Nov 03

Today’s News 3rd November 2018

  • The Danger In Media Telling Only Half The Story On Political Violence

    Authored by Sean Malone via The Foundation for Economic Education,

    When mass media displays such a clear bias, then the people who are on the losing end of that bias are not going to be happy…

    In the last few months, we’ve seen numerous acts of politically motivated or targeted violence. Some of these cases have been plastered all over the news for days or weeks. Some others have been met with deafening silence. And which is which hasn’t exactly been random.

    There is clear bias in the reporting of political violence and I believe this has had some serious consequences for people’s ability to trust the media and bridge a divided culture.

    To understand why, we need to look at what’s actually happened recently, so while what follows is far from a complete list of all the politically-motivated violence, it encompasses many of the most recent and highest-profile examples:

    • October 2018: Trump-supporting lunatic Cesar Sayoc, Jr. attempted (but completely failed to) to deliver (non-functional) bombs to over a dozen Democratic leaders including Obama, Clinton, Maxine Waters, and Eric Holder among others. As we learn more about this story, it becomes increasingly clear that Sayoc has a long history of threats and violence going back to at least the mid-90s.

    • October 2018: Anti-semite Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 people and injured 6 others at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and although he seems to have been anti-Trump, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has already blamed Trump for creating the environment that encouraged Bowers’ actions.

    • October 2018: Another man with a substantial history of mental illness and violence, Gregory Bush, entered a Kroger grocery store in Jefferstown, Kentucky and essentially executed a 67-year old  man named Maurice Stallard with a handgun for no apparent reason, after which he exited the store and shot and killed another woman, Vickie Lee Jones (67) before he was challenged by another shopper who drew a legally concealed weapon and shot back at him. Bush apparently attempted to enter a church nearby before he went to the Kroger, presumably with the intent to kill. Although there is currently no motive known, many people assume Bush was motivated by racism because he is white while his two victims were black and one witness recounts hearing him say “Don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t kill whites,” to the man who confronted him. 

    • October 2018: Envelopes testing positive for Ricin (an incredibly dangerous poison for which 22 micrograms/kilogram of body weight constitutes a lethal dosage) were sent to Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis.

    • April 2018: Self-described “Incel” Alek Minassian drove a van into a crowd in Toronto and killed 10 people. Incels are considered “right-wing” although “Involuntary Celibacy” is mainly a reaction to feminism and has no inherent connection to right/left politics.

    And of course, all this is in the context of the awful Charlottesville Riot from last year, where in…

    • August 2017: Neo-Nazi James Fields killed Heather Heyer and injured 19 others with his car at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally after he drove through a crowd of protesters. What you probably don’t know is that his trial is set for November, and he was recently assaulted in prison.

    Also, while this isn’t actually a known example of political violence, you’ll certainly recall:

    • October 2017: Stephen Paddock opens fire on a crowd of country music fans in Las Vegas from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing 58 people and causing injury to 851 others either directly or via the resulting panic. This was the deadliest mass shooting in US history, and yet no motive is known, little information has been released to the public, and the press coverage died out relatively quickly.

    I’m including the Las Vegas shooting in this list because it sparked another national gun control debate, this time over whether or not it should be legal to own bump stocks.

    You’ll probably also have heard about a number of cases of street violence involving the “Proud Boys”, and perhaps you might have recently learned that Facebook shut down that group’s main page.

    And you’ll have probably heard of various racist/anti-Semitic threats and acts of vandalism against Jewish community centers, churches, and other political targets, which are often assumed to be a product of Trump’s rhetoric.

    • October 2018: Ricin envelopes were not just sent to James Mattis, but also to President Trump, along with Senator Ted Cruz and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson. The FBI arrested a suspect in Utah, William Clyde Allen, believed to have sent all the packages in a coordinated effort. Allen confessed to sending all four letters, but we also learned that—similar to the inoperable bombs allegedly sent by Cesar Sayoc, Jr.—none seemed to contain actual Ricin, but rather castor seed from which Ricin is made.

    • October 2018: In Las Vegas, a Democratic activist working for American Bridge 21st Century named Wilfred Michael Stark assaulted Kristin Davidson, campaign manager for Nevada’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Adam Laxalt. Stark had previously been arrested for similar activity at a GOP rally in Virginia.

    • October 2018: In Minnesota, Republican state-representative Sarah Anderson was chased and punched by a man ripping up GOP campaign signs, and two days earlier, Republican candidate Shane Mekeland suffered a concussion after being punched in the back of the head while having dinner at a local restaurant.

    • October 2018: The Republican Party Headquarters in Manhattan, New York was vandalized with spray-paint, smashed windows, and a threatening notethat read: “Our attack is merely a beginning. We are not passive, we are not civil, and we will not apologize.”

    • October 2018: Jackson Cosko, an intern working for Democratic Senator Sheila Jackson Lee was charged by the United States Capitol Police with “doxxing” Republican Senators Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch, and Lindsey Graham. While doxxing itself isn’t violence, it has frequently led to serious harassment and violence as people have access to personal information such as the home addresses, phone numbers, and email address of the victims.

    • October 2018: Florida man, Jame Royal Patrick, Jr., was arrested for making death threats to people who supported Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

    • October 2018: Shots were fired at the Republican party campaign office in Daytona Florida, breaking the windows. Fortunately, no one was in the office.

    • October 2018: A hairdresser Jordan Hunt starts an argument with a female pro-life demonstrator in Ontario, and after a few minutes of conversation roundhouse-kicks her in the face on camera.

    • September 2018: GOP campaign offices in Laramie, Wyoming, were set on fire by arsonists. The same thing happened in Hillsborough, North Carolina, back in 2016, so this is nothing especially new.

    • September 2018: In San Francisco, a man named Farzad Fazeli attempted to stab Republican campaign worker Rudy Peters with a switchblade while he was working at an election booth at a Castro Valley town festival.

    • July 2018: Martin Astrof was arrested for threatening to kill GOP campaign staffers and President Trump.

    • July 2018: Someone vandalized the Lincoln, Nebraska (my hometown) GOP headquarters by smashing its windows with a brick and spray-painting “ABOLISH ICE” on the sidewalk.

    • August 2017: Missouri lawmaker, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, said on social media that she hoped President Trump would be assassinated. She later was formally censured by the Missouri State Senate.

    And of course, I’d hope you remember…

    • October 2017: In Alexandria, Virginia, James T. Hodgkinson (a Bernie Sanders fanatic angry with the results of the 2016) died with a list of Republican targets in his pocket in a shootout with police after he shot four people: lobbyist Matt Mika, legislative aid Zack Barth, Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, and Republican Congressman Steve Scalise who nearly died. The shooting took place at a baseball diamond where several Republican Senators and Congressmen were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity.

    Another thing you might not realize is that many of the skirmishes involving the Proud Boys group were actually caused by Antifa and Democratic Socialists of America activists—though you’d hardly know it from the way most reporters frame these events—and Antifa social media pages have not been shut down.

    Comparing media coverage between Antifa and conservative groups is, I believe, particularly instructive.

    Almost a year ago, YouTube commentator Matt Christiansen called attention to the differences in a video he made about Dartmouth professor, Mark Bray (talk at UC Berkeley).

    Bray is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. 

    Christiansen points out that although most news media routinely and uncritically report the claim that nearly all examples of modern political violence are instigated by groups like the Proud Boys, alt-right ideologues, or actual neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups like the KKK, there have been numerous examples of Antifa violence which have not had anything whatsoever to do with protesting “fascists” or any kind of right-wing activity at all. For example, the recent takeover of multiple streets in downtown Portland, Oregon, or any of numerous examples of Antifa members attacking journalists.

    What’s more, over the past 4-5 years there have been dozens of examples of left-wing protesters using violence to shut down mainstream conservative (or simply non-progressive) speakers like Charles Murray, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Milo Yiannopoulos and others.

    Yet no organized conservative group attempted to prevent Mark Bray from speaking.

    His talk—which explicitly defended Antifa’s use of violence in the face of right-wing speech on the basis that allowing such speech could lead to fascism—was not silenced anywhere in the United States. Meanwhile, many people who have never called for or defended any kind of violence have been subject to aggressive “no platforming” protests which have included substantial property damage, death threats, and physical assaults.

    Somehow the supposed “fascists” are generally allowing other perspectives to be heard while the “anti-fascists” are not only attempting to violently silence the most abhorrent voices but also thoughtful academics, journalists, and non-political commuters.

    We rarely hear this discussed in major media, and Antifa is frequently presented as not only well-intended, but actually heroic.

    It’s fairly clear that this is tremendously one-sided.

    I’m mainly talking about this because the way this stuff is reported drives me insane, and it affects us all in really important ways. Mass media essentially determines which of these examples of politically-motivated violence are important and worth talking about, and which are not.

    If the news that gets reported doesn’t bother to tell readers and viewers about angry left-wing lunatics who assault Republican campaign workers, set fire to GOP offices, or shoot Republican congressmen, and if reporters and pundits don’t care to spend much time writing about a series of threatening letters testing positive for ricin poison or threats of and/or the actual attempted murder of Republicans over their political views, then the people who consume news will not know about those kinds of things.

    And of course, this would be fine if reporters and pundits did the same thing whenever a right-wing lunatic did something insane. But that’s not what happens.

    Most of the mainstream media (arguably with the support of all of the major social networks and even Google) devote tremendous attention to every instance of right-wing violence while utterly ignoring comparable cases coming from left-wing perpetrators. As a result, it’s difficult for the average person to know what’s actually happening in the world, and they end up with a completely one-sided understanding of the current state of political violence.

    We can see what people are hearing and talking about illustrated clearly by looking at Google Trends, and as you can see below, vastly more people heard about Cesar Sayoc and the pipe-bomb scare than they did William Clyde Allen’s ricin letters – although, again, both were targeted towards major political figures and both should have been treated as deadly assassination attempts until the ineffectiveness was confirmed.

    This bias also makes it easy for political partisans to split themselves into bubbles that each have entirely different sets of facts.

    Liberals/Progressives will hear of every instance of someone who could even remotely be considered “right-wing” doing anything wrong yet remain entirely isolated from the slightest hint that people who share their ideology have ever done anything wrong at all. Conservatives are in a slightly better position—in that it’s nearly impossible to avoid hearing about right-wing political violence—but the more social media dominates people’s information streams, the easier it is for them to similarly wall themselves off from information that makes them uncomfortable.

    Point is, there are legitimate reasons for everyone to be seriously concerned with the quality of reporting that we normally see with respect to this kind of activity.

    Part of being well-informed is being able to put things into context and gain a meaningful perspective, and that can only happen when you have all the information, not just half of it as we so often get.

    Only getting half the story makes it easy to blame your political opponents for everything that’s going wrong in the world, but it’s also a mistake. If Trump—for example—is to blame for people like Cesar Sayoc, Jr.’s failed bombing spree, is Bernie Sanders to blame for James Hodgkinson? Is Maxine Waters responsible for Farzad Fazeli? Is Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine, or Eric Holder the cause of arson and vandalism in Wyoming?

    If you think that Trump’s rhetoric is causing right-wing violence, surely it stands to reason that the similarly heated rhetoric coming from the other side is to blame for the left-wing variants of these kinds of crimes?

    Of course, if you only ever saw one side or the other, it would be extremely easy to think that the only people who are out there doing terrible things are your political opponents, and from there you can concoct a grand theory as to why based on how evil the other party is without much challenge when another possibility is simply that it’s the individual criminal who is responsible for their own actions.

    There’s another problem here, as well.

    When mass media displays such a clear bias—and please make no mistake, whether fully intentional or not, that’s exactly what this is—then the people who are on the losing end of that bias are not going to be happy. And since they’re actually justified in their complaints, it’s very easy for them to convince people who have less skin in the game that media isn’t trustworthy as well.

    All this does is push people further to the extremes, which makes it easier for the biggest lunatics to find reasons to believe even crazier conspiracy theories and find reinforcement for their belief that violence is the appropriate response.

    I want this to stop, and while there’s no magic bullet, I don’t think that can happen until the reporting on these kinds of subjects gets a lot better and more people are more fully-informed about everything that is going on in our world—not just the parts that confirm partisan biases.

  • Tether Says It Has $1.8 Billion In An Offshore Bank Account

    It has been two weeks since tether, the “stablecoin” of choice for crypto day traders who need to quickly enter and exit positions in different alt coins, broke below its $1 peg to trade as low as 85 cents as long-simmering doubts about its dollar backing exploded back into view, stoked by rumors that several prominent exchanges were preparing to de-list it.

    While tether has recovered, skepticism about the feasibility of tether, and “stablecoins” in general, has continued to fester, stoked by the fact that tether’s parent company has never bothered to publish an audit of its holdings to prove to the public that it has the necessary dollar reserves to guarantee convertibility. Tether also found itself at the center of a separate controversy back in June when a University of Texas academic published a paper alleging that shady traders were using tether to manipulate the price of bitcoin.

    Tether

    In an effort to restore faith in tether, the company on Thursday published a letter from a Bahamanian bank affirming that the company has $1.8 billion in deposits sitting in an account offshore. But as several traders swiftly pointed out, the letter from Deltec Bank & Trust, which describes itself as “an independent financial services group”, bore a few notable inconsistencies. For one, the PDF that tether made available for download featured inconsistent timestamps, suggesting that the document was ‘modified’ before being released to the public.

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    Others pointed out that whoever wrote the letter didn’t attach their name – only an incomprehensible signature, which is a serious red flag, as one trader pointed out on twitter.

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    Rather than quiet traders concerns, these inconsistencies could have the opposite effect. Particularly since the company fired its auditor a year ago. But for now, the price is holding steady.

     

  • Three Events That Could Change The Face Of America

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    The past year in general has been a firestorm of news events, many of them misrepresented by the mainstream media but nevertheless important signals that the economic, social and geopolitical systems we are familiar with are changing or destabilizing rapidly.  It is important to understand, however, that the implications of these events have been building for YEARS, not for mere weeks or months.  They are not sudden and inexplicable consequences of “linchpin theory”, the outcome of these events was pre-planned and engineered far in advance.

    This does not mean that establishment interests including globalists will necessarily get what they want.  Which is why I believe they intend to produce multiple crises at once, hoping that at least a few will produce the effects they desire in the population.  I call it the “scattershot strategy”; by creating a swarm of manipulated “bullets” of social/psychological leverage each with the same intended target, the result becomes more certain and predictable.  Much like smashing troops into the same point in a line of defense over and over again – eventually it is more likely to break where you expect it to break.

    Some of these scattershot events are a little more obvious than others, at least in terms of how they are handled.  Not all of them are started by the globalists, but all of them are certainly seen as opportunities for exploitation.  Here are three of the latest events that I believe represent a dire end-game if the public is not made aware that their reactions to the events are just as important if not more important as the events themselves.

    1. The Murder Of Jamal Khashoggi

    Few of us had ever heard of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi a month ago, and most in the public still have no clue as to the implications of his death.  I’m not going to theorize much on the reasons why the Saudi government apparently trapped Kashoggi in their consulate in Istanbul, Turkey and then allegedly tortured him to death.  The mainstream theory is that this was punishment for the journalist’s escape from Saudi Arabia and subsequent criticisms of Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the rising dictator within the Saudi regime.

    Why did Khashoggi willingly and stupidly enter a Saudi consulate, considered sovereign Saudi soil, when he knew he was a potential target for the government?  Why would Saudi agents murder the journalist in such an obvious way and in such an obvious place?  If he was such a threat, why not kill him away from a Saudi facility?  Why not make it look like a robbery or an accident?

    It seems to me that normal procedures for assassination were not followed in the slightest when it came to Jamal Kashoggi.  And, as Turkish authorities released information on Saudi involvement, the normal attempts at cover-up by multiple governments were missing.  This story could have been muddled in a fog of disinformation leading away from Saudi Arabia, but it wasn’t.

    The consequences are immense.  The end of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia could result on the part of Western nations.  There is even talk of Prince Salman being removed from power and his “Vision for 2030” economic plan going the way of the dodo.  I see this as highly unlikely, though.

    While the mainstream misrepresents Salman’s economic plan as a means to make Saudi Arabia less dependent on oil, the Vision for 2030 was primarily about distancing Saudi Arabian oil from dependency on U.S. and Western markets.

    The decoupling of the U.S. from Saudi Arabia has been in the making for years.  This is not something new, or something that would be decided by the killing of a single Saudi journalist.  From the passage of a bill by Congress to make the Saudi government liable for damages during the 9/11 attacks, to Saudi threats to dump $750 billion in U.S. assets (under the Obama Administration), to the Saudi atrocities in Yemen, to the rise of Mohammad bin Salman through extortion, there is no shortage of reasons why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia might end relations.

    I am of course talking about mainstream narrative, here.  The deeper issue at hand is that globalists are seeking an end to the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency and the petro-currency, and Saudi Arabia is a key catalyst to breaking the dollar’s back in a way that makes it appear as though global banks had nothing to do with the situation.

    As I have been pointing out for quite some time, Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision for 2030 is not his vision; it is part of a larger globalist dynamic for a completely centralized world monetary system and economy.  Salman’s Vision for 2030 is bankrolled through his Public Investment Fund (PIF) by well know n globalist institutions like the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Blackrock.

    Saudi separation from the U.S. has been ongoing, including far reaching oil trade deals with China and Russia , two countries seeking to remove the dollar in bilateral trade.  The moral question of trade relations with a tyranny like Saudi Arabia is not what I am questioning here.  I am simply pointing out the US dollar’s dependency on petro-status, which is tied inexorably to Saudi oil.

    The path has already been set.  The murder of Khashoggi and its exposure does not hurt globalist intentions, it actually HELPS them by creating a narrative in which the Saudi move away from the U.S. becomes a product of “random chaos” rather than part of a “vision” funded by globalists.  If Prince Salman is removed from the equation (an action I am doubtful will take place), the “Vision for 2030” will continue.

    Even with Donald Trump’s apparent apprehension to break aggressively from the Saudis over the issue, Congress has already suggested they will move ahead with actions against the vital oil nation without the White House.

    Is this to say that Khashoggi was killed in order to create a geopolitical linchpin to aid globalist schemes for de-dollerization?  No.  Khashoggi is not that important.  But this is certainly an event that the globalists and the media they control seem intent on exploiting, adding weight to a long running plan to divide the US from its key oil partner and thus ending the petro-dollar without any links back to them.

    2, The Immigrant Caravan

    Illegal immigration is a pillar issue within U.S. politics, at least in terms of conservatives and their support far any particular piece of legislation or government action.  My position is the conservative one because it is the logical one – I am not against immigration as long as it is done legally.  Open border policies are a travesty that create an influx of people who do not necessarily share the values set forth in the American Constitution.  We have already seen the economic and social disasters that have befallen Europe due to their open border policies, and it would be foolish to repeat that process here.  No foreign person has a “right” to access to the U.S., just as no American has a right to access to any other country.

    Now comes the part of this issue that conservatives might not want to hear.

    Is illegal immigration a form of invasion?  I would say yes, especially if it is being encouraged or funded by globalist interests. That said, we must be careful not to respond to this invasion as if it is a military one.  It isn’t.

    Why?  Because military invasions require military responses, and military responses invariably lead to more power for governments.  Troops on the southern border of the U.S. might sound rational given the circumstances, but I would remind liberty movement activists of a little program they should all be familiar with:  Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot.

    As I warned in my article ‘How A Collapse In South America Could Trigger Martial Law In The U.S.‘, published in 2016, the globalists have long been planning a potential trigger for martial law measures in America using a southern border “invasion” as a rationale.  The exposure of Rex 84 came unexpectedly during the Iran/Contra hearings, and the documents are available to read here.

    Rex 84 mentions the use of facilities, or detention camps, as a means to control the hypothetical border invasion.  This led to the long running “conspiracy theory” of so-called FEMA camps.  The pre-existence of FEMA camps is not an issue I delve into (as we saw during Katrina, a sports stadium could easily be turned into a FEMA camp in a matter of days).  That said, the posture of the Trump Administration at this time due to the coming migrant caravan reminds me in a disturbing way to the script outlined in Rex 84.

    How far will Trump go to secure the border?  Will he declare martial law on the border as he seems ready to do?  Would it stop at the border, or would it spread like a cancer?  After all, once martial law is used to deal with unruly migrants, why not use it to deal with unruly leftists?  Will conservatives go against their constitutional principles and support such a policy?

    There is a good reason why the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was passed.  Originally, it prevented the use of military as law enforcement within the US unless an act of Congress bid otherwise.  Of course, George W. Bush and the Neo-cons changed all that with the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, an act that was barely covered by the mainstream media at the time, and which gives the President full power to declare martial law unilaterally.

    Some people may argue that Posse Comitatus is an outdated concept and that other protections are in place to prevent a totalitarian outcome.  But are there really any protections?

    As Gen. Wesley Clark once publicly proclaimed in an MSNBC interview, internment camps could be used in the U.S. for anyone considered “disloyal to the U.S.”  Trump has recently announced a plan for “tent cities” for incoming migrants, which, again, sounds a lot like the plan described in Rex 84.

    Where would the dominoes stop once they start to fall?  I suggest that they will not stop.  I suggest that if we support martial law measures on the southern border rather than revamping existing border patrol agencies and building that wall that Trump was so fond of promising, the end result will be martial law measures applied to the rest of us as outlined in Rex 84.

    3. Trump’s War With The Federal Reserve

    I predicted Trump’s eventual war with the Fed over a year ago, and I have written on the dangers if such a war recently, so I will not go into as much detail on this event.  I will say that like the immigrant caravan, this is another issue in which conservatives could be tricked into reactingwithout thinking of the long game.

    In my article ‘The Economic End Game Explained‘, I outline the strategy being used by globalists to diminish the U.S. economy as a means to open the door to mass support for a global monetary system controlled by the IMF and possibly the BIS.  This is a strategy they have openly discussed in their own publications.

    To be clear, the Fed has indeed acted as a destructive force within the U.S. economy.  Fed officials have openly admitted on numerous occasions to creating and then bursting financial bubbles that have led to disastrous results for the American public.  Jerome Powell, the current Fed chairman, warned in 2012 of the eventual and pervasive market crash that would occur if the Fed raised interest and cut balance sheet assets while markets were still addicted to easy credit.  Now, he is enacting those exact policies knowing what will happen.

    While I fully support the dismantling of the Federal Reserve as a saboteur of the U.S. economy, what I am concerned about is who will rebuild the U.S. system afterwards?  A White House war on the Fed will help cause the death of the dollar’s world reserve status.  This is a guarantee.  Our economy is utterly dependent on this status for it’s continued stability.

    You see, the globalists have created a Catch-22; if conservatives do not shut down the Fed, the Fed will continue raising rates and cutting its balance sheet into economic weakness just as they historically always have.  The “everything bubble” will burst and a collapse will result.  If we shut down the Fed our currency will lose reserve status and dollars held overseas will come flooding back into the U.S. through various channels causing hyperinflation (among other things).  A collapse is unavoidable.

    Again, who will be in charge of the rebuilding?  Will it be the American public, or will it be the globalists?  Given the fact that Trump retains banking elites and globalists within his own cabinet, we cannot rely on him to do the work in favor of a free citizenry.  Conservatives should be very careful in the coming months as to who they support and why.  Most narratives are NOT what they seem.

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  • "Your Pet Will Be Confiscated!": A Shocking Glimpse Inside China's New Social Credit System

    Citizens in one Chinese provincial capital can now be permanently blacklisted by China’s Orwellian digital panopticon ‘social credit system’ for simply failing to clean up after their pets. 

    It’s but the latest manifestation of the recently implemented, though long in development, nationwide social scoring credit system where people are ranked and punished or rewarded for their behavior, via The Telegraph:

    Chinese cities are launching a scoring system for dog owners where anyone found failing to care for their pets could be forced to pay a fine – or even have their dog confiscated.

    The credit system is already being enforced in the Chinese city of Jinan, and requires anyone with a dog to register with the police – with only one dog permitted per person.

    The license starts with a dozen points and is embedded as a QR code on a dog’s collar. Points are then deducted for various infractions, such as walking a dog without a leash or tag, not cleaning up poo, or being reported for a disturbance. Owners are docked three points if dogs are walked without a leash, for example, which must be less than 1.5 metres in length and under the control of someone at least 18 years of age.

    The system is now undergoing piecemeal implementation across various major cities and is now invading people’s lives in all kinds of extreme ways from public transportation to dog-walking to flagging pedestrians for crossing the street in an unsafe manner . 

    The system is currently far from being universally in place; however, the country’s communist government has plans to rank every citizen — all 1.4 billion of them —  by 2020.

    But various bizarre and rigid policies are already being felt and reported in different parts of China – from the state confiscating pets to dire recorded audio warnings threatening reprisal should commuters on a bullet train not bide by the rules. 

    China’s electronic “social scoring” utilizes vast networks of surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, A.I. digital monitoring, and extensive databases, was first announced in 2014 and aims to reinforce the idea that “keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful,” according to a government document — though we’re not sure if forgetting a pooper-scooper while taking the dog out warrants being digitally blacklisted by an all-seeing digital eye. 

    As scary as the whole program sounded when it first began receiving more media attention a year ago, to see it in action in the form of deterrent warnings to citizens is absolutely terrifying. 

    In one particularly jarring example a journalist traveling by bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai recorded an ominous audio message which blared loudly to passengers. The message was issued in Chinese and English, and takes the form of the kind of “safety and procedures” type message that airlines typically present after take-off , but this is the stuff of dystopian nightmare made reality. 

    A female voice can be heard on an intercom threatening people not to misbehave or else their “behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system.”

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    The chilling announcement as the commute was in progress reveals the reality that people are already living in fear of the nationwide social credit system. The voice warns that such infractions as travelling without a ticket or people who “behave disorderly” — like smoking in public places — would be “punished according to regulations, and the behavior will be recorded in individual credit information system.”

    The punishments are not defined in the audio message, but the reference to the credit information system means that even minor behavior infractions will be recorded permanently as part of a violator’s permanent electronic record. 

    There are already a number of recent reports out of China of people either being punished and rewarded based on their social credit. For example earlier in the year student was denied his spot at university because his father was blacklisted for failing to pay off a 200,000-yuan ($28,700) bank loan. More commonly, people are now routinely barred from taking trains of public transport due to their low score. 

    But perhaps the most shocking aspect of the message recorded on the bullet train is just how seemingly banal it all sounds in the moment: one can easily imagine this kind of thing being rolled out in the West, which some analysts have been warning about. 

  • "An Information Apocalypse" Looms – Deepfakes And Political Manipulation

    Authored by Leonid Savin via Oriental Review,

    Not a day seems to go by without the American media writing about Russia’s Internet meddling in the US elections. Major international and specialist publications headquartered in the US are routinely regurgitating the myth about “Russian trolls” and “GRU hackers” without a single shred of evidence besides unsubstantiated accusations. Actually, evidence has been provided by a private company, but this evidence points to the contrary.

    As one Google project so convincingly shows, for example, for just $100 you can create the illusion that a Russian company is trying to influence public opinion within America. All you need to do is buy a mobile phone and a few SIM cards in Panama, choose a common Russian name and surname and use it to set up a Yandex account, then indicate your IP address is in Saint Petersburg using NordVPN. You can then set up an account with AdWords, pay for advertising using the details of a legally registered company, and place political content on the Internet that could be regarded as inflammatory.

    This was what was done by US citizens from Google and they didn’t hesitate to report on it. So what is stopping the NSA, the CIA, or some Russophobe fanatics familiar with hacking techniques from doing exactly the same thing, regardless of whether they belong to a political party or not?

    Common sense suggests that this is exactly what is being done to create the appearance of Russian interference, but no one is able to provide any real evidence, of course.

    Another example of how the US can influence public opinion is the creation of fake propaganda, a technique that was developed by the US military in Iraq in the early 2000s.

    According to the British non-governmental organisation The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Pentagon paid the British PR company Bell Pottinger more than $500 million to create fake videos showing various militant and terrorist activities. A group of Bell Pottinger employees was stationed alongside the US military in its Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters almost as soon as the American occupation began in 2003. A series of contracts was also issued between 2007 and 2011. The company’s former chairman, Lord Tim Bell, confirmed to journalists that Bell Pottinger did in fact carry out covert work for the Americans, the details of which cannot be disclosed for reasons of confidentiality.

