protection of its interests abroad, further as its “Belt and Road Initiative” continues to take root. 

  

• IBD: The Press Needs More Than A Super Bowl Ad To Fix Its Plunging Credibility

  Via Investors.com,

  Media Bias: While journalists are getting pink slips across the country, the Washington Post decided to dump a boatload of cash for a Super Bowl image ad that tried to portray the news media as national heroes.

  Here’s a better, and much cheaper, idea to restore the industry’s shattered reputation: Be less blatantly partisan.

  In the 60-second ad, Tom Hanks intones about the importance of journalists against the backdrop of historic events. Thankfully, during these times, the ad says, “There’s someone to gather the facts. To bring you the story. No matter the cost. Because knowing empowers us. Knowing helps us decide. Knowing keeps us free.”

  The problem with journalists today, however, is that they aren’t interested in gathering facts or empowering the public with knowledge. Instead, they are interested mainly in pushing their agenda — a basic failing of the profession brought into high relief over the past two years.

  Media Bias Kills Trust

  The latest IBD/TIPP Poll makes this abundantly clear. The poll asked several questions to gauge the public’s perception of the mainstream news media.

  What did it find?

  First, that fully half the country says its trust in the media decreased over the past two years. A tiny 8% say it’s increased.

  That includes a plurality of independents (49%). Even among Republicans, who’ve long grown accustomed to media bias, 81% say their trust in the press has dropped over the past two years.

  Geographically, those in the Midwest and the South are mostly likely to say their trust in the press has declined (52% and 57%, respectively) since Trump took office. Men are far more likely than women (54% vs. 47%). And those with incomes over $75,000 (51% of home distrust the media more) more than lower-income households.

  These findings alone should be alarming. After all, as any corporate executive knows, you can’t run a successful business when a vast and increasing share of your customer base doesn’t trust the product you are selling.

  It gets worse.

  Pushing An Agenda

  The poll found that more than two-thirds of the public (69%) think the news media “is more concerned with advancing its points of view rather than reporting all the facts.” Only 29% of the public disagrees with that statement.

  In other words, nearly seven out of 10 adults in the country think the Post ad’s blather about “gathering the facts” is bull.

  That includes 72% of independents, 95% of Republicans, and — surprisingly enough — 43% of Democrats.

  There’s more. Fifty-nine percent say that the press covers issues in a way “that seeks to delegitimize the views held by President Trump and his supporters.”

  Sixty percent of independents and 93% of Republicans agree with that.

  Prejudging Trump

  Also, more than half (53%) say they agree that the media “prematurely declared President Trump guilty of collusion with Russia without sufficient evidence.”

  On this, too, most independents (55%) agree. So do more than one in five (22%) of Democrats.

  Is anyone in the mainstream press paying attention? Apparently not, since they seem to think that the only problem they have is too few image ads.

  So, here’s a question for the folks at the Washington Post:

  How does “knowing help us decide” when the press clearly isn’t helping the public “know,” but is instead trying to force decisions by spinning stories, massaging facts and pushing an agenda?

  The Post would have done journalists – to say nothing of the public at large – a real service if, instead of blowing millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad, they had put that money into dealing with media bias. They could start by teaching journalists not to be propagandists for the far left wing of Democratic Party.

  

• The "Retail Apocalypse" Isn't Over: It Is Only Just Getting Started

  Last year’s holiday sales season was one of the strongest in years. But unfortunately for America’s struggling retailers, many missed out on the sales bonanza as Amazon and other e-commerce platforms accrued nearly all of the sales growth while foot traffic at US malls was stagnant. Already, Kohl’s and Macy’s have helped crush the narrative of the strong consumer by slashing their earnings guidance, something that doesn’t bode well for Q4 GDP, thanks to what we warned would be an unsustainable inventory build up that has inflated growth numbers in recent quarters.

  

  The retail space has already seen the first headline-grabbing retail bankruptcy of the year (see: Gymboree). And as Bloomberg warned in a story published this week, even after high-profile bankruptcies including Sears and Toys R’ Us, the “retail apocalypse” is far from over.

  Though the Fed has capitulated to the whims of the market, retailers still make up about one-fifth of the universe of distresses borrowers. And on Friday, the head of the biggest mall owner in the US warned that more bankruptcies are coming this year. Economists are increasingly worried about a recession this year or next.

  Simon Property Group CEO David Simon told investors on Friday during a conference call that there are chains that his company is “nervous” about. Anybody who has traveled to a US mall recently may have noticed this change: Where once there were shoppers, now they halls look disconcertingly empty.

  

  

  As Barry Bobrow and Lynn Whitmore at Wells Fargo Capital Finance warned, the industry is likely heading for a “prolonged restructuring” as the pre-crisis debt binge undertaken by retailers continues to haunt the broader industry. Retailers who are already weighed down with debt are also facing pressure to innovate and pivot to e-commerce. But their financial pressures are leaving them little wiggle room. Put another way, the problems facing Sears are effectively an extremely acute version of the problems facing the broader industry.

  “We’re heading more and more into a distressed market,” said Bobrow, managing director at Wells Fargo Capital Finance. Whitmore, managing director of retail finance, says retailers are laboring under debt levels that “just eclipses anything we saw in the recession.”

  Still, there are some reasons to be optimistic. Some chains have improved online sales, which Moody’s said could increase operating income by 5% or 6% this year. The ratings firm raised its outlook from stable to positive in October, the first shift since 2015. Only about 4.9% of retail mortgages were overdue in January, down from more than 6% at the start of 2018. However, these sunnier data points can largely be attributed to the fact that many of the biggest struggling retailers have already failed.

  And defaults continue to be a problem. Default rates on retail junk bonds have risen to 10.2% as of December, according to Fitch Ratings, more than double the level from the same period in 2017. 

  

  With that in mind, Bloomberg has published a list of some of the most troubled large retailers who could be at risk of bankruptcy during the year ahead.

  Neiman Marcus

  The luxury retailer is saddled with nearly $5 billion of debt after its 2005 leveraged buyout and its 2013 sale to another set of private equity owners. The retailer has a $2.8 billion loan due next year, and has too much debt relative to its earnings, Moody’s analyst Christina Boni said in an interview. “If we had a magic wand and could get rid of their balance sheet issues, Neiman could move forward, focused on its core operations,” she said.

  The retailer’s 8 percent notes due October 2021 trade at less than 50 cents on the dollar. Its first round of talks with its lenders ended last year in stalemate. The company is trying to talk to creditors again to cut its borrowings. A representative for the Dallas-based retailer said the company is confident it can come to a “mutually beneficial solution” with stakeholders. Neiman Marcus is in full compliance with debt agreements and has ample time to refinance its debt, the representative said.

  NM is facing a veritable “debt wall” that will be almost impossible for the company to surmount without new financing.

  

  Petsmart & Petco

  Two of the largest pet supply stores continue to face competitive pressures from mega-retailers like Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. Both PetSmart and Petco have struggled to improve their online sales to help keep competitors at bay.

  PetSmart acquired Chewy.com in 2017, taking on $2 billion of additional borrowings in the process. Unfortunately, PetSmart’s earnings are declining, making it harder to carry its debt, Moody’s analyst Mickey Chadha said.

  A representative for PetSmart said, “The pet category continues to grow. While we continue to experience customer channel shift to online at PetSmart, we feel we are well positioned to capture and benefit from the growth in online through Chewy, and we are gaining market share on an aggregate basis.”

  Petco has less debt, Chadha said, but it remains to be seen whether its own online platform can stay competitive, and both chains are at risk of losing exclusive products that draw shoppers.

  A representative for Petco said the company rebuilt momentum last year and returned to growth. The company focused on improving nutrition in their pet food, expanded its grooming, training and veterinary services businesses, and achieved “double-digit growth” in e-commerce, the representative said.

  J.C. Penney

  J.C. Penney has been through it all: boardroom battles, lawsuits, management turnover, activist battles — and that was just in 2013. In the five years since, it has had three CEOs. The current head, Jill Soltau, took over in October and said the retailer is on track to generate free cash flow in the latest fiscal year and reduce its bloated inventory.

  To do so, it may have to shutter a whole lot more outlets. The global retail think tank Coresight Research predicted one fifth of U.S. department stores — about 1,150 — will close between 2017 and 2023 no matter what they do. “The U.S. has far too many department stores,” said Deborah Weinswig, Coresight’s CEO. “In particular, it has far too many midmarket department stores that are competing in a similar, and highly challenged, space.”

  A spokeswoman for J.C. Penney said that credit rating firms have maintained their highest liquidity rating for the retailer, and it has only $160 million of its more than $4 billion of debt coming due in the next four years.

  Iconix Brand Group

  Over the past four years, the owner of brands such as London Fog and Mossimo has endured a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accounting investigation, which isn’t over, and the departure of its founder as sales steadily slid. Now, Iconix has around $700 million of debt, including more than $100 million of busted convertible notes due 2023, which trade at about 44 cents on the dollar.

  It’s even fighting with Jay-Z over his Rocawear brand, which it acquired in 2007. Eric Rosenthal, senior director of leveraged finance at Fitch Ratings, says the company is a “likely default” this year. Representatives for Iconix didn’t return requests for comment.

  As if the situation wasn’t already dire enough, just imagine what the impact could be when the next recession finally arrives, or trade talks fail and Trump moves ahead with the next round of sanctions – or both happen simultaneously.

  

• Marriage Rates Down, Cohabitating Rates Up: It's Not Just Student Debt To Blame

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

  Young adults are delaying marriage longer than ever. Student debt is a key reason…

  

  A St. Louis Fed study shows As Fewer Young Adults Wed, Married Couples’ Wealth Surpasses Others’.

  Since the 1960s, the median age at first marriage has steadily increased for both women and men. The last three decades were no different for young adults: The age at first marriage went from 26.2 for men and 23.8 for women in 1989 to 29.5 and 27.4, respectively, in 2016. As marriage rates decline in young adulthood, more young adults are choosing to cohabitate (reside with an unmarried partner) and are doing so at earlier ages. The increase in unmarried partnered young adult couples is evident. The share of married households dropped steadily from around 57 percent in 1989 to 37 percent by 2016, while partnered households grew from about 7 percent to 21 percent.

  Wealth Effect

  

  As the share of married young adult households declines, their median net worth (both total and when omitting housing-related assets and debts) has remained consistently higher than that of single households. From 1989 to 2016, the typical married household had around three times as much wealth as a partnered or single household.

  Student Loan Debt Is Widespread across Young Households’ Balance Sheets

  The shifting share of married versus unmarried young adult households is also associated with changes in the composition of debt. This shift is most pronounced when examining the rise of student loan debt. Recent research suggests that growth in student debt levels is associated with marriage delays or avoidance. This suggests that young adults increasingly feel that their debt is an economic barrier to transitioning to adulthood and forming a family.

  ​

  In 2013, the share of young adult households with student loan debt, 42.1 percent, surpassed the credit card debt rate, 40.1 percent, for the first time. By 2016, 46 percent of young adult households had student loan debt, triple the 1989 percentage.

  Heavy Student Loan Debt Forces Many Millennials To Delay Buying Homes

  ​

  NPR reports Heavy Student Loan Debt Forces Many Millennials To Delay Buying Homes

  Homeownership rates for people ages 24 to 32 dropped nearly 9 percentage points between 2005 and 2014 — effectively driving down homeownership rates overall. In January, the Fed estimated 20 percent of that decline is attributable to student loan debt.

  “It’s not that they’re not going to buy homes. It’s just that they’ll purchase these homes later in life,” says Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist at real estate research firm First American.

  Baby boomers were 25, on average, when they purchased their first homes; millennials, by comparison, are waiting almost a decade longer, Kushi says.

  “Approximately 40 percent of those who start college do not finish within six years. … That’s a huge number,” says Laurie Goodman, co-director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute.

  For those people, it is the worst of all worlds — they have the school debt without the higher wages to show for it.

  Attitudes, Attitudes, Attitudes

  Homeownership rates may rise, but not to the same rate as boomers. Student debt is only one pf the reasons. Attitudes about marriage, having kids, mobility, and debt have all changed.

  This is not 1960 or 1971.

  To top it off, houses simply are not affordable. That’s what the cohabitation rate shows. Wages have not kept up with home prices even without the burden of student debt.

  

• Mystery Surrounding 'Lost' $150M Crypto Fortune Deepens As Analysts Question Exchange Founder's Death

  We were half-joking when we speculated last week that QuadrigaCX CEO Gerald Cotten – founder of a Canadian crypto exchange that has become embroiled in a $150 million fiasco after Cotten died and purportedly took the keys to the exchange’s cold wallets to his grave, rendering his customers’ coins immovable – faked his own death in a foreign land to abscond with a fortune belonging to his customers. But a Bloomberg report published Wednesday evening has raised red flags suggesting that this ludicrous “conspiracy theory” might soon become a “conspiracy fact.”

  

  Gerald Cotten

  But since Quadriga filed for bankruptcy protection last month in the face of a rash of lawsuits being filed by angry customers demanding their coins be returned, a group of analysts and crypto-sleuths have been trying to suss out whether the claims made by Quadriga and Cotten’s widow – that the notoriously security-conscious (some might say paranoid) executive was the only employee who handled moving coins deposited with the exchange, and that he had recently shifted the bulk of the exchange’s holdings into “cold storage” platforms to which only he possessed the encrypted key, which they have been unable to locate – hold water.

  And as it turns out, there has been some suspicious activity that, at first brush, would seem to call these claims into question. As one Cornell professor who spoke with BBG claimed, Quadriga’s story didn’t pass “the smell test.” If the coins were truly frozen, then why hadn’t the exchange at least furnished the public keys that would allow auditors to verify their holdings on the blockchain?

  The argument that that’s what happened with Quadriga didn’t pass the smell test for many in the industry who are adept at scouring the anonymous ledgers that underpin the decentralized networks for evidence of where digital coins may be stored.

  “The Quadriga story doesn’t make sense,” Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University and co-director of the Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts, wrote in an email Wednesday. “The one amazing thing about blockchains is that anyone can audit, in essence, any company.”

  […]

  “If the funds are frozen and the cold wallet is inaccessible, it should be possible for the exchange to provide the cold wallet addresses so their claims can be verified with the help of the blockchain,” Sirer said.

  But the fact that the exchange hasn’t disclosed which wallets belong to it hasn’t stopped amateur investigators from analyzing transactions and taking an educated guess.

  And what they found might come as disturbing – at least for QuadrigaCX’s 115,000 customers. The analysts said they couldn’t find any cold wallets holding the Ether that supposedly was one of the cryptocurrencies held on the exchange. Instead, they found that Quadriga had been moving Ether from its wallet to larger exchanges through mid-January.

  But that would seem to contradict the exchange’s story that Cotten was the only one who had access. After all, he died in December.

  Analysis firms such as Elementus say that by examining the blockchain patterns, they can guess which particular wallets holding coins belong to. The researcher says it couldn’t find any cold wallets holding Ether, one of the cryptocurrencies that’s missing. Instead, Quadriga was moving Ether to larger exchanges through mid-January, Elementus said.

  At the same time, the patterns could mean that the exchange had set up automatic transfers to larger exchanges when its wallet balances reached a certain amount, or, alternatively, that “there’s some fishy business going on,” Elementus founder Max Galka said.

  The head of one exchange where Quadriga had stashed some of its coins said that the vast majority of its holdings recently disappeared. He also noted that not being transparent about where coins are on the blockchain is troubling.

  Jesse Powell, head of exchange Kraken, said it has some Quadriga balances. Of about 230,000 Ether coins that Quadriga is supposed to have had, only about 1,000 coins remain in its own wallets, Galka said.

  “Not to be transparent” about where the money is exactly on a blockchain “is unusual,” said Christine Duhaime, a Canadian lawyer specializing in anti-money laundering.

  According to the company, Cotten, aged 30, died of complications from Crohn’s disease in Jaipur, India in December while reportedly doing research for an orphanage he planned to build.