    It is worth mentioning that Bell Pottinger was once responsible for shaping Margaret Thatcher’s image and helped the Conservative Party win three elections.

    Martin Wells, a former video editor with the company, said that his time in Camp Victory had opened his eyes and changed his life. On the US side, the project was supervised by former General David Petraeus. If he was unable to decide on a matter, then it was sent to the very highest levels in Washington for approval.

    The most scandalous part of the story is the propaganda videos produced by the UK company in the name of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Once the material was ready and in the required format, the videos were copied onto CDs and given to US marines, who would then leave them in Iraqi homes during searches and raids. A code was embedded into the CDs that made it possible to track where they were played. It was subsequently discovered that the fake Al-Qaeda videos were not just being watched in Iraq, but also Iran, Syria, and even the United States. It is possible that this tracking also helped US security agencies trace the distribution of fake propaganda videos, but how many people became extremists thanks to the Pentagon’s secret project?

    And since technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, there is now talk of possibly using artificial intelligence for projects like these – whether it is the political manipulation of elections or the spread of disinformation.

    In fact, AI-based technology has already been associated with several recent scandals. One of these was Cambridge Analytica’s use of information from Facebook profiles to target voters during the US presidential elections.

    Commenting on the scandal, The Washington Post noted that:

    “Future campaigns will pick not just the issues and slogans a candidate should support, but also the candidate who should champion those issues. Dating apps, the aggregate output of thousands of swipes, provide the perfect physical composite, educational pedigree and professional background for recruiting attractive candidates appealing to specific voting segments across a range of demographics and regions. Even further in the future, temporal trends for different voter blocks might be compared to ancestry, genetic and medical data to understand generational and regional shifts in political leanings, thereby illuminating methods for slicing and dicing audiences in favor of or against a specified agenda.”

    Artificial intelligence can also be used as a bot to substitute for a person and even to simulate a conversation. Algorithms like Quill, Wordsmith and Heliograf are used to convert tables of data into a text document and even write news articles on various subjects – Heliograf is used by The Washington Post, in fact – but bots can be used for both good and bad.

    According to the US military, AI-based information operations tools can empathise with people, say something if needed, and alter the perception that controls these physical weapons. Future information operations systems will be able to individually control and influence tens of thousands of people simultaneously.

    In the summer of 2018, DARPA launched a project to determine the possibilities of identifying fake video and audio generated by artificial intelligence. The analysis of such files is also done using artificial intelligence.

    Videos typically have more impact on an audience because it is believed that they are harder to fake than photographs. They also look more convincing than a text read out on behalf of a politician. This is no problem for modern technologies, however. In April 2018, a video was made public called ObamaPeele after the people involved.

    The video showed Barack Obama giving a rather strange speech, but the text was actually being read by an unseen actor. A special programme had processed what the actor was saying in such a way that Obama’s facial gestures were fully consistent with what was being said. Computer technology experts at Washington University conducted a similar experiment with a Barack Obama speech in 2017 and made the results publicly available with a detailed description of how it works.

    YouTuber ‘derpfakes‘ trained the AI image swap tool to create a composite of Trump’s face, over Baldwin’s speech and mannerisms.

    The DARPA project used so-called “deepfakes” – videos in which the face of one person has been superimposed onto the body of another. Experts note that technology like this has already been used to create several fake celebrity porno videos, but the method could also be used to create videos of politicians talking or doing something outrageous and unacceptable.

    Technologists at DARPA are particularly concerned that new AI techniques for creating fake videos make it almost impossible for them to be recognised automatically. Using so-called generative adversarial networks or GAN, it is possible to create realistic artificial images. Experts at DARPA are evidently concerned that this technology may be used by someone else, since, if the US loses its monopoly on the creation, verification and distribution of fake material, it will find itself facing the same problems it has been preparing for other countries.

    And while scientists in military uniforms are racking their brains over how to get ahead of other countries in such a specific information arms race, their civilian colleagues are already calling the trend “an information apocalypse” and “disinformation on steroids”.

  • Moscow Initiates De-dollarization: India To Pay For S-400 Systems In Rubles

    Since it became evident last summer that India was moving forward with purchase of at least five of Russia’s S-400 air defense systems, the controversial initiative which is part of India’s big ambitions for regional dominance immediately ruffled relations with Washington, resulting in the complete cancellation of at least one planned visit of Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis to New Delhi. 

    The S-400s can detect, track and destroy supersonic bombers, drones, fifth-generation fighters, spy planes, and supersonic missiles at a range of up to 400km and altitude of 30km – in what many Indian officials have praised as a game-changing military acquisition which has further cemented the Russian-Indian defense relationship which includes Moscow now accounting for 62 percent of New Delhi’s arms imports.

    But this week, another huge bombshell dropped after a $5.4 billion deal for Indian to acquire the S-400 systems from Russia was clinched during Putins two-day visit to the country in early October: the contract will be settled in rubles as part of Moscow’s broader policy and pursuit of de-dollarization of the Russian economy. 

    The Russian S-400 missile system is among the most the most advanced in the world. Image via Reuters

    Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov announced on Wednesday, “The contract has been signed in rubles,” according to TASS.

    The idea of de-dollarizing the Russian economy has been actively discussed in the country lately due to the tightening of US sanctions.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin supports weaning the country’s financial sector off the US dollar, VTB Bank head Andrey Kostin told RIA Novosti. He added the move doesn’t mean the complete phasing-out of the American currency.

     

  • In WaPo Op-Ed, Erdogan Says "We Know The Order To Kill Khashoggi Came From Highest Level Of Saudi Government"

    With the Jamal Khashoggi grotesque murder by some 18 Saudi agents fading from the public’s attention, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the opportunity to remind the world that he now has the upper hand in the Middle Eastern balance of power, and said that the order to kill the U.S.-based journalist and Saudi dissident came from the “highest levels” of the Saudi government.

    “We know that the perpetrators are among the 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia,” Erdogan wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Friday afternoon. “We also know that those individuals came to carry out their orders: Kill Khashoggi and leave. Finally, we know that the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government.”

    Some seem to hope this “problem” will go away in time. But we will keep asking those questions, which are crucial to the criminal investigation in Turkey, but also to Khashoggi’s family and loved ones.  A month after his killing, we still do not know where his body is. At the very least, he deserves a proper burial in line with Islamic customs. We owe it to his family and friends, including his former colleagues at The Post, to give them an opportunity to say their goodbyes and pay their respects to this honorable man. To ensure that the world will keep asking the same questions, we have shared the evidence with our friends and allies, including the United States.

    “As responsible members of the international community, we must reveal the identities of the puppetmasters behind Khashoggi’s killing and discover those in whom Saudi officials — still trying to cover up the murder — have placed their trust,” he concluded.

    Still, Erdogan admitted that who exactly “gave the order to kill this kind soul” was among a list of unanswered questions, and while Erdogan did not mention Prince Mohammed in his op-ed, he said that he does not think King Salman gave the order to kill Khashoggi.

    “As we continue to look for answers, I would like to stress that Turkey and Saudi Arabia enjoy friendly relations,” he wrote. “I do not believe for a second that King Salman, the custodian of the holy mosques, ordered the hit on Khashoggi. Therefore, I have no reason to believe that his murder reflected Saudi Arabia’s official policy.”

    Erdogan also took an indirect jab at Saudi Arabia, the puppetmaster behind the Sept 11 attack, for its involvement in the biggest terrorist attack on US soil, saying that “the murder of Jamal Khashoggi involves a lot more than a group of security officials, just as the Watergate scandal was bigger than a break-in and the 9/11 terror attacks went beyond the hijackers.”

    After first claiming Khashoggi – a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi government who was killed Oct. 2 – left the consulate alive, Saudi officials acknowledged on Oct. 19 that he was killed. At that point, the Saudi government said he was intentionally killed in a physical altercation in an unapproved operation to return to him to Saudi Arabia. Days later, a Saudi prosecutor acknowledged the killing was premeditated.

    A Turkish prosecutor said this week that Khashoggi was strangled soon after entering the consulate and that his body was then dismembered and dissolved in acid.

    Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Salman, whose name was not mentioned in Erdogan’s op-ed but whose picture captioned “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia at the Pentagon in March” graces the headline, denied any foreknowledge of the plot, but skeptics in the United States and elsewhere are doubtful it could have been carried out without the approval of the kingdom’s day-to-day leader.

    Erdogan also said several question remain about the killing, including where his body is and who the supposed “local collaborator” is who the Saudis say was given Khashoggi’s remains.

    “Unfortunately, the Saudi authorities have refused to answer those questions,” Erdogan wrote. “Some seem to hope this ‘problem’ will go away in time. But we will keep asking those questions, which are crucial to the criminal investigation in Turkey, but also to Khashoggi’s family and loved ones.”

    The president added that Turkey has shared evidence with allies including the United States “to ensure that the world will keep asking the same questions” and warned against committing similar acts on NATO soil again.

    The full Washington Post Op-Ed can be read here.

  • Americans Are Now Trapped In Their Homes For The Longest Period Ever

    After the financial crisis of 2007–2008, housing-market headwinds limited the economic mobility of many American homeowners, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, as per a new report from MarketWatch.

    Starting in 2009, the average tenure of homes sold in 3Q broke a critical neckline of resistance above 4-years and doubled to 8-years by the end of 2017. This analysis shows Americans are holding on to their homes for the most extended length of time ever.

    As the Trump administration continues to promote the “greatest economy ever,” stagnation is building in the housing market, and it could get much worse in 2019.

    The average tenure of homes sold in 2018 jumped well above 8-years to 8.23 years in 3Q, which shows Americans are experiencing a rapid deterioration in their economic mobility to sell their home.

    ATTOM spokesman Daren Blomquist told MarketWatch that the long tail of the housing crisis had created stagnant conditions and contributed to a less dynamic housing market.

    Data from CoreLogic shows 2.2 million homeowners were still underwater on their mortgages in 2Q. Another 550,000 have 5% equity or less, which if they sold today, the homeowner would walk away with nothing.

    “The hypercompetitive market that’s emerged from the wreckage of the crisis is also keeping people in place. Many homeowners have ample equity in their homes, but hesitate to list those homes because they’re worried about finding a property to buy if they do sell,” said MarketWatch.

    MarketWatch also points out that some may be trapped by “rate lock” — enjoying the benefits of their ultra-low mortgage rates, and unwilling to spend more on financing costs.

    The top nine cities with the longest homeowner tenures are all in Connecticut or Massachusetts, and the next seven are in California.

    Oklahoma City, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Austin are cities with the lowest tenure.

    In a separate ATTOM report, annual home price appreciation slowed in 49% of local markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Miami.

    “The continued slowdown in the rate of home price appreciation nationwide and in many local markets is a rational response to worsening home affordability – which has deteriorated at an accelerated pace this year due to rising mortgage rates,” said ATTOM’s Blomquist. “Markets not experiencing this price appreciation cool-down may have more of an affordability cushion to work with, but some are in danger of overheating if home price gains continue to run hot.”

    With the housing market peaked, Americans could soon find out that they will be trapped in their homes much longer than they ever expected, as the US economy is expected to enter a slowdown in the second half of 2019 or early 2020.

  • The Next Generation Of Warfare: Genetically-Engineered Viruses

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    Genetically engineered viruses could very well become the next generation of warfare. Deadly viruses modified in labs could be released eliminating entire communities of people as they infect making them a valuable asset to militaries worldwide.

    As dystopian as that sounds, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is already working on a project called Insect Allies which will use insects to infect crops with genetically modified viruses that edit the crops’ genetic profile to make them more resilient against disease, as well as natural and manufactured threats to the food supply.

    Joe Joseph of The Daily Sheeple said a quick Google search would give you enough information to let you know how horrific this kind of technology can be. “…and you’ll find it fascinating just at how unbelievable a weapon this could be, how unintentionally mistakes can be made that can cause irreversible damage…irreparable damage…to the human race. And I mean, FAST!” Joseph said.

    “A gene drive…if let’s just say there’s a mistake, you could feasibly wipe out the human race in a very very short period of time. It’s an unbelievable tool at the disposal of madmen.” –SHTFPlan

    DARPA attempted to squash rising fears about their Insect Allies project and issue reassurances after German and French scientists voiced questions and concerns about the program’s efficacy earlier this month.  Those scientists also suggested that it could be “widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery, which—if true—would constitute a breach of the Biological Weapons Convention.”

    If the know-how and means exist to transmit genetic viruses that supposedly create beneficial crop mutations, the opposite will also be possible.  DARPA will be able to use insects to deliver gene editing viruses that destroy crops, ruin harvests and adversely affect the wider ecosystem, RT accurately pointed out. This means that those who fear this program are not far off at all for doing so.

    Another project receiving DARPA funding involves releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys area to transmit a sterilizing genetic virus to their malaria-carrying counterparts. Apart from the unknown effects upon the wider ecosystem, the knowledge gleaned from such research could one day make it possible for a state, a non-state actor, or a non-state actor working on behalf of a state to accidentally or deliberately use insect vectors to unleash a variety of biological agents and genetic viruses upon an unsuspecting population.

    Russian president Vladimir Putin expressed his concerns over the potential for a human killing genetically engineered virus just last year. Whilst chairing a meeting of Russia’s Human Rights Council, Putin stated: “… do you know that biological material is being collected all over the country, from different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical regions of the Russian Federation? The question is – why is it being done? It’s being done purposefully and professionally. We are a kind of object of great interest.”

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Nov 02

Today’s News 2nd November 2018

  • Thousands Of Europe-Bound Migrants Have Simply Vanished: AP

    Tens of thousands of migrants undertaking dangerous journeys in search of greener pastures throughout the world are dead or missing, according to an AP tally – nearly doubling estimates from the N’s International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

    At least 56,800 migrants worldwide have simply vanished since 2014 by AP‘s count – eclipsing the IOM’s October 1 estimate of around 28,500. This year alone, the IOM has documented over 1,900 deaths in and around the Mediterranean. 

    “A growing number of migrants have drowned, died in deserts or fallen prey to traffickers, leaving their families to wonder what on earth happened to them,” reports Fox News. “At the same time, anonymous bodies are filling cemeteries around the world.”

    Focusing on Europe alone, AP found almost 4,900 migrants whose families can’t account for their lived ones – nearly half of which are children who have been reported missing to the Red Cross.

    … many of those who go missing are uncounted, including boatfuls [sic] of young Tunisians or Algerians and children whose parents lost track of them in the chaos of land border crossings. In all, The Associated Press found nearly 4,900 people whose families say they simply disappeared without a trace in Europe or en route, including more than 2,700 children whose families reported them missing to the Red Cross. –Fox News

    Meanwhile, efforts to identify those who have died in shipwrecks trying to make it to Europe have fallen flat. Of the 400 or so remains interred in a Tunisian cemetery for unidentified migrants, for example, only one has ever been identified since its opening in 2005. 

    “Their families may think that the person is still alive, or that he’ll return one day to visit,” said one unemployed sailor, Chamseddin Marzouk. “They don’t know that those they await are buried here, in Zarzis, Tunisia.”

  • Russia And China Are Apparently Both Under The Impression That War With The US Is Coming…

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

    Could it be possible that the U.S. is heading for a major war?  If you ask most Americans that question, they will look at you like you are crazy.  For most people in this country, war with either Russia or China is not something to even be remotely concerned about. 

    But the Russians and the Chinese both see things very differently.  As you will see below, Russia and China both seem to be under the impression that war with the United States is coming, and they are both rapidly preparing for such a conflict.

    Let’s start with Russia.  After repeatedly slapping them with sanctions, endlessly demonizing their leaders and blaming them for just about every problem that you can imagine, our relationship with Russia is about the worst that it has ever been.

    And when the Trump administration announced that it was withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, that pushed things to a new low.  In the aftermath of that announcement, Russian official Andrei Belousov boldly declared that “Russia is preparing for war”…

    He said: “Here recently at the meeting, the United States said that Russia is preparing for war.

    “Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I have confirmed it.

    “We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people – we are preparing for such a war.”

    Here in the United States, there is very little talk of a potential war with Russia in the mainstream media, but in Russia things are very different.  Russian news outlets are constantly addressing escalating tensions with the United States, and the Russian government has been adding fuel to that fire.  For example, the Russian government recently released a video of a mock nuclear strike against their “enemies”…

    Russian submarines have recently carried out a mock nuclear attack against their “enemies.” The Russian government has released footage of the atomic strike and it is sparking fears that the third world war is quickly approaching.

    The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has published shocking videos that show a range of nuclear missile drills including a submarine carrying out a mock atomic strike. These videos are the latest in a series of escalating war-games ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according toThe Express UK.

    I’ll give you just one guess as to who the primary enemy in that drill was.

    And what Russian President Vladimir Putin recently told the press about a potential nuclear war was extremely chilling…

    If any nation decides to attack Russia with nuclear weapons, it may end life on Earth; but unlike the aggressors, the Russians are sure to go to heaven, President Vladimir Putin has said.

    “Any aggressor should know that retribution will be inevitable and he will be destroyed. And since we will be the victims of his aggression, we will be going to heaven as martyrs. They will simply drop dead, won’t even have time to repent,” Putin said during a session of the Valdai Club in Sochi.

    Under normal circumstances, Putin would never talk like that.

    But these are not normal times.

    Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping is ordering his military to focus on “preparations for fighting a war”…

    China’s President Xi Jinping ordered the military region responsible for monitoring the South China Sea and Taiwan to “assess the situation it is facing and boost its capabilities so it can handle any emergency” as tensions continue to mount over the future of the South China Sea and Taiwan, while diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing hit rock bottom.

    The Southern Theatre Command has had to bear a “heavy military responsibility” in recent years, state broadcaster CCTV quoted Xi as saying during an inspection tour made on Thursday as part of his visit to Guangdong province.

    “It’s necessary to strengthen the mission … and concentrate preparations for fighting a war,” Xi said. “We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly. “We have to step up combat readiness exercises, joint exercises and confrontational exercises to enhance servicemen’s capabilities and preparation for war” the president-for-life added.

    So who are the Chinese concerned that they may be fighting against?

    Needless to say, the United States is at the top of the list…

    The president instructed the military to ramp-up opposition to ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises being undertaken by the US, Australia, France, the UK, Japan and others through the waterway through which arterial shipping lanes have grown since the end of World War II.

    Tensions over the South China Sea have been increasing for several years, and starting a trade war with China in 2018 has certainly not helped things.

    At this point, even many U.S. analysts can see the writing on the wall.  For instance, just consider what Harvard Professor Graham Allison recently told Steve LeVine…

    He said, if history holds, the U.S. and China appeared headed toward war.

    Over the weekend, I asked him for an update — specifically whether the danger of the two going to war seems to have risen.

    “Yes,” he responded. The chance of war is still less than 50%, but “is real — and much more likely than is generally recognized.”

    Of course we didn’t get to this point overnight.  Tensions with Russia and China have been simmering for quite a while, and both of those nations have been rapidly modernizing their military forces.  For much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “Russia And China Are Developing Impressive New Weapons Systems As They Prepare For War Against The United States”.

    Sadly, the vast majority of the U.S. population is utterly clueless about these things.

    But those that are serving in the military have a much better understanding, and one recent survey found that about half of them expect the U.S. to be “drawn into a new war within the next year”…

    Nearly half of all current military troops believe the United States will be drawn into a major war soon, a jarring rise in anxiety among service members worried about global instability in general and Russia and China in particular, according to a new Military Times poll of active-duty troops.

    About 46 percent of troops who responded to the anonymous survey of currently serving Military Times readers said they believe the U.S. will be drawn into a new war within the next year. That’s a jarring increase from only about 5 percent who said the same thing in a similar poll conducted in September 2017.

    Those numbers are jarring.

    Some major stuff must be going on behind the scenes in order to go from 5 percent to 46 percent in a single year.

    We truly are living in apocalyptic times, and our world seems to be getting more unstable with each passing day.

    We should hope for peace, but throughout human history peace has never lasted for long.  Major global powers continue to edge closer and closer to conflict, and that is a very dangerous game to be playing.

  • DoD Official Urges Taiwan To Buy More Weapons In Fear Of "Cross-Strait Invasion" By China

    A Pentagon official said Monday that Taiwan should increase its military spending to safeguard continued peace and security both across the Taiwan Strait and within the Indo-Pacific, reported Focus Taiwan.

    David Helvey, U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, made the suggestion that the self-ruled island “must have resources to modernize its military and provide the critical material, manning and training needed to deter, or if necessary defeat, a cross-strait invasion” at the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Annapolis, Maryland.

    According to the official transcript of the speech, Helvey said in a combination of strengthening its military, Taiwan is developing conventional capabilities to meet the peacetime requirements of active military in the South China Sea.

    The defense official criticized China for attempting to “erode Taiwan’s diplomatic space in the international arena while increasing the frequency and scale of [People’s Liberation Army] activity within and beyond the First Island Chain.”

    He warned that Taiwan could not “afford to overlook preparing for the one fight it cannot afford to lose.”

    In the face of China’s increasing military threat, the U.S. has utilized the Taiwan Relations Act to sell arms to Taiwan to maintain the island’s self-defense capability as part of an overall effort to prevent China from taking it over by force.

    Helvey’s comments come days after President Xi Jinping told the Chinese military that they should “prepare for war” in the South China Sea.

    Helvey told the audience that the U.S. and Taiwan both needed to update their strategy on arms procurement, planning, and training to thwart a Chinese invasion.

    “These changes are essential if we are to look dispassionately at the military balance in the region and devise a way ahead that ensures Taiwan has the ability to resist coercion and deter aggression,” the Pentagon official said.

    President Trump approved two separate packages of weapon sales to Taiwan in the last 12 to 18 months. The first, valued at $1.4 billion, transacted in summer 2017, the second, worth $330 million, in September.

    Taiwan has frequently expressed its need to acquire M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and F-35 fighter jets, saying it wants “new fighters capable of vertical or short take-off and landing and having stealth characteristics”.

    Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst with Rand Corp, said: “Taiwan is certainly interested in acquiring the F-35 for the vertical/short take-off and landing capability it would provide its air force”.

    Grossman said Taiwan’s need for F-35s is driven by China’s short-range ballistic missiles, which could target the Taiwan air force’s runways in strikes to keep the island’s conventional aircraft grounded.

    “If tensions continue to persist in the US-China relationship, it’s conceivable Washington might ramp up arms sales beyond just once or twice a year,” Grossman added.

    The South China Sea: A geopolitical powder keg that is set to ignite in the coming years between China and Taiwan. 

  • Did Jamal Khashoggi Die For Nothing?

    Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Unz Review,

    Let the cover-up begin…

    The angst over the Jamal Khashoggi murder in the Saudi Arabian Consulate General building in Istanbul is already somewhat fading as the media has moved on in search of fresh meat, recently focusing on the series of attempted mail bombings, and currently on the mass shooting in Pittsburgh. But the affaire Khashoggi is still important as it potentially brings with it possible political realignments in the Middle East as well as in Europe as countries feel emboldened to redefine their relationship with Saudi Arabia.

    The Turks know exactly what occurred in the Consulate General building and are now putting the squeeze on the Saudis, requiring them to fess up and no doubt demanding compensation. Some sources in Turkey believe that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will actually demand recreation of the Caliphate, which the Kemal Ataturk led Turkish Republic’s government abolished in 1924. That would diminish Saudi Arabia’s ability to regard itself as the pre-eminent Islamic state due to its guardianship over the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. It would be a major realignment of the Islamic umma and would be akin to a restoration of some semblance of Ottoman supremacy over the region.

    To be sure, the brutally effective Turkish intelligence service, known by its acronym MIT, is very active when it comes to monitoring the activities of both friendly and unfriendly foreign embassies and their employees throughout Turkey. It uses electronic surveillance and, if the foreign mission has local Turks as employees, many of those individuals will be agents reporting to MIT. As a result, it should be presumed that MIT had the Consulate General building covered with both cameras and microphones, possibly inside the building as well as outside, meaning that the audio of the actual killing that has been reported in the media is no doubt authentic and might even be supplemented with video.

    One recent report, on BBC, indicates that CIA Director Gina Haspel has traveled to Turkey and has been allowed to hear the recordings of Khashoggi being tortured and killed. It’s a good thing the Trump White House sent Haspel as she would know exactly what that sort of thing sounds like based on her own personal experience in Thailand. She will presumably be able to explain the operation of a bone saw to the president.

    So the Saudis seem to be in a hopeless situation, but they have several cards to play. They have many lobbyists of their own in Washington that have bought their way into think tanks and onto editorial pages. They are also in bed with Israel in opposition to Iran, which means that the Israel Lobby and its many friends in the U.S. Congress will complain about killing Khashoggi but ultimately will not do anything about it. The White House will also discourage America’s close allies from adopting measures that would do serious damage to the Saudis. In regional terms, Saudi Arabia is also key to Trump’s anticipated Middle East peace plan. If it pulls out from the expected financial guarantees aspect, the plan will fall apart, so Washington will be pressing hard on Ankara in particular to not overdo its bid for compensation.

    All of which leads to some consideration of the hypocrisy of the outrage over Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia murdered a citizen in a diplomatic facility located in Turkey, apparently because they believed that individual to be a dissident who was a threat to national security. They then seriously botched the cover-up. In spite of all that, it would seem that the issue involves only two parties directly, the Saudis and the Turks, though there have been calls from a number of countries to punish the Saudis for what was clearly a particularly gruesome murder carried out in contravention of all existing rules for behavior of diplomatic missions in foreign countries.

    The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic and Consular missions grants to Diplomats a certain level of immunity in foreign posts, but that does not include murder. In consular posts, like Istanbul, consular immunity only extends to officials who are actually performing consular duties when an alleged infraction occurs. I know from personal experience how subjective that process can be as I was arrested by Turkish police when I was the U.S. Consulate duty officer in Istanbul while looking for a missing American who turned out to be a drug dealer. The Turks weren’t sure what to do with me as I was Consular so I spent 24 hours playing cards with the prison governor before I was released.

    The hypocrisy comes in when the U.S. Congress and media become enraged and demand that there be “consequences,” in part because Khashoggi was a U.S. legal resident and therefore under law a “U.S. person.” Saudi Arabia is, to be sure, a country that most would consider to be an undesirable destination if one is seeking to eat, drink and be merry. Or just about anything else having to do with personal liberty. An absolute dictatorship run by one family, it has long both relied on and been the exporter of the most backward looking and unpleasant form of Islam, Wahabbism. But for the fact that the Saudis are the world’s leading exporter of oil, and, for Muslims, guardian of the religion’s holy sites, the country would long ago have been regarded as a pariah.

    But that said, Congress and the White House might well consider how the rest of the world views the United States when it comes to killing indiscriminately without fear of consequences. President Barack Obama, who has practically been beatified by the U.S. mainstream media, was the first American head of state to openly target and kill American citizens overseas. He and his intelligence advisor John Brennan would sit down for a Tuesday morning meeting to revise the list of Americans living outside the U.S. who could be assassinated. To cite only one example, the executions of Yemeni dissident Anwar al-Awlaki and his son were carried out by drone after being ordered from the White House without any due process apart from claimed presidential authority. Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also attacked Libya, a nation with which America was not at war, destroyed its government, and reduced the country to its current state of anarchy. When its former ruler Moammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by having a bayonet inserted up his anus, Hillary giggled and said “We came, we saw, he died.”

    The United States is also supporting the ongoing war in Syria and also enables the Saudis to continue their brutal attacks on Yemen, which have produced cholera, starvation and the deaths of an estimated 60,000 Yemenis plus millions more threatened by disease and the deliberate cutting off of food supplies. And the White House looks the other way as its other best friend in the Middle East, Israel, shoots thousands of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators. Overall one might argue that if there is a smell in the room it is coming from Washington and one death in Istanbul, no matter how heinous, pales in comparison to what the U.S. itself, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been doing without any pushback whatsoever.

    And then there is the small matter of actual American interests. If Washington persists in going after the Saudis, which it will not do, it will presumably jeopardize future weapons sales worth tens of billions of dollars. The Saudis also support the system of petrodollars, which basically requires nearly all international purchases of petroleum to be paid in dollars. Petrodollars in turn enable the United States to print money for which there is no backing knowing that there will always be international demand for dollars to buy oil. The Saudis, who also use their own petrodollars to buy U.S. treasury bonds, could pull the plug on that arrangement. Those are actual American interests. If one pulls them all together it means that the United States will be looking for an outcome to Khashoggi’s slaying that will not do too much damage to Saudi Arabia.

    So, what do I think will happen as a result of the Khashoggi killing? Nothing that means anything. There are too many bilateral interests that bind the Saudis to Europe and America’s movers and shakers. Too much money is on the table. In two more weeks mentioning the name Khashoggi in Washington’s political circles will produce a tepid response and a shake of the head. “Khashoggi who?” one might ask.

  • Who Really Built America's Massive Pyramid Of Debt?

    Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” 

    Howmuch.net, a website that provides visualizations about money, recently published a new report that shows a unique perspective, breaking down debt into the deficits of each U.S. President has added throughout history.

    Hemingway’s warning looks strikingly similar when it comes to the U.S. national debt, which now stands at a whopping $21 trillion.

    When President Trump was elected, the National Debt Clock at 1133 Sixth Ave., New York, NY, where it has flashed sobering stats on America’s indebtedness from the Durst Organization-owned office tower since 2004, was quickly removed.

    Now, one must check Twitter @NationalDebt for daily sobering tweets about the debt. And, as of October 29, the U.S. national debt officially stood at $21,694,906,926,249.

    Before the Reagan administration, the combined cumulative U.S. debt stood at $750 billion, which Reagan almost tripled over eight years, said Howmuch.net.

    After Reagan, his successors did not slow down, with George H.W. Bush adding $1.55 trillion in a single term, followed by Clinton at $1.4 trillion, Bush at $5.85 trillion, and Obama at $8.59 trillion.

    Estimates already show that Trump is expected to add a total $4.78 trillion during his first term.

    So the trajectory of the deficit is out of control. Reagan inherited a national debt of $750 billion, and Trump added almost $779 billion in fiscal 2018 alone.

    What does all this mean? Is the country ever going to change course?… The answer: Not until something breaks, as we addressed this sensitive topic a few weeks back:

    And more bad news: in order to finance the soaring budget gap, the US Treasury will aggressively increase the pace of debt issuance, borrowing $769 billion in the second half of the current calendar year. That would be the most since 2008. The full year number for 2019 is expected to be well over $1 trillion, and has been cited by some as the reason behind the recent blow out in interest rates.

    Cited by Bloomberg, Trump’s top economist, Kevin Hassett, said this month the president will unveil measures soon to address the shortfall, although he did not provide specifics.

    “The deficit is absolutely higher than anyone would like,” Hassett said. And, looking ahead, it’s set to keep rising indefinitely until finally, something breaks.

  • The Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic

    Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

    I suppose it was always just a matter of time until the global capitalist ruling classes and their mouthpieces in the corporate media combined their two main official narratives into a Ronco-type 2-in-1 kind of deal. That’s right, folks, your days of switching between the War on Terror official narrative and the Putin-Nazi official narrative are over, because now, for just $19.99, the Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic® takes care of all your official narrative needs with just the press of one button!

    Here’s how it works.

    First, you take your classic mentally-disturbed individual, someone like, say, John Hinkley, Jr., Mark David Chapman, or Travis Bickle, or a total wack job like Cesar Sayoc, and you paint whichever clearly psychotic crimes he’s committed as acts of “terrorism.” Don’t worry about the definition of “terrorism” or how it has become a virtually meaningless label the capitalist ruling classes and corporate media can slap onto anyone. Just keep saying “terrorist,” “terrorism,” and any other lexical derivatives of “terror,” over and over, like some kind of mantra … you know, like the Hare Krishnas do.

    Next, you take whatever obsession your disturbed individual is maniacally obsessed with, and you paint that obsession as an “ideology,” or some kind of organized political movement, as if your wack job was actually a rational person and not just a totally paranoid geek who decided to attempt to assassinate Reagan because he couldn’t get a date with Jodie Foster, or to murder John Lennon because God had ordered him to do so in a J. D. Salinger novel.

    Now, this works much better if your disturbed individual is actually obsessed with something political, like, say, if he’s a Donald Trump fanatic who has plastered the windows of the van he’s living in with all sorts of blatantly psychotic artwork deifying Donald Trump and demonizing Donald Trump’s political opponents, but you’ll have to work with what your lunatic gives you. In any event, whatever his pathology, you will need to de-pathologize your psycho, so you can misrepresent him as a “domestic terrorist,” and then associate whatever “ideology” you’ve just painted onto him with “terrorism.”

    If that sounds a little complicated, don’t worry, folks, it’s really not!

    The ruling classes and the corporate media just provided us with a demonstration of the Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic in action, which proves how easy-to-use it is. In the span of just a single week, they whipped up so much mass paranoia that, by the weekend, millions of hysterical liberals were calling for a Deep State coup, and the arrest and internment of all registered Republicans, because a right-wing loon had sent a bunch of non-exploding bomblike devices to prominent members of the neoliberal “Resistance,” or rather, to their respective mail-screening services.

    These Putin-Nazi Terrorist “bomb-like devices” were “intercepted” throughout last week. Their targets were a roll call of Resistance heroes, Soros, Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, the offices of CNN, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, and, yes, even Robert De Niro! Putin-Nazi panic paralyzed the nation! The neoliberal corporate media (who, remember, are serious, respected professionals, not conspiracist nuts like Alex Jones) began pouring out pieces informing the world that Donald Trump was behind these attacks, or had encouraged, “emboldened,” or “inspired” whoever was with his violent, neo-Hitlerian rhetoric.

    The Washington Post went full Shakespearean with Dana Milbank’s What Hath Trump Wrought? The New York Times explained how Trump was employing a strategy called “stochastic terrorism,” i.e., inspiring random acts of violence that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable! “Trump’s words have consequences,” The Guardian lectured. “Words matter,” CNN concurred. John Brennan, who courageously continued to appear on television, despite the ongoing terrorist threat, affirmed that Trump’s “un-American” rhetoric had “emboldened individuals to take matters into their own hands.” Even “alternative” Resistance outlets like Truthout joined the chorus of voices reporting that “Trump’s Rhetoric Emboldens Violence!”

    By Thursday morning, #MAGAbomber, #MAGATerrorist, and other such hashtags were circulating widely on Twitter. Which meant it was only a matter of time until the Resistance linked these stochastically-terrorist MAGA bomber attacks to Russia. On Thursday evening, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd did exactly that, speculating that “this could be a Russian operation!” (Washington Post propagandist Craig Timberg, author of the infamous McCarthyite smear piece on “peddlers of Russian propaganda” that got the whole “fake news” hysteria going back in December 2016, would soon follow up with this ridiculous attempt to connect the “MAGA Terrorist” to Russia … but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.)

    By Friday, after anti-Terrorism specialists (or the kids that work in the mail screening room) “intercepted” more “bomb-like devices” addressed to Senator Cory Booker and ex-National Intelligence Director James Clapper, the neoliberal punditocracy were soiling themselves on national television. This was it! The long-awaited Putin-Nazi Apocalypse had finally begun! And just as Paul Krugman had prophesied it would … or, OK, not exactly like that, but still, Trump was, once again, about to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, and appoint himself dictator! Clearly, Putin had ordered Trump to launch the destruction of Western democracy by deploying the dreaded Totally Incompetent Domestic Terrorist Mail Bomber Strategy … and just in time for the midterm elections!

    And then, just like that, they caught him … Cesar “the Jackal” Sayoc, Jr., the terrorist mastermind that had nearly perpetrated another 9-11-type event, and who was sleeping in his van behind an auto parts store! As is standard procedure for terrorist sleeper agents, Sayoc, until he was “activated,” had been maintaining a totally low-profile cover as juiced-up, body-building, racist male stripper with an extensive criminal record and an obsession with Trump. Like the “Skripal assassins” and other Putin-Nazi operatives, he had made a point of getting himself photographed and noticed by witnesses in various public places, and otherwise drawing attention to himself, which is one of the first things they teach you at the Kremlin. Sayoc hasn’t yet divulged the names and ranks of his handlers in the GRU, but, presumably, Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat are hard at work googling that right this minute.

    In the meantime, the liberal corporate media have been working the Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic on a more or less 24/7 basis. It is crucial at a time like this, when mass hysteria is reaching peak levels, that the public not be allowed to believe that this “MAGA Terrorist” is merely one more pathetic, attention-seeking geek who decided to vent his impotent rage on those he perceived as his mortal enemies. Same goes for the Pittsburgh synagogue attacker, who struck as I was writing this piece. Never mind that this homicidal idiot did not like Trump, who he condemned as a “Jew-lover.” In order to maintain the official narrative, the ruling classes need us to believe that he was not just another anti-Semite with a gun collection and a gab.com account, but, rather, an official “domestic terrorist,” who was probably “radicalized” by Donald Trump’s rhetoric!

    Look, I’m no fan of Donald Trump, or racism, or anti-Semitism, or any other type of bigotry (despite what my smear-happy former editors at CounterPunch would like you to believe). What I am is a student of the production of ideology. I lived through the deployment of the official “War on Terror” narrative after 9-11, and then watched in frustration as millions of Americans mindlessly supported a war of aggression, the abrogation of many of their civil liberties, torture, and various other atrocities, based on nothing but propaganda and media-generated mass hysteria.

    We are experiencing a similarly historic ideological readjustment at the moment, which I’ve been trying to capture (satirically and more seriously) since it began in the summer of 2016. The official “War on Terror” narrative (and people’s understanding of what “terrorism” is) is being gradually redefined and expanded to encompass any and all forms of “extremism” (i.e., whatever the ruling classes decide is “extremism”).

    Mass murder, battery, racist graffiti, opposing the spread of global capitalism, saying nasty things about Soros, tattooing your forehead with a giant Swastika, using the words “globalism,” “sovereignty,” and so on … the distinctions are rapidly disappearing. The media-generated mass hysteria over Islamic terrorism during the War on Terror is being replaced with media-generated mass hysteria over Nazis and Russians (unless you’re a die-hard Trump supporter, in which case, you’ve got your immigration hysteria, but my focus is on ruling class ideology, which, despite the existence of Donald Trump, remains neoliberal, supranational, and, yes, God help me, globalist in nature). Any and all forms of opposition to global capitalist ideology, regardless of whether they come from the Left or the Right, are being stigmatized as “extremism,” and thus inextricably linked to “terrorism.”

    I described this, back in January, as a global capitalist “War on Dissent,” and I think events over the last ten months have largely confirmed my diagnosis.

    I’d love to go on, but this essay is already way too long for people’s phones, and the midterm elections are fast approaching, so this is no time for critical thinking … and plus, news is just coming in from Guardian columnist Christina Patterson that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are also responsible for the Pittsburgh attack, and for “emboldening” all these “extremists” and “terrorists,” and for “normalizing” anti-Semitism and fascism, and mass murder, and who knows what other atrocities, and I don’t want to miss a chance to catch the Putin-Nazi-Terrorist-O-Matic in action!

  • October Payrolls Preview: Here Comes First 3%+ Wage Growth Since 2009

    Tomorrow at 8:30am ET, the BLS will release the October jobs report: payrolls are expected to jump to 200k from last month’s hurricane-affected 134K. However with record low unemployment and a bubbly labor market fueled by Trump’s stimulus, where labor shortages are said to be the biggest concern to companies, markets will ignore the weather-affected payrolls print and focus squarely on average hourly earnings to see if last month’s inflationary wage pressures (+2.8% Y/Y) remain, or rise significantly as consensus expects (exp. 3.1%)

    Here are Wall Street’s consensus expectations:

    • Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 200k, Prev. 134k (extremely broad range of 105K to 253K)
    • Unemployment Rate: Exp. 3.7%, Prev. 3.7% (NOTE: the FOMC projects unemployment will stand at 3.7% at the end of 2018)
    • Average Earnings Y/Y: Exp. 3.1%, Prev. 2.8%
    • Average Earnings M/M: Exp. 0.2%, Prev. 0.3%
    • Average Work Week Hours: Exp. 34.5hrs, Prev. 34.5hrs
    • U6 Unemployment Rate: Prev. 7.5%
    • Labor Force Participation: Prev. 62.7%

    The breakdown:

    PAYROLLS: As ING writes, whereas forecasting payrolls growth is always more luck than science, there is even more guesswork than usual this month because there is a double hurricane effect to take into account. September’s payrolls figure of “just” 134,000 was clearly depressed by Hurricane Florence, which prevented thousands of workers in the Carolinas and Virginia from getting to work. This month there should be a clear rebound in the region with additional jobs created thanks to the rebuild/clean-up operations put in place.

    However, Hurricane Michael, which hit Florida and Georgia last month, will have had a detrimental impact on payrolls in that region through worker absence. As such, markets should refrain from placing much emphasis on the actual outturn. “For what it is worth,” ING is “forecasting payrolls growth of 200,000, but to be honest, anything could happen – the range of economist forecasts is 105,000 up to 253,000, according to Bloomberg.”

    In this vein, a quick side note on the ISM non-mfg survey: if payrolls follow the employment component, tomorrow’s jobs number should print in the 500,000 range, the highest since 1983. If that happens, look for 10Y yields to shoot into low earth orbit.

    WAGE GROWTH: When it comes to the one number that matters most, average hourly earnings, one bank is especially optimistic: according to ING, while pay rates have been grinding higher, the bank expects to see a real breakthrough this month. The annual rate of wage growth is set to push above 3% year-on-year for the first time since April 2009. ING, however, expects to see a 0.3% month-on-month, 3.2% YoY outcome. The NFIB survey below shows that the proportion of small businesses looking to raise pay is also at the highest in the survey’s long history, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given the tightness in the job market.

    Goldman (Payrolls exp. 210K) is slightly less optimistic and estimates that average hourly earnings increased 0.1% month over month and 3.0% year over year, with calendar effects a negative this month, as the survey week ended on the 13th. As shown in the chart below, Hurricane Florence also appeared to temporarily boost average hourly earnings in the Carolinas, and the unwind of those effects could reduce October average hourly earnings growth by around 0.1%.

    While Goldman cannot rule out an offsetting boost from Hurricane Michael in tomorrow’s report, the timing of those disruptions would argue for a limited impact.

    UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: The unemployment rate likely remained stable at 3.7% in October, after falling 0.17% in last month’s report (to 3.68% unrounded). Continuing claims continue to fall (-25k from survey week to survey week), and as shown below, the level of claims would argue against a rebound in the jobless rate. At the same time, the participation rate has returned to the bottom of its two-year range (62.7%), and a short-term bounce can not be ruled out.

    WEATHER IMPACT: As noted above, for the second month in a row, a key focus in tomorrow’s report will be the impact of recent hurricanes, and specifically how they affected payroll growth. Barclays analysts say that in contrast to September, US initial jobless claims data is continuing to show only a modest effect from Hurricanes. In the week-ending 13 October (which captures the October data survey period), initial jobless claims fell by 5k in the week to 210k, and the four-week moving average rose only slightly to 212k from 210k. “At the state level, the very modest rise in initial claims following the hurricane that made landfall in North and South Carolina in early September appears to be reverting,” Barclays says, pointing out that initial jobless claims in North Carolina rose by around 10k initially, but was now tracking lower, while South Carolina’s rise was much more modest and has now reverted. “The relatively mild rise in initial jobless claims following the hurricane in these two states seems at odds with the notable softening in nonfarm payrolls in September,” and adds that while it believes the storm did temporarily weaken some categories of employment, it has a tough time reconciling the stability of the initial jobless claims data and the slowing of September payroll growth, and expects revisions when the report is released on Friday, adding that “for now, the signal from the claims data remains one of low rates of job separation and, in turn, healthy labor market conditions.”

    TRADE WARS: There will be attention on the manufacturing jobs component of the report to assess how much of an impact trade wars is having on US manufacturers’ hiring. “We expect soft manufacturing and construction payrolls, factory payrolls have been slowing since the first tranche of tariffs in July,” UBS notes, adding “we expect to see factory employment slowing much more sharply in October after the 10% China tariffs were put in place.”

    ADP PAYROLLS: ADP’s gauge of payroll growth in October beat to the upside, printing 227k job gains in the month against a consensus 187k; “whether it tell us anything about Friday’s official number is another matter altogether, because ADP won’t capture any hit from Hurricane Michael, but the official data will,” Pantheon Macroeconomics said. “ADP counts names on payrolls, while the official data only include people who were paid – anything – during the survey period,” the consultancy explains, “this means that part-timers, in particular, can drop off the official payroll count when bad weather prevented them from working during the survey week.” Pantheon says it would be very surprised to see Friday’s headlines as strong as the ADP data, “but with hurricanes making landfall in the survey weeks in both September and August – that has never happened before, as far as we know – we’re braced for anything,” it says.

    LAY-OFFS: Challenger reported that October job cut announcements rose to 75.6k, largely on Verizon’s announcement that it will offer voluntary severance packages to 44k managers in an effort to trim costs. “The good news for those accepting offers is now is a good time to look for a new job, especially if they act quickly,” data compiler Challenger said. “The increase in job cut announcements could indeed indicate we’re heading toward a downturn, although employers are still holding on to their workers for the most part.” Challenger also noted in its report that the economy is at near full employment, and job creation has typically surpassed expectations. Wages remain flat, however. Meanwhile, recent fluctuations in the stock market indicate investor concerns and that tariffs are beginning to have an impact.”

    FED REACTION: The US economy continues to grow strongly and with the job market continuing to tighten, there is growing evidence of pipeline pay pressures. Inflation is already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target on all the key measures the central bank follows and rising wage growth will only add upside risks for inflation. As such, the Fed looks set to remain in tightening mode with a December rate hike looking virtually guaranteed followed by three more 25 basis point interest rate rises next year.

    * * *

    Below is a more nuanced breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of tomorrow’s report via Goldman:

    Arguing for a stronger report:

    Rebound from Hurricane Florence. State-level data for September showed a 36k drop in North and South Carolina payrolls (mom sa), consistent with a drag from Hurricane Florence of around 50k (assuming trend growth of 15k in those states). While most of these workers had likely returned to work by early October, Goldman expects the weather-related boost in tomorrow’s report to be partially offset by the negative impact of Hurricane Michael. While particularly strong (category 4), the most severe effects of Hurricane Michael appeared to be concentrated in a smaller swath of the country (mainly the Florida panhandle and parts of Georgia). Over 350k people were ordered to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Michael, compared with 1 million people for Hurricane Florence (we estimate the payroll impact for that storm at -50k) and 6.5 million Floridians during Irma (estimated payroll impact of around -180k). Power outages in Florida also appeared to affect a smaller share of the state (see red bars in Exhibit 1).

    While these considerations would argue for a modest payroll effect, Michael also disrupted economic activity in several Southeastern states (after being downgraded to a tropical storm). As shown by the blue bars in the same exhibit, electricity usage declined sharply in the Deep South and Carolinas on the last day of the survey week. While uncertainty is high, we estimate that Michael will reduce the level of October payrolls by between 20k and 40k, producing a net weather effect of around +15k

    Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims remained just above cycle lows during the four weeks between the payroll reference periods (averaging 212k). Continuing claims also moved lower, falling 25k between the survey weeks.

    ADP. The payroll-processing firm ADP reported a 227k increase in October private payroll employment—40k above consensus and the fastest pace since February. We view the report as evidence that the pace of job growth likely remains well above potential.

    Job availability. The Conference Board labor market differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—rose 2.7pt to +32.7 in October, a new cycle high. JOLTS job openings also rose to a new cycle high in the most recent report (7,136k in August).

    Arguing for a weaker report:

    Company-level one-offs. We expect a few company-level developments to weigh on service-sector job growth in tomorrow’s report, with a combined payroll impact of around -10k to -20k. Within the retail industry, we expect a drag from bankruptcies of Steinhoff Mattresses (closing 200 stores immediately) and Sears (closing 46 stores by November). A voluntary layoff program at Verizon (44k employees eligible) is likely to weigh on information payrolls, but we expect most of these individuals remained employed during the October survey period.[2] Finally, a hotel workers strike will reduce October job growth by 2k.

    Service-sector surveys. Service-sector business surveys softened on net in October, with our non-manufacturing employment tracker pulling back from a cycle high (-1.0pt to 56.6) and our headline aggregate falling by 2.7pt. Those declines may overstate the underlying trend however, as we believe the particularly weak Richmond Fed measure was impacted by the hurricanes. Service-sector job growth rose 75k in September and averaged 145k over the last six months.

    Tariff uncertainty. Trade tensions escalated further in the weeks leading up to the October reference period, as the White House imposed a 10% tariff on $200bn worth of Chinese imports on September 24th. We continue to expect that the growth and employment effects of trade frictions will be modest in the US, and accordingly, we are not embedding an explicit drag from the September tariffs in our payroll estimates for tomorrow. That being said, we note the risk that increased uncertainty or the prospect of retaliatory tariffs may have weighed on hiring.

    Neutral factors:

    Manufacturing surveys. Manufacturing-sector surveys were generally weaker in October, but most remain at elevated levels. Our manufacturing employment tracker fell for the fourth month in a row (-0.5pt to 57.3). Both the headline aggregate and employment subcomponent of the ISM manufacturing survey declined by more than expected in October.

    Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas increased by 26k in October to 78k (SA by GS). On a year-over-year basis, announced job cuts rose 48k. However, these increases reflected the voluntary layoff programs in the telecom sector (discussed previously), and job cuts actually declined across the remainder of industries (+19k mom).

  • India's Social Mood & The Tallest Statue In The World

    Authored by Ritesh Jain via WorldOutOfWhack.com,

    Rohit Srivastava at Indiacharts explains brilliantly the correlation in society mood, tallest statue and fate of markets

    “Yesterday – the Indian Newspapers were splashed with advertisements of the Inauguration of the tallest Statue in the World constructed in the State of Gujarat. A big feat and it was undertaken by this regime in the midst of booming stock market. What can it tell us about the state of the mood in India and what lies ahead for the Indian stock market? At 182 meters this is now the Tallest Statue in the world

    This was accompanied by a list of all the previous Statues that held this claim providing an interesting ground for R&D into the importance of these events.

    This brought to my mind memories of the multiple articles on social mood written by Robert Prechter on the relationship between stock market peaks and construction of the words tallest buildings. He noted it was not the date of construction alone but the period when it was constructed that was important to know where we are in the long term. Without putting words in his mouth here is what he said in his Elliott Wave Theorist publication.

    An interesting chart of the history of buildings near peaks is also below.

    With that, let us see where we are with respect to the largest Statues in the World. It is my belief based on the work already done by the Socioeconomics Institute on the subject that the decision to construct the largest Statue in the world by Shri Narendra Modi, marks the strong social mood of the times in India. The confidence that all is well based on what has been a 15 year advance in stock prices. It also marks the final bubble phase of the Indian stock market, and based on my long term chart of the Nifty the 5th wave, in the form of an ending diagonal at the end of a Supercycle degree bull market. That it was completed yesterday is less important than that is was in construction for the past 56 months. The bids started in Oct 2013 and awarded in Oct 2014.

    So now the big question is when was the second biggest statue constructed? Right into the peak of 2008 and completed by Sept 2008. The Spring Temple of Buddha though took 10 years to complete. But here is the big catch 3 of the tallest statues were completed in 2008 in months of each other and are all Buddha statues. A lot of tall buildings were getting constructed at the same time as mood was reaching a peak. We seem to have seen that with the statues in 2008.

    The Ushiku Daibutsu in japan was completed in 1993 after 10 years of work and within that occurred the Supercycle degree peak in mood and the Nikkei stock index. So work started on it in the midst of the Japanese bubble that popped in 1989 but was completed only years later.

    Now the Russian statue The Motherland Calls put up in 1967 a time when there was no RTSI index so it is hard to point to the stock market there. But the Statue of Liberty 1887, USA started construction in the early 1870s. It was a gift from France. That said the stock market rallied into the 1870s and then went into a long consolidation phase. What makes 1870 important is not the US stock market performance alone but that it was at the end of a global boom in railroads. So while US stocks peaked after the 1870s and consolidated for many years it was the UK charts that might be more compelling. As that period was marked by overinvestment in railroads and then banking failures. So here is a chart of the UK market cap performance from 1825-1870. Not the clearest view of the period but a zoom into what happened after 1873 for US stocks.

    The next and final chart shows the US from 1950 to date

    Lastly what did the railroad boom look like? The pre 1970 UK market boom was put together in one paper by Graeme G Acheson, probably written for Cambridge University but I found it online listed on many websites and am picking the chart from there so you know what it was like before the Statue was gifted to the US.

    Now you may consider the evidence here coincidental and you can also think that the start dates of building are way before the bubble peaks. However, the moment I laid my eyes on an advertisement that spawned across the newspapers it appeared as a reflection of the positive mood of the times and it was worth the effort digging into it this morning. I am especially taken up by it because it comes at the end of India’s Supercycle degree bull market that is ending with an ending diagonal in my opinion. And if this tallest statue is a red flag then we have held it up wide and loud for the world to see and note. While most would see it as a sign of confidence, socionomic studies see it as the point of maximum confidence just as the tide is about to turn

    My two cents…

    I spend a lot of time understanding society mood. Pessimism leads to skepticism. Skepticism leads to optimism. Optimism leads to euphoria and the cycle repeat itself. The statue is a sign of late Euphoria…

  • "Don't Ever Repeat This": Beto Aides Busted Funneling Caravan Funds In Undercover Sting

    James O’Keefe’s undercover operatives at Project Veritas have done it again; this time filming campaign staffers for Congressman and US Senate candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, seemingly engaging in the illegal use of campaign resources to help transport Honduran nationals traveling in the Central American caravan headed towards the southern US border. 

    O’Rourke staffers Dominic Chacon and AnaPaula Themann admit to facilitating transportation to airports and bus stations.

    Via Project Veritas: 

    Chacon: “The Hondurans, yeah… I’m going to go get some food right now, like just some stuff to drop off…”

    Themann: “How did they get through?”

    Chacon: “Well I think they accepted them as like asylum-seekers… So, I’m going to get some groceries and some blankets…”

    Themann: “Don’t ever repeat this and stuff but like if we just say that we’re buying food for a campaign event, like the Halloween events…”

    Chacon: “That’s not a horrible idea, but I didn’t hear anything. Umm, we can wait until tomorrow for that.”

    Themann: “Well that’s exactly the food we need. And I will just mark it as, I do have dozens of block walkers.”

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    “Don’t ever repeat this”

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    Featured in this report are campaign staffers who work on Congressman O’Rourke’s US Senate campaign discussing how they use campaign resources to help Honduran aliens and transport them to airports and bus stations. Said Dominic Chacon and AnaPaula Themann, who work on O’Rourke’s campaign:

    Chacon: “The Hondurans, yeah… I’m going to go get some food right now, like just some stuff to drop off…”

    Themann: “How did they get through?”

    Chacon: “Well I think they accepted them as like asylum-seekers… So, I’m going to get some groceries and some blankets…”

    Themann: “Don’t ever repeat this and stuff but like if we just say that we’re buying food for a campaign event, like the Halloween events…”

    Chacon: “That’s not a horrible idea, but I didn’t hear anything. Umm, we can wait until tomorrow for that.”

    Themann: “Well that’s exactly the food we need. And I will just mark it as, I do have dozens of block walkers.”

    Using “pre-paid credit cards” … “some sort of violation”

    A Project Veritas Action attorney reviewed the footage and assessed:

    “The material Project Veritas Action Fund captured shows campaign workers covering up the true nature of spending of campaign funds and intentionally misreporting them. This violates the FEC’s rules against personal use and misreporting. It also violates Section 1001, making a false statement to the federal government. The FEC violations impose civil penalties, including fines of up to $10,000 or 200 percent of the funds involved. Violations of Section 1001 are criminal and include imprisonment of up to five years.”

    Chacon and Themann also explain how they go about concealing their use of campaign funds for alien support purposes:

    Themann: “There’s actually stores that just mark it as ‘food’ they don’t mark different types… at Albertsons, on the receipts, it marks it just based off of brand…”

    Chacon: “I think we can use that with those [campaign pre-paid] cards to buy some food, all that s**t can be totally masked like, oh we just wanted a healthy breakfast!”