  But if the coins have in fact been moved since his death, that could mean one of two things: Either the exchange is lying, and Cotten’s former colleagues are seeking to take advantage of his death by robbing his customers.

  Or, Cotten is still alive, and has already taken the money and run?

  

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• Chinese New Year: The Biggest Human Migration In The World

  The Chinese New Year begins today, and the year of the dog will cede its place to the pig, a zodiac sign that is supposed to attract luck and success.

  Chinese New Year is one of the largest holidays for travel. During the New Year, hundreds of millions of people take planes, trains, and automobiles to celebrate the event with their friends and families.

  This year, more than 400 million people celebrating Chinese New Year are expected to travel, including nearly 7 million abroad mainly in Thailand, Japan and Indonesia, according to Ctrip estimates.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The second largest celebratory migration is for Purna Kumbh Mela, where in 2013 over 120 million Hindu people travelled to Allahabad for the two-month long holy festival. By comparison, only about 54 million people traveled for Thanksgiving in 2018.

  

• 5G Wireless: A "Massive Health Experiment" That Could Cause Cancer And Global Catastrophe

  Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

  Experts are warning that superfast broadband known as 5G could cause cancer in humans, and the usage of 5G is nothing more than a “massive health experiment.” 5G could very well be a global catastrophe that kills wildlife, gives people terminal diseases, and causes the Earth’s magnetic field to change, according to shocking claims by a technology expert.

  

  Arthur Robert Firstenberg is an American author and an activist for electromagnetic radiation and health. In his 1997 book Microwaving Our Planet: The Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution, he claimed:

  “The telecommunications industry has suppressed damaging evidence about its technology since at least 1927.”

  Firstenberg has also founded the independent campaign group the Celluar Phone Task Force and since 1996 he has argued in numerous publications that wireless technology is dangerous.

  According to a report by the Daily Star, Firstenberg has also recently started an online petition calling on world organizations, such as the United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO), and European Union to “urgently halt the development of 5G,” which is due to be rolled out this year. In fact, Verizon has activated the world’s first 5G networks in four cities in the United States: Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. According to the Firstenberg, wireless networks are “harmful for humans” and the development of the next generation is “defined as a crime” under international law, as he states it in the online petition.

  When speaking to The Daily Star Online, Firstenberg said this 5G rollout is deadly. 

  “There is about to be as many as 20,000 satellites in the atmosphere. The FCC approved Elon Musk’s project for 12,000 satellites on November 15th and he’s going to launch his in mid-2019. I’m getting reports from various parts of the world that 5G antennas are being erected all over and people are already getting sick from what’s there now and the insect population is getting affected,” Firstenberg stated.

  “This could become a global catastrophe. When the first satellites were launched in the late 1990s for mobile phones, on the day they were launched people sensitive to these things got very sick. The mortality rate rose in the US by 5-10% too and there were reports that birds were not flying. People who realized this the most were pigeon racers who released their birds who then didn’t return,” he added.  And that was when there were only 77 satellites, not 20,000.

  Firstenberg’s petition reads:

  5G will massively increase exposure to radio frequency (RF) radiation on top of the 2G, 3G and 4G networks for telecommunications already in place.

  RF radiation has been proven harmful for humans and the environment. The deployment of 5G constitutes an experiment on humanity and the environment that is defined as a crime under international law.

  Despite widespread denial, the evidence that radio frequency (RF) radiation is harmful to life is already overwhelming. The accumulated clinical evidence of sick and injured human beings, experimental evidence of damage to DNA, cells and organ systems in a wide variety of plants and animals, and epidemiological evidence that the major diseases of modern civilization—cancer, heart disease, and diabetes—are in large part caused by electromagnetic pollution, forms a literature base of well over 10,000 peer-reviewed studies. –Petition written by Arthur Robert Firstenberg

  Many more mainstream scientists are dismissing the claims made by Firstenberg. The WHO said there has been no evidence of detrimental effects caused by mobile phones despite the many studies conducted over the past two decades. Conspiracy fact or theory?

  

• Colorado Runner Suffocates Mountain Lion With Bare Hands In Self-Defense

  Will PETA let him off based on “stand your ground” laws? In the most epic instance ever of a jogger fending off an attacker, a man running on remote mountain trails in Colorado on Monday found himself being trailed by a mountain lion, only to eventually defeat the attack using merely his bare hands in the life-or-death struggle.

  According to now viral reports the jogger heard movement behind him on the trail and the moment he turned around the mountain lion lunged. The man fought off the big cat after it jumped on him, sustaining non-life threatening bites and injuries to his face and wrist, for which he reportedly was taken to the hospital.

  

  However the outcome to the near deadly attack is summarized in the following report, which sounds straight out of The Onion, but believe it or not is NPR: “The man killed the animal by suffocating it, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Northeast Region. Exactly how he did so wasn’t immediately clear.”

  Though the mountain lion didn’t come out alive, the jogger’s condition is said to be “serious” after he made it off the trail to seek help of his own accord but he’s expected to make a fast recovery. The incident took place inside Horsetooth Mountain Park in northern Colorado, and the runner’s identity has yet to be confirmed. 

  Interestingly, it appears the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) was initially skeptical of the man’s account, namely that he suffocated the mountain lion with his bare hands and having no other weapon, until an autopsy (or necropsy) was done on the animal. 

  The CPW later commented on Tuesday: 

  After additional investigation, including examination of the lion, we have confirmed the victim’s account that he was able to suffocate the animal while defending himself from the attack.

  After additional investigation, including examination of the lion, we have confirmed the victim’s account that he was able to suffocate the animal while defending himself from the attack.

  — CPW NE Region (@CPW_NE) February 5, 2019

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

  “It’s an amazing story. Everyone is baffled and impressed,” Rebecca Ferrell, spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told The Denver Post. “He had no weapons, no knives or trekking poles with him. How did he do it? It’s pretty rare. That is definitely a twist on this, I’m sure.”

  Park officials were later able to locate the animal’s body as well as items left behind by the fleeing jogger. The CPW later said the mountain lion weighed at least 80 pounds and described it as a “juvenile” after an examination at a state health lab.

  It’s unclear whether the runner — who has not yet been identified publicly — strangled or smothered the mountain lion. He had no weapons, so he killed the cat with his bare, bleeding hands after climbing on top of the animal, state wildlife officials said. — The Denver Post

  “Mountain lion attacks are not common in Colorado and it is unfortunate that the lion’s hunting instincts were triggered by the runner,” Ty Petersburg, area wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife described in an official CPW news release. “This could have had a very different outcome.”

  Park officials said further that “Mountain lion attacks on people are rare, with fewer than 20 fatalities in North America in more than 100 years.” And specifically in Colorado the CPW reported that since 1990 the state has had “16 injuries as a result of mountain lion attacks, and three fatalities.”

  We expect PETA to weigh in at any moment… on the side of the deceased mountain lion. 

  

• Alt-State Of The Union: These Are Dangerous Times, And The Government Is To Blame

  Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.”

  – Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America

  These are dangerous times.

  Mind you, when I say that these are dangerous times, it is not because of violent crime, which remains at an all-time low, or because of terrorism, which is statistically rare, or because our borders are being invaded by armies, which data reports from the Department of Homeland Security refute.

  No, the real danger that we face comes from none other than the U.S. government and the powers it has granted to its standing army to steal, cheat, harass, detain, brutalize, terrorize, torture and kill.

  The danger “we the people” face comes from masked invaders on the government payroll who crash through our doors in the dark of night, shoot our dogs, and terrorize our families.

  This danger comes from militarized henchmen on the government payroll who demand absolute obedience, instill abject fear, and shoot first and ask questions later.

  This danger comes from power-hungry bureaucrats on the government payroll who have little to no understanding of their constitutional limits.

  This danger comes from greedy politicians and corporations for whom profit trumps principle.

  You want to know about the state of our union? It’s downright scary.

  Consider for yourself.

  Americans have no protection against police abuse. It is no longer unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, such as the 16-year-old teenager who skipped school only to be shot by police after they mistook him for a fleeing burglar. Then there was the unarmed black man in Texas “who was pursued and shot in the back of the neck by Austin Police… after failing to properly identify himself and leaving the scene of an unrelated incident.” And who could forget the 19-year-old Seattle woman who was accidentally shot in the leg by police after she refused to show her hands? What is increasingly common, however, is the news that the officers involved in these incidents get off with little more than a slap on the hands.

  Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state. If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off. This is true, whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated government agencies such as the National Security Agency with its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities. Rubbing salt in the wound, even monetary awards in lawsuits against government officials who are found guilty of wrongdoing are paid by the taxpayer.

  Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty. We once operated under the assumption that you were innocent until proven guilty. Due in large part to rapid advances in technology and a heightened surveillance culture, the burden of proof has been shifted so that the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty has been usurped by a new norm in which all citizens are suspects. This is exemplified by police practices of stopping and frisking people who are merely walking down the street and where there is no evidence of wrongdoing. Likewise, by subjecting Americans to full-body scans and license-plate readers without their knowledge or compliance and then storing the scans for later use, the government—in cahoots with the corporate state—has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, we are all potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

  Americans no longer have a right to self-defense. In the wake of various shootings in recent years, “gun control” has become a resounding theme. Those advocating gun reform see the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applying only to government officials. As a result, even Americans who legally own firearms are being treated with suspicion and, in some cases, undue violence. In one case, a Texas man had his home subjected to a no-knock raid and was shot in his bed after police, attempting to deliver a routine search warrant, learned that he was in legal possession of a firearm. In another incident, a Florida man who was licensed to carry a concealed firearm found himself detained for two hours during a routine traffic stop in Maryland while the arresting officer searched his vehicle in vain for the man’s gun, which he had left at home. Incidentally, the Trump Administration has done more to crack down on Second Amendment rightsthan anything the Obama Administration ever managed.

  Americans no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

  Americans no longer have a say about what their children are exposed to in school. Incredibly, the government continues to insist that parents essentially forfeit their rights when they send their children to a public school. This growing tension over whether young people, especially those in the public schools, are essentially wards of the state, to do with as government officials deem appropriate, in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents, is reflected in the debate over sex education programs that expose young people to all manner of sexual practices and terminology, zero tolerance policies that strip students of any due process rights, let alone parental involvement in school discipline, and Common Core programs that teach students to be test-takers rather than critical thinkers.

  Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police. In early America, citizens were considered equals with law enforcement officials. Authorities were rarely permitted to enter one’s home without permission or in a deceitful manner. And it was not uncommon for police officers to be held personally liable for trespass when they wrongfully invaded a citizen’s home. Unlike today, early Americans could resist arrest when a police officer tried to restrain them without proper justification or a warrant—which the police had to allow citizens to read before arresting them. (Daring to dispute a warrant with a police official today who is armed with high-tech military weapons and tasers would be nothing short of suicidal.) As police forces across the country continue to be transformed into outposts of the military, with police agencies acquiring military-grade hardware in droves, Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts, complete with tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield.

  Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity. Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Accounts are on the rise of individuals—men and women—being subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops. Remember the New Mexico man who was subjected to a 12-hour ordeal of anal probes, X-rays, enemas, and finally a colonoscopy—all because he allegedly rolled through a stop sign?

  Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy. Despite the staggering number of revelations about government spying on Americans’ phone calls, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, Google searches, emails, bookstore and grocery purchases, bank statements, commuter toll records, etc., Congress, the president and the courts have done little to nothing to counteract these abuses. Instead, they seem determined to accustom us to life in this electronic concentration camp.

  Americans no longer have a representative government. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism. History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom. Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal. It is not overstating matters to say that Congress, which has done its best to keep their unhappy constituents at a distance, may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America.

  Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice. The U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the Supreme Court have become the architects of the American police state in which we now live, while the lower courts have appointed themselves courts of order, concerned primarily with advancing the government’s agenda, no matter how unjust or illegal.

  I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

  There can be no denying that the world is indeed a dangerous place, but what you won’t hear in any State of the Union address—what the president and his cohorts fail to acknowledge—is that it’s the government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life, and no amount of politicking, parsing or pandering will change that.

  So what do we do about this dangerous state of our union?

  How do we go about reclaiming our freedoms and reining in our runaway government?

  Essentially, there are four camps of thought among the citizenry when it comes to holding the government accountable. Which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of government—or, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time.

  In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing, despite the government’s repeated failures in this department.

  In the second camp are those who not only don’t trust the government but think the government is out to get them.

  In the third camp are those who see government neither as an angel nor a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound “down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.”

  Then there’s the fourth camp, comprised of individuals who pay little to no attention to the workings of government. Easily entertained, easily distracted, easily led, these are the ones who make the government’s job far easier than it should be.

  It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of politicians, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good evangelism that passes for religion today.

  What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the powers-that-be want us to remain divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems.

  

  Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

  

• Huawei Tried To Steal His Technology, But He Was Working For The FBI All Along

  Adam Khan believed he had invented nearly indestructible glass that was going to revolutionize the technology industry. His “diamond glass” looked like ordinary glass, but was 6 times stronger than the industry standard. His plan, according to a new Bloomberg article? License the technology to phone manufacturers and turn a pretty penny for his company, Akhan Semiconductor, Inc.

  As part of his research, he sent a specimen of his glass to a San Diego lab that was owned by Huawei Technologies to have it evaluated for potential licensing – but the sample he received back after testing was badly damaged, leading him to believe it may have been tampered with.

  Khan said he was optimistic at first: “We were very optimistic. Having one of the top three smartphone manufacturers back you, at least on paper, is very attractive.”

  

  But he then found himself paranoid about knockoffs – and became even more paranoid when Huawei began to “behave suspiciously” after getting his sample. They missed a deadline to return his sample and when they did return it, it was broken in several pieces and three shards of glass were missing altogether. 

  He said: “My heart sank. I thought, ‘Great, this multibillion-dollar company is coming after our technology. What are we going to do now?’”

  Khan was likely further surprised when he was approached by the FBI to help with an ongoing investigation into Huawei. The FBI wanted Khan and Akhan’s chief operations officer, Carl Shurboff, to conduct an undercover meeting with Huawei in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Shurboff was outfitted with surveillance devices and recorded the conversation, while a reporter from Bloomberg watched from a safe distance. 

  During the conversation, Khan and his COO “succeeded in getting Huawei representatives to admit, on tape, to breaking the contract with Akhan and, evidently, to violating U.S. export-control laws.”

  Subsequent to that, when an FBI gemology expert was able to examine the glass Khan had received back, they determined the Huawei had blasted it with a 100 kW laser, which is “powerful enough to be used as a weapon”.

  The investigation Khan is involved in is separate from recent indictments against the company. It is hardly the last as it seems that every day, more Huawei stones continue to turn over.

  “Today should serve as a warning that we will not tolerate businesses that violate our laws, obstruct justice, or jeopardize national and economic well-being,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a January 28 press release about indictments regarding technology allegedly stolen by Huawei from T-Mobile. On that same day, the FBI raided the San Diego lab where Khan had sent his glass. 

  

  Display glass is considered to be a significant competitive advantage in the world of smart phones. Khan had been working on diamond glass going back to his college days when he began learning about nanodiamonds at the age of 19. According to Bloomberg:

  After graduation, he ran experiments at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and teamed up with researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, eventually developing and patenting a way to deposit a thin coating of tiny diamonds on materials such as glass. He also licensed diamond-related patents for Akhan from the Argonne lab in 2014. By the following year, Khan was confident enough to start promoting his new technology. 

  If the FBI’s new investigation into Huawei continues to provide substantial evidence, it will bolster the Trump administration’s case to block the Chinese company from selling equipment for 5G use in the US. Some countries, like Australia, have already banned Huawei equipment for fear of not being able to protect IP that’s in the interest of national security. 

  Khan’s final take? All companies of all sizes should be watching out for Huawei as closely as possible: “I think they’re identifying technologies that are key to their road map and going after them no matter what the size or scale or status of the business. I wouldn’t say they’re discriminating.”

  To read Bloomberg’s full long-form writeup with more details on the story, click here. 