    Themann says that she doesn’t “want to make it seem like all of us are from [the O’Rourke campaign]” when going to distribute supplies to the Honduran aliens. She adds, “I just hope nobody that’s the wrong person finds out about this.”

    Chacon elaborates on the usage of pre-paid campaign cards, saying, “We’re going to use more of those cards to get them more supplies too. So it’s all going to work out. I’m done being nice. I’m done being professional. [Be]cause nothing is professional. None of this is like s**t there is a rule book for, you know?”

    Later in the report, Chacon also reveals “there’s not really an approval process” regarding the usage of the pre-paid cards, and that “we can just go and get the food and we can come up with a BS excuse like as to why we needed to get this stuff.” He adds, “Under the table just sort of do it.”

    “Nobody needs to know”

    Chacon explains that Jody Casey, the campaign manager for the O’Rourke campaign, was happy to hear about their efforts supporting aliens with campaign funds:

    Chacon: “She texted us afterward and was like, I’m so happy that we have a staff that gets it and was there, I was so happy to see y’all there, still working, still contributing, we have the best team ever… she was good about it.”

    Journalist: “So, Jody knows?”

    Chacon: “Well, she doesn’t know we used the pre-paid card, but she doesn’t need to know.”

    Added Chacon, when discussing the possibility for using campaign vans to help the Honduran aliens, “we could probably get away with using the vans… Nobody needs to know.” Chacon also says, “For me, I can just ignore the rules and I’m like f**k it.”

    When asked about using campaign resources to help the Honduran aliens, Casey said “don’t worry”:

    Journalist: “It just made me really concerned, like, you know, because I know that we’re using some of the campaign resources to help with the migrants and like, I just didn’t want anybody to get in trouble with that…”

    Journalist: “Like I didn’t want them to ask me any questions about people using resources…”

    Jody Casey: “Don’t worry.”

    Andrea Reyes, who also works on the O’Rourke campaign, revealed that she has text messages showing she received approval for using the pre-paid cards:

    Reyes: “The thing is yeah, as long as we’re not advertising it. I mean yeah, I don’t really know. They said it was fine sooo *throws hands up* I mean I don’t know, okay. I told you about it! I have the text messages to prove it, sooo…”

    Journalist: “So you told Jody?”

    Reyes: “Yeah. I told Jody and I told my director.”

    When asked about using campaign vans to assist the Honduran aliens, Chacon reveals that they are going to transport the aliens to airports and bus stations:

    Chacon: “… we’re going to give rides to some of the immigrants too. Like to the airport, to the bus station, like why not, you know?”

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Nov 01

Today’s News 1st November 2018

  • Mapping The Most Culturally Chauvinistic Europeans

    Around Europe, some nationalities have a reputation for patriotism and chauvinism more than others.

    Whether it’s someone from England reflecting on past colonial glories or a Belgian boasting about his country producing the best beer on the continent, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that a sense of national pride is certainly evident in many countries. That begs the question: which European countries are the most arrogant about their culture?

    A Pew Research Center survey set out to answer that question by surveying 56,000 adults across Europe. Respondents were asked whether they agree with the statement “our people are not perfect but our culture is superior to others”.

    The following map shows the share of people in different countries considering their own culture to be superior to others and there are certainly some interesting results. Take Portugal where 47 percent of people agree with the above statement compared to just 20 percent in neighbouring Spain.

    Infographic: The Most Culturally Chauvinistic Europeans | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The most chauvinistic attitudes towards culture were recorded across Eastern Europe with Romania (66 percent), Bulgaria (69 percent) and Russia (also 69 percent) on top.

    The highest score of any country across Europe was actually recorded in Greece where 89 percent of people agreed with the statement.

  • Russia Vows "It Will Act" If Ukraine or Georgia Join NATO

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    Russia has vowed that they “will act” should Ukraine or Georgia join NATO. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu voiced his concern over what he described as the “militarization of the European continent,” by promising action instead of empty rhetoric.

    This statement by Shoigu appears to be a sign of the country’s unease in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Speaking during a meeting with Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, Shoigu said:

    “We are following with alarm NATO’s policy aimed at the active militarization of the European continent. We see efforts being made to involve more and more NATO member countries, I mean the Balkans first of all.”

    According to the Express UK, Andrei Kelin, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s European cooperation department, made his remarks during an expert discussion NATO’s Future and Russia’s Interests on the platform of the discussion club Valdai.

    “We will have to create a defense belt near Sochi,” said Kelin.

     “We will have to spend colossal resources on preventing likely actions by a hypothetical enemy, this is inevitable.”

    Kelin also cautioned Ukraine against joining NATO saying that action would have equally serious military and economic repercussions for his country. 

    “The length of our common border is enormous.  It is utterly unequipped, so we will have to build defense lines there and to shift the emphasis of our defense structures towards the south.”

    Kelin did concede, however, that it was unlikely either nation would join NATO.

    “But if our western partners proceed along the road of building up confrontation, this may happen, of course, and we will have to make fundamental preparations,” Kelin added.

    Russia launched a large-scale land, air and sea invasion in 2008, accusing Georgia of aggression against Russian separatists in the South Ossetia region.

    Since this conflict, Vladimir Putin’s regime has occupied both South Ossetia and neighbouring Abkhazia.

    In 2014, Russian forces annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea, rapidly incorporating it into the Russian Federation.

    Meanwhile the Kremlin today said Russian President Vladimir Putin was keen to discuss US plans to exit the INF treaty with Donald Trump when the two meet in Paris on November 11. -Exxpress UK

    Russia has also been ramping up their military might and divesting from the U.S. dollar among rising tensions with Washington.

  • South Korea Leads The World In Robo-Workers

    The rise of the machines has well and truly started.

    Data from the International Federation of Robotics reveals that the pace of industrial automation is accelerating across much of the developed world with 66 installed industrial robots per 10,000 employees globally in 2015. A year later, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, that increased to 74. Europe has a robot density of 99 units per 10,000 workers and that number is 84 and 63 in the Americas and Asia respectively.

    China is one of the countries recording the highest growth levels in industrial automation but nowhere has a robot density like South Korea.

    Infographic: The Countries With The Highest Density Of Robot Workers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    In 2016, South Korea had 631 installed industrial robots per 10,000 employees. That is mainly due to the continued installation of high volume robots in the electronics and manufacturing sectors.

    90 percent of Singapore’s industrial robots are installed in its electronics industry and it comes second with a density of 488 per 10,000 employees. Germany and Japan are renowned for their automotive industries and they have density levels of just over 300 per 10,000 workers. Interestingly, Japan is one of the main players in industrial robotics, accounting for 52 percent of global supply.

    In the United States, the pace of automation is slower with a density rate of 189. China is eager to expand its level of automation in the coming years, targeting a place in the world’s top-10 nations for robot density by 2020. It had a density rate of 25 units in 2013 and that grew to 68 by 2016. India is still lagging behind other countries in automation and it has only three industrial robots per 10,000 workers in 2016.

  • A Rules-Based Global Order Or Rule-less US Global 'Order'?

    Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    “It has taken the US military/security complex 31 years to get rid of President Reagan’s last nuclear disarmament achievement – the INF Treaty, that President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev achieved in 1987”, writes Reagan’s former Assistant Treasury Secretary:

    “Behind the scenes, I had some role in this, and as I remember, what the treaty achieved was to make Europe safe from nuclear attack by Soviet short and intermediate range missiles [the SS20s], and to make the Soviet Union safe from US [Pershing missiles deployed in Europe]. By restricting nuclear weapons to ICBMs, which allowed some warning time, thus guaranteeing retaliation and non-use of nuclear weapons, the INF Treaty was regarded as reducing the risk of an American first-strike on Russia and a [Soviet] first-strike on Europe … Reagan, unlike the crazed neoconservatives, who he fired and prosecuted, saw no point in nuclear war that would destroy all life on earth. The INF Treaty was the beginning, in Reagan’s mind, of the elimination of nuclear weapons from military arsenals. The INF Treaty was chosen as the first start, because it did not substantially threaten the budget of the US military/security complex”.

    The Trump Administration however now wants to unilaterally exit the INF. Speaking to reporters in Nevada, Trump said:

    “Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years and I don’t know why President Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out … We’re going to pull out … We’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and do weapons, and we’re not allowed to”.

    Asked to clarify, the President said: “Unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to us, and they say, ‘Let’s all of us get smart and let’s none of us develop those weapons,’ but if Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it and we’re adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable. So we have a tremendous amount of money to play with our military.”

    The tell-tale markers are plain: Russia and China are ‘doing’ new weapons (and the US is behind the curve); China’s ‘doing it’ (and is not party to the INF treaty), and ‘we’ have a tremendous amount of money to play with our military (we can win an arms race and the military-industrial complex will be ecstatic).

    A (US) diplomat has told the Washington Post that, “the planning [for the withdrawal] is the brainchild of Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, [a career opponent of all arms control treaties on the principle that they potentially might limit America’s options to take unilateral action], has told US allies he believes the INF puts Washington in an “excessively weak position” against Russia “and more importantly China”.

    Trump is not a strategist by nature. He prides himself rather, as a negotiator, who knows how to go after, and to seize, US leverage. A wily Bolton has played here into Trump’s obsession with leveraging US strength to do two things: To return the US to having potentially a first strike capability over Russia (i.e. more leverage), through being able to install intermediate missiles (such as Aegis) in Europe, over and up against Russia’s frontiers. And, secondly, because were some military conflict between the US and China to become inevitable, as tensions escalate, the US has concluded that it needs medium range missiles to strike at China’s mainland. And it’s not China only. As Eric Sayers, a CSIS expert, put it: “Deploying conventionally-armed ground-launched intermediate-range missiles may be key to reasserting US military superiority in East Asia.” (i.e. leverage again).

    Indeed, last year’s US Nuclear Posture Review already noted that “China likely already has the largest medium and intermediate-range missile force in Asia, and probably the world.” And the US is in the process of encircling China with intermediate missiles initially with Japan’s decision to buy the Aegis system, with Taiwan possibly next. (Bolton is known to support stationing US troops on Taiwanese soil, as further leverage over China).

    President Putin sees this plainly:

    “The Americans keep on indulging in these games as the actual goal of such games is not to catch Russia in violations, and compel it to abide by the treaty; but to invent a pretext to ruin that treaty – part of its belligerent imperial strategy”.

    Or, in short, to impose a ‘rule-less, US, global order’.

    What is happening is that Bolton and Pompeo seem to be precisely taking Trump back to the old 1992 Defence Policy Guidance document, authored by Paul Wolfowitz, which established the doctrine that the US would not allow any competition to its hegemony to emerge. Indeed, Assistant Secretary of State, Wess Mitchell, made this return to Bush era policy, absolutely clear, when in a statement to the US Senate he said:

    The starting point of the National Security Strategy is the recognition that America has entered a period of big-power competition, and that past US policies have neither sufficiently grasped the scope of this emerging trend nor adequately equipped our nation to succeed in it. Contrary to the hopeful assumptions of previous administrations, Russia and China are serious competitors that are building up the material and ideological wherewithal to contest US primacy and leadership in the 21st Century. It continues to be among the foremost national security interests of the United States to prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.

    And at the Atlantic Council on 18 October, the Secretary made it very plain that Europe will be whipped into line on this neo-Wolfowitz doctrine:

    “European and American officials have allowed the growing Russian and Chinese influence in that region to “sneak up on us.” “Western Europeans cannot continue to deepen energy dependence on the same Russia that America defends it against. Or enrich themselves from the same Iran that is building ballistic missiles that threaten Europe,” the assistant secretary emphasized. Adding, “It is not acceptable for US allies in central Europe to support projects like Turkstream 2 and maintain cozy energy deals that make the region more vulnerable to the very Russia that these states joined NATO to protect themselves against.”

    Also addressing the Atlantic Council’s October 18 conference, US Special Representative for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, revealed that Washington plans to stiffen the sanctions regime against Moscow “every month or two” to make it ‘more amenable over Ukraine’.

    Plainly, Europe will be expected too, to welcome America’s missiles deployed back into Europe. Some states may welcome this (Poland and the Baltic States), but Europe as a whole will not. It will serve as another powerful reason to rethink European relations with Washington.

    The influence of Bolton poses the question of what is Trump’s foreign policy now. Is it still about getting a good deal for America on a case-by-case basis, or is it a Bolton-style make-over for the Middle East (regime change in Iran), and a long cold war fought against Russia and China? US markets have until now thought it is about trade deals and jobs, but perhaps it no longer is.

    We have written before about the incremental neocon-isation of Trump’s foreign policy. That is not new. But, the principal difficulty with a neo-Wolfowitzian imperialism, lashed to Trump’s radical, transactional, leveraging of the dollar jurisdiction, of US energy and of the US hold on technology standards and norms, is that by its very nature, it precludes any ‘grand strategic bargain’ from emerging – except in the unlikely event of a wholesale capitulation to the US. And as the US bludgeons non-compliant states, one-by-one, they do react collectively, and asymmetrically, to counter these pressures. The counter current presently is advancing rapidly.

    Bolton may have sold Trump on the advantages of exiting the INF as giving him bargaining leverage over Russia and China, but did he also warn him of the dangers? Probably not. Bolton has always perceived treaty limitations to US action simply to be disadvantageous. Yet President Putin has warned that Russia will use its nuclear weapons – if its existence is threatened – and even if it is threatened through conventionally armed missiles. The dangers are clear.

    As for an arms race, this is not the Reagan era (of low Federal debt to GDP). As one commentator notes, “no entity on earth (not currently engaged in QE), has as much government debt vulnerable to short-term interest shifts, than the US government. The US Federal Reserves’ “5 more [interest rate] hikes by end 2019”, roughly translates into: “The Fed [interest payments due on US debt may become so large, as to] impose cuts on the US military in 2019”.

    Trump loves the leverage Bolton seems to magic out of his NSC ‘black box’, but does the US President appreciate how ephemeral leverage can be? How quickly it can invert? He cannot – Canute like – simply stand on the sea-shore and command the rising tide of US bond interest rates to recede like the tide, or the US stock market, just to levitate, in order to multiply his leverage over China.

  • The $80 Trillion World Economy In One Chart

    The latest estimate from the World Bank puts global GDP at roughly $80 trillion in nominal terms for 2017.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, today’s chart from HowMuch.net uses this data to show all major economies in a visualization called a Voronoi diagram – let’s dive into the stats to learn more.

     

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    THE WORLD’S TOP 10 ECONOMIES

    Here are the world’s top 10 economies, which together combine for a whopping two-thirds of global GDP.

    In nominal terms, the U.S. still has the largest GDP at $19.4 trillion, making up 24.4% of the world economy.

    While China’s economy is far behind in nominal terms at $12.2 trillion, you may recall that the Chinese economy has been the world’s largest when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) since 2016.

    The next two largest economies are Japan ($4.9 trillion) and Germany ($4.6 trillion) – and when added to the U.S. and China, the top four economies combined account for over 50% of the world economy.

    MOVERS AND SHAKERS

    Over recent years, the list of top economies hasn’t changed much – and in a similar visualization we posted 18 months ago, the four aforementioned top economies all fell in the exact same order.

    However, look outside of these incumbents, and you’ll see that the major forces shaping the future of the global economy are in full swing, especially when it comes to emerging markets.

    Here are some of the most important movements:

    India has now passed France in nominal terms with a $2.6 trillion economy, which is about 3.3% of the global total. In the most recent quarter, Indian GDP growth saw its highest growth rate in two years at about 8.2%.

    Brazil, despite its very recent economic woes, surpassed Italy in GDP rankings to take the #8 spot overall.

    Turkey has surpassed The Netherlands to become the world’s 17th largest economy, and Saudi Arabia has jumped past Switzerland to claim the 19th spot.

  • DARPA Seeks FAA Approval For Military Drones Over American Cities

    Authored by Nicholas West via ActivistPost.com,

    Just a little over 10 years after drone surveillance inside U.S. borders was declared a conspiracy theory, it is now an indisputable fact of life. So, too, are military grade drones along the “border,” which in reality constitutes a 100-mile-wide swath that encircles the continental United States and 2/3 of its population.

    According to a new report from Defense One, this level of access is still seen as a restriction by the DARPA-directed military apparatus. As new forms of autonomous aircraft take to the skies such as the latest Blackhawk helicopter drones that could be ready by 2019, DARPA and aircraft developers want permission to fly over large cities as needed. Utilizing a new artificial intelligence system that is literally called MATRIX, developers see an opportunity for more flexibility in potential use. Of course, surveillance isn’t mentioned among those uses:

    After that, similar to Predator drone maker General Atomics, they have their eyes on FAA certification to fly large, unmanned aircraft within the continental United States, to help ferry people and supplies from the mainland to offshore oil rigs, among other potential jobs. Today, large drones likes Predators are forbidden to fly over the U.S. except in a handful of largely unpopulated areas along the U.S.Mexico border.

    The FAA is now figuring out how to change guidelines to allow unmanned planes and helicopters to fly over big cities. “We are working with the FAA on that. Our stated goal is 2030. It very much depends on rule making. We are certainly hoping for sooner, for the mid-2020s, to field it,” he said.

    In that linked article sourced above, the long-range plans of converting military aircraft to dronesand incorporating them anywhere and everywhere inside America is also detailed and expanded upon as a potential replacement for the already controversial use of police drones.

    By 2025, enormous military-style drones – close relatives of the sort made famous by counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq – will be visible 2,000 feet above U.S. cities, streaming high-resolution video to police departments below. That is the bet that multiple defense contractors are placing, anyway, as they race to build unmanned aircraft that can pass evolving airworthiness certifications and replace police helicopters. And if that bet pays off, it will radically transform the way cities, citizens, and law enforcement interact.

    We are now seeing various trends beginning to dovetail into what could become the ultimate in military presence over the United States. As I recently reported, new A.I. algorithms are being devised that look for emotional indicators in an attempt to predict crime and social unrest. The “Eye in the Sky” system, developed by Cambridge University, seeks to use small Parrot drones to identify “violent poses” in crowds. The system will be powered by biometric recognition and artificial intelligence, as seen in the video below:

    Imagine a system like this being applied to the far more sophisticated military systems that already exist, then connecting all of it to the growing federal biometrics database.

    I suspect that if the FAA does grant access to larger military aircraft over U.S. cities, it will be with the “strict guidelines” that no forms of surveillance or weaponry will be permitted onboard. Of course, once granted even the slightest access, all it will take is one catastrophic event to remove any restrictions at all.

    “Unlike many new industries, which grow unfettered until emerging problems prompt regulation, unmanned flight needs relief from existing restrictions in order to blossom, Scassero said. Once that happens, the market for large unmanned planes could be enormous.”

    For reference, here is what I wrote in 2013 regarding the long-term plans and eventuality that was also hinted at in the mainstream media at the time in an Associated Press article entitled, “Drones With Facial Recognition Technology Will End Anonymity, Everywhere.”

    AP certainly offers a correct summary of how the databases that already exist (where we thought our personal information was protected) will be opened and utilized any time necessary.

    “From seeing just the image of a face, computers will find its match in a database of millions of driver’s license portraits and photos on social media sites. From there, the computer will link to the person’s name and details such as their Social Security number, preferences, hobbies, family and friends.

    Adding that capability to drones that can fly into spaces where planes cannot — machines that can track a person moving about and can stay aloft for days — means that people will give up privacy as well as the concept of anonymity.”

    Naturally, the AP peddles this softly as it recounts these “new” developments in a tale of researchers with Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab Biometrics Center attempting to assist in sharpening FBI images of Boston bombing suspects, the Tsarnaev brothers. This is reminiscent of the above-mentioned Chris Dorner manhunt where we heard calls for how nice it would have been to have a drone at the ready for quicker identification and possible assassination.

    “In a real-time experiment, the scientists digitally mapped the face of “Suspect 2,” turned it toward the camera and enhanced it so it could be matched against a database. The researchers did not know how well they had done until authorities identified the suspect as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger, surviving brother and a student at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

    ‘I was like, ‘Holy shish kabobs!’ ‘ Marios Savvides, director of the CMU Cylab, told the Tribune-Review. ‘It’s not exactly him, but it’s also not a random face. It does fit him.’”

    This astonishment is somewhat absurd considering that drones have already been developed that are equipped with camera systems like DARPA’s Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (ARGUS). This sensor system can instantly see an area roughly the “size of a small city” with an “all-seeing” eye according to retired Lieutenant, David A. Deptula. The next generation of surveillance tech sees the landscape through a 1.8 billion pixels camera, the highest resolution yet created.

    Using a touchscreen interface that can produce up to 65 windows for analysis, military observers can see down to the individual object level to track the movements of vehicles and people. Beyond the real-time surveillance, the system can store everything for future review right down to the minutes and seconds.

    The only thing truly new about this Associated Press story is the announcement that what most people thought to be limited to overseas theaters of war will now definitely be used across Battlefield USA.

    It would be wise to contact the FAA now with concerns about permitting military-grade aircraft flying over the United States for any reason in order to stave off the imminent arrival of “Battlefield USA.”

  • AI Beats 20 Lawyers In Legal Showdown

    It’s not just burger flipping and banking; artificial intelligence (AI) is now coming for lawyers.

    In a landmark study reported by Hackernoon, 20 corporate attorneys specializing in corporate law and contract review were pitted against an AI in a contest to spot mistakes in five Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) – a commonly used legal document meant to keep people from divulging sensitive information. 

    It didn’t turn out well for the lawyers…

    The study, carried out with leading legal academics and experts, saw the LawGeex AI achieve an average 94% accuracy rate, higher than the lawyers who achieved an average rate of 85%. It took the lawyers an average of 92 minutes to complete the NDA issue spotting, compared to 26 seconds for the LawGeex AI. The longest time taken by a lawyer to complete the test was 156 minutes, and the shortest time was 51 minutes. The study made waves around the world and was covered across global media. –Hackernoon

     

    And what did some of those attorneys say about the contest? Via Hackernoon: 

    Zakir Mir

    “It is crucial to make mundane contract work more efficient, especially when there are 50–100 pages of contracts for some major deals (M&A large tenders with agreements or multinational corporations). It can really help lawyers sift through these documents, and cut down on the sometimes-deliberate verbosity of these documents which can allow one party to mask core issues.”

    Zakir Mir, former regional counsel for BDP International, a $2billion global logistics firm, now at Allegiance International

    Samantha Javier

    “The test pointed out issues that NDA agreements generally contain and issues that lawyers look out for when drafting and reviewing NDAs. As for being automated, I think this would help clients in getting better pricing and allow lawyers to focus on more complex projects. However, I do think the test and AI technology must be very thorough to accomplish this and business clients may prefer to have a human lawyer looking at and taking care of their business concerns.”

    Samantha Javier is a Lewis & Clark Law School graduate, licensed to practice law in Oregon. Her experience includes law firm, in-house, and transactional work

    Grant Gulovsen

    “Participating in this experiment really opened my eyes to how ridiculous it is for attorneys to spend their time (as well as their clients’ money) creating or reviewing documents like NDAs which are so fundamentally similar to one another. Having a tool that could automate this process would free up skilled attorneys to spend their time on higher-level tasks without having to hire paralegal support (thereby making the services they offer more competitive in the long run).”

    Grant Gulovsen, an attorney with more than 15 years’ experience

    Seun Adebiyi

    “We are seeing disruption across multiple industries by increasingly sophisticated uses of Artificial Intelligence. The field of law is no exception. The correct identification of basic legal principles in contracts is the kind of routine task that may be amenable to automation. Using AI to spot routine issues in non-disclosure agreements could be a useful time- and cost-saving development for the legal industry as a whole.”

    Seun Adebiyi, former corporate attorney at Goldman Sachs

    Abigail Patterson

    “While having the clauses categorized would make the NDA review process slightly quicker for me in my own practice, I don’t think the true legal review could ever be done by AI. However, I do see the application of the AI as a useful time-saving tool.”

    Abigail is a corporate attorney at US-based medical device manufacturer DeRoyal Industries. She is licensed in both Tennessee and Wisconsin and has worked as an In-House Attorney, HR/Employment Law Attorney, and Special Projects Manager

    Justin Brown

    “As a chess player and attorney I will take from Grandmaster Vishy Anand and say the future of law is ‘human and computer’ versus (another) ‘human

    and computer.’ Either working alone is inferior to the combination of both. I view AI and technology as exciting new tools that would allow for such drudgework to be done faster and more efficiently.”

    Justin Brown, Partner at Brown Brothers Law

    Hua Wang

    “AI has huge potential in reducing time on standard contract reviews and making legal advice accessible and affordable for all. LawGeex asked me to review the NDA in a logical and credible manner, similar to how I reviewed documents as a former lawyer at a global law firm.”

    Hua is Co-Founder of SmartBridge, and formerly a lawyer at K&L Gates and Proskauer, in-house counsel at Cisco Systems, and a Global Scholar at the Kauffman Foundation. Hua graduated from Duke University and Northwestern University School of Law

    Jack West

    “Something I did recently that helped keep my legal skills intact was participate in an experiment run by Lawgeex where they asked attorneys to identify issues in NDA’s to compare against their software. It was a fun, practical exercise. Did I beat the machines? Probably not.”

    From Birmingham, Alabama, Jack West is a former attorney at Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O’Neal LLP, who has now founded a legal start-up called Book-It-Legal. He studied at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He focused on the areas of securities, corporate, real estate, and tax law.

    Deja Colbert

    “As a Contracts Administrator, I do believe AI will be useful and reduce time on contract reviews. If not done so already, there should be standard contract templates or clauses plugged into the software database and trigger discrepancies within the documents for review based on the means of the contract. Although contracts can be very similar from one another, they all have their own specific purpose, which calls for attention to detail on the use of tags. I find AI logical and credible for the purpose of reducing contract review time, thus, allowing prioritizing other time-consuming tasks at hand.”

    Deja Colbert is a contracts administrator at Omega Rail Management where she drafts contractual documents and coordinates negotiation of the terms and conditions accordingly, creating abstracts of property-related agreements. She was formerly a contract specialist at Cox Automotive in Atlanta and American CyberSystems in Duluth and Experian Health.

    Bender Bending Rodriguez represents Professor Farnsworth

     

  • First, Secure The Borders

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    As Ludwig von Mises correctly stated, in a free state, no one is forced to remain within the state. Anyone who seeks to emigrate is free to do so. This is, in fact, one of the primary tenets of liberty – if you don’t like it, you can leave.

    And so, it follows that, if the right to exit is curtailed in any way, the state has ceased to be free.

    There are those, including myself, who feel that, once this line has been crossed by a state, it’s time to skedaddle. Don’t wait for conditions to “get better.” They won’t. History shows us that, in every case where migration has become curtailed, the state never reverses to a more open policy; in fact, it becomes decidedly more restrictive.

    We’re presently living in a period in which most of the countries that were formerly the most free, half a century ago, have declined considerably and many are approaching a state of totalitarianism.

    Readers of this publication will be familiar with my forecasts that the principle countries that are at the forefront of this decline will be steadily increasing both their capital controls and their migration controls. With regard to the latter concern, the emphasis will not be on keeping non-productive people out, it will be on keeping productive people in.

    Please read that last line again, as it’s very telling.

    As the reader will be aware, the EU and US are rife with problems regarding large numbers of people immigrating from other countries. The respective governments do all that they can to encourage this immigration, including providing immigrants with rights and benefits that are not accorded to the tax-paying citizens of those jurisdictions.

    All the more reason, then, that an eyebrow should be raised when these jurisdictions make it more difficult for their own citizens to travel within or exit the jurisdiction.

    The US, for example, now has a 100 mile zone along all its borders, where checkpoints are set up to control the movements of those who pass through them. Citizens are routinely asked intrusive questions that they are not lawfully obligated to answer, yet, if they don’t, they may have their car windows smashed, be tased, apprehended and subjected to search and detainment. As can be seen in this video, the policies set nine years or more ago for the patrols bear a striking resemblance to those of the Nazi Brownshirts of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s.

    Of course, it’s quite true that Americans are presently able to fly out of the country, as long as they have a valid passport and submit to a search, so, does this not suggest that it’s paranoia to think that the ever-expanding number of “border” inspections occurring 100 miles within US boundaries has any purpose other than to detain illegals?

    Well, there is that niggling problem that the US government goes way out of its way to allow illegals to enter, then provides them with welfare, education, housing, healthcare and other encouragements. In addition, an illegal is far more likely to be released than an American citizen if he commits a crime, even if that crime is murder.

    Clearly, the segment of the population that’s being indoctrinated to believe that they no longer have the right to move freely are American citizens themselves.

    But the question remains, why?

    Well, a simple answer is that, historically, whenever a state has created an economic and/or political time bomb that’s set to go off in the not-too-distant future, that state has instituted migration controls to assure that its most productive members do not leave.

    This can be seen throughout history and is presently most visible in Venezuela, whose porous borders have allowed over 2.3 million people to escape to neighbouring Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador in recent years.

    The state has ramped up its border controls in order to stem this flow, but has found that merely guarding the border is not sufficient. A buffer zone is additionally necessary – one where anyone travelling is suspected of attempting to exit.

    And, again, this is nothing new. Buffer zones and “no man’s lands” have existed throughout history. At present, the US practice of shaking down those in vehicles is merely a nuisance – the removal of the “inalienable right” to liberty on a temporary basis.

    However, it does not bode well for the future. If the only reasonable explanation for these inland checkpoints – some of which are placed in small towns where everybody knows each other – is to get citizens accustomed to the concept that they do not have the right to liberty, it’s a necessary step to achieve, if the intent exists to one day curtail migration by US citizens.

    Such zones would then be quite effective, not just in discouraging anyone living in the 100-mile zone, but in discouraging any American citizen. If, for example, someone living in Nebraska decided to exit a deteriorating US, he’d know that he’d be unlikely to penetrate a 100-mile zone that included innumerable checkpoints.

    That would leave airports as the only alternative. And, in actual fact, for those government agencies that perceive a future problem of thousands and perhaps millions of productive people exiting, creating limits at airports is easy. That system of identification and search is already in place. All that’s needed is for the agent at the desk to say, “I’m sorry, sir, but the computer tells me that permission for you to board this flight has been denied.”

    Those who use airports to travel in and out of the US are already familiar with the fact that they are not to refuse authorities in any way whatsoever. Those few who create a fuss are often escorted to the back room. Their fate, whether it be good or bad, is never learned by other travelers, but the message is clear – comply with everything.

    Returning to Mises, in a free state, no one is forced to remain within the state. Anyone who seeks to emigrate is free to do so.

    For those who recognize that the US is no longer a free country, as it once was, the question arises: Do I accept that my liberty has been removed by my government? Do I wait, in the vain hope that a state that’s moving headlong into totalitarianism will somehow magically reverse itself and reinstate my liberty?

    Or do I choose to make an exit now, while the window of opportunity still exists and migrate to one of the countries where liberty is still very much alive?

    But, again looking at history, the latter decision has been uncommon in the extreme. From Rome in the fourth century, to Nazi Germany in the 20th century, history shows that very few people take action while there’s still time. The great majority wait until the migration restrictions have been implemented, then attempt to leave, usually unsuccessfully.

    In the ramping-up of any totalitarian police state, one of the warnings that conditions are going to become more draconian in the near future is that the state first secures the borders. That warning is as invaluable as it is prophetic.

    *  *  *

    New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his International Man team put together a free report on the best international diversification strategies. Click here to download the PDF now. And please, feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in this valuable information.

  • San Diego Home Sales Collapse To Lowest Level In 11 Years 

    A combination of rapid mortgage rate increases and decreased affordability, San Diego County home sales collapsed 17.5% to the lowest level in 11 years last month, in the first meaningful sign that one of the country’s hottest real estate markets could be at a turning point, real estate tracker CoreLogic reported Tuesday.

    In September, 2,942 homes were sold in the county, down from 3,568 sales last year. This was the lowest number of sales for the month since the start of the financial crisis when 2,152 sold in September 2007.

    CoreLogic said median home prices dropped in the region to $575,000, the first decline since January, after hitting a record high of $583,000 in August.

    Some experts blamed the slowdown on rising mortgage rates, which have drastically increased the per month debt servicing payments for potential new homebuyers.

    “The double whammy of higher prices and rising mortgage rates has priced out some would-be buyers and prompted others to take a wait-and-see stance,” said Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic analyst, in the release. “There was one caveat to last month’s sharp annual sales decline — this September had one less business day for recording transactions. Adjusting for that, the year-over-year decline would be about 13 percent, still the largest in four years.”

    On a monthly basis, sales declined 22% in September compared with August. Cyclically, sales tend to drop 10% from August to September, but this time, it seems that industry is experiencing late cycle stress.

    The report also said sales of newly built homes are suffering more than sales of existing homes because homebuilder production remains below the historical mean. New home constructions come at a premium. Sales of newly built homes were 47% below the September average dating back to 1988, while sales of existing homes were 22% below their long-term average.

    The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller San Diego Home Price NSA Index (data via Reuters Eikon) shows a potential double top with 2005 high. Lifetime high occurred in July 2018 of 259.69, with the index now fading into the Fall period.

    Additional S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller San Diego Home Price data 

    “Price growth is moderating amid slower sales and more listings in many markets,” LePage said. “This is welcome news for potential homebuyers, but many still face a daunting hurdle – the monthly mortgage payment, which has been pushed up sharply by rising mortgage rates.”

    Last month, Bank of America Called It: “The Peak In Home Sales Has Been Reached; Housing No Longer A Tailwind.” It seems that the San Diego real estate market woes are more evidence that storm clouds are gathering over the broader U.S real estate market. 

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Oct 31

Today’s News 31st October 2018

  • Leaked U.N. Memo Reveals Saudis Demanded Western Propaganda For $1bn Pledged To Aid Agency

    We wonder if the Saudis had never been caught in Jamal Khashoggi’s gruesome murder, would such essential stories and leaks now happening such as the below Guardian report ever see the light of day? On Tuesday The Guardian published select contents of a leaked internal United Nations document detailing a “pay to play” scheme orchestrated by Saudi Arabia.

    According to the leaked document, the Saudis demanded that aid groups and humanitarian agencies operating in Yemen provide favorable publicity for Saudi Arabia in return for Riyadh providing close to a billion dollars to fund their efforts. The document identifies $930m given to the aid groups, even as the Saudi-led coalition bombed the very people the donations were supposed to help. 

    The Guardian report calls the extent of Saudi demands “highly unusual” as part of the requirement for groups to receive aid included floating favorable stories and coverage of “the Saudi humanitarian effort in Yemen” to newspapers like the New York Times and the Guardian — publications specifically named in the internal memo. Thus the nearly $1bn was essentially hush money for the sake of propaganda meant to shield the kingdom from scrutiny over its Yemen actions. 

    Secretary-General is António Guterres with Saudi FM Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir

    The Guardian report described the following of the leaked memo: 

    The document, entitled Visibility Plan, covers the terms of the 2018 humanitarian budget for Yemen, and shows the extent to which the UN aid agency, Ocha, was put under pressure to accept the PR strings attached to money given both by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The two countries provided nearly one third of the total UN humanitarian budget for Yemen for this year.

    The UAE was deeply involved in the plan — especially ironically given that its pilots and warplanes have been reported at the forefront of the bombing campaign which has continued unabated since 2015, resulting in what U.N. officials have designated “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. 

    Aid agencies were made aware that the extent of Saudi donations made to their efforts were expressly tied to “the amount of beneficial publicity given to Saudi Arabia,” the U.N. document reveals. And further, One demand states: “One would expect from Ocha or [a] recipient agency to publish articles in recognized daily newspapers such as the New York Times or the Guardian, highlighting our contribution.”

    The Guardian further quotes one section of the leaked document requiring that aid agencies “prove” their level of promoting the Saudis’ supposed “good works”. The document states that aid agencies had to agree to the following: 

    We consider it very important to ensure that our dear fellow Yemenis are all aware of our donations. More emphasis should be placed on strengthening the local visibility plan by engaging local media … so that donors get deserved recognition and not to be overshadowed by the recipient’s agencies’ visibility.

    The document reveals that five different UN aid-linked agencies agreed to the Saudi list of demands, set out in 48 specific steps, with the most notable groups including: the UN Development Programme, Ocha, the World Health Organization and Unicef.

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

    According to The Guardian, “The leaked documents also show the pressure the two countries have brought to bear on the UN to raise their profile as charitable donors.”

    Amazingly, among the demands included the designation of a point person to ensure that Saudi wishes were carried out:

    Although the documents show that Ocha resisted some of the Saudi demands, the agency complied with a Saudi request that “a specialised person is recruited by Ocha to be the focal point to ensure the implementation plan by all recipient agencies and to consolidate reports”.

    For much of the past three years of war in Yemen most of the Western public have remained largely in the dark as to the true scale of the humanitarian nightmare unfolding in the country.  

    Only with crown prince MbS recently in the hot seat and media spotlight surrounding the Jamal Khashoggi murder have publications from the New York Times to Washington Post to networks like CNN belatedly increased their focus on the Saudi and U.S. role in facilitating Yemen’s widespread suffering. 

    The New York Times and others only began to expose Saudi war crimes in Yemen in the weeks after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, despite airstrikes occurring for over three years:

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

    But now with the release of this bombshell document it’s confirmed that even the U.N. had made itself the propaganda puppet of the Saudis alongside an already willing mainstream media.

    It should also be remembered that, absurdly, the U.N. in 2017 elected Saudi Arabia to a 2018-2022 term on its Commission on the Status of Women, despite the kingdom’s well-known reputation as the “most misogynistic regime” on earth. Perhaps the Saudi “aid money” for Yemen had already started to line U.N. pockets? 

    As journalist and Middle East expert Sharmine Narwani points out, the leaked document essentially “shows the UN is for sale” as “the KSA and UAE destroyed Yemen, then paid the UN to publicize their ‘good works’ in that broken state.”

  • America's Nuclear Death Wish – Europe Must Rebel

    Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The Trump administration’s declared scrapping of a crucial arms control treaty is putting the world on notice of a nuclear war, sooner or later.

    Any such war is not winnable. It is mutually assured destruction. Yet the arrogant American rulers – some of them at least – seem to be deluded in thinking they can win such a war.

    What makes the American position even more execrable is that it is being pushed by people who have never fought a war. Indeed, by people like President Donald Trump and his hawkish national security advisor John Bolton who both dodged military service to their country during the Vietnam War. How’s that for macabre mockery? The world is being pushed to war by a bunch of effete cowards who are clueless about war.

    Trump announced last this week that the US was finally pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a move confirmed by Bolton on a follow-up trip to Moscow. That treaty was signed in 1987 by former President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a landmark achievement of cooperation and trust between the nuclear superpowers. Both sides removed short and medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe.

    With Trump intending to rip up the INF Treaty, as his predecessor GW Bush had done with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, Europe is now facing the disastrous prospect of American missiles being reinstalled across its territory as they were in the 1980s. However, a big distinction between then and now is that after years of expansion by NATO, European territory is at an even sharper interface with Russia’s heartland.

    When the INF Treaty was implemented three decades ago, the US and Russian nuclear arsenals were seriously dialed back to the strategic level of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) confined on respective landmasses separated by thousands of kilometers. As Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Natsionalnaya Oborona, told Russia’s Vesti news channel, the ICBMs typically have a flight time of 30 minutes from launch. That time gap would give Russian defense systems time to respond effectively to an incoming strike from the US, and vice versa.

    But, as Korotchenko noted, the impending installation of intermediate-range missiles by the Americans in European states will reduce the flight time of a possible US nuclear strike on Russia to a couple of minutes, even seconds. That would seriously challenge Russian anti-missile defenses, as well as greatly increasing the margin of error in detecting a strike, possibly leading to mistaken escalation. In other words, the strategic balance has been thrown into disarray by the US over the INF, just as it was again thrown into disarray back in 2002 when Bush trashed the ABM.

    It also presents the Americans with the temptation to exercise their “first-strike doctrine”. In US military planning, it reserves the “right” to use a pre-emptive attack. By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated again last week that Russia will never use a first-strike option, that it would only use nuclear weapons as a defensive action.

    Recall that earlier this month, the US envoy to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that American forces would “take out” Russian missiles if they are deemed to be violating the INF. It was an appalling expression of the pre-emptive prerogative that Washington grants itself, even though the information upon which it would base its action is highly questionable.

    Putting the American logic together one can say that the US rulers have a death wish on the planet. With criminal recklessness, they are moving to loosen the international controls over deploying nuclear weapons and are creating a situation in Europe that puts nuclear war on a hair-trigger.

    Moscow vowed last week that it will respond “militarily” if Washington goes ahead with scrapping the INF Treaty. Russia can be expected to counter by deploying shorter-range missiles that will put NATO-allied Europe in the firing line.

    Surely, the European states must be asking themselves what kind of ally they supposedly have in the US. What kind of ally puts its supposed friends in the firing line, under the name of “protecting them”, while it remains at relatively safer distance?

    The European Union has reacted to Trump’s announced withdrawal from the INF Treaty with horror. The EU is calling on the US to adhere to the treaty and to negotiate with Russia over purported complaints. French President Emmanuel Macron telephoned Trump, appealing that the treaty has been a vital element of Europe’s peace for the past 30 years.

    Washington has been claiming for the past four years, since the Obama administration, that Russia is violating the INF by allegedly developing medium-range, ground-launched cruise missiles. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claims, pointing out that the Americans have not presented evidence to back up their accusations. Washington says its information is classified, and so can’t be publicly revealed. That’s hardly convincing given past American deceptions over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

    In any case, it is the Americans who are making a big deal about the alleged Russian violations of the INF. If the Europeans were really concerned, why haven’t they kicked up a fuss? The fact that the Europeans are pleading with Washington to adhere to the INF suggests that they are not convinced by allegations of Russia posing a missile threat.

    Moreover, if there are disputes and complaints from the American side, then let them iron these problems out through diplomacy and negotiation.

    It is telling that the US wants to instead escalate the tensions and the risks of war in such a reckless manner. That betrays its real agenda of seeking to militarize problems, rather than exploring political solutions. The difference it seems comes down to the US not actually having a valid political argument, so it must exercise its power through militarism as a way to conceal its lack of rational validity.

    The root problem of INF Treaty tensions and alleged violations stems from the US-led configuration of military forces encroaching ever-closer on Russian territory. If the US were genuinely interested in ensuring security and peace in Europe then it would listen to Russia’s concern over the provocative expansion of US-led NATO forces towards its Western border. When Reagan signed the INF with Gorbachev it was on the understanding and commitment from the US side not to advance its military towards Russia “by one inch”. In 30 years, US forces have pushed all the way from Germany to the Baltic and Black Seas on Russia’s doorstep. Washington is trying to enlist Ukraine and Georgia into the NATO alliance, indeed is carrying out war drills with these two former Soviet Union states which share borders with Russia.

    If the US now re-installs medium-range nuclear missiles with flight times to Moscow down to a matter of seconds then we can lament that the abandonment of the INF is a grave watershed move towards nuclear war.

    The way out of this heinous dilemma is not only maintaining the INF Treaty. Furthermore, there should a wholesale scaling back of NATO forces in Europe on Russia’s Western, Northern and Southern flanks. Just this month, NATO is holding its biggest-ever war maneuvers since the Cold War in the Arctic region on Russia’s border with 50,000 troops, accompanied by a flurry of surveillance flights over Russia’s coast.

    The insanity of America’s death wish for nuclear war has to stop. The American ruling class won’t stop it because their death wish mentality is so suffused with blind arrogance and ignorance and it is so integral with the “normal” functioning of their capitalist military-industrial complex.

    Russia is holding the line with its undoubted military capability and its principled diplomatic prudence. But it is time for the Europeans to step up to the plate and to exert some sense on the Americans.

    • For a start, the EU states should tell Trump that any plan to re-install medium-range nuclear weapons on their soil is impermissible.

    • Secondly, the Europeans need to scale back the NATO expansion towards Russian territory.

    • Thirdly, they need to tell Washington that Russia is a partner, not a pariah to be abused for the benefit of American militarism and hegemonic ambitions.

    Will the Europeans do that? Their leaders may not have the backbone, but the citizens of Europe will have to, if they want to prevent their American “ally” inciting a nuclear cataclysm. American arrogance is fomenting a European rebellion against its death-wish criminal leaders.

  • US Pressuring Saudis To Heal Qatar Rift, Ease Sanctions, As Riyadh's Isolation Grows

    In the latest fallout over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the United States is demanding that Saudi Arabia make nice with Qatar, according to sources quoted in Bloomberg.

    Three officials with knowledge of the issue have described to Bloomberg that the US is “raising pressure” on the kingdom to “wind down” its ongoing “political and economic isolation of Qatar” at a moment that Riyadh is potentially facing its own such isolation as international outrage has grown since the October 2nd slaying of Khashoggi inside the Istanbul consulate. 

    One U.S. official further says the Saudis are being asked to “take steps” to wind down its over three-year long bombing campaign in Yemen, or at least to greatly mitigate the factors causing a massive humanitarian crisis in famine — an ironic and contradictory request given the Pentagon’s own lead role as part of the Saudi coalition. 

    Since June of 2017, when a rift came out in the open and Saudi Arabia led a full economic and diplomatic blockade of its tiny oil and gas rich neighbor along side three other Gulf Cooperation Council states of the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain (non-GCC Egypt also initially cut ties), the two sides have essentially been in a state of war; however Qatar has remained defiant throughout the unprecedented crisis, relying on its vast oil wealth to weather the storm.  

    The land, air, and sea Saudi-led boycott has included aggressive economic sanctions, even food blockages, as most of Qatar’s basic staples had previously been supplied by land via Saudi Arabia. But it’s been hugely awkward for Western allies of both countries like the United States and Britain, as Qatar hosts the largest US/UK military base in the Middle East, Al Udeid Air Base, located 20 miles southwest of the Qatari capital of Doha and home to some 11,000 US military personnel, plus Royal Air Force units. 

    Given Washington’s close economic and military ties to both countries, healing the inter-GCC schism has been a priority for the White House, and it now appears to be using the international outcry to pressure Riyadh in an amenable direction regarding Qatar. 

    Could the pressure already be working? Last week at the Saudi Future Investment Initiative (FII) hosted in Riyadh, which a number of Western companies and media outlets boycotted, Crown Prince MbS took the the previously unheard of step (since the 16-month crisis with Doha began) of acknowledging the resilience of Qatar’s “strong economy” and forecast progress over the next half decade. 

    “Even Qatar, despite our differences with them, has a very strong economy and will be very different” in the next five years, the prince said at an investment summit in the Saudi capital as he explained his vision for the Middle East’s place in the world. — Bloomberg

    These words alone signal an opening between the two countries that could lead to detente under Washington oversight. 

    Though Trump had previously seemed to endorse the Saudi position that Qatar is a state sponsor of terror in the region and had helped facilitate Iranian influence and expansion, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had previously attempted to negotiate an agreeable closure to the crisis and softening of tensions, without success. 

    But it appears that in the end the Saudis will only perhaps respond to what they know best — blackmail. So ultimately should MbS survive the heat of the Khashoggi investigation, it will likely come at the expense of having to make nice with Qatar and play by other Washington rules as well.  

  • Whitehead: America Is On The Brink Of A Nervous Breakdown

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

    – Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

    Yet another shooting.

    Yet another smear of ugliness, hatred and violence.

    Yet another ratcheting up of the calls for the government to clamp down on the citizenry by imposing more costly security measures without any real benefit, more militarized police, more surveillance, more widespread mental health screening of the general population, more threat assessments and behavioral sensing warnings, more gun control measures, more surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities, more “See Something, Say Something” programs aimed at turning Americans into snitches and spies, more metal detectors and whole-body imaging devices at so-called soft targets, more roaming squads of militarized police empowered to do more stop-and-frisk searches, more fusion centers to centralize and disseminate information to law enforcement agencies, and more government monitoring of what Americans say and do, where they go, what they buy and how they spend their time.

    All of these measures play into the government’s hands.

    All of these measures add up to more government power, less real security and far less freedom.

    As we have learned the hard way, the phantom promise of safety in exchange for restricted or regulated liberty is a false, misguided doctrine that has no basis in the truth.

    Things are falling apart.

    When things start to fall apart or implode, ask yourself: who stands to benefit?

    In most cases, it’s the government that stands to benefit by amassing greater powers at the citizenry’s expense.

    Unfortunately, the government’s answer to civil unrest and societal violence, as always, will lead us further down the road we’ve travelled since 9/11 towards totalitarianism and away from freedom.

    With alarming regularity, the nation is being subjected to a spate of violence that not only terrorizes the public but also destabilizes the country’s fragile ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

    Clearly, America is being pushed to the brink of a national nervous breakdown.

    This breakdown – triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, xenophobia, militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment), a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, and a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by—is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.

    Yet there is a method to this madness.

    Remember, authoritarian regimes begin with incremental steps. Overcriminalization, surveillance of innocent citizens, imprisonment for nonviolent—victimless—crimes, etc. Bit by bit, the citizenry finds its freedoms being curtailed and undermined for the sake of national security. And slowly the populace begins to submit.

    No one speaks up for those being targeted.

    No one resists these minor acts of oppression.

    No one recognizes the indoctrination into tyranny for what it is.

    Historically this failure to speak truth to power has resulted in whole populations being conditioned to tolerate unspoken cruelty toward their fellow human beings, a bystander syndrome in which people remain silent and disengaged—mere onlookers—in the face of abject horrors and injustice.

    Time has insulated us from the violence perpetrated by past regimes in their pursuit of power: the crucifixion and slaughter of innocents by the Romans, the torture of the Inquisition, the atrocities of the Nazis, the butchery of the Fascists, the bloodshed by the Communists, and the cold-blooded war machines run by the military industrial complex.

    We can disassociate from such violence.

    We can convince ourselves that we are somehow different from the victims of government abuse.

    We can continue to spout empty campaign rhetoric about how great America is, despite the evidence to the contrary.

    We can avoid responsibility for holding the government accountable.

    We can zip our lips and bind our hands and shut our eyes.

    In other words, we can continue to exist in a state of denial.

    Whatever we do or don’t do, it won’t change the facts: the nation is imploding, and our republic is being pushed ever closer to martial law.

    As Vann R. Newkirk II writes for the Atlantic:

    Trumpism demands that violence be solved by local militarization: increased security at schools, the arming of teachers, and now, the adoption of guns in places intended quite literally to be sanctuaries from the scourges of the world. Taken altogether, what Trumpism seems to intend is the creation—or perhaps the expansion—of the machinery of a police state…

    In facing what appears to be a rising tide of violence—a tide that Trump himself elevates and encourages—the prescription of arms merely capitulates to the demands of that bloodshed. The purpose of political violence and terrorism is not necessarily to eliminate or even always to create body counts, but to disempower people, to spread the contagion of fear, to splinter communities into self-preserving bunkers, and to invalidate the very idea that a common destiny is even possible. Mandates to arm people accelerate this process. They inherently promote the idea that society cannot reduce the global level of harm, and promote the authoritarian impulses of people seeking order.

    Where Newkirk misses the point is by placing the blame squarely on the Trump Administration.

    This shift towards totalitarianism and martial law started long before Trump, set in motion by powers-that-be that see the government as a means to an end: power and profit.

    As Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, recognized years ago, “Adolf Hitler is alive and well in the United States, and he is fast rising to power.”

    Roberts was not comparing Trump to Hitler, as so many today are wont to do.

    Rather, he was comparing the American Police State to the Nazi Third Reich, which is a far more apt comparison.

    After all, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—have fully embraced many of the Nazi’s well-honed policing tactics and have used them repeatedly against American citizens for years now.

    Indeed, with every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

    These are not tactics used by constitutional republics, where the rule of law and the rights of the citizenry reign supreme. Rather, they are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, where the only law that counts comes in the form of heavy-handed, unilateral dictates from a supreme ruler who uses a secret police to control the populace.

    The empowerment of the Gestapo, Germany’s secret police, tracked with the rise of the Nazi regime in much the same way that the rise of the American police state corresponds to the decline of freedom in America.

    How did the Gestapo become the terror of the Third Reich?

    It did so by creating a sophisticated surveillance and law enforcement system that relied for its success on the cooperation of the military, the police, the intelligence community, neighborhood watchdogs, government workers for the post office and railroads, ordinary civil servants, and a nation of snitches inclined to report “rumors, deviant behavior, or even just loose talk.”

    In other words, ordinary citizens working with government agents helped create the monster that became Nazi Germany. Writing for the New York Times, Barry Ewen paints a particularly chilling portrait of how an entire nation becomes complicit in its own downfall by looking the other way:

    In what may be his most provocative statement, [author Eric A.] Johnson says that ‘‘most Germans may not even have realized until very late in the war, if ever, that they were living in a vile dictatorship.’’ This is not to say that they were unaware of the Holocaust; Johnson demonstrates that millions of Germans must have known at least some of the truth. But, he concludes, ‘‘a tacit Faustian bargain was struck between the regime and the citizenry.’’ The government looked the other way when petty crimes were being committed. Ordinary Germans looked the other way when Jews were being rounded up and murdered; they abetted one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century not through active collaboration but through passivity, denial and indifference.

    Much like the German people, “we the people” have become passive, polarized, gullible, easily manipulated, and lacking in critical thinking skills.  Distracted by entertainment spectacles, politics and screen devices, we too are complicit, silent partners in creating a police state similar to the terror practiced by former regimes.

    Can the Fourth Reich happen here?

    It’s already happening right under our noses. Much like the German people, “we the people” are all too inclined to “look the other way.”

    In our state of passivity, denial and indifference, here are some of the looming problems we’re ignoring:

    Now these are not problems that you can just throw money at, as most politicians are inclined to do.

    These are problems that will continue to plague our nation—and be conveniently ignored by politicians—unless and until Americans wake up to the fact that we’re the only ones who can change things.

    We’re caught in a vicious cycle right now between terror and fear and distraction and hate and partisan politics and an inescapable longing for a time when life was simpler and people were kinder and the government was less of a monster.

    Our prolonged exposure to the American police state is not helping.

    As always, the solution to most problems must start locally, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in our communities.

    We’ve got to refrain from the toxic us vs. them rhetoric that is consuming the nation.

    We’ve got to work harder to build bridges, instead of burning them to the ground.

    We’ve got to learn to stop bottling up dissent and disagreeable ideas and learn how to work through our disagreements without violence.

    We’ve got to de-militarize our police and lower the levels of violence here and abroad, whether it’s violence we export to other countries, violence we glorify in entertainment, or violence we revel in when it’s leveled at our so-called enemies, politically or otherwise.

    For starters, we’ll need to actually pay attention to what’s going on around us, and I don’t mean by turning on the TV news. That will get you nowhere. It’s a mere distraction from what is really going on. In other words, if you’re watching, that means you’re not doing. It’s time to get active.

    • Pay attention to what your local city councils are enacting.

    • Pay attention to what your school officials are teaching and not teaching.

    • Pay attention to whom your elected officials are giving access and currying favor.

    Most of all, stop acting like it really matters whether you vote for a Republican or Democrat, because in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t.

    While you’re at it, start acting like citizens who expect the government to work for them, rather than the other way around. While that bloated beast called the federal government may not listen to you without a great deal of activism and effort brought to bear, you can have a great—and more immediate—impact on your local governing bodies.

    This will mean gathering together with your friends and neighbors and, for example, forcing your local city council to start opposing state and federal programs that are ripping you off. And if need be, your local city council can refuse to abide by the dictates that continue to flow from Washington, DC. In other words, nullify everything the government does that is illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.

    Finally, remember that when you strip away all of the things that serve to divide us, we’re no different underneath: we all bleed red, and we all suffer when violence becomes the government’s calling card.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

    Unless we can learn to live together as brothers and sisters and fellow citizens, we will perish as tools and prisoners of the American police state.

  • Russia "Ready To Shoot Down" U.S. Spy Plane Behind Attacks On Airbase, Says Defense Official

    A Russian defense official has doubled down on prior claims that the United States was behind a prior massive drone attack against Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia (alternately Hmeimim), which has further come under sporadic waves of attack by small armed drones which have appeared increasingly sophisticated. 