  

• US "Regime Changes" – The Historical Record

  Authored by James Petras via The Unz Review,

  As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed.

  We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over the past half century.

  We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US ‘regime changes’ throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

  

  Venezuela: Results and Perspectives 1950-2019

  During the post WWII decade, the US, working through the CIA and the Pentagon, brought to power authoritarian client regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and several other countries.

  In the case of Venezuela, the US backed a near decade long military dictatorship (Perez Jimenez ) roughly between 1951-58. The dictatorship was overthrown in 1958 and replaced by a left-center coalition during a brief interim period. Subsequently, the US reshuffled its policy, and embraced and promoted center-right regimes led by social and christian democrats which alternated rule for nearly forty years.

  In the 1990’s US client regimes riddled with corruption and facing a deepening socio-economic crises were voted out of power and replaced by the independent, anti-imperialist government led by President Chavez.

  The free and democratic election of President Chavez withstood and defeated several US led ‘regime changes’ over the following two decades.

  Following the election of President Maduro, under US direction,Washington mounted the political machinery for a new regime change. Washington launched, in full throttle, a coup by the winter of 2019.

  The record of US intervention in Venezuela is mixed: a middle term military coup lasted less than a decade; US directed electoral regimes were in power for forty years; its replacement by an elected anti-imperialist populist government has been in power for nearly 20 years. A virulent US directed coup is underfoot today.

  The Venezuela experience with ‘regime change’ speaks to US capacity to consummate long-term control if it can reshuffle its power base from a military dictatorship into an electoral regime, financed through the pillage of oil, backed by a reliable military and ‘legitimated’ by alternating client political parties which accept submission to Washington.

  US client regimes are ruled by oligarchic elites, with little entrepreneurial capacity, living off of state rents (oil revenues).

  Tied closely to the US, the ruling elites are unable to secure popular loyalty. Client regimes depend on the military strength of the Pentagon —but that is also their weakness.

  Regime Change in Regional-Historical Perspective

  Puppet-building is an essential strategic goal of the US imperial state.

  The results vary over time depending on the capacity of independent governments to succeed in nation-building.

  US long-term puppet-building has been most successful in small nations with vulnerable economies.

  The US directed coup in Guatemala has lasted over sixty-years – from 1954 -2019. Major popular indigenous insurgencies have been repressed via US military advisers and aid.

  Similar successful US puppet-building has occurred in Panama, Grenada, Dominican Republic and Haiti. Being small and poor and having weak military forces, the US is willing to directly invade and occupy the countries quickly and at small cost in military lives and economic costs.

  In the above countries Washington succeeded in imposing and maintaining puppet regimes for prolonged periods of time.

  The US has directed military coups over the past half century with contradictory results.

  In the case of Honduras, the Pentagon was able to overturn a progressive liberal democratic government of very short duration. The Honduran army was under US direction, and elected President Manual Zelaya depended on an unarmed electoral popular majority. Following the successful coup the Honduran puppet-regime remained under US rule for the next decade and likely beyond.

  Chile has been under US tutelage for the better part of the 20th century with a brief respite during a Popular Front government between 1937-41 and a democratic socialist government between 1970-73. The US military directed coup in 1973 imposed the Pinochet dictatorship which lasted for seventeen years. It was followed by an electoral regime which continued the Pinochet-US neo-liberal agenda, including the reversal of all the popular national and social reforms. In a word, Chile remained within the US political orbit for the better part of a half-century.

  Chile’s democratic-socialist regime (1970-73) never armed its people nor established overseas economic linkage to sustain an independent foreign policy.

  It is not surprising that in recent times Chile followed US commands calling for the overthrow of Venezuela’s President Maduro.

  Contradictory Puppet-Building

  Several US coups were reversed, for the longer or shorter duration.

  The classical case of a successful defeat of a client regime is Cuba which overthrew a ten-year old US client, the Batista dictatorship, and proceeded to successfully resist a CIA directed invasion and economic blockade for the better part of a half century (up to the present day).

  Cuba’s defeat of puppet restorationist policy was a result of the Castro leadership’s decision to arm the people, expropriate and take control of hostile US and multinational corporations and establish strategic overseas allies – USSR , China and more recently Venezuela.

  In contrast, a US military backed military coup in Brazil (1964) endured for over two decades, before electoral politics were partially restored under elite leadership.

  Twenty years of failed neo-liberal economic policies led to the election of the social reformist Workers Party (WP) which proceeded to implement extensive anti-poverty programs within the context of neo-liberal policies.

  After a decade and a half of social reforms and a relatively independent foreign policy, the WP succumbed to a downturn of the commodity dependent economy and a hostile state (namely judiciary and military) and was replaced by a pair of far-right US client regimes which functioned under Wall Street and Pentagon direction.

  The US frequently intervened in Bolivia, backing military coups and client regimes against short-term national populist regimes (1954, 1970 and 2001).

  In 2005 a popular uprising led to free elections and the election of Evo Morales, the leader of the coca farmers movements. Between 2005 – 2019 (the present period) President Morales led a moderate left-of-center anti imperialist government.

  Unsuccessful efforts by the US to overthrow the Morales government were a result of several factors: Morales organized and mobilized a coalition of peasants and workers (especially miners and coca farmers). He secured the loyalty of the military, expelled US Trojan Horse “aid agencies’ and extended control over oil and gas and promoted ties with agro business.

  The combination of an independent foreign policy, a mixed economy , high growth and moderate reforms neutralized US puppet-building.

  Not so the case in Argentina. Following a bloody coup (1976) in which the US backed military murdered 30,000 citizens, the military was defeated by the British army in the Malvinas war and withdrew after seven years in power.

  The post military puppet regime ruled and plundered for a decade before collapsing in 2001. They were overthrown by a popular insurrection. However, the radical left lacking cohesion was replaced by center-left (Kirchner-Fernandez) regimes which ruled for the better part of a decade (2003 – 15).

  The progressive social welfare – neo-liberal regimes entered in crises and were ousted by a US backed puppet regime (Macri) in 2015 which proceeded to reverse reforms, privatize the economy and subordinate the state to US bankers and speculators.

  After two years in power, the puppet regime faltered, the economy spiraled downward and another cycle of repression and mass protest emerged. The US puppet regime’s rule is tenuous, the populace fills the streets, while the Pentagon sharpens its knives and prepares puppets to replace their current client regime.

  Conclusion

  The US has not succeeded in consolidating regime changes among the large countries with mass organizations and military supporters.

  Washington has succeeded in overthrowing popular – national regimes in Brazil, and Argentina . However, over time puppet regimes have been reversed.

  While the US resorts to largely a single ‘track’ (military coups and invasions)in overwhelming smaller and more vulnerable popular governments, it relies on ‘multiple tracks’ strategy with regard to large and more formidable countries.

  In the former cases, usually a call to the military or the dispatch of the marines is enough to snuff an electoral democracy.

  In the latter case, the US relies on a multi-proxy strategy which includes a mass media blitz, labeling democrats as dictatorships, extremists, corrupt, security threats, etc.

  As the tension mounts, regional client and European states are organized to back the local puppets.

  Phony “Presidents” are crowned by the US President whose index finger counters the vote of millions of voters. Street demonstrations and violence paid and organized by the CIA destabilize the economy; business elites boycott and paralyze production and distribution… Millions are spent in bribing judges and military officials.

  If the regime change can be accomplished by local military satraps, the US refrains from direct military intervention.

  Regime changes among larger and wealthier countries have between one or two decades duration. However, the switch to an electoral puppet regime may consolidate imperial power over a longer period – as was the case of Chile.

  Where there is powerful popular support for a democratic regime, the US will provide the ideological and military support for a large-scale massacre, as was the case in Argentina.

  The coming showdown in Venezuela will be a case of a bloody regime change as the US will have to murder hundreds of thousands to destroy the millions who have life-long and deep commitments to their social gains , their loyalty to the nation and their dignity.

  In contrast the bourgeoisie, and their followers among political traitors, will seek revenge and resort to the vilest forms of violence in order to strip the poor of their social advances and their memories of freedom and dignity.

  It is no wonder that the Venezuela masses are girding for a prolonged and decisive struggle: everything can be won or lost in this final confrontation with the Empire and its puppets.

  

• OPEC Proposes Formal Oil-Production Alliance With Russia

  Even as the US brought sanctions against Venezuela’s state-run oil company, oil prices have slumped over the past week, erasing some of a January rebound that saw crude prices rebound alongside equities. But oil bulls who worried that Saudi Arabia and Russia’s tandem production cuts wouldn’t be enough to finally wedge a floor under crude prices can relax: Because if a plan reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal pans out, OPEC might recover the price-setting power it is in fear of ceding to the US as the shale boom continues to…well…boom.

  

  With the US having cemented its new position as the biggest oil producer in the world thanks to shale, and President Trump exerting pressure on Saudi Arabia to drive oil prices lower, WSJ reports that Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in OPEC have proposed a formal alliance with a 10-nation group of petroleum producers led by Russia – and alliance that would “transform the cartel” (which has recently suffered speculation that it has lost its relevance after Qatar announced its plans to leave the bloc).

  

  However, Iran and some of its allies within the cartel have opposed the tighter partnership, fearing it could lead to Saudi Arabia and Russia dominating the organization.

  The proposal would formalize the loose union between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the group led by Moscow, which includes some former Soviet republics and other countries. The two groups have increasingly worked together in recent years, including in December when they agreed on a deal to curb production.

  Iran and other producers have opposed a tighter partnership, fearing it could be dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to officials in the cartel. Riyadh and Moscow are the world’s top two oil exporters. A Russian energy ministry spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  Given that Saudi needs oil back at $80 a barrel to balance its national budget, the alliance would likely be geared toward Saudi and Russia achieving the goal of higher prices. To achieve higher prices, they need more leverage against the US.

  To be sure, it’s not like this level of collusion between OPEC and non-OPEC producers would be unprecedented. The two groups have been increasingly working together in recent years. As recently as December, the 14-member OPEC and the 10-member bloc led by Russia struck a deal to cut production in a bid to lift prices after global oil prices shed more than one-third of their value during the month of October.

  According to a proposal detailed by WSJ, once formalized, the deal – which would function like a non-legally-binding, informal arrangement, wouldn’t be all that different than the process that led to the December agreement.

  In December, the 14-strong OPEC and 10 allies led by Russia reached a new agreement to tackle an oversupplied global crude market by cutting production by a combined 1.2 million barrels a day.

  At the time, the groups put off a final decision on the nature of their future cooperation. The groups first collaborated in late 2016 to help oil prices to rebound after a two-year crash. It was Russia’s first solid alliance with the cartel in decades.

  Under the proposal, OPEC would continue regular meetings to agree on production and monitor implementation with the Russia-led group, according to OPEC officials. Under the current draft document, the alliance could last up to three years and wouldn’t be legally binding, one of the OPEC officials said.

  Participants still need to iron out differences, said another OPEC official. The first cartel official said all sides were likely to end up agreeing on some arrangement as oil prices could crash without a deal.

  Still, a more formalized – but still not legally binding – pact faces some hurdles from wary members of OPEC, because some members of the new pact would need to run the issue by their Parliaments. And Iran wants any relationship with producers outside of OPEC to remain as loose as possible. Ideally, Tehran would want the expanded group to meet as infrequently as possible – only when a market crisis requires it – and it would also like all OPEC and non-OPEC members to attend the same meeting. Oman, meanwhile, would like to limit the number of meetings with the non-OPEC members.

  Suhail Al Mazrouei, the UAE energy minister, reportedly said that a long-term pact still faces hurdles (though the current plan would call for the alliance to last three years).

  Notably, the plan is a compromise between the status quo and a Saudi and Russia-led proposal that called for the creation of an entirely new bloc which would have been de facto controlled by the Kingdom and Russia, which would have been granted full membership. 

  The latest proposal is a compromise of earlier plans floated by the Saudis and Emiratis. Under its own proposal, Saudi Arabia advocated the creation of a completely new organization integrating Russia as a full member. In June, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, through his oil minister Khalid al-Falih, proposed a new Vienna-based cartel, according to OPEC officials.

  The structure would have ended OPEC’s current United Nations-style, egalitarian system, in which each member has the same power to vote on decisions regardless of the size of its production. Instead, the new organization would have bestowed outsize power on Saudi Arabia and Russia.

  The Saudi proposal irked OPEC members Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola and Algeria. At the meeting in December, Iraq’s oil minister, Thamir Ghadhban, reminded Mr. Falih that OPEC had been founded in Baghdad—a pointed criticism of the plan. At the gathering, the Saudi minister said he had no plan to create a new organization.

  After receiving the Saudi proposal, Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak, told OPEC the decision is outside his control and escalated its study to foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and the Kremlin, the OPEC officials said. In late December, Moscow officially rejected the Saudi proposal.

  “There will be no formal organization like OPEC,” Russian state TV RT quoted Mr. Novak as saying on Dec. 29. He cited the prospect of additional bureaucracy and antitrust risks for the decision.

  OPEC members and Russia are expected to debate the proposal in Vienna during a meeting during the week of Feb 18. If OPEC and its sometimes fractious members decide to give it a shot in the name of pushing back against Trump, expect to see oil prices retrace their Q4 drop.

  

• China's S-Curve Of Expansion, Stagnation, And Decline

  Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

  All the policies that worked in the Boost Phase no longer work.

  Natural and human systems tend to go through stages of expansion, stagnation and decline that follow what’s known as the S-Curve. The dynamic isn’t difficult to understand: an unfilled ecological niche is suddenly open due to a new adaptation; a bacteria evolves to exploit a new host, etc. Expansion is rapid until the niche is fully occupied, and then growth matures and stagnates; the low-hanging fruit has all been picked, and it’s much more costly to reach what little is left.

  Human economies starved of capital, credit, access to markets and freedom are akin to unexploited ecological niches. Lacking capital, credit and the freedom to innovate, experiment and advance, economies wallow in a self-reinforcing stagnation.

  Should capital, credit, access to markets and freedom become available, the economic expansion can be breath-taking. This is the basic script of postwar Japan and the Asian Tiger economies: economies with either minimal or war-damaged infrastructure, limited capital/credit and stifling status quo power structures that limited the freedom of the populace to access markets and innovations were suddenly open to credit, markets and innovation.

  This territory of opportunity was quickly exploited in the Boost Phase: all the low-hanging fruit could finally be picked.

  In the Boost Phase, policies that open the economy to credit and innovation generate virtuous cycles of expanding credit, markets, capital, employment and development. In the Boost Phase, everyone’s a genius; everyone joining the land rush can get a piece of the action.

  In this expansive phase, everyone extrapolates this rapid growth into the future, as if the Boost Phase can last essentially forever. Thus all sorts of pundits predicted that Japan’s late-bubble GDP of 1989 would soon surpass the GDP of the U.S.

  A year later, Japan’s bubble burst and it has wallowed in stagnation since. The policies of the Boost Phase all work because any loosening of limits works wonders in economies with an abundance of low-hanging fruit. But once the easy fruit’s been picked, those policies no longer have the same efficacy. In fact, policies that worked wonders are now active impediments, as they were designed for an era that has passed: all the low-hanging fruit is long gone.

  We cling to whatever seems to have worked so gloriously in the past, long after the virtuous cycles have turned into self-defeating cycles that only deepen the stagnation and rot. Japan’s core policies remain fixed in 1955, or 1965 if one wants to be generous. Other than Softbank, no major Japanese corporations have emerged since 1955. The central state / central planning model of state agencies coordinating the expansion of exports with major corporations is now crippling Japan; that model worked wonders from 1955 to 1989 and then its internal limits became apparent.

  The heavy cost of corruption that was offset by growth in the boost phase becomes destructive in the stagnation phase. Stripped of growth, the economy is sapped by institutionalized corruption: bribes, sweetheart deals, poor quality being ignored, accounting fraud–all become embedded and institutionalized, to the detriment of organic growth.