    Vladimir Shamanov, head of the lower parliamentary house’s defense committee and a former airborne troops commander, warned, according to a translation of his Tuesday statement by Russian Market:

    In case of another U.S. drone attack on Russian Military Base in Syria, Russia is ready to shoot-down that plane. 

    The threat was made against an American spy plane possibly being in the area near Syria to coordinate any future attack. Last week the Kremlin said, based on new intelligence provided by the Russian defense ministry, that a major attack on Khmeimim last January was coordinated by a US P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane. 

    US P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane

    The nighttime January 8th attack which involved 13 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in total — 10 approached Khmeimim while 3 attempted an attack on the naval facility in Tartus. That significant attack came after a prior New Year’s eve drone assault actually damaged Russian jets parked at the airbase. 

    Last weekend President Putin himself addressed the uptick in drone attacks especially over just the past two months while in discussions with the leaders of Germany, France and Germany in Istanbul, according to TASS: 

    Terrorists continue attacks in Idlib, with dozens of drones shot down near the Russian military base in the country in the past two months or so, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after a four-party summit on Syria held in Istanbul on Saturday.

    “Russia reserves the right to support the Syrian government if terrorists carry out provocations from the Idlib zone,” Putin said. “Quite recently – I have informed my counterparts – artillery strikes were delivered from the Idlib zone in the direction of Aleppo. In the recent six weeks to two months, our air defense has shot down 50 aerial vehicles near our base in Hmeymim.”

    Though at the Istanbul summit the Russian president stopped short of blaming the U.S. for coordinating the attacks — something that Pentagon officials have vehemently denied — the words came just days after Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin went public with details of a Russian intelligence report at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security last Thursday: “Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours,” the deputy defense minister said. 

    These latest threats “to shoot down that plane” also follow the mistaken downing of a Russian Ilyushin-20 reconnaissance plane in mid-September with 15 crew members on board after Israel launched a massive attack on Syrian government targets. Following the incident, for which Israel expressed regret, Russia had vowed an “adequate response” and effectively declared a “no-fly zone” in the area of its assets in Syria, and further moved forward with transferring S-300 air defense systems to the Syrian government. 

    With Russia’s heightened rhetoric of late, it appears to be anticipating the next potential major incident over the skies of Syria — only this time Moscow has raised the stakes as it vows to follow through on attacking American or other foreign aircraft behind attacks on Russian bases and aircraft in Syria. 

  • Pepe Escobar Blasts Brazil's Bolsanaro: "Welcome To The Jungle"

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

    A troubling new era has begun in Brazil with the election on Sunday of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president…

    Bolsonaro: Leader of trashy jihad.

    It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon.

    Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as “the chlorophyll of our planet”. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie de vivre has elected a fascist for president.

    Brazil is a land torn apart. Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was elected with 55.63 percent of votes. Yet a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void. No less than 46 million Brazilians voted for the Workers’ Party’s candidate, Fernando Haddad; a professor and former mayor of Sao Paulo, one of the crucial megalopolises of the Global South. The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro.

    His first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age.

    French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”.

    His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes.

    That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven.

    The Reign of BBBB

    It’s impossible to understand the rise of Bolsonarism without the background of the extremely sophisticated Hybrid War unleashed on Brazil by the usual suspects. NSA spying – ranging from the Petrobras energy giant all the way to then President Dilma Rousseff’s mobile phone – was known since mid-2013 after Edward Snowden showed how Brazil was the most spied upon Latin American nation in the 2000’s.

    The Pentagon-supplicant Superior War College in Rio has always been in favor of a gradual – but surefire – militarization of Brazilian politics aligned with U.S. national security interests. The curriculum of top U.S. military academies was uncritically adopted by the Superior War College.

    The managers of Brazil’s industrial-military-technological complex largely survived the 1964-1985 dictatorship. They learned everything about psyops from the French in Algeria and the Americans in Vietnam. Over the years they evolved their conception of the enemy within; not only the proverbial “communists”, but also the Left as a whole as well as the vast masses of dispossessed Brazilians.

    This led to the recent situation of generals threatening judges if they ever set Lula free. Bolsonaro’s running mate, the crude Generalito Hamilton Mourao, even threatened a military coup if the ticket did not win. Bolsonaro himself said he would never “accept” defeat.

    This evolving militarization of politics perfectly meshed with the cartoonish BBBB (Bullet, Beef, Bible, Bank) Brazilian Congress.

    Congress is virtually controlled by military, police and paramilitary forces; the powerful agribusiness and mining lobby, with their supreme goal of totally plundering the Amazon rainforest; evangelical factions; and banking/financial capital. Compare it with the fact that more than half of senators and one third of Congress are facing criminal investigations.

    The Bolsonaro campaign used every trick in the book to flee any possibility of a TV debate, faithful to the notion that political dialogue is for suckers, especially when there’s nothing to debate.

    After all, Bolsonaro’s top economic advisor, Chicago Boy Paulo Guedes – currently under investigation for securities fraud – had already promised to “cure” Brazil by bearing the usual gifts: privatize everything; destroy social spending; get rid of all labor laws as well as the minimum wage; let the beef lobby plunder the Amazon; and increase the weaponizing of all citizens to uber-NRA levels.

    No wonder The Wall Street Journal normalized Bolsonaro as a “conservative populist” and the “Brazilian swamp-drainer”; this fact-free endorsement ignores that Bolsonaro is a lowly politico who has only passed two pieces of legislation in his 27 lackluster years in Congress.

    WhatsApp Me to the Promised Land

    Even as large misinformed masses progressively became aware of the massive Bolsonaro campaign manipulative scams on WhatsApp – a tropical post-Cambridge Analytica saga; and even as Bolsonaro pledged, on the record, that opponents would have only two options after Sunday’s elections, jail or exile, that was still not enough to arrest Brazil from inexorably slouching towards a dystopian, militarized BET (Banana Evangelical Theocracy).

    In any mature democracy a bunch of businessmen – via black accounting – financing a multi-tentacle fake news campaign on WhatsApp against the Workers’ Party and Lula’s candidate Haddad would qualify as a major scandal.

    WhatsApp is wildly popular in Brazil, much more than Facebook; so it had to be properly instrumentalized in this Brazilian remix of Cambridge Analytica-style Hybrid War.

    The tactics were absolutely illegal because they qualified as undeclared campaign donations as well as corporate donations (forbidden by the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2015). The Brazilian Federal Police started an investigation that now is bound to head the same way of the Saudis investigating themselves on the Pulp Fiction fiasco in Istanbul.

    The fake news tsunami was managed by the so-called Bolsominions. They are a hyper-loyal volunteer army, which purges anyone who dares to question the “Myth” (as the leader is referred to), while manipulating content 24/7 into memes, viral fake videos and assorted displays of “Bolso-swarm” ire.

    Consider Washington’s outrage at Russians that may have interfered in U.S. elections allegedly using the same tactics the U.S. and its comprador elites used in Brazil.

    Smashing the BRICS

    Crushing the BRICS (Russian presidency)

    On foreign policy, as far as Washington is concerned, Reichskommissar Bolsonaro may be very useful on three fronts.

    The first one is geo-economic: to get the lion’s share of the vast pre-salt reserves for U.S. energy giants.

    That would be the requisite follow-up to the coup de grace against Dilma Rousseff in 2013, when she approved a law orienting 75 percent of oil wealth royalties towards education and 25 percent to health care; a significant U.S.$ 122 billion over 10 years.

    The other two fronts are geopolitical: blowing up the BRICS from the inside, and getting Brazil to do the dirty work in a Venezuela regime change ops, thus fulfilling the Beltway obsession on smashing the Venezuela-Cuba axis.

    Using the pretext of mass immigration from Venezuela to the Brazilian stretch of the Amazon, Colombia – elevated to the status of key NATO partner, and egged on by Washington – is bound to count on Brazilian military support for regime change.

    And then there’s the crucial China story.

    China and Brazil are close BRICS partners. BRICS by now essentially means RC (Russia and China), much to the disgust of Moscow and Beijing, which counted on Haddad following in the footsteps of Lula, who was instrumental in enhancing BRICS geopolitical clout.

    That brings us to a key point of inflexion in the rolling Hybrid War coup, when the Brazilian military became convinced that Rousseff’s cabinet was infiltrated by agents of Chinese intel.

    Still, China remains Brazil’s top trade partner – ahead of the U.S., with bilateral trade reaching $75 billion last year. In parallel to being an avid consumer of Brazilian commodities, Beijing has already invested $124 billion in Brazilian companies and infrastructure projects since 2003.

    Chicago Boy Guedes has recently met with Chinese diplomats. Bolsonaro is bound to receive a top Chinese delegation right at the start of his mandate. On the campaign trail, he hammered that “China is not buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil”. Bolsonaro might attempt to pull a mini-Trump sanction overdrive on China. Yet he must be aware that the powerful agribusiness lobby has been profiting immensely from the U.S.-China trade war.

    A mighty cliffhanger is guaranteed to come at the 2019 BRICS summit, which will take place in Brazil: picture tough guy Bolsonaro face to face with the real boss, Xi Jinping.

    So what is the Brazilian military really up to? Answer: the Brazilian “Dependency Doctrine” – which is a true neocolonial mongrel.

    On one level, the Brazilian military leadership is developmentalist, geared towards territorial integration, well-patrolled borders and fully disciplined, internal, social and economic “order.” At the same time they believe this should all be carried out under the supervision of the “indispensable nation.”

    The military leaders reason that their own country is not knowledgeable enough to fight organized crime, cyber-security, bio-security, and, on the economy, to fully master a minimal state coupled with fiscal reform and austerity. For the bulk of the military elite, private foreign capital is always benign.

    An inevitable consequence is to see Latin American and African nations as untermenschen; a reaction against Lula’s and Dilma’s emphasis on the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and closer energy and logistical integration with Africa.

    Can’t Rule Out Military Coup

    Despite this there is internal military dissent – which could even open a possible way towards the removal of Bolsonaro, a mere puppet, to the benefit of the real thing: a general.

    When the Workers’ Party was in power, the Navy and the Air Force were quite pleased by strategic projects such as a nuclear submarine, a supersonic fighter jet and satellites launched by Made in Brazil rockets. Their reaction remains to be seen in the event Bolsonaro ditches these techno-breakthroughs for good.

    The key question may be whether there is a direct connection between the cream of the crop of Brazilian military academies; the “dependency generals” and their psyops techniques; different evangelical factions; and the post-Cambridge Analytica tactics deployed by the Bolsonaro campaign. Would it be a nebula congregating all these cells, or is it a loose network?

    Arguably the best answer is provided by war anthropologist Piero Leirner, who conducted deep research in the Brazilian Armed Forces and told me, “there’s no previous connection. Bolsonaro is a post-fact. The only possible connection is between certain campaign traits and psyops.” Leirner stresses, “Cambridge Analytica and Bannon represent the infrastructure, but the quality of information, to send contradictory signals and then an order resolution coming as a third way, this is military strategy from CIA psyop manuals.”

    Brazilian Military: Keeping an eye on Bolsonaro. (Wikimedia Commons)

    There are cracks though. Leirner sees the arch of disparate forces supporting Bolsonaro as a “bricolage” which sooner or later will disintegrate. What next? A sub-Pinochet General?

    Why Bolsonaro is not Trump

    In The Road to Somewhere; The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, David Goodhart shows that the driving force behind populism is not the fascist love of an ultra-nation. It’s anomie – that feeling of a vague existential threat posed by modernity. That applies to all forms of Right populism in the West.

    Thus we have the opposition between “Somewheres” and “Anywheres”. We have “Somewheres” that want their nations’ democracy to be enjoyed only by the “home” ethnicity, with the national culture not contaminated by “foreign” influences.

    And we have “Anywheres” who inhabit the roootless postmodern vortex of multiculturalism and foreign travel for business. These are a demographic minority – but a majority within political, economic, educational and professional elites.

    This leads Goodhart to make a crucial distinction between populism and fascism – ideologically and psychologically.

    The standard legal distinction can be found in German constitutional law. Right populism is “radical” – thus legal. Fascism is “extreme,” thus illegal.

    Trump being labeled a “fascist” is false. Bolsonaro in the West has been labeled “The Tropical Trump.” The fact is Trump is a Right populist – who happens to deploy a few policies that could even be characterized as Old Left.

    The record reveals Bolsonaro as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, weaponizing thug, favoring a white, patriarchal, hierarchical, hetero-normative and “homogenous” Brazil; an absurdity in a deeply unequal society still ravaged by the effects of slavery and where the majority of the population is mixed race. Besides, historically, fascism is a radical bourgeois Final Solution about total annihilation of the working class. That makes Bolsonaro an outright fascist.

    Trump is even mode moderate than Bolsonaro. He does not incite supporters to literally exterminate his opponents. After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions.

    That was never the case in the young Brazilian democracy – where a president may now behave as if human rights are a communist, and UN, plot. The Brazilian working classes, intellectual elites, social movements and all minorities have plenty of reasons to fear the New Order; in Bolsonaro’s own words, “they will be banned from our motherland.” The criminalization/dehumanization of any opposition means, literally, that tens of millions of Brazilians are worthless.

    Talk to Nietzsche

    The sophisticated Hybrid War rolling coup in Brazil that started in 2014, had a point of inflexion in 2016 and culminating in 2018 with impeaching a president; jailing another; smashing the Right and the Center-Right; and in a post-politics-on-steroids manner, opening the path to neo-fascism.

    Bolsonaro though is a – mediocre – black void cipher. He does not have the political structure, the knowledge, not to mention the intelligence to have come so far, our of the blue, without a hyper-complex, state of the art, cross-border intel support system. No wonder he’s a Steve Bannon darling.

    In contrast, the Left – as in Europe – once again was stuck in analog mode. No way any progressive front, especially in this case as it was constituted at the eleventh hour, could possibly combat the toxic tsunami of cultural war, identity politics and micro-targeted fake news.

    They lost a major battle. At least they now know this is hardcore, all-out war. To destroy Lula – the world’s foremost political prisoner – the Brazilian elites had to destroy Brazil. Still, Nietzsche always prevails; whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The vanguard of global resistance against neo-fascism as the higher stage of neoliberalism has now moved south of the Equator. No pasarán.

  • The 'Other Singularity' – China Factory To Build Robots That Make Other Robots

    Swiss engineering firm ABB announced plans on Saturday for a $150 million factory in Shanghai, China filled with robot-assembling robots, according to Reuters. 

    The factory will be located near ABB’s China robotics campus, and is set to open at the end of 2020 if all goes well. It will produce robots for use in China, as well as for export elsewhere in Asia. China is ABB’s second largest market after the United States. 

    “Shanghai has become a vital center for advanced technology leadership – for ABB and the world,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer in an announcement. 

    With the expansion, ABB is banking on Chinese robots sales defying concerns over trade tensions with the United States that some fear could dent demand for electronics, auto parts and other items that require automated manufacturing and robots.

    China is expanding its robot workforce, as wages for human workers there rise and the country seeks to compete with lower-cost countries via greater automation. In 2017, one of every three robots sold in the world went to China, which purchased nearly 138,000 units, ABB said. –Reuters

    ABB’s new factory will span 75,000 sqft, and will employ specialized software designed to allow humans and robots to work side-by-side without injuries, according to the company, which added that its YuMi robots will be deployed on several of the small parts assembly processes required to make an ABB robot. 

    ABB, whose industrial robots are used, among other things, to build automobiles as well as to assemble electronic devices, will build robots for numerous industries at the Shanghai factory, a spokesman said.

    It did not give a new employee count for the factory, but said it will boost robotics employment that now sits at more than 2,000 ABB workers in China. –Reuters

    Meanwhile, ABB rival Kuka which was bought in 2016 by China’s Midea, has been rapidly expanding its robo-presence throughout China – building a “robot park” near Hong Kong in the city of Shunde. 

    Will the robot building robot factory require security guards? 

  • Paul Craig Roberts Asks "Is America Finished?"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    The refusal of the Democratic Party and the military/security complex to accept the results of the 2016 US presidential election and the misuse of their positions of power to prevent Donald Trump from exercising presidential powers is a revolutionary step, well described by Angelo Codevilla here:

    In 2010, Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Angelo Codevilla reintroduced the notion of “the ruling class” back into American popular discourse. In 2017, he described contemporary American politics as a “cold civil war.” Now he applies the “logic of revolution” to our current political scene.

    …

    It has unfolded faster than foreseen. Its sentiments’ spiraling volume and intensity have eliminated any possibility of “stepping back.”

    …

    The Democratic Party and the millions it represents having refused to accept 2016’s results; having used their positions of power in government and society to prevent the winners from exercising the powers earned by election; declaring in vehement words and violent deeds the illegitimacy, morbidity, even criminality, of persons and ideas contrary to themselves; bet that this “resistance” would so energize their constituencies, and so depress their opponents’, that subsequent elections would prove 2016 to have been an anomaly and further confirm their primacy in America. The 2018 Congressional elections are that strategy’s first major test. Regardless of these elections’ outcome, however, this “resistance” has strengthened and accelerated the existing revolutionary spiral.

    Read more here…

    Americans are now so polarized that they “no longer share basic sympathies and trust, because they no longer regard each other as worthy of equal consideration.” Codevilla blames the progressives and their attitude of moral superiority, but his explanation is independent of who is to blame. I blame both sides. The Constitution and our civil liberties took a major hit from the “conservative” Republican regime of George W. Bush.

    The consequence has been to weaponize government for use against the domestic adversary. In other words, unity has departed us. The absence of unity makes it easy for the ruling oligarchy to achieve its material interests at the expense of the welfare of the American people. Indeed, it is amazing to find progressives aligned with the military/security complex to block Trump from normalizing relations with Russia.

    The provocations of Russia, which have been ongoing since the Clinton regime, have reached unprecedented levels under the neoconservative regimes of Obama and Trump. The conflict that has been orchestrated is good for the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex at the cost of maximizing the chance of nuclear war. The demonizations of Russia, Putin, China, and Iran are so extreme as to have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war.

    For Russia, Trump’s withdrawal from the intermediate range missile treaty (INF) confirms that an attack on Russia is being prepared. Intermediate range missiles cannot reach the US. The treaty gave safety to Russia and Europe, which is why Washington’s claim that Russia is violating the treaty is absurd. The only reason for Washington to withdraw from the treaty is to be able to place intermediate range nuclear missiles on Russia’s borders that would substantially increase the likelihood of success of a US first strike against Russia.

    This apparently is not clear to the American people, media, and Congress, but it is clear to the Russians.

    Mikhail Gorbachev, who negotiated the INF Treaty with President Reagan, stated the war threat succintly:

    “It looks as if the world is preparing for war.”

    It is also very clear to the Russian government. A top official, Andrei Belousov, declared:

    “Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I have confirmed it. We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people – we are preparing for such a war.”

    Putin himself finally found tough words. A country that attacks Russia will be obliterated, “will die like dogs,” and “go to Hell.”

    As demonization of Russia is part of the Democrats’ demonization of Trump – “Putin stooge,” “Putin agent,” or, in the words of former CIA Director John Brennan, “traitor” – the American people are too disunited to take a stand against conflict with Russia that serves the agendas of the military/security complex and the neoconservatives’ ideology of US world hegemony.

    As it is impossible for Russia to accept US intermediate range nuclear missiles on Russia’s border, war is close at hand.

    China also sees war on the horizon. China’s president has ordered the military to “prepare for war.”

    The recklessly irresponsible policy of the US government toward Russia and China is leading to nuclear war.

    Perhaps the European governments, Washington’s compliant stooges, will finally wake up and refuse to participate in Washington’s orchestrated conflict. If not, the Doomsday Clock will have to be moved to one second before doom.

  • Mystery Polio-Like Illness Spreading; Baffled CDC Under Fire; "Doesn't Appear To Be Transmissible"

    The CDC has confirmed another 10 cases of Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM), the mystery illness that’s been paralyzing children across the country, bringing this year’s total number of cases to 72. AFM has been reported in 24 states, while there have been 396 confirmed cases from August 2014 through October 2018 according to the CDC. 

    Erin Olivera with her son Lucian (CNN)

    While the CDC still doesn’t know the cause of AFM, the risk factors, long-term effects, or why the number of cases spiked beginning in 2014, the agency has learned the following:  

    • Most patients are children.
    • The patients’ symptoms have been most similar to complications of infection with certain viruses, including poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus.
    • All of the AFM cases have tested negative for poliovirus.
    • Enteroviruses most commonly cause mild illness. They can also cause neurologic illness, such as meningitis, encephalitis, and AFM, but these are rare.
    • CDC has tested many different specimens from AFM patients for a wide range of pathogens (germs) that can cause AFM. To date, no pathogen (germ) has been consistently detected in the patients’ spinal fluid; a pathogen detected in the spinal fluid would be good evidence to indicate the cause of AFM since this condition affects the spinal cord.
    • The increase in AFM cases in 2014 coincided with a national outbreak of severe respiratory illness among people caused by enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). Among the people confirmed with AFM, CDC did not consistently detect EV-D68 in every patient. During 2015, CDC did not receive information about large EV-D68 outbreaks in the United States, and laboratories reported only limited EV-D68 detections to CDC’s National Enterovirus Surveillance System (NESS). During 2016, CDC was informed of a few localized clusters in the United States. Learn more about EV-D68.

    In a CBS This Morning interview Tuesday, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said that while the agency still doesn’t know what causes AFM, “it doesn’t appear to be transmissible from human to human,” adding “[the] CDC’s been working very hard on this, since 2014, to try to understand causation and etiology. As we sit here today, we don’t have understanding of the cause. We are, you know, continuing to strengthen our efforts, working in partnership with state and territorial health departments, and academic experts to try to figure this out.”

    “I’ve recently asked again to put together a task force to really try to look at where we’re at, and what else could we do to try to solve this problem. The good news is that it doesn’t appear to be transmissible from human to human. We don’t see clustering in families,” Redfield said. “I do think that this is a new occurrence in the United States, the AFM. Our – our suspicion is it’s caused by a single agent. That’s the dominant disease that we’re confronting right now.” 

    The CDC has come under fire for their response to AFM. 

    “Frustrated and disappointed — I think that’s exactly how most of us feel,” said Dr. Keith Van Haren, one of the CDC advisers on AFM and an assistant professor of neurology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

    Van Haren and other doctors who care for these children say the agency has been slow to gather data and to guide pediatricians and emergency room physicians on how to diagnose and treat the children struck with the disease, acute flaccid myelitis.

    “This is the CDC’s job. This is what they’re supposed to do well. And it’s a source of frustration to many of us that they’re apparently not doing these things,” said Dr. Kenneth Tyler, a professor and chair of the department of neurology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and another adviser to the CDC on AFM. –CNN

    Frustrated healthcare professionals weigh in

    AFM is rare – with less than one in a million people contracting it annually – however the number of suspected cases has been on the rise, frustrating healthcare professionals across the country.

    “We really don’t know what is causing it in some kids now, and there definitely needs to be more research,” said Texas ER Doctor, Eric Higginbotham, adding “Some of these kids recover from it,” he says. “Some kids, once they have that nerve damage, there is really not a way to heal that. So, they stay in this weakened condition.“

    “The CDC really seems to be out of sync with the conclusions that most scientists are coming to. We feel like we’re not being listened to,” said Dr. Keith Van Haren – CDC adviser and assistant professor of neurology at Stanford. “We don’t understand how the CDC has arrived at the place where they’re at.”

    “This is a mystery so far, and we haven’t solved it yet, so we have to be thinking broadly,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s director of Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the press briefing this month, adding that although enteroviruses can cause AFM, it’s not clear whether they are the main culprit. 

    Messonnier told CNN: “AFM is a destructive disease of the neurological system. If this virus was causing this damage, we’d expect to be able to find the virus in the spinal fluid of most of these patients, and we’re not,” adding “We cannot explain these three peaks of disease in [2014, 2016 and 2018] by enterovirus, and so the way that sort of any discriminating scientist would do, we’re trying to think more broadly and make sure that we’re not missing something.”

    The CDC will meet next week with medical experts to discuss treatment considerations, according to Messonnier. 

     

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Oct 30

Today’s News 30th October 2018

  • Varoufakis: "Soros Phoned Tsipras In 2015 And Demanded [My Sacking]"

    With billionaire ‘philanthropist’ George Soros making enemies and influencing people all around the world, a little more from his sordid puppetmastery background was exposed this week as his successful efforts to have a finance minister of a European Union nation fired have been put under the spotlight of awkward conspiracy fact.

    Infamous former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis claimed on Monday that it was Soros who demanded that he was sacked from the Greek government in 2015.

    As KeepTalkingGreece.com reports, in an interview with private Skai TV, the former minister and founder of DiEM25 said George Soros phoned Alexis Tsipras in July 2015 and demanded that he be sacked.

    “Soros has picked up the phone about me only one time. When he contacted Tsipras in July 2015 and demanded my expulsion,” Varoufakis said.

    He added that his “contact” with Soros was limited to this one phone call.

    At the same time, he attacked Defense Minister Panos Kammenos who recently claimed Soros had funded the Prespes Agreement – and apparently had attacked also Varoufakis.

    “Kammenos said about me that I was a Soros employee,” the ex finance minister said.

    Saying that Kammenos is a far-right populist like Orban, Salvini and others, the ex minister stressed “when they want to tarnish someone’s reputation and honor, all these neo-fascists use the name of Soros.”

    This trend shows antisemitism and anti-Jewish because “Soros is of Jewish origin,” the ex minister said.

    Describing Soros as a “controversial” figure Varoufakis said that the billionaire “did a few good things but also some weird ones.”

    After the interview, Varoufakis posted on Twitter that he recounted the incident with Soros in full in his book “Adults in the Room.”

    As KeepTalkingGreece poignantly concludes, while we have not read Varoufakis’ book we wonder whether he also wrote what kind of power Soros had over the Greek SYRIZA-ANEL government to be able to demand his removal form government.

  • Military Escalation In Europe Is Like Runaway Train: It's Time To Slow It Down

    Authored by Arkady Savitsky via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Much has been said about the Trident Juncture 2018 NATO exercise being held in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders. This is the largest training event since the Cold War, but it’s only part of a broader picture, in which military war preparations targeting Russia are in full swing. Exercises are being coordinated, along with infrastructure facilities that are being built, expanded, and modernized. For instance, last week the construction of an aircraft maintenance hangar at Estonia’s Amari Air Base, the first military project fully funded by the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), was completed.

    The event was celebrated by US and Estonian air force officials with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. More than $38 million in EDI funds are being invested in that base. Beyond the training, a joint maintenance facility will also support the NATO aircraft that are conducting air policing in Eastern Europe. The Air Force Times cited US Air Forces Europe Commander Gen. Tod Wolters, who promised that even more funding was coming down the pipe for other projects.

    “Looking into fiscal year 2019, we are proposing a [European Defense Initiative] budget that demonstrates the US commitment to NATO,” he noted. According to him, “Our total [US European Command] request includes a significant funding increase from $4.7 billion to $6.5 billion.”

    The NATO infrastructure modernization plans include upgrades to the Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary so that it can accommodate US F-15 fighters, A-10 attack planes, and C-5 transport aircraft, in addition to building a munitions storage facility at Malacky Air Base, Slovakia and a taxiway at Rygge, Norway. These steps are part of a larger effort to prepare for offensive operations against Russia.

    The fiscal 2018 defense budget authorizes the US Air Force secretary to purchase land and build installations in other countries. There are plans to invest some $214 million into air bases in Europe, including a $13.9 million investment in Estonia’s preeminent military air base, Amari, plus the Lielvarde Air Base in Latvia is to receive a $3.85 million investment. The biggest chunk of the money, $67.4 million, goes to the Sanem Air Base in Luxembourg. The Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary will get another $55.4 million investment.

    To all this can be added the US Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) for permanent storage in Europe that have been modernized and replenished since 2017. The APS will be sufficient for another armored brigade to fall in on. The militarization of Northern Europe is underway and Poland is being rearmed and prepared to host American bases, such as Fort Trump. The US Air Force is expanding its presence on the European continent, along with NATO’s growing naval might  in the Black Sea.