  As a result of one disastrous policy after another–The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution–China’s 1989 economy was mired in 1949. Once the leadership enabled modest reforms that opened access to credit and markets, and the central planning machinery started building infrastructure at a scale unseen in world history, China’s Boost Phase took off.

  But just as trees don’t grow to the moon, no Boost Phase lasts beyond the depletion of the low-hanging fruit. Rational investments in infrastructure and housing inevitably give way to speculative gambles, the classic recipe for mal-investment and excessive leverage that guarantee a collapse of the resulting credit and asset bubbles.

  China entered 2008 with $8 billion in officially counted debt; 10 years later that debt is $40 trillion, plus unknown trillions more in the shadow banking system which expanded the options for risky speculation and massive expansions of credit.

  Like all the other stagnating economies, China’s “solution” to stagnation was to expand debt-funded speculation and “investments” with little to no actual return.

  The high water mark of China’s financialization orgy was 2018. From now on, adding debt simply adds more drag on the underlying economy, as income is diverted to service speculative debt and defaults start hollowing out both the official banking system and the shadow banking system.

  All the policies that worked in the Boost Phase no longer work. the policy tool chest is empty, and so China’s leadership is doing more of what’s failed: burying bad debt off the visible balance sheets, re-issuing new loans to pay off defaulted debt, and all the usual tricks of a failed banking/credit system.

  Japan has papered over its systemic rot and decline for 30 years by using a financial Perpetual Motion Machine: the state borrows and spends trillions by selling bonds to the central bank, which in effect prints “free money” for the state to burn propping up a sclerotic, corrupt, failed status quo.

  If that’s policy makers’ idea of success, they are delusional. Credit/asset bubbles all deflate, and central bank buying of assets only gives the lie to the illusion of stability and market liquidity.

  Simply put, there is no indication China’s leadership has any plan to manage the inevitable stagnation and decline of China’s economy that is now painfully obvious to anyone with the slightest willingness to look beneath the flimsy propaganda of official statistics. They are not alone, of course; every other major economy is equally bereft of policies and equally dependent on bogus statistics and debt to paper over the decline.

  

  *  *  *

  Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print): Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF). My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

  

• Bangladeshi "Dexter" Goes On Murder Spree Targeting Rapists

  Authorities in Bangladesh are looking for a potential serial-killer vigilante after three men accused of rape were found dead with notes around their necks, according to the Daily Star – invoking images of Showtime’s fictional psychopath with a golden heart, Dexter. 

  Instead of “Dexter,” however, the killer left notes on the body signed “Hercules.” 

  

  “I am Rakib. I am the rapist of a madrasa girl…of Bhandaria. This is the consequence of a rapist. Be aware rapists…Hercules,” read the note attached to the body of 20-year-old accused rapist Rakib Hossain, one of two men who stood accused of participating in the gang rape of a madrasa student. 

  Hossain, a law student at a private university, was found with a bullet wound to the head according to the officer in charge of the Rajapur Police Station, Md Jahidul Islam. 

  On January 14, a madrasa student was allegedly gang raped by two men when she was on the way to her grandparents’ house.

  Her father filed a case with Bhandaria Police Station accusing Sajal and Rakib on January 17.

  On January 24, police recovered Sajal’s bullet-hit body in Jhalakathi’s Kathalia upazila, with a similar note hanging round the neck.

  Sajal’s father Shah Alam Jommadar lodged a case with Kathalia Police Station over his son’s murder on January 26, said Md Eanamul Haque, officer-in-charge of the police station. –Daily Star

  A third victim was one of four men accused of gang-raping a government worker in Savar, located near the capital city of Dhaka, on January 7 – around 270 kilometers (170 miles) away. The alleged rape victim was found dead hours after reporting the incident.

  On January 17, police found the body of Ripon, 39, a key suspect in the gang rape and murder of a female garment worker, in Savar on the outskirts of the capital, with a similar note hanging around the neck.

  In the early hours of January 7, an 18-year-old girl was found dead in her house in Ashulia’s Berun area, hours after she had filed a case with Ashulia Police Station against Ripon and three other co-workers for raping her.

  Later, the girl’s father filed another case with Ashulia Police Station accusing Ripon and the three others of murdering his daughter. —Daily Star

  “I am Pirojpur Bhandaria’s … rapist Rakib,” read the note around Ripon’s neck, according to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper. 

  All three victims were found dead with bullet wounds and notes within the last two weeks. 

  According to a 2015 special report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, rape is the second-most common form of violence committed against Bangladeshi females – while the perpetrators are rarely punished. 

  

  “In Bangladesh, women’s access to justice and participation in political and public life are particularly affected by violence against women,” reads the report by law professor Rashida Manjoo of the University of Cape Town. According to her report, limited resources, poor infrastructure and a lack of legal experts make it difficult for women to seek legal remedies after being raped. 

  According to Reuters, Dhaka was ranked the seventh-most dangerous city in the world for women in 2017, and fourth when it comes to sexual violence in particular. Karachi, Pakistan, ranks #1. 

  Police in Dhaka arrested 10 men last month in connection with the alleged rape of a woman who voted against the prime minister in Bangladesh’s December election.

  The woman’s husband told Reuters that a group of 10-12 men barged into their house in the southeastern district of Noakhali on the night of the election, tied up him and his four children inside the house, and assaulted her.

  The husband said she was raped because she voted for the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.  –Global News

  In short, rape is so common in Bangladesh that it’s used as an intimidation tactic. Perhaps this will all change if Hercules continues his murder spree. 

  

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• Goodbye "Freedom And Democracy" – Hello "Rules-Based International Order"

  Authored by Paul Carline via Off-Guardian.org,

  The banner and the clarion call of western countries, and their own asserted legitimation – especially when they are engaging in illegal wars and coups – used to be “freedom and democracy”: the precious gift they were generously and selflessly offering to a backward world – or one allegedly in the ‘chains’ of Socialism/Communism. There was “Radio Free Europe”, for example, pushing out western liberal propaganda, primarily against the countries of the former Soviet Union.

  

  The Washington-based “Freedom House” organisation, which claims to be independent, has around 150 staff members in Washington and in ‘field offices’ around the world. Its President is Michael J. Abramowitz, who before joining Freedom House in 2017, was director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. Before that, he was National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. He is also a board member of the National Security Archive. The Board of Trustees is chaired by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and co-author of the USA Patriot Act.

  

  Since 1972, Freedom House, whose website sports a warm endorsement by none other than Francis Fukuyama, has produced an annual “Freedom in the World” global map (above), which divides the world into countries which are either “free”, “partly free”, or “not free”. The allegedly “free” countries are coloured green, the “partly free” ones a kind of muddy yellow, and the “not free” ones blue.

  Its analysis of “freedom” covers “the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, rights of association and organization, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights”. The word ‘democracy’ is not used in the ratings system, nor is it defined anywhere, but the 2018 analysis is headlined “Democracy in Crisis”.

  According to Freedom House, in 2018 45% of the world (by country) or 39% (by population) was “free”, 30% (country) or 24% (population) was “partly free”, and 25%/37% “not free”. Countries are rated on a percentage points system. Sweden, which last year joined in the NATO ‘war games’ – despite not being a NATO member – is given a full 100 points, Canada 99, Uruguay 98, both Chile and the UK 94, France a completely undeserved 90, the USA 86 and Israel an unreal 79. By contrast, China scores 14, Iran 17, and Russia a mere 20, while Tibet and Syria are granted only 1 point each (no bias there). Almost incredibly, Ukraine scores 62 – allowing it to be rated as “partly free”! Very oddly, the FAQ section is available in only two languages – English and Ukrainian!

  I suspect that the statement by Freedom House’s President, Michael J. Abramowitz, to the effect that:

   “A quarter-century ago, at the end of the Cold War, it appeared that totalitarianism had at last been vanquished and liberal democracy had won the great ideological battle of the 20th century”, must induce wry smiles – if not outright anger – in many Off-Guardian readers.

  Abramowitz predictably refers to “the rise of populist leaders who appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment and give short shrift to fundamental civil and political liberties” and describes “newcomer Emmanuel Macron” as a “centrist” who “handily” (interesting choice of words!) won the French presidency.

  Depressingly predictable is his comment on China and Russia, which he labels “the world’s leading autocracies” and which he asserts “have seized the opportunity not only to step upinternal repression but also to export their malign influence to other countries, which are increasingly copying their behaviour and adopting their disdain for democracy” (emphasis added; no mention of the massive ‘disdain for democracy’ in the USA, UK, and numerous members of the EU).

  According to Abramowitz, “Democratic governments allow people to help set the rules to which all must adhere, and have a say in the direction of their lives and work!” If that were true, there would be lots of direct democracy in all those “free” countries. It’s true that there is some ‘direct democracy’, e.g. popular initiatives and referendums, in a few states of the USA and in a few European countries – with Switzerland far and away the best example, followed by Germany at the regional and local levels, thanks to the efforts over decades of its leading pro-democracy organisation “Mehr Demokratie”, which has been trying to have direct democratic rights established also at the national level, which would really allow the people to “help set the rules”. Germany’s “Basic Law” (it doesn’t have a proper constitution for reasons which I cannot go into here but which will be known to many) actually states: “All power derives from the people”(Article 20) and “State power is exercised by the people in elections and referendums”(emphasis added) – but successive governments have refused to enact the laws that would allow state-level referendums, presumably because they fear the “people power” that is the literal meaning of ‘democracy’.

  Given subsequent developments, Kofi Annan’s 2001 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech now strikes a sour note:

  “The obstacles to democracy have little to do with culture or religion, and much more to do with the desire of those in power to maintain their position at any cost. This is neither w new phenomenon nor one confined to any particular part of the world. People of all cultures value their freedom of choice and feel the need to have a say in the decisions affecting their lives”

  In the 2002 UNDP World Development Report, Annan re-affirmed the true nature of democracy in these words:

  “True democratization means more than elections. People’s dignity requires that they be free – and able – to participate in the formation and stewardship of the rules and institutions that govern them”.

  According to Abramovitch’s definition, and that of Kofi Annan, there is zero genuine democracy in the U.K. (a purely representative system – especially one still using an outdated and wholly disreputable FPTP system, with rare referendums arranged by the government, which sets the question – is not a legitimate form of democracy).

  We may also ask, in parenthesis as it were, who – if not the electorates – is “helping to set the rules”, for example in Europe specifically. As of July 2017, there were 11,327 registered lobby organisations in the EU, employing some 82,096 people – the equivalent of 50,326 full-time personnel – of which nearly 7,000 have access to the Parliament. In Germany there are around eight lobbyists – representing ‘outside’ interests – for every member of the national parliament – and the lobby registers are voluntary. Only seven countries (France, Ireland, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Slovenia and the UK) have passed any laws on lobbying.

  What is extremely interesting and telling is the general absence of references to ‘freedom and democracy’ by our so-called ‘leaders’. Those words have been replaced in the political lexicon by the now clearly favoured expression “the rules-based international order” – which doesn’t have quite the same ring, or the same connotations, as “freedom and democracy”.

  One is forced to ask: whose order? whose rules? If Abramowitz is correct, and since we are privileged enough to live in a country which, if we are to believe its FH rating, is little short of perfect, we the people must have been involved in setting those rules. We should at least have been told what they mean! For example, what does ‘international’ mean in this context? It suggests a global compact – but when it is used it specifically excludes certain countries and regimes which we are led to believe are not part of, or indeed are allegedly trying to undermine, this new ‘order’.

  Although the word ‘international’ is often taken to be a synonym for ‘global’ or ‘universal’, its literal meaning is ‘between nations’. The UN has of course long promulgated and endorsed all kinds of ‘universal’ rules (the ICC rules on aggression for instance) – many of which are routinely flouted by the countries which most loudly lay claim to being ‘democracies’ and loyal observers of the “rules-based international order”.

  But we are now seeing a new type of literally ‘inter-national’ agreements being made in Europe, often merely between two governments at a time (with no democratic endorsement by either parliaments or people) and where the suspicion is that this is a new way of hiding from the general public what is really going on in Europe – specifically the step-by-step implementation of the “United States of Europe” project which dates from at least 1946.

  There seems to be an undue haste to complete the creation of a unified military establishment that would not be answerable to the individual nation states which are contributing their forces (and infrastructure!) and which would also appear to include a much closer working relationship between military and police forces. Does the urgency have to do with the level of chaos in Europe and the threat – now materialised in the form of the “Yellow Vest” protests – of widespread civil unrest and potentially public revolt?

  So Prime Minister Theresa May can pretend to the public that the ‘Brexit’ approved by a majority of voters will take place i.e. that Britain will “come out of” the EU, while at the same time, and largely in secret or behind closed doors in completely undemocratic meetings, the government is committing the entire UK military establishment, step by step, to the new ‘unified European defence establishment’. The UK enters into a special relationship with France (and thereby with the EU). France and Germany have just signed a new treaty – the Aachen Treaty – so does the UK automatically acquire the special relationship with Germany? And will this “two-step” approach eventually link all willing states (one could imagine Hungary, perhaps Italy and Greece also, not being so willing) in the ‘new European order’?

  In struggling to understand the “rules-based international order” I found this definition by the RAND Corporation very helpful:

  Since 1945, the United States has pursued its global interests through creating and maintaining international economic institutions, bilateral and regional security organizations, and liberal political norms; these ordering mechanisms are often collectively referred to as the international order.

  In recent years, rising powers have begun to challenge aspects of this order. This report is part of a project, titled “Building a Sustainable International Order,” that aims to understand the existing international order, assess current challenges to the order, and recommend future US policies with respect to the order.

  This report is the first of those and reflects the project team’s attempt to understand the existing international order, including how US decision makers have described and used the order in conducting foreign policy, as well as how academics have assessed the mechanisms by which the order affects state behaviour.

  When discussing policy responses to a fraying international order, the first challenge is to understand what we mean by the term. Order has various meanings in the context of international politics, and specific orders can take many forms.1 For the purposes of this project, we conceive of order as the body of rules, norms, and institutions that govern relations among the key players in the international environment. An order is a stable, structured pattern of relationships among states that involves some combination of parts, including emergent norms, rulemaking institutions, and international political organizations or regimes, among others.

  – RAND Corporation 2016, Understanding the Current International Order

  This more recent observation was both insightful and amusing:

  “The rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the US,” Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said as the summit meeting got underway in Quebec’s picturesque resort town of La Malbaie on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

  The trans-Atlantic rift manifested itself in a behind-the-scenes debate about the wording of the traditional summit communiqué. The American side objected to including the phrase “rules-based international order,” even though it is boilerplate for such statements, according to two people briefed on the deliberations. The Europeans and Canadians were pushing back, but it remained unclear whether the Trump administration would ultimately sign the statement or be left on its own.

  – NYT June 8, 2018 Michael D. Shear

  So the ‘rules-based international order’ is, in reality, the expression of America’s “global interests”. Other parties – such as British and other governments – may be allowed to put on the mask of the Eagle, whilst claiming to be on the side of justice, truth, human rights … and yes, democracy. And since it’s a US construct, the US and its allies can feel free to ‘make it up as they go along’.

  

• "Superhuman Is The Last Step" – AI Expert Warns Robots Will Replace Man Within 50 Years

  Considering the vast technological progression witnessed in the last decade, 50 years was “sufficient” to close several gaps with human beings… and mankind must set thorough rules and defined boundaries before it is too late.

  

  That is the ominous warning from Luca De Ambroggi, the research and analysis lead for AI solutions within the Transformative Technology team at London-based global information provider IHS Markit:

  “In 50 years, it is reasonable to think that robots will be able to ‘support’ and replace human being in several activities. Already electro-mechanical devices outperform humans in sensitiveness and reaction time.”

  

  He said: “Artificial Intelligence is here, and it’s here for the long haul.”

  “We are into the so called Narrow or Weak era of AI. It is ‘weaker’ than human or is equal or superior just on few limited tasks and senses.

  “If we fast forward 50 years, science fiction might come easily back in our mind. The difference is that by then we might not consider it anymore ‘fiction’. “

  “This era is Generic – Multi Modal AI. It is comparable to human intelligence applied in all senses, working powerfully in parallel.”