    In October, the Ramstein Air Base in Germany received the largest shipment of ammunition in many years (since 1999). Some 100 containers have been delivered to “support NATO’s European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) and augment the Air Force’s War Reserve Materiel in Europe,” said Master Sgt. Arthur Myrick, 86th MUNS munitions flight chief.

    NATO is aiming for territorial expansion. Only 36.9% of eligible voters participated in Macedonia’s Sept. 30 referendum over changing the country’s name and thus paving the way for NATO and EU membership. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, US Defense Secretary James Mattis, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were part of the West’s “Skopje landings” team that stormed that nation’s capital to influence the results of that vote. The voters said yes, but turnout was stunningly low — poor enough to stoke doubts about the plebiscite’s legitimacy.

    On October 18, the decision to rename the country was pushed through the Macedonian parliament. This move also lacked overwhelming support from lawmakers, with the ruling coalition barely able to secure the required majority of 80 out of 120 votes to ram the measure through and jump-start formal accession talks at NATO headquarters. The US ambassador to Macedonia was actually inside the parliament building at the time of the vote, but US officials don’t think that counts as “pressure.”

    The restoration of Macedonia’s Krivolak army training center to its full capacity, offering thousands of NATO soldiers a venue for drills, is already underway. Next year, Macedonia will host the Decisive Strike 2019 joint exercise that will involve about 1,000 US and Macedonian soldiers.

    Albania is offering its territory for NATO bases. Kosovo is on its way to creating its own army. This is a blatant violation of international law. The UN Security Council has never approved it. But NATO nations support the move. US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Wess Mitchell, believes that “[n]obody can place a veto on Kosovo’s right to develop its armed forces.” According to him, Kosovo “has the right to form professional forces” and this would not pose a threat to either Serbia or Kosovo’s Serbs.

    UN Security Council Resolution 1244 states explicitly that no other military presence except KFOR and Serbia’s army shall be permitted without the mandate of the UN Security Council. The declaration of independence in 2008 by Kosovo’s parliament without a previous UN-monitored referendum was a flagrant breach of that resolution. Kosovo, which is part of Serbia, is turning into “NATO Land” without the consent of the Serbian government. It has actually been annexed by the alliance. This entity was also created specifically in opposition to Russia. Hashim Thaci, the leader of Kosovo, makes no secret of it. He claims a threat is emanating from “the Russian military bases in Serbia, from Russia’s MIG jets in Serbia and from the Russian military exercises in Serbia.”

    Whatever Russia does is being portrayed by Western officials and media as a demonstration of hostile intent. Should Russia sit idly by, watching all these preparations going on in full view? If those are not considered provocative behavior, then what is? Any nation would be concerned if an infrastructure were being built that was designed for offensive operations against it.

    The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) is scheduled for October 31. Perhaps any expectation of progress is nothing but the slimmest of hopes. After all, this will be the eighth time the NRC has met in the last two years and no progress in any area has been achieved. But hope is the last to die. The escalation has gone too far. NATO’s war preparations have become too large-scale and provocative and have turned Europe into a hotbed. The time is right for the alliance — or at least its European members who have been negatively affected by these developments — to start talking seriously. On Oct. 31 they’ll have such a chance. 

  • Russians Are Turning Their Backs On Vodka

    Is the age-old Russian love affair with vodka on the rocks?

    In recent years, more and more Russians have ditched their national drink, preferring to sip craft beer and sample wine. However,as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, vodka remains a huge part of the country’s culture, something that has had deadly consequences for its male population.

    According to the most recent World Health Organization data (2010), 30 percent of all male adults engaged in heavy episodic drinking in the past month. Excessive alcoholism among men has resulted in an average life expectancy of just 64 years of age, far behind the rest of Europe.

    The following infographic used more recent WHO data to show how the situation is changing…

    Infographic: Russians Are Turning Their Backs On Vodka | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    After the collapse of the USSR, vodka consumption peaked in 1995 with per capita consumption of pure alcohol of spirits amounting to nearly 9 liters. That year, per capita consumption of beer and wine amounted to just 1.54 and 0.81 liters of pure alcohol. Fast forward to 2016 and to a vastly different picture.

    That year, per capita consumption of spirits sunk to just 3.25 liters of pure alcohol. Meanwhile, levels of beer and wine consumption have been rising steadily with the former surpassing vodka in terms of pure alcohol consumed.

    Many factors have played a role in the shift away from vodka. Rising alcohol prices and attempts at introducing better regulation have certainly played a part in reducing drinking in general. Craft beer has also become increasingly popular as startup costs are low and establishments do not need a liquor license if they only sell beer. The cost of a pint of locally brewed beer is also relatively cheap, making it an attractive option for thirsty customers.

  • Why American Leaders Persist In Waging Losing Wars

    Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,

    As America enters the 18th year of its war in Afghanistan and its 16th in Iraq, the war on terror continues in Yemen, Syria, and parts of Africa, including Libya, Niger, and Somalia. Meanwhile, the Trump administration threatens yet more war, this time with Iran. (And given these last years, just how do you imagine that’s likely to turn out?) Honestly, isn’t it time Americans gave a little more thought to why their leaders persist in waging losing wars across significant parts of the planet?  So consider the rest of this piece my attempt to do just that.

    Let’s face it: profits and power should be classified as perennial reasons why U.S. leaders persist in waging such conflicts. War may be a racket, as General Smedley Butler claimed long ago, but who cares these days since business is booming? And let’s add to such profits a few other all-American motivations. Start with the fact that, in some curious sense, war is in the American bloodstream. As former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges once put it, “War is a force that gives us meaning.” Historically, we Americans are a violent people who have invested much in a self-image of toughness now being displayed across the “global battlespace.” (Hence all the talk in this country not about our soldiers but about our “warriors.”) As the bumper stickers I see regularly where I live say: “God, guns, & guts made America free.” To make the world freer, why not export all three?

    Add in, as well, the issue of political credibility. No president wants to appear weak and in the United States of the last many decades, pulling back from a war has been the definition of weakness. No one — certainly not Donald Trump — wants to be known as the president who “lost” Afghanistan or Iraq. As was true of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the Vietnam years, so in this century fear of electoral defeat has helped prolong the country’s hopeless wars. Generals, too, have their own fears of defeat, fears that drive them to escalate conflicts (call it the urge to surge) and even to advocate for the use of nuclear weapons, as General William Westmoreland did in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

    Washington’s own deeply embedded illusions and deceptions also serve to generate and perpetuate its wars. Lauding our troops as “freedom fighters” for peace and prosperity, presidents like George W. Bush have waged a set of brutal wars in the name of spreading democracy and a better way of life. The trouble is: incessant war doesn’t spread democracy — though in the twenty-first century we’ve learned that it does spread terror groups — it kills it. At the same time, our leaders, military and civilian, have given us a false picture of the nature of the wars they’re fighting. They continue to present the U.S. military and its vaunted “smart” weaponry as a precision surgical instrument capable of targeting and destroying the cancer of terrorism, especially of the radical Islamic variety. Despite the hoopla about them, however, those precision instruments of war turn out to be blunt indeed, leading to the widespread killing of innocents, the massive displacement of people across America’s war zones, and floods of refugees who have, in turn, helped spark the rise of the populist right in lands otherwise still at peace.

    Lurking behind the incessant warfare of this century is another belief, particularly ascendant in the Trump White House: that big militaries and expensive weaponry represent “investments” in a better future — as if the Pentagon were the Bank of America or Wall Street. Steroidal military spending continues to be sold as a key to creating jobs and maintaining America’s competitive edge, as if war were America’s primary business. (And perhaps it is!)

    Those who facilitate enormous military budgets and frequent conflicts abroad still earn special praise here. Consider, for example, Senator John McCain’s rapturous final sendoff, including the way arms maker Lockheed Martin lauded him as an American hero supposedly tough and demanding when it came to military contractors. (And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.)

    Put all of this together and what you’re likely to come up with is the American version of George Orwell’s famed formulation in his novel 1984: “war is peace.”

    The War the Pentagon Knew How to Win

    Twenty years ago, when I was a major on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, a major concern was the possible corroding of civil-military relations – in particular, a growing gap between the military and the civilians who were supposed to control them. I’m a clipper of newspaper articles and I saved some from that long-gone era. “Sharp divergence found in views of military and civilians,” reported the New York Times in September 1999. “Civilians, military seen growing apart,” noted the Washington Post a month later. Such pieces were picking up on trends already noted by distinguished military commentators like Thomas Ricks and Richard Kohn. In July 1997, for instance, Ricks had written an influential Atlantic article, “The Widening Gap between the Military and Society.” In 1999, Kohn gave a lecture at the Air Force Academy titled “The Erosion of Civilian Control of the Military in the United States Today.”

    A generation ago, such commentators worried that the all-volunteer military was becoming an increasingly conservative and partisan institution filled with generals and admirals contemptuous of civilians, notably then-President Bill Clinton. At the time, according to one study, 64% of military officers identified as Republicans, only 8% as Democrats and, when it came to the highest levels of command, that figure for Republicans was in the stratosphere, approaching 90%. Kohn quoted a West Point graduate as saying, “We’re in danger of developing our own in-house Soviet-style military, one in which if you’re not in ‘the party,’ you don’t get ahead.” In a similar fashion, 67% of military officers self-identified as politically conservative, only 4% as liberal.

    In a 1998 article for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Ricks noted that “the ratio of conservatives to liberals in the military” had gone from “about 4 to 1 in 1976, which is about where I would expect a culturally conservative, hierarchical institution like the U.S. military to be, to 23 to 1 in 1996.” This “creeping politicization of the officer corps,” Ricks concluded, was creating a less professional military, one in the process of becoming “its own interest group.” That could lead, he cautioned, to an erosion of military effectiveness if officers were promoted based on their political leanings rather than their combat skills.

    How has the civil-military relationship changed in the last two decades? Despite bending on social issues (gays in the military, women in more combat roles), today’s military is arguably neither more liberal nor less partisan than it was in the Clinton years. It certainly hasn’t returned to its citizen-soldier roots via a draft. Change, if it’s come, has been on the civilian side of the divide as Americans have grown both more militarized and more partisan (without any greater urge to sign up and serve). In this century, the civil-military divide of a generation ago has been bridged by endless celebrations of that military as “the best of us” (as Vice President Mike Pence recently put it).

    Such expressions, now commonplace, of boundless faith in and thankfulness for the military are undoubtedly driven in part by guilt over neither serving, nor undoubtedly even truly caring. Typically, Pence didn’t serve and neither did Donald Trump (those pesky “heel spurs”). As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich put it in 2007: “To assuage uneasy consciences, the many who do not serve [in the all-volunteer military] proclaim their high regard for the few who do. This has vaulted America’s fighting men and women to the top of the nation’s moral hierarchy. The character and charisma long ago associated with the pioneer or the small farmer — or carried in the 1960s by Dr. King and the civil-rights movement — has now come to rest upon the soldier.” This elevation of “our” troops as America’s moral heroes feeds a Pentagon imperative that seeks to isolate the military from criticism and its commanders from accountability for wars gone horribly wrong.

    Paradoxically, Americans have become both too detached from their military and too deferential to it. We now love to applaud that military, which, the pollsters tell us, enjoys a significantly higher degree of trust and approval from the public than the presidency, Congress, the media, the Catholic church, or the Supreme Court. What that military needs, however, in this era of endless war is not loud cheers, but tough love.

    As a retired military man, I do think our troops deserve a measure of esteem. There’s a selfless ethic to the military that should seem admirable in this age of selfies and selfishness. That said, the military does not deserve the deference of the present moment, nor the constant adulation it gets in endless ceremonies at any ballpark or sporting arena. Indeed, deference and adulation, the balm of military dictatorships, should be poison to the military of a democracy.

    With U.S. forces endlessly fighting ill-begotten wars, whether in Vietnam in the 1960s or in Iraq and Afghanistan four decades later, it’s easy to lose sight of where the Pentagon continues to maintain a truly winning record: right here in the U.S.A. Today, whatever’s happening on the country’s distant battlefields, the idea that ever more inflated military spending is an investment in making America great again reigns supreme – as it has, with little interruption, since the 1980s and the era of President Ronald Reagan.

    The military’s purpose should be, as Richard Kohn put it long ago, “to defend society, not to define it. The latter is militarism.” With that in mind, think of the way various retired military men lined up behind Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, including a classically unhinged performance by retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (he of the “lock her up” chants) for Trump at the Republican convention and a shout-out of a speech by retired General John Allen for Clinton at the Democratic one. America’s presidential candidates, it seemed, needed to be anointed by retired generals, setting a dangerous precedent for future civil-military relations.

    A Letter From My Senator

    A few months back, I wrote a note to one of my senators to complain about America’s endless wars and received a signed reply via email. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was a canned response, but no less telling for that.

    My senator began by praising American troops as “tough, smart, and courageous, and they make huge sacrifices to keep our families safe. We owe them all a true debt of gratitude for their service.” OK, I got an instant warm and fuzzy feeling, but seeking applause wasn’t exactly the purpose of my note.

    My senator then expressed support for counterterror operations, for, that is, “conducting limited, targeted operations designed to deter violent extremists that pose a credible threat to America’s national security, including al-Qaeda and its affiliates, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), localized extremist groups, and homegrown terrorists.” My senator then added a caveat, suggesting that the military should obey “the law of armed conflict” and that the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) that Congress hastily approved in the aftermath of 9/11 should not be interpreted as an “open-ended mandate” for perpetual war.

    Finally, my senator voiced support for diplomacy as well as military action, writing, “I believe that our foreign policy should be smart, tough, and pragmatic, using every tool in the toolbox — including defense, diplomacy, and development – to advance U.S. security and economic interests around the world.” The conclusion: “robust” diplomacy must be combined with a “strong” military.

    Now, can you guess the name and party affiliation of that senator? Could it have been Lindsey Graham or Jeff Flake, Republicans who favor a beyond-strong military and endlessly aggressive counterterror operations? Of course, from that little critical comment on the AUMF, you’ve probably already figured out that my senator is a Democrat. But did you guess that my military-praising, counterterror-waging representative was Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts?

    Full disclosure: I like Warren and have made small contributions to her campaign. And her letter did stipulate that she believed “military action should always be a last resort.” Still, nowhere in it was there any critique of, or even passingly critical commentary about, the U.S. military, or the still-spreading war on terror, or the never-ending Afghan War, or the wastefulness of Pentagon spending, or the devastation wrought in these years by the last superpower on this planet. Everything was anodyne and safe — and this from a senator who’s been pilloried by the right as a flaming liberal and caricatured as yet another socialist out to destroy America.

    I know what you’re thinking: What choice does Warren have but to play it safe? She can’t go on record criticizing the military. (She’s already gotten in enough trouble in my home state for daring to criticize the police.) If she doesn’t support a “strong” U.S. military presence globally, how could she remain a viable presidential candidate in 2020?

    And I would agree with you, but with this little addendum: Isn’t that proof that the Pentagon has won its most important war, the one that captured – to steal a phrase from another losing war — the “hearts and minds” of America? In this country in 2018, as in 2017, 2016, and so on, the U.S. military and its leaders dictate what is acceptable for us to say and do when it comes to our prodigal pursuit of weapons and wars.

    So, while it’s true that the military establishment failed to win those “hearts and minds” in Vietnam or more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, they sure as hell didn’t fail to win them here. In Homeland, U.S.A., in fact, victory has been achieved and, judging by the latest Pentagon budgets, it couldn’t be more overwhelming.

    If you ask – and few Americans do these days – why this country’s losing wars persist, the answer should be, at least in part: because there’s no accountability. The losers in those wars have seized control of our national narrative. They now define how the military is seen (as an investment, a boon, a good and great thing); they now shape how we view our wars abroad (as regrettable perhaps, but necessary and also a sign of national toughness); they now assign all serious criticism of the Pentagon to what they might term the defeatist fringe.

    In their hearts, America’s self-professed warriors know they’re right. But the wrongs they’ve committed, and continue to commit, in our name will not be truly righted until Americans begin to reject the madness of rampant militarism, bloated militaries, and endless wars.

  • Trump Nails Stormy Daniels With $341,000 Demand For Legal Fees

    President Trump has demanded $341,559.50 in legal fees from Stormy Daniels after a federal judge threw out her defamation case against the president earlier this month, reports the Washington Examiner.

    US District Judge James Otero dismissed the case against Trump after ruling that an April tweet calling a forensic sketch of a man Daniels claims threatened her was a “total con job.” Otero said Trump’s tweet constitutes “rhetorical hyperbole” covered by the First Amendment, and ordered Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) to pay Trump’s legal fees. 

    “The court agrees with Mr. Trump’s argument because the tweet in question constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the U.S.,” Otero said in his October 15 ruling.

    In a Monday court filing, Trump’s attorneys demanded $341,559.50 from Daniels, claiming that she “filed this action, not because it had any merit, but instead for the ulterior purposes of raising her media profile, engaging in political attacks against the president by herself and her attorney, who has appeared on more than 150 national television news interviews attacking the President and now is exploring a run for the presidency himself in 2020.”

    Of note, Trump is seeking reimbursement for more than 500 hours of attorneys’ fees, with hourly rates ranging from an average of $841.64 for high-profile attorney Charles Harder (who represented Hulk Hogan in his $140 million lawsuit against Gawker), to $756.49 an hour for Los Angeles attorney Ryan Stonerock, all the way down to $307.60 for Harder LLP attorney Ted Nguyen. 

    Avenatti told the Examiner: “This is a number created out of whole cloth,” adding “And it is nothing compared to what he will owe my client from the main NDA case.”

    Daniels filed a separate defamation lawsuit against President Trump in the spring for suggesting she lied. 

    Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump, however she filed a lawsuit claiming that the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) was invalid since it lacked Trump’s signature.

    President Trump has denied the affair, while his attorneys argued in early October that the lawsuit should be dismissed since Trump was not going to enforce the NDA.

    The lawsuit is moot because Trump has consented that the agreement, as she has claimed, was never formed because he didn’t sign it and he has agreed not to try to enforce it, Trump said in his court filing. The company created by Cohen to facilitate the non-disclosure agreement, which initially said Clifford faced more than $20 million in damages for talking, said in September that it wouldn’t sue to enforce the deal. –Yahoo

    Read the Monday filing seeking attorney’s fees below: 

  • How The Government Uses Its Giant Facial Recognition Database

    Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

    In July 1996, flight TWA 800 exploded in mid-air, 12 minutes after taking off from JFK International Airport in New York. All 230 passengers on board were killed.

    It would be four years before an investigation concluded the likely cause of the explosion was a short circuit in the plane’s fuel tank.

    But at the time, President Clinton felt the overwhelming need to do something.

    People suspected terrorism. So Clinton issued new airport security rules.

    From then on, identification was required to board an airplane.

    Before that, you just needed a ticket.

    After the attacks of September 11, 2001, airport security escalated.

    The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) were born.

    Screening procedures intensified. Agents could now feel you up and down. Then came naked body scanners and the Real ID requirement.

    Real ID standards were part of the post-9/11 security hysteria. But they are just now coming into full effect.

    The federal guidelines require states to issue IDs that meet certain federal standards, or else the ID cannot be used for flying.

    One of these standards is that the photo on the ID has to work with facial recognition systems.

    CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has now completed a pilot program for using biometric data for boarding flights exiting the country. Biometric data includes unique identity markers like fingerprints, iris scans, and facial recognition.

    The DHS audited the pilot program, and found that it was a success. They caught 1,300 people who had overstayed their visas.

    Wait, what? I thought this was supposed to be about national security?

    But that’s not what you get from the propaganda piece on the CBP’s website.

    One of their “success stories” involved a Polish couple leaving the country. They were using fake documents. But the biometric data revealed they were ordered deported and hadn’t left.

    Now they were leaving. So the CBP let them leave. But first they warned them, with official documentation, that if they returned again they could face felony charges.

    How is that a success story, worth the cost of tens of billions of dollars?

    CBP makes it seem as if the entire purpose of this technology is to find foreigners who are entering (or living) in the country illegally.

    Except that it isn’t just the foreigners that are being targeted.

    The CBP, TSA, and DHS are building facial recognition databases for everyone– US citizens included.

    These pilot programs scoop up whatever official pictures the US government has of you.

    This includes passport photos, ID photos, and photos taken upon reentering the United States after international travel.

    Delta Airlines has even started testing a new program that scans your face prior to boarding your flight and matches it against this government database.

    (One of our members of team Sovereign Man recently suffered the indignity of this procedures at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.)

    JetBlue has a similar program, and claims that “The customers are really delighted by it. . . they think it’s cool and they’re having fun.”

    I’m not sure who these dairy cows are who think that it’s cool and fun for the government to have a giant database of biometric data.

    Even if you could trust the government with this info, you absolutely cannot rely on them to keep it private. Or secure.

    The Department of Homeland Security knows this well.

    In 2014, over 25,000 DHS employees had their personal details stolen from a database managed by a contractor that performed background checks.

    If you think hackers stealing your Social Security Number is bad, just imagine them gaining access to your biometric data.

    But, hey, nobody cares.

    Americans long ago gave up freedom for security.

    Now they are delighted to give up even more freedom. Not even for security… for convenience. If they can shave a few minutes off of their boarding procedure, they’re “delighted,” regardless of the cost.

    It’s really shocking when you think about it.

    Explosions and terrorist attacks were all the excuse needed to deprive Americans of privacy while traveling.

    Now Americans trade their most intimate personal details to save three minutes boarding a plane.

    It wasn’t that long ago that you didn’t even need an ID to fly.

    Right now Americans can still opt out of facial recognition. But it is only a matter of time until it isn’t optional.

    And with Real ID deadlines coming to a close, there is no denying the federal government access to your biometric data.

    They don’t have to ask, “Papers please.” They already know.

    And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

  • Stoned Driving On The Rise As Marijuana Overtakes Alcohol As Most Commonly Detected Intoxicant

    Marijuana has overtaken alcohol as the most commonly detected intoxicant found in US drivers, according to Science Daily, citing a new article published in the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. 

    According to the report, approximately 13% of drivers pulled over by police test positive for marijuana, compared to 8% with a measurable amount of alcohol (measurable, not necessarily over the limit). That said, cannabis remains detectable for much longer than alcohol – which makes it difficult to gauge the number of actively stoned drivers vs. drunk drivers.

    Driving drunk vs. stoned

    The average drunk driver (BAC > 0.01%) is around 6.5 times more likely to crash than someone driving sober, however those with a BAC of .09% or more are 11 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash as a sober driver. Drivers with a BAC of 0.125% are 30 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash, while those driving plastered with a BAC of 0.22% or higher are 380 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. 

    Age matters too. A 16-year-old male with a BAC of .09% is five times as likely as the average driver with the same BAC. 

    Overall, drivers with a BAC above 0.08% are responsible for over 80% of all deaths involving detectable amounts of alcohol according to the report, citing a 2014 NHTSA study. 

    The effects of stoned driving, meanwhile, is much more difficult to gauge – however “three relevant facts are clear” according to the report; driving under the influence of cannabis adds to crash risk, especially in combination with alcohol and other drugs; the risk of driving under the influence of cannabis alone, even at high levels, is much lower than the risk of driving under the influence of high levels of alcohol; and the pharmacokinetics of cannabis make it difficult to to empirically demonstrate impairment.

    Cannabis use acutely degrades driving ability, particularly on automated driving responses (Asbridge, Hayden, and Cartwright 2012; Grotenhermen et al. 2005). Cannabis use impairs both attention and psychomotor performance (Ramaekers et al. 2004). Additionally, consumption can cause drowsiness and lethargy, slowed down reaction times, and alter time perception, which can lead a driver to swerve or to follow other cars too closely (Ramaekers et al. 2004). Neither the quantity of cannabis (nor its primary active agent THC) consumed, or the blood level of THC, strongly predicts the degree of impairment. –Journal of Drug Policy Analysis

    Studies of the effects of stoned driving have varied as well. A 2012 study found that drivers who consumed cannabis at least three hours before driving were around twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash vs. drivers who don’t consume pot. A 2013 study, however, found no significant increase in risk of fatal motor vehicle accidents, however it did find a significant increase in the risk of a crash resulting in property damage. 

    Driving stoned may be safer than driving drunk due to the way cannabis affects cognitive functions vs. alcohol. 

    Even at levels nearly twice the 5 ng/ml legal limit in some states, the measured performance degradation with respect to perceptual and motor tasks is approximately equivalent to that at the legal BAC threshold of 0.08 (Grotenhermen et al. 2005). This discrepancy can be partially explained by the relatively limited impact of cannabis on higher cognitive functions associated with driving, such as divided attention tasks. This means that complex tasks requiring conscious control, such as interpreting and anticipating traffic, are less affected by cannabis (Grotenhermen et al. 2005).

    Further, drivers subjectively under the influence of cannabis are generally aware that they are impaired and adjust their driving accordingly by taking fewer risks and acting less aggressively–indeed, there is evidence they may overestimate their impairment, which is the opposite reaction of those under the influence of alcohol (Sexton et al. 2000; 2009). This heightened awareness of impairment may account for the ability of cannabis impaired drivers to correctly respond to a driving situation if given a warning; however, “where events are unexpected, such compensation is not always possible” –JDPA

    Driving drunk and stoned

    Bad idea. The report notes that driving while stoned and drunk produces a greater level of impairment than simply combining the risk factors of each method of intoxication alone. 

    “Experimental studies that evaluated the impact of cannabis and alcohol on driving skills determined that standard deviation of lateral position, time driven out of lane, reaction time, and standard deviation of headway were all more-than-additively impaired by the combination of the two drugs (Ramaekers, Robbe, and O’Hanlon 2000). The substantial impairment and high vehicle crash risk from simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use suggests a synergistically deleterious effect on driving ability (Asbridge 2014).”  

    Problems with detection

    One of the more frustrating issues with establishing safe levels of marijuana consumption is the difficulty in accurately detecting cannabis levels in the system. 

    There is no breath test for cannabis, although research is underway. Blood tests cannot be conducted by law enforcement officers roadside, and the very rapid but not perfectly predictable decrease in THC concentration means that a blood test conducted one or two hours after the initial stop is likely to be inconclusive. The long half-lives of cannabinoid metabolites mean that positive urinalysis results demonstrate some use of cannabis in the several days (or, for frequent heavy users, weeks) before the test, but not that the person tested had used recently enough to be still impaired. A breath test or a cheek swab might be designed to give a positive result for about as long as actual impairment lasts, but there are to date no such tests whose results have been accepted as valid in court.

    That said, the report’s authors suggest that should a reliable test level of marijuana intoxication emerge –  driving under the influence of pot alone “should be treated as a traffic infraction rather than a crime, unless aggravated by recklessness, aggressiveness, or high speed,” while drivers who combine marijuana and alcohol “are large enough to justify criminalization.” 

    Read the report below: 

  • Hitler's Economics: The Hazards Of Praising Keynesian Policies In The Wrong Context

    Authored by Lew Rockwell via The Mises Institute,

    [Originally published August 02, 2003.]

    For today’s generation, Hitler is the most hated man in history, and his regime the archetype of political evil. This view does not extend to his economic policies, however. Far from it. They are embraced by governments all around the world. The Glenview State Bank of Chicago, for example, recently praised Hitler’s economics in its monthly newsletter. In doing so, the bank discovered the hazards of praising Keynesian policies in the wrong context.

    The issue of the newsletter (July 2003) is not online, but the content can be discerned via the letter of protest from the Anti-Defamation League.

    “Regardless of the economic arguments” the letter said, “Hitler’s economic policies cannot be divorced from his great policies of virulent anti-Semitism, racism and genocide.… Analyzing his actions through any other lens severely misses the point.”

    The same could be said about all forms of central planning. It is wrong to attempt to examine the economic policies of any leviathan state apart from the political violence that characterizes all central planning, whether in Germany, the Soviet Union, or the United States. The controversy highlights the ways in which the connection between violence and central planning is still not understood, not even by the ADL. The tendency of economists to admire Hitler’s economic program is a case in point.

    In the 1930s, Hitler was widely viewed as just another protectionist central planner who recognized the supposed failure of the free market and the need for nationally guided economic development. Proto-Keynesian socialist economist Joan Robinson wrote that “Hitler found a cure against unemployment before Keynes was finished explaining it.”

    What were those economic policies?