  “However it is disrupting society and as it evolves, it will have major impacts on data security, labour and ethics.

  

  Most alarmingly, Ambroggi notes that “humans have to prevent machines being in a position to replace us, and no one else.”

  ”We need to go back into ethics. It is a common view that AI, and AI-driven devices/robots, will increase business and wealth all over the world.  “

  “It is again up to the regulator and administrator to be sure that all humans will benefit of it and not a few corporations.”

  “Even if our brain will still have advantages and human beings will remain more dynamic and versatile, electronics will be able to outperform humans in several specific functions, as it does today, from machine vision, to audio/speech recognition. 

  We already see the evolution…

  “A few years ago Honhai implemented intelligence machine personnel in their production lines in the same way as computers or other equipment replaced humans 30-40 years back. “

  Looking further ahead, The Express reports that Mr. Ambroggi considered the idea of robots one day being regarded as having consciousness, and therefore being considered independent lifeforms. He explained:

  “We should also mention consciousness. We can argue that even consciousness comes from experience, as you see in the human behaviour that is extremely differentiated in the various part of the world.

  “If so, AI can and will address it, because experience is replicable.

  “This is very possible to be a reality as well, perhaps not in the next 50 years, but technology has evolved so quickly I wouldn’t want to doubt it…When we study biology, a ‘living being’ has to have at least one living ‘cellular’ unit.  “

  All of which leads to the last, final solution, question…

  “The longer term question is, can the ‘replaced people’ be re-qualified and be allowed to still add value in our society?”

  

  He has an answer for that too… Superhumans!!

  “So far it is not the case but clearly this might be overcome in the future. Human intelligence can be enhanced with an AI-Chip implant, but then are we entering new realms and defining what is and what isn’t a hybrid humanoid?”

  “Superhuman is the last step, and I fear to use the word last. It is what drives the future of the research. “

  “Whatever will be above human capabilities. Before that, we better be sure to have in place good regulations, methodologies and ethical processes to ensure to take advantage of the positive side of the technology.”

  Perhaps, the majority of Americans are right after – to fear the AI Apocalypse…

  

  Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that according to a survey conducted byOxford University’s Center for the Governance of AI, many Americans fear a future where mechanisms of AI become too intelligent. When asked what kind of impact high-level machine intelligence would have on humanity, 34 percent of respondents thought it would be negative, with 12 percent going for the option “very bad, possibly human extinction”. Only 27 percent of respondents believed in a positive outcome, 21 percent thought AI wouldn’t change the future much and 18 percent said they didn’t know what impact AI would have.

  When asked to consider a negative future outcome of AI technology, Americans ranked the AI apocalypse as more catastrophic than the possible failure to address climate change, even though respondents said that it was less likely to happen.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  The respondents of the study said that they would trust university researchers most to build and responsibly manage AI technology. 50 percent said they had at least a fair amount of confidence in their ability in the field. The U.S. military at 49 percent came in a close second. Also, more Americans trust Microsoft with advanced AI technology (44 percent) than Amazon (41 percent), Google (39 percent), Apple (36 percent) or Facebook (18 percent).

  Overall, a large majority of Americans agreed that robots and other systems of artificial intelligence needed careful supervision. Despite the fears, more Americans agreed that high-level machine intelligence should be developed than said it should not.

  The survey also found that respondents underestimated the prevalence of AI technology. While Americans rightly assumed that driverless cars and virtual assistants use AI and machine learning mechanisms, fewer thought of Netflix recommendations, Google Translate or Google Search as products that use those technologies.

  

• Escobar: MAGA Misses The Eurasia Train

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

  While China and Russia solidify their economic and political alliance, the U.S. is missing an historic chance to join a multilateral world, instead clinging to military empire…

  

  We should know by now that the heart of the 21stCentury Great Game is the myriad layers of the battle between the United States and the partnership of Russia and China.

  Even the U.S. National Defense Strategy says so: “The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by … revisionist powers.” The recently published assessment on U.S. defense implications of China’s global expansionsays so too.

  The clash will frame the emergence of a possibly new, post-ideological, strategic world order amidst an extremely volatile unpredictability in which peace is war and an accident may spark a nuclear confrontation.

  The U.S. vs. Russia and China will keep challenging the West’s obsession in deriding “illiberalism,” a fearful, rhetorical exercise that equates Russian democracy with China’s one party rule, Iran’s demo-theocracy and Turkey’s neo-Ottoman revival.

  It’s immaterial that Russia’s economy is one-tenth of China’s. From boosting trade that bypasses the U.S. dollar, to increasing joint military exercises, the Russia-China symbiosis is poised to advance beyond political and ideological affinities.

  China badly needs Russian know-how in its military industry. Beijing will turn this knowledge into plenty of dual use, civilian-military innovations.

  The long game indicates Russia and China will break down language and cultural barriers to lead Eurasian integration against American economic hegemony backed by military might.

  One could say the Eurasian century is already upon us. The era of the West shaping the world at will (a mere blip of history) is already over. This is despite Western elite denials and fulminations against the so-called “morally reprehensible,” “forces of instability” and “existential threats.”

  Standard Chartered, the British financial services company, using a mix of purchasing power exchange rates and GDP growth, has projected that the top five economies in 2030 will be China, the U.S., India, Japan and Russia. These will be followed by Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey and the UK. Asia will extend its middle class as they are slowly killed off across the West.

  Hop on the Trans-Eurasia Express

  A case can be made that Beijing’s elites are fascinated at how Russia, in less than two decades, has returned to semi-superpower status after the devastation of the Yeltsin years.

  That happened to a large extent due to science and technology. The most graphic example is the unmatched, state-of-the-art weaponry unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in his March 1, 2018speech.

  In practice, Russia and China will be advancing the alignment of China’s New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with Russia’s Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

  There’s ample potential for a Trans-Eurasia Express network of land and maritime transport corridors to be up and running by the middle of next decade, including, for instance, road and railway bridges connecting China with Russia across the Heilongjiang River.

  

  Heilongjiang or Amur River separating China and Russia. (Wikimedia)

  Following serious trilateral talks involving Russia, India and Iran last November, closer attention is being paid to the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km long lane mixing sea and rail routes essentially linking the Indian Ocean with the Persian Gulf through Iran and Russia and further on down the road, to Europe.

  Imagine cargo transiting from all over India to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, then overland to Bandar Anzali, an Iranian port on the Caspian Sea, and then on to the Russian southern port of Astrakhan, and after that to Europe by rail. From New Delhi’s point of view, that means shipping costs reduced by up to 40 percent, and Mumbai-to-Moscow in only 20 days.

  Down the line, INSTC will merge with BRI – as in Chinese-led corridors linked with the India-Iran-Russia route into a global transport network. 

  This is happening just as Japan is looking at the Trans-Siberian Railway – which will be upgraded throughout the next decade – to improve its connections with Russia, China and the Koreas. Japan is now a top investor in Russia and at the same time very much interested in a Korea peace deal. That would free Tokyo from massive defense spending conditioned by Washington’s rules. The EAEU free trade agreements with ASEAN can be added to that.

  Especially over these past four years, Russia has also learned how to attract Chinese investment and wealth, aware that Beijing’s system mass-produces virtually everything and knows how to market it globally, while Moscow needs to fight every block in the book dreamed up by Washington.

  The Huawei-Venezuela “Axis of Evil”

  

  Metal Truss Railroad Bridge (Kama River, near Perm city). Early color photograph from Russia, created by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii as part of his work to document the Russian Empire from 1909 to 1915. (Wikimedia)

  While Washington remains a bipartisan prisoner to the Russophobic Platonic cave – where Cold War shadows on the wall are taken as reality – MAGA is missing the train to Eurasia.

  A many-headed hydra, MAGA, stripped to the bone, could be read as a non-ideological antidote to the Empire’s global adventurism. Trump, in his non-strategic, shambolic way, proposed at least in theory the return to a social contract in the U.S. MAGA in theory would translate into jobs, opportunities for small businesses, low taxes and no more foreign wars.

  It’s nostalgia for the 1950s and 60s before the Vietnam quagmire and before “Made in the USA” was slowly and deliberately dismantled. What’s left are tens of trillions of national debt; a quadrillion in derivatives; the Deep State running amok; and a lot of pumped up fear of evil Russians, devious Chinese, Persian mullahs, the troika of tyranny, the Belt and Road, Huawei, and illegal aliens.

  More than a Hobbesian “war of all against all” or carping about the “Western rules-based system” being under attack, the fear is actually of the strategic challenge posed by Russia and China, which seeks a return to rule by international law.

  MAGA would thrive if hitched to a ride on the Eurasia integration train: more jobs and more business opportunities instead of more foreign wars. Yet MAGA won’t happen – to a large extent because what really makes Trump tick is his policy of energy dominance to decisively interfere with Russia and China’s development.

  The Pentagon and the “intel community” pushed the Trump administration to go after Huawei, branded as a nest of spies, while pressuring key allies Germany, Japan and Italy to follow. Germany and Japan permit the U.S. to control the key nodes in the extremities of Eurasia. Italy is essentially a large NATO base.

  The U.S. Department of Justice requested the extradition of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou from Canada last Tuesday, adding a notch to the Trump administration’s geopolitical tactic of “blunt force trauma.” 

  Add to it that Huawei – based in Shenzhen and owned by its workers as shareholders – is killing Apple across Asia and in most latitudes across the Global South. The real the battle is over 5G, in which China aims to upstage the U.S., while upgrading capacity and production quality.

  The digital economy in China is already larger than the GDP of France or the UK. It’s based on the BATX companies (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi), Didi (the Chinese Uber), e-commerce giant JD.com and Huawei. These Big Seven are a state within a civilization – an ecosystem they’ve constructed themselves, investing fortunes in big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet. American giants – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google – are absent from this enormous market.

  Moreover, Huawei’s sophisticated encryption system in telecom equipment prevents interception by the NSA. That helps account for its extreme popularity all across the Global South, in contrast to the Five Eyes (U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) electronic espionage network.

  The economic war on Huawei is also directly connected to the expansion of BRI across 70 Asian, European and African nations, constituting a Eurasia-wide network of commerce, investment and infrastructure able to turn geopolitical and geo-economic relations, as we know them, upside down.

  Greater Eurasia Beckons

  Whatever China does won’t alter the Deep State’s obsession about “an aggression against our vital interests,” as stated by the National Defense Strategy. The dominant Pentagon narrative in years to come will be about China “intending to impose, in the short term, its hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region, and catch the United States off-guard in order to achieve future global pre-eminence.” This is mixed with a belief that Russia wants to “crush NATO” and “sabotage the democratic process in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.”

  

  The Karakoram Highway connecting China and Pakistan, sometimes referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World.(Wikimedia)

  During my recent travels along the northern part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), I saw once again how China is upgrading highways, building dams, railways and bridges that are useful not only for its own economic expansion but also for its neighbors’ development. Compare it to U.S. wars – as in Iraq and Libya – where dams, railways and bridges are destroyed.

  Russian diplomacy is all but winning the New Cold War — as diagnosed by Prof. Stephen Cohen in his latest book, War with Russia: From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate.

  Moscow mixes serious warnings with diverse strategies, such as resurrecting the South Stream gas pipeline to supply Europe as an extension of Turk Stream after the Trump administration also furiously opposed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, Moscow ramps up energy exports to China.

  The advance of the Belt and Road Initiative is linked to Russian security and energy exports, including the Northern Sea Route, as an alternative future transportation corridor to Central Asia. Russia emerges then as the top security guarantee for Eurasian trade and economic integration.

  Last month in Moscow, I discussed Greater Eurasia– by now established as the overarching concept of Russian foreign policy – with top Russian analysts. They told me Putin is on board. He referred to Eurasia recently as “not a chessboard or a geopolitical playground, but our peaceful and prosperous home.”

  Needless to say, U.S. think tanks dismiss the idea as “abortive”. They ignore Prof. Sergey Karaganov, who as early as mid-2017 was arguing that Greater Eurasia could serve as a platform for “a trilateral dialogue on global problems and international strategic stability between Russia, the United States and China.”

  As much as the Beltway may refuse it, “The center of gravity of global trade is now shifting from the high seas toward the vast continental interior of Eurasia.”

  Beijing Skirts the Dollar

  Beijing is realizing it can’t meet its geo-economic goals on energy, security, and trade without bypassing the U.S. dollar.

  According to the IMF, 62 percent of global central bank reserves were still held in U.S. dollars by the second quarter of 2018. Around 43 per cent of international transactions on SWIFT are still in U.S. dollars. Even as China, in 2018, was the single largest contributor to global GDP growth, at 27.2 percent, the yuan still only accounts for 1 percent of international payments, and 1.8 per cent of all reserve assets held by central banks.

  It takes time, but change is on the way. China’s cross-border payment network for yuan transactions was launched less than four years ago. Integration between the Russian Mir payment system and Chinese Union Pay appears inevitable.

  Bye Bye Drs. K and Zbig

  Russia and China are developing the ultimate nightmare for those former shamans of U.S. foreign policy, Henry Kissinger and the late Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski.

  Back in 1972 Kissinger was the mastermind – with logistical help from Pakistan – of the Nixon moment in China. That was classic Divide and Rule, separating China from the USSR. Two years ago, before Trump’s inauguration, Dr. K’s advice dispensed at Trump Tower meetings consisted of a modified Divide and Rule: the seduction of Russia to contain China.

  The Kissinger doctrine rules that, geopolitically, the U.S. is just “an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia.” Domination “by a single power of either of Eurasia’s two principal spheres – Europe or Asia – remains a good definition of strategic danger for America, Cold War or no Cold War,” as Kissinger said. “For such a grouping would have the capacity to outstrip America economically and, in the end, militarily.”

  The Zbig doctrine ran along similar lines. The objectives were to prevent collusion and maintain security among the EU-NATO vassals; keep tributaries pliant; keep the barbarians (a.k.a. Russians and allies) from coming together; most of all prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition (as in today’s Russia-China alliance) capable of challenging U.S. hegemony; and submit Germany, Russia, Japan, Iran, and China to permanent Divide and Rule.

  Thus the despair of the current National Security Strategy, forecasting China displacing the United States “to achieve global preeminence in the future,” through BRI’s supra-continental reach.

  The “policy” to counteract such “threats” is sanctions, sanctions, and more unilateral sanctions, coupled with an inflation of absurd notions peddled across the Beltway – such as that Russia is aiding and abetting the re-conquest of the Arab world by Persia. Also that Beijing will ditch the “paper tiger” “Made in China 2025” plan for its major upgrade in global, high-tech manufacturing just because Trump hates it.

  Once in a blue moon a U.S. report actually gets it right, such as in Beijing speeding up an array of BRI projects; as a modified Sun Tzu tactic deployed by President Xi Jinping.

  At the June 2016 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Professor Xiang Lanxin, director of the Centre of One Belt and One Road Studies at the China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, defined BRI as an avenue to a “post-Westphalian world.” The journey is just beginning; a new geopolitical and economic era is at hand. And the U.S. is being left behind at the station.

  

• Tiny $9,000 Electric Cars Are About To Flood The United States And Europe

  Chinese automakers have been selling “mini-electric” vehicles hand-over-fist, selling more electric vehicles than the rest of the world combined according to QZ. 

  

  

  As early as next month, China’s Kaiyun Motors will begin selling its “Pickman” electric pickup truck in the US, Italy and Germany – with the base model starting in the US at $8,950 for a NHSTA-approved version that can legally operate on roads with speed limits under 35 mph, and $5,700 for a non-street-legal version. 

  

  

  These tiny electric cars are light on frills, but can take a family of three up to 75 miles on a single charge as long as they weigh under 1,000 lbs. They also take 10 hours to recharge and have a top speed of just 28 mph. 

  Compared to a Tesla Model S which can go over 200 miles on a single charge, have a top speed of 150 mph and can recharge in 75 minutes, the Pickman is clearly in a different league – for around $80,000 less. 

  These are not snazzy, high-end vehicles, and their marketing isn’t either. A promotional video for the Pickman features a young, hoodie-wearing Chinese narrator plainly explaining the car’s unique features. The pickup comes in six colors, boasts off-road capability, and can fit a “family of three,” according to the video. It has a range of 120 km (75 miles) on a single charge. The battery takes up to ten hours to charge. The Pickman’s top speed is 45 km per hour (28 miles per hour), and it has a payload capacity of 450 kg. –QZ

  

  

  “Mini-electric vehicles are more than enough to meet consumers’ daily needs,” Kaiyun founder Wang Chao told Bloomberg. “There is a huge market out there around the world.” 

  The Kaiyun Motors Pickman is basically an all-electric take on the classic Jeep model that helped the US win WWII. pic.twitter.com/grihgc5Orp

  — Jace Deloney (@JaceDeloney) February 4, 2019

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

  Kaiyun told Bloomberg that they intend to sell 10,000 Pickman mini trucks in the US this year after they gain approval to market the vehicle. 

  

• Why The War On Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy

  Authored by Kevin Barrett via The Unz Review,

  On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”

  At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.

  But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems.

  First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.

  When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute “recommendations” by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted by users. (Or at least it didn’t until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)

  The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which health approaches constitute “phony miracle cures” and which do not.

  Far less is there any agreement on “claims about 9/11 and other historical events.” (Thus far the only real attempt to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is the 9/11 Consensus Panel’s study—but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the Consensus Panel to determine which videos to “recommend”!)

  

  YouTube’s policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to – as Obama’s Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it – “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule’s 2008 paper “Conspiracy Theories,” critiqued by David Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a 2016 book, represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By 2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)

  Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:

  Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law.

  Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in preparation for it, the government should “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories” through various techniques including “cognitive infiltration” of 9/11 truth groups. Such “cognitive infiltration,” Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of “beneficial cognitive diversity” within the truth movement.

  What sort of “cognitive diversity” would Cass Sunstein consider “beneficial”? Perhaps 9/11 truth groups that had been “cognitively infiltrated” by spooks posing as flat-earthers would harbor that sort of “beneficial” diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive, high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community since 2008.

  Why does Sunstein think “conspiracy theories” are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed—which would necessitate revoking the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly nebulous terms, about “serious risks including the risk of violence.” But he presents no serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other “serious risks” could possibly be.

  Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the non-problem?

  The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various “national security” objectives. Ergo, 9/11 “conspiracy theories” are a threat to national security, and extreme measures are required to combat them. But since we can’t just burn the First Amendment overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert “boil the frog” approach, featuring plenty of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. “Cognitive infiltration” of internet platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.

  It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it comes to 9/11 and “conspiracy theories,” as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America’s disastrous post-9/11 policies.)

  The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.

  Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books, 2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not—even when the dissenter is wrong.

  Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached “E.” Had the crew included even one natural “troublemaker”—the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth—there almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.

  Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really happened on 9/11, and whether a “war on terror” makes sense, is permitted. The predictable result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of 9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11 truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about “crippled epistemology”!

  Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing “conspiracy theories” will be beneficial? Do YouTube’s decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly wrong.

  First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and “conspiracy theories” in general are “blatantly false.” No honest person with critical thinking skills who weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the realization that the 9/11 truth movement is right. The same is true regarding the serial assassinations of America’s best leaders during the 1960s. Many other “conspiracy theories,” perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as readers of Ron Unz’s American Pravda series are discovering.

  Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong—even wildly wrong.

  The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate dissenter.

  We could at least partially solve the real problem—bad groupthink—through promoting genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments on the other side of the issue—not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered after spending 15 years searching for them!

  But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the “war on terror”) should get YouTube “suggestions” for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor, 9/11 Mysteries, and the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Exposure to even those “truthers” who are more passionate than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according to Nemeth’s research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question facile assumptions.

  The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get “suggestions” for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum. MSNBC viewers should get “suggestions” for good material from the right. Both groups should get “suggestions” to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate dissidents—outlets like the Unz Review!

  Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube’s effort to make “conspiracy videos” invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression.

  Nemeth and colleagues’ findings that “conspiracy theories” and other forms of passionate dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).

  Editor Joseph Uscinski’s introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism:

  “In democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form the basis for some people’s medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use violence.”

  Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite “horrible decisions” to use “legitimate force” and “violence.” Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs)—including the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in 1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn’t like conspired to attack the US in 2001—were false or deceptive.

  Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood, none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.

  Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In “What We Mean When We Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine, exposes the bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.

  In “Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in U.S. Ghettos and on the ‘Arab Street’” Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: “The epithet ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often, it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices.” (p.82) Unfortunately, though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to “Conspiracy Theories in the Muslim World” and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is because the preponderance of evidence supports that interpretation.

  Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith’s “Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy,” which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory research: the a priori assumption that a “conspiracy theory” must be false or at least dubious: “If certain scholars (i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB) want to make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions the answers to our research programs.” (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that “the establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance.” He adds that conspiracy theories will inevitably “occasionally lead to disaster” (whatever that means). (p.110).

  I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers and consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.

  Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and publishing in The Unz Review.

  

• Sun Belt Rents Rose Aggressively In 2018 As Americans Abandoned Expensive Coastal Cities

  Squeezed by high rents and wages that, though rising, have hardly kept up with inflation, American workers have continued to migrate away from expensive coastal hubs (think New York City and San Francisco) in favor of Sun Belt cities where relatively cheap rents, nicer weather and good job opportunities await.

  But as moving to the Sun Belt grows in popularity, the influx of newcomers is beginning to impact the cost of living, as RentCafe’s latest monthly rent report revealed.

  While the national average rent climbed only slightly in January, marking a yoy increase of just 3.3.% according to RC’s Yardi Matrix of national rent prices, rents rose most rapidly along the Sun Belt, with the steepest increases seen in smaller cities like Las Vegas suburb Henderson, Nev.

  

  Analysts believe this is largely a factor of high prices along the coasts inspiring more Americans to look to build their lives elsewhere.

  Doug Ressler of Yardi Matrix: Despite affordability remaining an issue going forward, demographic trends will continue to support housing demand. The attractiveness of large coastal knowledge-intensive metro areas will persist, but high prices will drive some residents to smaller metro areas away from the coasts. Demand for apartments in attractive areas will remain strong, driven by the strength of the local economies.

  Of large metro areas in the region, Las Vegas stood out as the city where rents saw the fastest growth (+8.3%)  with rents in Phoenix, Arizona, also seeing a large (+7.6%) increase.

  Since last January, the hottest rental markets out of the 20 largest renter hubs in the U.S. were all located in the Sun Belt. Las Vegas apartments have seen the fastest rent growth in the top 20, having registered an 8.3% year-over-year increase over the past 12-month period. Sin City’s average rent rose to $1,048, up from $968 last January.

  Phoenix’s average rent also saw a sharp increase of 7.6% y-o-y getting to $1,018, leaving the Arizona city in second place among the largest rental hubs in the country. Rent growth was also brisk in Los Angeles(6%), Jacksonville (5.9%), Atlanta (5.6%) and Austin (5.6%).

  In fact, the only large city in the US that saw rents decline you was – ironically enough – the NYC borough of Queens.

  

  Rent prices in Houston, Boston and Baltimore also saw slower-than-usual growth.

  Among mid-sized cities, rents in Cleveland (6.6%), Mesa, Arizona (8.4%) and the California cities of Long Beach (7.2%), Riverside (6.3%) and Fresno (6.2%) saw the strongest increases.

  

  However, the fastest yoy increases occurred in smaller cities like Midland, Texas (17.7%), Odessa (14.2%) and Reno (10%).

  

  And finally, RentCafe presents the 10 most expensive – and least expensive – markets to rent a home.

  

  

• The Venezuelan Coup & Gilets Jaunes: Great-Power Politics In A Multipolar World Order

  Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The protests seen in France and the interference in the domestic politics of Venezuela highlight Western double standards, which stand in contrast to the respect for international law maintained by China, India and Russia.

  

  In France on November 17, 2018, hundreds of thousands of citizens, angered by the diminishing quality of their lives, the social iniquity in the country, and the widening gap between rich and poor, took to the streets in protest. The protests can easily be encapsulated in the following slogan: “We the people against you the elite.”

  This slogan has been a recurring theme throughout the West over the last three years, shaking up the British establishment with the pro-Brexit vote, discombobulating the United States with Trump’s victory, overturning Italy with the Lega/Five-Star government, and bringing Merkel’s star crashing down in Germany. Now it is the turn of Macron and France, one of the least popular leaders in the world, leading his country into chaos, with peaceful protests drawing a bloody response from the authorities following ten weeks of unceasing demonstrations.

  

  In Venezuela, Western elites would like us to believe that the situation is worse than in France in terms of public order, but that is simply a lie. It is a media creation based on misinformation and censorship. In Europe, the mainstream media has stopped showing images of the protests in France, as if to smother information about it, preferring to portray an image of France that belies the chaos in which it has been immersed for every weekend over the last few months.

  In Caracas, the right-wing, pro-American and anti-Communist opposition continues the same campaign based on lies and violence as it has customarily conducted following its electoral defeats at the hands of the Bolivarian revolution. The Western mainstream media beams images and videos of massive pro-government Bolivarian rallies and falsely portrays them as anti-Maduro protests. We are dealing here with acts of journalistic terrorism, and the journalists who push this narrative, instigating clashes, should be prosecuted by a criminal court of the Bolivarian people in Caracas. Instead, the West continues to tell us that Assange is a criminal for doing his job, that Wikileaks is a terrorist organization for publishing true information, and that Russia interfered in the US elections. All of these deceptions are carried out by the same Western journalists, media publications and US government that are currently plying their mendacious trade in Venezuela. What double standards!

  In Venezuela, the people are with Maduro, and before him they were with Chavez. The reason is simple and easy to understand, having everything to do with the economic policies adopted by the government of Caracas, which during just over a decade in power, reduced the level of poverty, illiteracy and corruption in the country, lengthening life expectancy and increasing access to education. The leftist model followed by dozens of South American countries during the 2000s favored the poorest layer of society by redistributing the wealth of the top 1%.

  The contrast between events in France and Venezuela perfectly encapsulate the state of the world today.

  In France, the people are fighting against Macron, austerity policies and globalist superstructure. In Venezuela, the the opposition (synonymous with the rich population) is leveraging external interference from the governments of Colombia, Brazil and the United States to try and overthrow a government that enjoys the full support of the people thanks to its domestic policies. Even as many in France are not conscious of it, they are actually protesting against an unjust, ultra-capitalist system imposed by the globalist elite of which Macron is a major cheerleader. In Venezuela, the ultra-capitalist class, backed by the transnational globalists, seek to overthrow a socialist system that places the interests of the 99% before those of the 1%.

  Maduro has an approval rating of around 65%, higher than any European or American leader. In France, Macron’s approval ratings hover around the single digits, with only Ukraine’s Poroshenko scoring lower. Poroshenko, quite naturally, dutifully joined the chorus of those egging on a coup against the Bolivarian government of Maduro, even as he leads a country besieged by out-of-control neo-Nazis.

  The protests in France are driven by two decades of impoverishment as a result of European diktats that prescribe austerity and the need to strip the middle class of its wealth to favor the influx of cheap labor. This strategy of reducing labor costs has already been employed in other countries, the aim being to increase profits for multinational companies without the need to relocate production to low-wage countries. The large-scale importation of exploited people from Africa has continued unabated for years, and now the average French citizen not only finds himself in an increasingly multi-ethnic society (with the government giving little incentive for newcomers to integrate) but also sees his lifestyle suffering due to a combination of lower wages and increasing taxes, making it increasingly difficult for him to make ends meet every month.

  In Venezuela, the crisis stems entirely from external interference coming from the United States, which has economically strangled Venezuela for over a decade. The methodology is that of sanctions and economic destabilization, the same as has been applied against Cuba over more than 50 years, albeit in that case unsuccessfully. Chavez and Maduro have drawn the ire of the global elites by blocking their international oil corporations from access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. It must be noted that Venezuela is one of the most important members of OPEC, with Riyadh and Moscow advancing the creation of an oil conglomerate known as OPEC +, with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as influential members. The West is of course deploying the “democracy promotion” canard to justify its shenanigans in Venezuela, one of its go-to tactics drawn from its well-used PSYOP toolkit.

  

  The French and Venezuelan situations also serve as a barometer for the general state of international relations in a multipolar context. While the US has little trouble interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs, Russia, China and India employ a completely different approach, maintaining a uniform foreign-policy line on Paris and Caracas. They express total support for their Bolivarian ally, which is an important source of trade for New Delhi, a strategic military-oil partner for Moscow, and a major seller of crude oil for Beijing.

  Each of the three Eurasian powers has every interest in actively opposing Washington’s attempts to subvert the Maduro government, given that Venezuela performs important regional-stability functions, as well as, above all, offering these Eurasian powers an opportunity to respond asymmetrically to Washington’s destabilization efforts in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. There has been talk of creating particular synergies between Venezuela and other countries similarly struggling to free themselves from under Washington’s boot. China and Russia’s sending of naval ships and military aircraft to the Americas, violating the Monroe doctrine, represents a riposte to the continued pressure placed on the borders of Russia and China by the US and NATO as part of their containment strategy.

  

• MS-13 Gang Member Arrested For Queens Subway Murder

  A 26-year-old man who was a member of the violent MS-13 street gang, was arrested Monday in connection with a brazen murder on a Queens subway platform the previous day according to the NYT. The murder was the first killing on the subway in more than a year.

  According to chief of Detectives Dermot Shea, the killing stemmed from a feud between rival gangs. The victim, Abel Mosso, 20, was believed to be a member of the 18th Street gang, while the gunman, who was not identified, had been charged in December by the Queens district attorney in a gang conspiracy case, and is a known member of MS-13, a Salvadoran street gang which president Trump has vowed to eradicate.

  “Gang incidents within transit are extremely rare,” Chief Shea said. “When you have an incident like this, you’re going to get the full might and fury of the N.Y.P.D.”

  The shooting, which was caught on video by a bystander, occurred around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, after a fight on a crowded 7 train bound for Manhattan spilled out onto the platform at the 90th Street-Elmhurst Avenue station in the Elmhurst neighborhood.

  

• How Amazon's Ring & Rekognition Set The Stage For Consumer-Generated Mass-Surveillance

  Authored by Jevan Hutson via The Washington Journal of Law, Technology, & Arts,

  If every home on a street, in a neighborhood, or in a town had a Ring surveillance system, the individual cameras, taken together, could construct an extremely intimate picture of daily public life. By integrating facial recognition and contracting with local and federal law enforcement agencies, Amazon supercharges the potential for its massive network of surveillant consumers to comprehensively track the movements of individuals over time, even when the individual has not broken any law. Fully realized, these technologies set the stage for consumer generated mass surveillance.

  

  Amazon’s Ring surveillance system dominates the growing video doorbell market. Ring, acquired by Amazon last April, is a system of home surveillance doorbell cameras which operate on an integrated social media platform, Neighbors. Neighbors allows users to share camera footage with other users and law enforcement agencies, as well as report safety issues, strangers, or suspicious activities. The platform aggregates user-generated reports and video data into a local activity maps and watchlists.

  Similar community platforms where neighbors can report suspicious persons or activity, such as NextDoor, are notorious for racial bias and profiling. This problem will surely be made worse by Amazon’s desire to automatically classify persons as “suspicious” through sentiment analysis and other biometric data collection.

  

  A recent patent application shows that Amazon will integrate their facial recognition product Rekognition into the Ring system, while also collecting and analyzing a litany of other biometric information. Many raise serious concerns about the integration of facial recognition to our contemporary digital ecosystem. Indeed, a unique consensus among researchers, lawmakers, advocates, and technology companies that facial recognition technology amplifies bias, intensifies mass surveillance and ought be subject to stringent regulation. [For more WJLTA coverage on algorithmic bias, see here.]

  A centralized social network of private facial recognition cameras expands and streamlines traditional surveillance infrastructure by creating more data that is easily searchable. Hundreds of thousands of home security cameras will certainly generate massive amounts of data, but the integration of a social networking platform and facial recognition analytics cuts though the problem of irrelevant data. The Neighbors platform allows users and Amazon to identify and aggregate relevant data, while Rekognition can sift through both stored data and live visual feeds to locate and track individuals and groups.

  This dystopic infrastructure is not only physical, it is cultural. Consumer surveillance technologies entrench surveillance as an essential duty of citizenship. Beyond offloading the costs and pressures of physical infrastructure from the state to consumers—creating new avenues for surveillance and data collection with less restrictions—these technologies inculcate surveillance as a social and communal obligation and engender public support and acceptance of ever more pervasive and invasive surveillance.

  By reorienting the surveillance relationship between individual and the state to the individual versus the individual, the Ring system fragments accountability and deprives the individual of the ability to challenge or escape data collection. It becomes harder to challenge a larger, consolidated surveillance apparatus because it is built consensually by private parties. Our neighbors have the right to watch and protect their private property, despite the objections of others. A diffused network of cameras reduces freedom of choice in how individuals protect their privacy because they are up against an architecture of fragmented private parties, rather than just the state.

  If every Amazon Prime member in the United States had a Ring system, law enforcement could have access to the crowdsourced security footage of over 95 million people. A successful business model for Ring spells the evisceration of reasonable expectations of privacy in public life and the significant chilling of constitutionally protected activities by allowing government-technology partnerships to create a detailed picture of the movements – and therefore the lives – of a massive number of community members doing nothing more than going about their daily business. This enables law enforcement agencies to undertake widespread, systematic surveillance on a level that was never possible before.

  

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• How Crack Funded A CIA War: Gary Webb Interview On The Contras And Ronald Reagan

  Investigative journalist Robert Parry credits Gary Webb for being responsible for the following government investigations into the Reagan-Bush administration’s conduct of the Contra war:

  On December 10, 1996, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block announced the conclusion of his investigation into the issue, publishing a summary of the investigation at a press conference. He announced at the press conference that “We have found no evidence that the government was involved in drug trafficking in South-Central.” Nevertheless, the report included information that supported some of the charges. Charles Rappleye reported in the L.A. Weekly that Block’s “unequivocal statement is not backed up by the report itself, which raises many questions.” Much of the LAPD investigation centered on allegations made in a postscript article to the newspaper’s “Dark Alliance” series.

  On January 29, 1998, Hitz published Volume One of his internal investigation. This was the first of two CIA reports that eventually substantiated many of Webb’s claims about cocaine smugglers, the Nicaraguan contra movement, and their ability to freely operate without the threat of law enforcement.

  On March 16, 1998, Hitz admitted that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and individuals the CIA knew were involved in the drug business. Hitz told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “there are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.” Senator John Kerry reached similar conclusions a decade earlier in 1987.

  On May 7, 1998, Rep. Maxine Waters, revealed a memorandum of understanding – item 24 between the CIA and the Justice Department from 1982, which was entered into the Congressional Record. This letter had freed the CIA from legally reporting drug smuggling by CIA assets, a provision that covered the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan rebels.

  On July 23, 1998, the Justice Department released a report by its Inspector General, Michael R. Bromwich. The Bromwich report claimed that the Reagan-Bush administration was aware of cocaine traffickers in the Contra movement and did nothing to stop the criminal activity. The report also alleged a pattern of discarded leads and witnesses, sabotaged investigations, instances of the CIA working with drug traffickers, and the discouragement of DEA investigations into Contra-cocaine shipments. The CIA’s refusal to share information about Contra drug trafficking with law-enforcement agencies was also documented. The Bromwich report corroborated Webb’s investigation into Norwin Meneses, a Nicaraguan drug smuggler.

  On October 8, 1998, CIA I.G. Hitz published Volume Two of his internal investigation. The report described how the Reagan-Bush administration had protected more than 50 Contras and other drug traffickers, and by so doing thwarted federal investigations into drug crimes. Hitz published evidence that drug trafficking and money laundering had made its way into Reagan’s National Security Council where Oliver North oversaw the operations of the Contras.

  According to the report, the Contra war took precedence over law enforcement. To that end, the internal investigation revealed that the CIA routinely withheld evidence of Contra crimes from the Justice Department, Congress and even the analytical division of the CIA itself. Further, the report confirmed Webb’s claims regarding the origins and the relationship of Contra fundraising and drug trafficking. The report also included information about CIA ties to other drug traffickers not discussed in the Webb series, including Moises Nunez and Ivan Gomez. More importantly, the internal CIA report documented a cover-up of evidence which had led to false intelligence assessments.

  

  Webb was widely smeared by the MSM shortly after this interview…

  He was eventually vindicated, but not before his career was destroyed.

  He was found dead of an apparent suicide in 2004.

  The price of being a whistleblower?

  

  Source: The Strategic Culture Foundation

  

• Appeals Court: Police Don't Need A Reason To Place Americans On 'Suspicious Person' List

  Via MassPrivateI.com,

  Day by day, year by year our justice system proves the Constitution has essentially become worthless…

  

  Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that police do not need a reason to place a person on the Suspicious Person List.

  The ruling explains how President George W. Bush created fusion centers whose primary mission was to identify “suspicious Americans.”

  In October 2007, President George W. Bush issued a National Strategy for Information Sharing concerning terrorism-related information. The Strategy created fusion centers that would ensure Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were disseminated to and evaluated by appropriate government authorities, and identify requirements to support a unified process for reporting, tracking, and accessing SARs. The nationwide effort to standardize this information sharing was called the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative.

  According to the ruling, Americans can be considered suspicious for doing things like taking pictures of public art, buying a computer, practicing their religion, etc.

  Private guards prevented Prigoff, a professional photographer, from taking photographs of a work of public art near Boston, an incident that resulted in the creation of multiple SARs. The FBI then visited Prigoff’s home and questioned a neighbor about him.

  Being put on an SAR list is similar to the FDA’s drug manufacturing list

  The Ninth Circuit claimed that being placed on an SAR list is similar to determining whether a pharmacy is manufacturing drugs!

  The Functional Standard is similar to the Food & Drug Administration’s policy guide at issue in Professionals and Patients for Customized Care. The FDA promulgated a policy utilizing nine factors to help the agency determine whether to initiate an enforcement action against a pharmacy engaged in drug manufacturing.

  “The Fifth Circuit noted that although the nine factors assisted the FDA in identifying pharmacies engaged in the manufacture of  drugs, the ultimate  decision whether to bring an enforcement action remained with the agency. Likewise, the Functional Standard aids agencies in determining whether an individual is engaged in suspicious activity, but the final decision to disseminate an SAR rests in the analyst’s discretion.

  

  Credit: Government Accountability Office

  What does that mean to the average American?

  It means that you, your family, friends or neighbors could be labeled a “suspicious person” based on the whims of local police and a DHS officer.

  No one know really knows what factors law enforcement uses in determining if a person should be put on an SAR list. But we do know that the Ninth Circuit ruled that law enforcement does not need to have “reasonable suspicion” to put Americans on a Suspicious Person List.

  “Tips and leads required only ‘mere suspicion,’ a lower standard than the reasonable suspicion required for criminal intelligence data,” U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith said.

  “We will . . . uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned.” Motor Vehicle, 463 U.S. at 43. From the outset, the ISE has consistently pronounced that an ISE-SAR need not meet the reasonable suspicion standard in order to expand the base of information gathered.

  Welcome to America, a nation of paranoid police ready to brand you and your family suspicious for any reason.

  

• Maduro Rejects Election "Ultimatums", Warns Trump Will Leave White House "Stained With Blood" If Venezuela Invaded

  Less than  twenty-four hours  after telling thousands of supporters that he “agreed” and was “committed to holding parliamentary elections this year,” as demanded by the National Assembly…

  

   “They (the opposition) want to bring forward elections, let’s have elections,” he said defiantly just ahead of the Sunday deadline set by European nations to hold fresh presidential elections, though he stopped short of any reference to fresh presidential elections.

  …embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has flip-flopped rather aggressively, warning Donald Trump he will leave the White House “stained with blood” if he insists on pursuing what he called a “dirty” imperialist conspiracy to overthrow him.

  

  Perhaps Maduro’s newfound resistance was sparked by support he witnessed yesterday (as John Bolton continued his interventionist threats)…

  While millions of #Venezuelan people are protesting against #Maduro in support of Juan #Guaido in tens of cities and towns, a few thousand supporters of #Maduro are gathered in Avenue Bolivar at #Caracas as a part of a propaganda counter protest. pic.twitter.com/ZnLYOx92XI

  — Babak Taghvaee (@BabakTaghvaee) February 2, 2019

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

  The Guardian reports that Maduro warned, during a combative interview with the Spanish journalist Jordi Évole,

  “Stop. Stop, Trump! Hold it right there! You are making mistakes that will leave your hands covered in blood and you will leave the presidency stained with blood,”

  “Why would you want a repeat of Vietnam?”

  Maduro clearly signalled that he had no plans to go anywhere…

  “If the north American empire attacks us, we will have to defend ourselves… We aren’t going to hand Venezuela over…”

  However, Maduro admitted he was facing a “tough” fight against powerful opponents, but was not backing down…

  “They use sledgehammers instead of boxing gloves,” Maduro said of the US, which he claimed was seeking to topple him to seize Venezuela’s oil.

  “But it’s like David against Goliath,” Maduro went on. “We have our secrets too – and we have our sling. David’s sling is in our hands.”

  Maduro also sent a message to his opposition challenger Guaidó:

  “Think carefully about what you are doing,” he said, urging Guaidó “to abandon his coup-mongering strategy”.

  The democratically-elected Venezuelan president also rejected European calls for elections, saying:

  “We don’t accept ultimatums from anyone. I refuse to call for elections now – there will be elections in 2024. We don’t care what Europe says.”

  Adding, “you can’t base international politics on ultimatums. That’s the stuff of the empire, of colonial times.”

  Speaking to CBS on Sunday, Trump said he had rejected talks with Maduro “because so many really horrible things have been happening in Venezuela”.

  Asked if military action was possible, he replied: “Well I don’t want to say that. But certainly it’s something that’s on the – it’s an option.”

  Seems like it is time for Trump to unleash a “fire and fury” tweet to get things back on the diplomatic track.

  

• Washington Resurrected The Arms Race: PCR

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  The meetings in Beijing during January 30-31 between Washington, Russia, China, France and the UK apparently failed to preserve the commitment to prohibit intermediate range nuclear weapons. Washington stuck to its determination to withdraw from the historic agreement of Reagan and Gorbachev to destroy all land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles. This US withdrawal from a nuclear weapons reduction agreement follows the George W. Bush/Cheney regime’s withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Indeed, since the Clinton regime, every US president has produced worsening trust between the two major nuclear powers.

  

  No good can come of this as Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the Beijing meeting.

  The intermediate range nuclear missile treaty (INF) does not involve US security. It protects Europe from Russian missiles and Russia from US missiles stationed in Europe. Trump’s announcement that he is breaking free of the treaty tells the Russians that they are going to have missiles on their borders that allow them no response time. The Europeans are crazy to go along with this as they will be targeted by Russia in turn, but the Europeans are Washington’s vassals.

  Ever since Clinton broke Washington’s promise not to move NATO eastward, Russia has known that Washington seeks military advantage over Russia. By leaving the ABM treaty, the George W. Bush regime told Russia that Washington intended to gain superiority by constructing an anti-ballistic missile shield that would negate Russia’s retaliatory capability, thus subjecting Russia to nuclear blackmail.

  Russia responded with new hypersonic ICBMs that cannot be intercepted and now holds nuclear superiority over the US, but does not exploit it. The US response is to tear up the INF treaty and put its missiles back on Russia’s borders.

  Another way to look at the INF treaty’s demise is that the Obama regime committed one trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money (in addition to the annual one trillion dollar budget of the military/security complex) to build more nuclear weapons, none of which are needed as the US alone has enough to blow up the world several times. Breaking the INF treaty is a sure-fire way to initiate a new arms race which would provide justification for the trillion dollars of taxpayers’ money that Washington is handing over to the military/security complex for more nuclear weapons.

  Yet another way to look at the demise of the treaty is that Washington wants out of the treaty so that it can deploy intermediate range missiles against China. Washington has actually drawn up plans for war against Russia and China and has conducted simulations of what the outcome would be. America wins, of course.

  The dangerous idea that a nuclear war can be won has been pushed for some years by the neoconservatives who are committed to US hegemony over the world. This idea definitely serves the material interest of the military/security complex and is very popular among the power brokers in Washington.

  Washington’s excuse for breaking the INF treaty is that Russia is cheating and has violated the treaty. But Russia has no interest in violating a treaty that protects Russia. Russia’s intermediate range missiles cannot reach the US, and the only reason Russia would target Europe would be to retaliate for Europe hosting US missiles on Russia’s borders.

  The beneficiaries of a renewed nuclear arms race are the stockholders of the military/security complex. Washington is feeding their profits by placing humanity at greater risk of nuclear Armageddon. Weapons are piling up, the use of which would destroy all life on the planet. This makes the weapons the very opposite of security. Trump whose goal was to normalize relations with Russia is now under the thumb of the military/security complex and has announced US intentions to withdraw from the last remaining arms control agreement—the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

  The situation is serious. Very little is reported in US media of the resurrection of the nuclear arms race, and what is reported is blamed on Russia and China. Americans hear that it is China, not the US, that is militarizing the South China Sea and Russia that intends to restore the Soviet empire and that these intentions are threats to American national security. The evidence consists of assertion. The Russians have offered proof that they have not violated the INF treaty, but Washington doesn’t care because Washington is not leaving the treaty because of Russian violations.

  Washington is leaving the treaty because Washington wants military hegemony over Russia and China and a good excuse to hand over another trillion dollars to the military/security complex. In the end capitalism does more than exploit labor. It ends life on earth

  Traditionally, an aggressor paves the way to war with constant propaganda against the country to be attacked. The propaganda creates public support and justifies the attack. The constant stream of provocative accusations out of Washington against Russia and China (and Iran) in order to justify treaty breaking and higher armaments spending sounds to Russia and China like they are being set up for attack. It is reckless and irresponsible to convince nuclear powers that they are going to be attacked. There is no more certain way of producing war. Russia and China are hearing what Saddam Hussein heard, what Gaddafi heard, what Assad heard, what Iran hears. Unlike these victims of Washington, Russia and China have substantial offensive capability. When a country is convinced it is targeted for attack, does the country just sit there and await the attack?

  Washington might be setting up America for a first strike with the extraordinary stream of accusations and provocations issuing from people too stupid to be in possession of nuclear weapons. In the nuclear era, it is reckless for a government to replace diplomacy with threats and coercion. Washington’s recklessness is the most dangerous threat that the world faces.

  

• ICE Snags Hundreds Of Illegals With "Pay To Stay" Scheme

  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) netted hundreds of illegal immigrants after setting up a fake university, according to the The Detroit News. 

  The University of Farmington had no staff, no instructors, no curriculum and no classes but was utilized by undercover Homeland Security agents to identify people involved in immigration fraud, according to federal grand jury indictments unsealed Wednesday.

  Eight student recruiters were charged with participating in a conspiracy to help at least 600 foreign citizens stay in the U.S. illegally, according to the indictments, which describe a novel investigation that dates to 2015 but intensified one month into President Donald Trump’s tenure as part of a broader crackdown on illegal immigration. –The Detroit News

  Dubbed operation “Paper Chase,” the scheme used undercover Homeland Security agents to identify recruiters and entities engaged in immigration fraud – which collectively received $250,000 in cash and kickbacks to located students to attend the university, according to the indictment. 

  “… the university was being used by foreign citizens as a ‘pay to stay’ scheme which allowed these individuals to stay in the United States as a result of of foreign citizens falsely asserting that they were enrolled as full-time students in an approved educational program and that they were making normal progress toward completion of the course of study,” reads the indictment. 

  Fraudulent immigration papers were compiled by the recruiters, who would use them to help foreign citizens create fake records, including transcripts, according to prosecutors. 

  “We are all aware that international students can be a valuable asset to our country, but as this case shows, the well-intended international student visa program can also be exploited and abused,” said US Attorney Matthew Schneider. 

  

  Federal agents arrested dozens of University of Farmington students last Wednesday in a nationwide sweep connected to the arrest of the recruiters. “Students” were brought in on immigration violations and face deportation, according to ICE. 

  “It’s creative and it’s not entrapment,” said Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor, Peter Henning. “The government can put out the bait, but it’s up to the defendants to fall for it.”

  Those charged include:

  • Bharath Kakireddy, 29, of Lake Mary, Florida.
  • Aswanth Nune, 26, of Atlanta.
  • Suresh Reddy Kandala, 31, of Culpeper, Virginia.
  • Phanideep Karnati, 35, of Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Prem Kumar Rampeesa, 26, of Charlotte, North Carolina.
  • Santosh Reddy Sama, 28, of Fremont, California.
  • Avinash Thakkallapally, 28, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
  • Naveen Prathipati, 29, of Dallas.

  Starting in 2015, the university was part of an undercover operation dubbed “Paper Chase” and designed to identify recruiters and entities engaged in immigration fraud, according to the indictment. Homeland Security agents started posing as university officials in February 2017.

  Immigration crimes alleged in the indictment continued until this month and involved Homeland Security agents posing as owners and employees of the university. The university had a professional website, a red-and-blue coat of arms, a Latin slogan meaning “knowledge and work” and a physical location at a commercial building on Northwestern Highway. –The Detroit News

  The University of Farmington was based in the basement of a Detroit office complex across from the building’s café. According to Matt Friedman, co-founder of the Tanner Friedman strategic communications firm located next door, the university was highly suspect. 

  “I was like ‘what is this?” Freeman said last Wednesday. “I’d never heard of it before and never saw anybody there. The whole thing was just odd.“

  Of course- if Homeland Security is looking for illegals going to school in the US, maybe ICE should also check out the undocumented student services center at UCSD, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley or any other similar offices across the country.

  

• Bottom 5 "Sinkhole" Cities: New York, Chicago Lead The Way

  Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

  63 out of America’s largest 75 cities can’t pay their bills, acquired $330 billion in unfunded debt.

  

  Via a report on Watchdog, analysis of the 75 most populous cities in the U.S., shows that 63 of them can’t pay their bills. The total amount of unfunded debt among them is nearly $330 billion. Most of the debt is due to unfunded retiree benefits such as pension and health care costs.

  Financial State of Cities

  “This year, pension debt accounts for $189.1 billion, and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) – mainly retiree health care liabilities – totaled $139.2 billion,” the third annual “Financial State of the Cities” report produced by the Chicago-based research organization, Truth in Accounting (TIA), states.

  Bottom 35

  ​

  Top 5 Cities

  ​

  Grading the Cities

  • A grade: Taxpayer Surplus greater than $10,000 (0 cities)

  • B grade: Taxpayer Surplus between $100 and $10,000 (12 cities)

  • C grade: Taxpayer Burden between $0 and $4,900 (24 cities)

  • D grade: Taxpayer Burden between $5,000 and $20,000 (31 cities)

  • F grade: Taxpayer Burden greater than $20,000 (8 cities)

  Truth in Accounting’s grading system for the 75 cities gives greater meaning to each city’s Taxpayer Burden or Taxpayer Surplus. A municipal government receives a “C,” or passing grade, if it comes close to meeting its balanced budget requirement, which is reflected by a small Taxpayer Burden. An “A” or “B” grade is given to governments that have met their balanced budget requirements and have a Taxpayer Surplus. “D” and “F” grades apply to governments that have not balanced their budgets and have significant Taxpayer Burdens.

  What a miserable report.

  The most shocking thing is not how bad the worst cities are, but rather some cities in California actually appear to be solvent.

  By State

  The above analysis is by city. Also consider State Level Liabilities.

  ​

  Bottom Five

  1. New Jersey: -64,000

  2. Connecticut: -53,400

  3. Illinois: -50,800

  4. Kentucky -39,200

  5. Massachusetts: -33,500

  Congratulations Chicago!

  On a combined liability basis, Chicago is the winner. Each Chicagoan owes the state $50,800 and the city an additional $36,000 for a total of $86,800 per capita.

  New York City residents “only” owe $21,500 to the state plus $64,100 to the city for a grand total $85,600 per capita.

  Second City No More!

  

• Winter Is Wreaking Havoc On Electric Vehicles

  If there’s one thing electric vehicle owners are learning, it is that extremely cold temperatures are likely going to lead to frustration if they don’t take extra special care of their battery powered vehicles. Look at it as just another added benefit to “saving the world”.

  As we push through the cold that automakers are using as an excuse for poor sales this winter, customers of some companies – notably Tesla – are starting to realize that things are a little bit different with electric vehicles in the winter. Disgruntled owners of Model 3s have been widespread on social media and online forums, talking about numerous issues they’ve had with cold weather on their vehicles. People have complained about battery range draining and Model 3 door handles freezing up.

  

  A new report by Fortune highlights several Tesla owners pointing out their issues: “My biggest concern is the cold weather drained my battery 20 to 25 miles overnight and an extra five to ten miles on my drive to work. I paid $60,000 to not drain my battery so quickly,” said New Jersey based Model 3 owner Ronak Patel. 

  The pro-EV lot over at InsideEVs stated frankly back in December, “Cold weather demands a long range battery” before also encouraging people to shell out more money: “…if you reside in a colder region and can afford to spring for the long-range Model 3, then come winter, you’ll be glad you made that choice.” 

  Salim Morsy, an analyst with Bloomberg, stated: “It’s Panasonic that manufactures Tesla batteries. It’s not something specific to Tesla. It happens to Chevy with the Bolt and Nissan with the Leaf.”

  Additionally, the door design that Tesla used for the Model 3 as part of its appeal to be “different” continues to come back and bite owners during the winter. As we previously had noted during a cold spell in Quebec late last year, owners were having difficulty getting their handles out from their recessed spots in order to open the doors to their car. This has left some owners complaining and others writing to Tesla (or even Elon Musk on Twitter) looking for a fix.

  Pro-Tesla blogger Frederic Lambert was himself unable to get into his vehicle back in November when he documented his own issues in this hilarious video in which he couldn’t get into his own car:

  “Jesus Christ!” Lambert exclaimed about 53 seconds into the video, hands shaking from the cold, upon finally getting his door handle to pop out.

  “What’s specific to Tesla,” Morsy continued, “is the quality of manufacturing.”

  Meanwhile, Andrea Falcone from Boston, who bought a Model 3 about two months ago, stated on Twitter: “I can’t wait all day for this silly car.”

  As with everything, Elon Musk tweeted that there would be an over the air software update that would address how cars are holding up in cold weather. Given that the company can’t physically readjust door handles over the air, we’re guessing the fix will wind up being something that puts further pressure on an already drained battery. And recall, back in November, we had already reported that Tesla was going to “fix” these issues with a vague software update. 

  In terms of that “fix”, it looks as though the only thing that was addressed was the window not always coming down after the door opened. Since there are no door frames on the Model 3 doors, the window rolling down is semi-necessary to help open the door once the handle has popped out.

  In the release notes of its new software improvement in late 2018, Tesla said very little:

  “Window position and charge connector locking behaviors have been optimized for cold weather.”

  As we stated back in November, we’re still waiting for Elon Musk’s software update that’ll stop cold weather altogether. 

  

• 25 Things Beyond "The Wall Or No Wall" Question

  Authored by Laurence Vance via Target Liberty,

  One would have to have had his head in the sand for the past two years not to know that Donald Trump is committed to the idea of building a wall between the United States and Mexico.

  

  Trump famously said during his official announcement that he was a Republican candidate for president,

  “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”

  It has been two years now since Trump was inaugurated and still no wall.

  According to the “Immigration” section on the White House website,

  The United States must adopt an immigration system that serves the national interest. To restore the rule of law and secure our border, President Trump is committed to constructing a border wall and ensuring the swift removal of unlawful entrants. To protect American workers, the President supports ending chain migration, eliminating the Visa Lottery, and moving the country to a merit-based entry system. These reforms will advance the safety and prosperity of all Americans while helping new citizens assimilate and flourish.

  Some of Trump’s more conservative supporters are furious that he agreed to reopen the government without first obtaining funding from Congress for a border wall. For many of them, the issue of a border wall seems to be the only issue they care about. It doesn’t matter what Trump says, what he believes, or what he does, as long as he gets the wall built before the end of his term.

  Trump is not the only one preoccupied with building a border wall. An Air Force veteran and Purple Heart recipient who lost three of his limbs while deployed to Iraq started a GoFundMe page late last year to raise money to help build Trump’s wall. Said the page’s initial description,

  Like a majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J. Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again. President Trump’s main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he’s followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still.

  It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling. “If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” That equates to roughly 5 Billion Dollars; even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.

  If we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jumpstart things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians. This won’t be easy, but it’s our duty as citizens. This needs to be shared every single day by each of you on social media. We can do it, and we can help President Trump make America safe again!

  More than $20 million has been raised so far.

  But wall or no wall, there are many things that will still be true about life in “the land of the free.” Here are twenty-five of them.

  1. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have an income tax that robs them of the fruits of their labor.

  2. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that subsidizes some Americans at the expense of other Americans.

  3. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a national debt of more than $22 trillion.

  4. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have civil asset-forfeiture laws that allow police to seize and sell any property they allege to have been involved in a crime even if the property owner is never arrested or convicted of a crime.

  5. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a military that bombs, maims, and kills foreigners who are no threat to the United States.

  6. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have socialist programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

  7. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have occupational-licensing laws that make them get permission from the government to work or engage in commerce.

  8. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a national government with a budget of more than $4 trillion a year.

  9. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a war on drugs that is a monstrous evil and has ruined more lives than drugs themselves.

  10. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a U.S. global empire of troops and bases that occupy the world.

  11. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have laws that forbid legal adults younger than 21 years old from purchasing alcohol even though they can get married, serve in the military, and enter into contracts.

  12. Wall or no wall, Americans will still be subject to laws that forbid them from engaging in certain kinds of commerce on Sundays.

  13. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have anti-discrimination laws that restrict freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and property rights.

  14. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government with a foreign policy that is reckless, belligerent, interventionist, and meddling.

  15. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have federal gun-control laws that violate the Second Amendment.

  16. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that owns millions of acres of land, including more than half of the land in some states.

  17. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a welfare state that transfers wealth from some Americans to other Americans.

  18. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a TSA that treats the traveling public as potential terrorists.

  19. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a police state where government spying, surveillance, and searches continue unabated.

  20. Wall or no wall, Americans will still be restricted from freely traveling to Cuba.

  21. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have laws that criminalize the commission of victimless crimes.

  22. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that forces some Americans to pay for the health care of other Americans.

  23. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a Patriot Act that endangers civil liberties.

  24. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a deep state and a military-industrial complex.

  25. Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a Constitution that is violated every day that Congress is in session.

  If the wall is ever built, America will merely go from being a welfare/warfare/police state to a walled-in welfare/warfare/police state. The United States has deep systemic problems that building a wall will never solve.

  

• Death Knell For Syria Pullout: "We Have To Protect Israel" Says Trump

  After approaching two months of talk of a “full” and “immediate” US troop withdrawal from Syria, first ordered by President Trump on December 19 — which was predictably met with swift and fierce pushback from beltway hawks including in some cases his own advisers — it now appears the death knell has sounded on the prior “complete” and “rapid” draw down order.

  Trump said in a CBS “Face the Nation” interview this weekend that some unspecified number of US troops will remain in the region, mostly in Iraq, with possibly some still in Syria, in order “to protect Israel” in what appears a significant backtrack from his prior insistence on an absolute withdrawal. 

  

  “We’re going to be there and we’re going to be staying. We have to protect Israel,” he replied when pressed by CBS reporter Margaret Brennan. “We have to protect other things that we have. But we’re – yeah, they’ll be coming back in a matter of time.” He did note that “ultimately some will be coming home.”

  “Look, we’re protecting the world,” he added. “We’re spending more money than anybody’s ever spent in history, by a lot.” Trump’s slow drift and change in tune on the subject of a promised “rapid” exit comes after Israeli officials led by Prime Minister Netanyahu alongside neocon allies in Washington argued that some 200 US troops in Syria’s southeast desert along the Iraqi border and its 55-kilometer “deconfliction zone” at al-Tanf are the last line of defense against Iranian expansion in Syria, and therefore must stay indefinitely. 

  “I want to be able to watch Iran,” Trump said further during the CBS interview. “Iran is a real problem.” He explained that “99%” of ISIS’s territory had been liberated but that a contingency of US troops must remain to prevent a resurgent Islamic State as well as to counter Iranian influence, for which American forces must remain in Iraq as well. 

  “When I took over, Syria was infested with ISIS. It was all over the place. And now you have very little ISIS, and you have the caliphate almost knocked out,” the president said. “We will be announcing in the not too distant future 100% of the caliphate, which is the area – the land – the area – 100. We’re at 99% right now. We’ll be at 100.”

  However Trump’s invoking Iranian influence as a rationale for staying further contradicts his prior December statement that the defeat of ISIS was “the only reason” he was in Syria in the first place. 

  MARGARET BRENNAN: How many troops are still in Syria? When are they coming home?

  PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: 2,000 troops.

  MARGARET BRENNAN: When are they coming home?

  PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They’re starting to, as we gain the remainder, the final remainder of the caliphate of the area, they’ll be going to our base in Iraq, and ultimately some will be coming home. But we’re going to be there and we’re going to be staying—

  MARGARET BRENNAN: So that’s a matter of months?

  PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have. But we’re- yeah, they’ll be coming back in a matter of time. Look, we’re protecting the world. We’re spending more money than anybody’s ever spent in history, by a lot. We spent, over the last five years, close to 50 billion dollars a year in Afghanistan. That’s more than most countries spend for everything including education, medical, and everything else, other than a few countries. — CBS “Face the Nation” Feb.3 interview transcript

  The Pentagon in recent weeks has reportedly been putting logistics in place for a troop draw down from northern and eastern Syria.

  Though it remains unclear just how many troops could remain as the majority possibly begin to pullout toward US bases in Iraq, the Tanf base could remain Washington’s last remote outpost disrupting what US defense officials see as a strategic Baghdad-Damascus corridor and highway, and potential key “link” in the Tehran-to-Beirut so-called Shia land bridge. 

  

  Foreign Policy magazine has identified this argument as the final card the hawks opposing Trump’s draw down had to play in order to hinder to an actual complete US exit:

  “Al-Tanf is a critical element in the effort to prevent Iran from establishing a ground line of communications from Iran through Iraq through Syria to southern Lebanon in support of Lebanese Hezbollah,” an unnamed senior US military source told the magazine.

  The Israeli prime minister has pushed hard against the White House pullout plan, and “has repeatedly urged the U.S. to keep troops at Al-Tanf, according to several senior Israeli officials, who also asked not to be identified discussing private talks,” per Bloomberg. The Israelis have reportedly argued “the mere presence of American troops will act as a deterrent to Iran” even if in small numbers as a kind of symbolic threat.

  The internal administration debate, following incredible push back against Trump’s withdrawal decision, has made entirely visible the national security deep state’s attempt to check the Commander-in-Chief’s power. And now US presence at al-Tanf represents the last hope of salvaging the hawks’ desire for permanent proxy war against Iran inside Syria. 

  It appears the deep state has won out over Trump’s initial policy decision once again; but it remains to be seen if, however slowly on what’s clearly a delayed timetable departing from his original plans, all US troops ultimately exit Syria. Until then there’ll be more time and perhaps more provocations the hawks can rely on to effectively ensure full circle return to indefinite occupation in Syria. 

  

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