    He suspended the gold standard, embarked on huge public-works programs like autobahns, protected industry from foreign competition, expanded credit, instituted jobs programs, bullied the private sector on prices and production decisions, vastly expanded the military, enforced capital controls, instituted family planning, penalized smoking, brought about national healthcare and unemployment insurance, imposed education standards, and eventually ran huge deficits. The Nazi interventionist program was essential to the regime’s rejection of the market economy and its embrace of socialism in one country.

    Such programs remain widely praised today, even given their failures. They are features of every “capitalist” democracy. Keynes himself admired the Nazi economic program, writing in the foreword to the German edition to the General Theory:

    “[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.”

    Keynes’s comment, which may shock many, did not come out of the blue. Hitler’s economists rejected laissez-faire, and admired Keynes, even foreshadowing him in many ways. Similarly, the Keynesians admired Hitler (see George Garvy, “Keynes and the Economic Activists of Pre-Hitler Germany,” The Journal of Political Economy, Volume 83, Issue 2, April 1975, pp. 391–405).

    Even as late as 1962, in a report written for President Kennedy, Paul Samuelson had implicit praise for Hitler:

    “History reminds us that even in the worst days of the great depression there was never a shortage of experts to warn against all curative public actions.… Had this counsel prevailed here, as it did in the pre-Hitler Germany, the existence of our form of government could be at stake. No modern government will make that mistake again.”

    On one level, this is not surprising. Hitler instituted a New Deal for Germany, different from FDR and Mussolini only in the details. And it worked only on paper in the sense that the GDP figures from the era reflect a growth path. Unemployment stayed low because Hitler, though he intervened in labor markets, never attempted to boost wages beyond their market level. But underneath it all, grave distortions were taking place, just as they occur in any non-market economy. They may boost GDP in the short run (see how government spending boosted the US Q2 2003 growth rate from 0.7 to 2.4 percent), but they do not work in the long run.

    “To write of Hitler without the context of the millions of innocents brutally murdered and the tens of millions who died fighting against him is an insult to all of their memories,” wrote the ADL in protest of the analysis published by the Glenview State Bank. Indeed it is.

    But being cavalier about the moral implications of economic policies is the stock-in-trade of the profession. When economists call for boosting “aggregate demand,” they do not spell out what this really means. It means forcibly overriding the voluntary decisions of consumers and savers, violating their property rights and their freedom of association in order to realize the national government’s economic ambitions. Even if such programs worked in some technical economic sense, they should be rejected on grounds that they are incompatible with liberty.

    So it is with protectionism. It was the major ambition of Hitler’s economic program to expand the borders of Germany to make autarky viable, which meant building huge protectionist barriers to imports. The goal was to make Germany a self-sufficient producer so that it did not have to risk foreign influence and would not have the fate of its economy bound up with the goings-on in other countries. It was a classic case of economically counterproductive xenophobia.

    And yet even in the United States today, protectionist policies are making a tragic comeback. Under the Bush administration alone, a huge range of products from lumber to microchips are being protected from low-priced foreign competition. These policies are being combined with attempts to stimulate supply and demand through large-scale military expenditure, foreign-policy adventurism, welfare, deficits, and the promotion of nationalist fervor. Such policies can create the illusion of growing prosperity, but the reality is that they divert scarce resources away from productive employment.

    Perhaps the worst part of these policies is that they are inconceivable without a leviathan state, exactly as Keynes said. A government big enough and powerful enough to manipulate aggregate demand is big and powerful enough to violate people’s civil liberties and attack their rights in every other way. Keynesian (or Hitlerian) policies unleash the sword of the state on the whole population. Central planning, even in its most petty variety, and freedom are incompatible.

    Ever since 9/11 and the authoritarian, militarist response, the political left has warned that Bush [in 2018: Trump] is the new Hitler, while the right decries this kind of rhetoric as irresponsible hyperbole. The truth is that the left, in making these claims, is more correct than it knows. Hitler, like FDR, left his mark on Germany and the world by smashing the taboos against central planning and making big government a seemingly permanent feature of Western economies.

    David Raub, the author of the article for Glenview, was being naïve in thinking he could look at the facts as the mainstream sees them and come up with what he thought would be a conventional answer. The ADL is right in this case: central planning should never be praised. We must always consider its historical context and inevitable political results.

  • The Auction Starts Today: $250 Million Superyacht Linked To 1MBD Scandal Put Up For Sale 

    Burgess, a yacht brokerage firm, was appointed as the exclusive worldwide Central Agent by the High Courts in Malaysia to assist with the judicial sale of the 300ft yacht Equanimity, linked to the multi-billion dollar scandal at Malaysia’s state fund 1MDB.

    Bidding on the superyacht starts Monday and will end on November 28, said Ong Chee Kwan from law firm Christopher & Lee Ong, who is representing the government and 1MDB in the sale of the vessel, reported Bloomberg.

    The Equanimity is among $1.7 billion in assets bought by fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho with funds that were siphoned off from 1MDB, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.

    Malaysia and U.S. officials have also said some of the money was used to buy private jets, Picasso paintings, fine jewelry, and real estate.

    A Malaysian court in August approved the sale of the 300ft Cayman Islands-flagged Equanimity that they said was costing “substantial and escalating expenses” to maintain.

    Equanimity Cayman Ltd., the holding company that owns the vessel, said the sale of the yacht would be a “violation of due process and international legal comity, and would call into question the actual ownership of the yacht for any buyer,” said Bloomberg.

    Ong said Monday that exchange of ownership of the vessel would take place immediately after bidding ends.

    The Equanimity’s interior was designed by Winch Design using a variety of exotic materials. The vessel can accommodate up to 22 guests and 31 crew, with amenities that include a beach club, health center with gym, massage room, sauna, hammam, plunge pool and beauty salon. Other amenities and equipment include a hospital, a helipad (certified for an Airbus EC-135 or equivalent), and a circular swimming pool.

    Law enforcement in Malaysia have issued an arrest warrant and filed criminal charges against Low, but his whereabouts are still unknown.

    In about 30 days, Malaysian officials will announce the new owner of the $250 million luxury yacht

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Oct 29

Today’s News 29th October 2018

  • Russia's GRU Dealt Blow As Kremlin Spies Exposed By Black Market Data Sale

    Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, has been dealt a blow after a Russian journalist living in Europe reportedly bought the identities of undercover agents on the black market from Moscow police, according to ABC. 

    Kanev, who lives in self-imposed exile in Europe, told The Associated Press he uncovered the identities by using databases purchased on the black market from Moscow police, traffic police or security agents. He said he cross-checked them with open sources and discussions with security sources. Other Russian journalists have described using similar methods. –ABC

    Bankrolled and published by Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s “Dossier Project,” journalist Sergei Kanev says he wants to call attention to issues within an organization he thinks has gone from spycraft to “unchecked violence and foreign interference,” according to ABC – however his report describes the GRU as more sloppy than scary, with Kremlin operatives blowing their own cover in some cases. 

    Journalist and Russian dissident Sergei Kanev

    Kanev said he identified three agents after they filed police reports for stolen goods, by cross-checking names with databases showing addresses or other information on GRU employees. Another was identified after being arrested over a cafe shootout.

    The report also says the Russian Defense Ministry sought to conceal the identities of dozens of children of alleged GRU officers living in a Moscow housing complex by adding 100 years to their ages in administrative registries. GRU agents jokingly called it the “old folks’ home,” Kanev said.

    However, pension authorities raised alarm upon discovering the freak concentration of very elderly residents, suspecting some kind of pension fraud. –ABC

    The GRU has been accused of conducting the March nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England which targeted former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. Two alleged GRU agents were identified in the case, however others have suggested they are patsies. 

    Dutch authorities, meanwhile, reported earlier this month they identified four alleged GRU agents who attempted to hack the Wi-Fi of the Organziation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the primary watchdog group responsible for investigating the Skripal attack as well as suspected chemical attacks in Syria. 

    All this makes it look like GRU officers “can’t tie their own shoelaces,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on Russian military affairs at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.

    In an interview with the AP, Kanev said he also identified 16 GRU officers who once lived in the same Moscow dormitory as Anatoly Chepiga, one of the Russian officers suspected of poisoning turncoat GRU agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Kanev did not publish their names.

    Kanev said that he could identify so many officers was a sign that “Russia is eroding.” –ABC

    Of note, none of the “outed” GRU agents are suspected of wrongdoing at this time, which, according to Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge, England, has exposed Kanev and his oligarch-turned-dissident backer Khodorkovsky “to charges that instead of reforming Russia, they just want to harm it.” 

    Giles said the revelations highlight a sense among Russian intelligence agencies that they are “above the law” and could reinforce their view that “mass connectivity, unhindered communications, and widespread access to information” is a threat to national security.

    Meanwhile, the drip-drip of revelations will continue to dent the image of the GRU, but not deter it from unsavory actions, experts said. Kofman said it’s not unheard of for one agent after another to get burned publicly, and noted that agents like Chepiga and his colleagues could be replaced. –ABC

    “They will likely write this off as a consequence of carrying out a lot of operations,” Giles concluded. 

  • Is NATO Preparing For War In The Arctic?

    Authored by Brian Cloughley via Counterpunch.org,

    Britain’s Daily Mail is a strident rag that is bought daily by over a million people who agree with its stance that most foreigners are inferior to Brits. Two years ago the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance reported that the Mail and some other papers indulged in “offensive, discriminatory and provocative terminology”, and the Commission’s chairman observed that “the Brexit referendum seems to have led to a further rise in ‘anti-foreigner’ sentiment”.

    The highly-respected Economist noted that “unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail spreads more EU-linked lies than anyone else” and that its website “garners 225 million visitors each month”, which is amazing and disturbing, given its campaigns of bigotry and intolerance.

    The Mail knows its readers and tells them what they want to hear, and one of its targets is Russia, which it regularly maligns and berates.

    On October 23 a main story noted approvingly that on October 25 “some 50,000 troops will kick off NATO’s biggest military exercises since the Cold War in Norway, a massive show of force that has already rankled neighboring Russia. Trident Juncture 18, which runs until November 7, is aimed at training the Alliance to mobilize quickly to defend an ally under attack.” The US 6th Fleet stated that among other major deployments for the maneuvers, the aircraft carrier Harry S Truman and guided missile destroyers of the Eighth Carrier Strike Group moved in to dominate the Norwegian Sea for the first time since 1991.

    According to US Air Forces Europe, Trident Juncture is partially funded by the European Deterrence Initiative, and US F-16 strike aircraft and KC-135 Stratotankers have deployed to operate from an air base in neutral, non-NATO Sweden.

    This all fits in with the British government’s line that Russia is a threat to the United Kingdom, which is a farcical contention, but serves to whip up patriotic fervor, which wins votes and sells newspapers.

    In June 2018 London’s Sun newspaper carried the headline “Britain will send RAF Typhoon fighter jets to Iceland in bid to tackle Russian aggression” and since then the UK’s defense minister, Gavin Williamson, has maintained that “the Kremlin continues to challenge us in every domain.”  (Williamson is the man who declared in March 2018 that “Frankly Russia should go away — it should shut up,” which was one of the most juvenile public utterances of recent years.)

    It was reported on September 29 that Williamson was concerned about “growing Russian aggression ‘in our back yard’,” and that the Government was drawing up a “defense Arctic strategy” with 800 commandos being deployed to a new base in Norway. In an interview “Mr Williamson highlighted Russia’s re-opening of Soviet-era bases and ‘increased tempo’ of submarine activity as evidence that Britain needed to ‘demonstrate we’re there’ and ‘protect our interests’.”

    Mr Williamson has not indicated what “interests” the United Kingdom could have in the Arctic region, where it has no territory.

    The eight countries with territory north of the Arctic Circle are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. They have legitimate interests in the region which is twice the area of the US and Canada combined.  But Britain has not one single claim to the Arctic. Not even a tenuous one like Iceland’s, which is based on the fact that the Arctic Circle passes through Grimsey Island, about 25 kilometers north of Iceland’s north coast.  Britain’s Shetland Islands, its northernmost land, are 713 kilometers (443 miles) south of the Arctic Circle.

    So why does the UK declare that it has “interests” in the Arctic and that the region is “in our back yard”?  How can it possibly feel threatened?

    The Arctic Institute observed in February 2018 that Russia’s “newer Arctic strategy papers focus on preventing smuggling, terrorism, and illegal immigration instead of balancing military power with NATO. These priorities suggest that Russia’s security aims in the Arctic have to do with safeguarding the Arctic as a strategic resource base . . . In general, the government-approved documents seem to have moved from an assertive tone that highlights Russia’s rivalry with NATO to a less abrasive tone based on securing economic development.”

    And economic development is what it’s all about. On September 28 it was reported that “a Danish-flagged cargo ship successfully passed through the Russian Arctic in a trial voyage showing that melting sea ice could potentially open a new trade route from Europe to east Asia.”  It is obviously in the best economic interests of the European Union and Russia that the route be developed for commercial transit. To do this requires avoidance of conflict in the region.

    So what’s your problem, Defence Minister Williamson?

    In January China described its Arctic strategy, “pledging to work more closely with Moscow in particular to create an Arctic maritime counterpart — a ‘Polar Silk Road’ — to its ‘one belt, one road’ overland trade route to Europe. Both the Kremlin and Beijing have repeatedly stated that their ambitions are primarily commercial and environmental, not military.”  It couldn’t be plainer that Russia and China want the Arctic to be a profitable mercantile trade route, while continuing exploration for oil, gas and mineral deposits.

    As pointed out by Sabena Siddiqi in the Asian Times, “Having a major stake in the Yamal liquefied natural gas project in Russia, which would supply nearly four million tonnes of LNG per annum, development of these regions makes sense for China as well, and its interests converge with Russia’s. Once the Arctic route is fully operational, the Yamal project can double Russia’s share of the global LNG market. The Arctic thawing has also given Russia greater access to minerals and other valuable resources in this region.”

    Guess who doesn’t want Russia and China to prosper?

    To develop the Arctic requires peace and stability.  It would be impossible to reap the benefits of the new sea-route and potentially enormous energy and mineral riches if there were to be conflict. It is obviously in the best interests of Russia and China that there be tranquility rather than military confrontation.

    But Britain’s Defence Minister insists there must be a military build-up by the UK in the Arctic “If we want to be protecting our interests in what is effectively our own back yard.” He is backed by the Parliament’s Defence Committee which states that “NATO’s renewed focus on the North Atlantic is welcome and the Government should be congratulated on the leadership the UK has shown on this issue.”

    NATO is always on the lookout for excuses to indulge in military action (such as its nine–month aerial blitz that destroyed Libya), and its Arctic-focused Trident Juncture is yet another confrontational military fandango designed to ramp up tension.

    The US-NATO military alliance is  preparing for war in the Arctic, and is deliberately provoking Russia by conducting massive hi-tech maneuvers ever-closer to its borders. But the Pentagon and its sub-office in Brussels had better be very careful.

  • Putin's Approval Rating Plunges After Pension Friction

    The latest Gallup poll shows that support for President Trump surged to 44% during the first two weeks of October, just one percentage point below his personal best, which was reached during his first week in office.

    G

    Furthermore, as we noted previously, Democrats are worrying that their get-out-the-vote efforts (which have included such novel strategies as catfishing people on twitter) won’t mobilize the two demographic groups that are seen as crucial to a Democratic victory: Young people and Hispanics.

    However, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, there is a silver lining for the Russophobic left…

    Russian president Vladimir Putin has long enjoyed a high approval rating but, this infographic shows, the latest Levada-Center surveys have revealed a steep drop off in recent months.

    Infographic: Putin's Approval Rating Tanks Amid Pension Friction | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The main reason for this change in mood is a planned raising of the retirement age in the country – gradually from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women.

    Having been consistently above 80 percent in recent years, the dip in popularity has seen Putin’s rating hit 67 percent.

  • Incompetent Culprit Or Plausible Patsy: Paul Craig Roberts On The Latest 'Bomb' Scare

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    I appreciate readers’ confidence that I can explain the mail bomb scare that has been blamed on Cesar Sayoc. I have not followed this story and regret that I don’t have an explanation to provide.

    Stephen Lendman raises the question whether Sayoc is a real culprit or a patsy for an operation orhestrated for political reasons.

    …beginning on October 22, harmless mail bombs began to be delivered to prominent undemocratic Dem Trump critics.

    None exploded. No one was hurt, the mailings intended to sow fear, create alarm, and make headlines.

    They likely intended to influence the outcome of the November midterm elections, undemocratic Dem dark forces likely behind them, hoping to regain control of the House and/or Senate…

    This seems to me to be, at our present state of information, a legitimate question. If the security agencies and the Democratic National Committee were willing to orchestrate a fake ‘Russiagate’ scheme against Trump for political reasons, why not also a fake bomb attack on Democrats?

    Just as the presstitutes went along with “Russiagate” despite the absence of any evidence, RT reports that the US media is blaming “Trump’s ‘hateful rhetoric’ for the packages.”

    While driving I listened to a large part of the press conference, and the affair struck me as an orchestration. Every agency involved was present, from the Postal Service to the FBI and Secret Service, the directors of which praised the expert professional performance of their agencies in intercepting the bombs. It seemed to me overdone, especially in view of the FBI’s admission that they could not say that the bombs were functional. Why would a bomber send non-functional bombs?

    There are other things to notice and to wonder about. Photos of the packages, if these are the actual mailed packages and not someone’s construction used to cast doubt on the official story, do not show postage sufficient to cover the weight of a bomb. Also, all the anti-Democrat stickers on Sayoc’s van seem very new and unfaded to have spent much time in the Florida sun.

    Whether one likes Trump or doesn’t, it is clear that the establishment wants rid of him. He was elected by the “deplorables,” that part of the population that has been left behind by the elite who manage things in their interest alone. The elite are scared that such an electoral outcome could happen again. A defeat of Trump is a defeat of the populist forces that put him in office.

    There is no doubt that Americans have been fed a constant stream of lies to justify political agendas, for example, Serbia, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Libya, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there are so many unanswered questions about mass shootings, such as the one in Las Vegas, that suspicion of official stories is on the rise. How does one justify believing a government that will lie in order to justify aggression abroad and police state measures at home?

    It is entirely possible that Sayoc is an incompetent culprit and that suspicion of the official story is a consequence of the government playing fast and loose with the truth in the past.

    From an astute reader:

    “We know every detail of this guy’s life within hours and it is presented with photos and all in the NYT. And a symbol – the White Van, almost as good as a White Helmet.”

    Another question has come in:

    “Who mails bombs to people who don’t open their own mail?”

    It is also a legitimate question whether the US government, by which I do not mean simply the Trump administration, is worthy of the trust of the American people. Democracy doesn’t work without public confidence in government. The sacrifice of public confidence to political agendas destroys the basis of political life.

  • Canada Secretly Collected Banking Information From 500,000 Canadians Without Their Knowledge

    As it turns out, Silicon Valley tech giants aren’t the only institutions surreptitiously collecting massive troves of sensitive data from unsuspecting consumers. On Friday, Canada’s the Global Times published a report exposing a recently launched data collection program adopted by StatCan, the Canadian government’s economic research agency, that the agency introduced to help it collect more accurate data about consumers’ spending habits. The agency has asked Canada’s nine largest banks to turn over all the transaction records and sensitive identifying financial information (including customer’s social insurance numbers) for 500,000 randomly selected Canadians. The agency will collect and crunch this data as part of its statistical research and then, at the end of the year, it will produce a new list of 500,000 Canadians, and perform all of the same operations with their data.

    Statcan

    After being called out by Global News, the agency explained that the data would be anonymized shortly after being compiled (meaning that all identifying information, like consumers’ SINs, would be removed).

    “Canadians should know we are not accessing all of the payments data for all Canadians. It’s a small sample relative to the total number of households,” he said. “Our access to this data is permitted through both the Privacy Act and the Statistics Act.”

    But that’s not exactly true. The fact that it didn’t publicly disclose the plan has left some Canadians feeling uneasy. Given that Canada has a population of roughly 20 million people, the likelihood that any one individuals’ information will be collected. To be sure, the agency said in a letter to Canada’s privacy commissioner that the data would only be used for statistics purposes. But a former privacy regulator who spoke with GN said she was “shocked” to learn of the program.

    Ontario’s former privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, said she was shocked by the initiative and said the ability for a government agency to build a massive database of personal banking information raises serious privacy concerns.

    “Most people would be surprised and devastated if they thought all of their financial information and bills and activity were being accessed in identifiable form by Statistics Canada or any branch of government,” she said. “Medical and financial records are the most sensitive personal data that exists.”

    As Global Times’s chief political correspondent explained in an editorial criticizing StatCan’s surreptitious collection program, the agency has long struggled to collect accurate data about Canadians’ spending habits by employing a staff of interviewers who phone everyday Canadians and ask them about their spending habits. Say the agency wanted to determine how much money the average Canadian male between the ages of 24 and 50 spent on iTunes every one. Well, its staff of 1,000 interviewers would call thousands of Canadian citizens with this demographic profile and ask them.

    But there’s one glaring problem here: Who remembers exactly how much money they spent on iPhone apps and music downloads in any given month? And few people have the time, or the willingness, to check their credit card records and share specific dollar amounts. And even if some did, how would the agency verify whether they were being truthful?

    But if StatCan wanted to know what the average 50-year-old male with a cat living in suburban Ottawa spends in music downloads from Apple’s iTunes Store every month, it would have to convince me and other men with those characteristics to participate in a survey – a survey that might be done by phone, by mail or online.

    Indeed, Statistics Canada employs the equivalent of nearly 1,000 people as “interviewers,” who spend all day asking everyday Canadians and businesses about their activities so everything we do can be counted up.

    For much of the important data about our economy and household spending – upon which many important decisions, such as interest rates and taxation levels, are based – Statistics Canada relies heavily on surveys.

    But surveys have an accuracy issue. Do you remember how much you spent on groceries last April? Last month? How much butter did you consume? How many times did you fill up at the gas pump? You might have roughly accurate answers to these questions, but they are probably not as precise as a data scientist would like.

    On top of that, StatCan has the same problem that pollsters have: people these days just don’t want to answer the phone or go online for a lengthy survey.

    So StatCan devised a plan to improve the accuracy and efficiency of its data collection.

    As a result, researchers at StatCan came up with another idea: to feed a computer program to the agency’s massive database of 20 million or more “households.” That database will spit out a list of 500,000 “household” members, who together create a representative sample of the entire country. The list would have the same ratios of men to women, French speakers to English speakers and Calgarians to Haligonians that actually exist in the country.

    The representative sample would also be chosen randomly, and on that list would be the name of each person, their social insurance number, date of birth, home address and gender. You would have a one-in-20 chance of being on this list.

    But then, next year and the year after that, a new list would be drawn up. Eventually, the odds of making it onto the list would drastically improve for millions of Canadians.

    Once the list has been generated, those 500,000 names would be given, under strict privacy controls, to each of Canada’s nine largest banks and credit card companies. Because your bank or credit card company also likely knows your name, SIN, date of birth and so on, each financial institution would be able to draw up its own list of customers that are also on the StatCan list.

    Canada’s largest banks are worried that StatCan’s collection program could inspire Canadians to bank with smalle institutions that aren’t subject to the collection. And although StatCan has promised to anonymize the data, the fact remains that no institution is immune to hackers, lest of all government agencies. And now that hackers know StatCan possess this invaluable trove of sensitive personal data, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some one, somewhere, will try and steal it.

    Read the documents detailing StatCan’s collection efforts below:

    391812140 by Zerohedge on Scribd

  • In Desperation Move, IBM Buys Red Hat For $34 Billion In Largest Ever Acquisition

    In what can only be described as a desperation move, IBM announced that it would acquire Linux distributor Red Hat for a whopping $34 billion, its biggest purchase ever, as the company scrambles to catch up to the competition and boost its flagging cloud sales. Still hurting from its Q3 earnings, which sent its stock tumbling to the lowest level since 2010 after Wall Street was disappointed by yet another quarter of declining revenue…

    … IBM will pay $190 for the Raleigh, NC-based Red Hat, a 63% premium to the company’s stock price, which closed at $116.68 on Friday, and down 3% on the year.

    In the statement, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said that “the acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market,” but what the acquisition really means is that the company has thrown in the towel on organic growth (or lack thereof) and years of accounting gimmicks and attempts to paint lipstick on a pig with the help of ever lower tax rates and pro forma addbacks, and instead will now “kitchen sink” its endless income statement troubles and non-GAAP adjustments in the form of massive purchase accounting tricks for the next several years.

    While Rometty has been pushing hard to transition the 107-year-old company into modern business such as the cloud, AI and security software, the company’s recent improvements had been largely from IBM’s legacy mainframe business, rather than its so-called strategic imperatives. Meanwhile, revenues have continued the shrink and after a brief rebound, sales dipped once again this quarter, after an unprecedented period of 22 consecutive declines starting in 2012, when Rometty took over as CEO.

    While some of the decline has been from divestitures, most is from declining sales in existing hardware, software and services offerings, as the company has struggled to compete with younger technology companies.

    The good news for IBM is that the Red Hat purchase, the largest in the company’s history, will give IBM an immediate cloud revenue boost growth as well as a suite of proven software products to sell through its global sales force. “We will scale what Red Hat has deeply into many more enterprises than they’re able to get to,” Rometty told Bloomberg.

    That growth, however, will come at an extraordinary price, one which shareholders may have a tough time justifying.

    Furthermore, while Red Hat is expected to report an all-time high $3 billion in revenue as the company’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux product attracts business from large customers – after booking a record 11 contracts valued at over $5 million each and 73 over $1 million, according to JMP Securities – even here growth may be stalling out after last quarter overall revenue missed analysts’ expectations and the forecast for the current quarter also fell short, “fueling concerns Red Hat may be losing deals to rivals” according to Bloomberg. While Red Hat said at the time it believes the slowdown has “bottomed out”, its stock is down 28% over the past six months through Friday.

    The bad news is that in its desperation for growth at what amounts to be any price, IBM is almost certainly overpaying for Red Hat. This was confirmed by Rometty’s preemptive defense, telling Bloomberg that IBM “paid a very fair price. This is a premium company. If you look underneath, this is strong revenue growth, strong profit strong free cash flow” she said, adding that IBM will not cut jobs as a result of the deal: “this is an acquisition for revenue growth, this is not for cost synergies.”

    Perhaps, but the bigger question is what the deal means for IBM’s balance sheet. In the press release, IBM said that “the company has ample cash, credit and bridge lines to secure the transaction financing. The company intends to close the transaction through a combination of cash and debt.” In other words, no IBM stock, which is already at the lowest level this decade.

    So let’s do the math: IBM ended Q3 with cash of $14.7 billion, and a record $46.9 billion in debt. Which means that IBM will likely incur at least $20 billion in additional debt, and as a result IBM’s already shaky A+/A1 rating could soon be downgraded to BBB.

    So what is IBM buying for this $34 billion and $20 billion in debt? According to its LTM financials, Red Hat has $3.2BN in revenue and $603MM in EBITDA. These numbers are expected to grow to $3.9BN by 2020, when EBITDA will hit $1 billion. In other words, on an EV basis, IBM is paying roughly 31x (net of $2.2BN in cash) Red Hat’s 2020 forward EBITDA.

    Of course, if one assumes continued EBITDA growth for the foreseeable future, this acquisition could make sense. The problem is that between the threat of a recession in the next few years, and aggressive competition from Amazon, Microsoft and others for cloud market share, this is a very aggressive assumption.

    Meanwhile, in exchange for this $1 billion in EBITDA, IBM’s net debt will grow from $32.5 billion currently to $52 billion, almost doubling IBM’s net leverage from 1.7x level to a whopping 3.2x, and well on its way to a BBB rating if not worse. Which is why IBM promise that it will “target a leverage profile consistent with a mid to high single A credit rating” is, with all due respect, laughable.

    But the worst news for investors may have nothing to do with the massively overpriced acquisition, and with something that IBM noted deep inside its press release:

    The company intends to suspend its share repurchase program in 2020 and 2021.

    Considering that the only factor that has kept the IBM stock price elevated in the past decade as IBM’s diluted number of shares outstanding declined by 40%, was the company’s buybacks…

    … most investors may finally have no choice but to bail on “Big Blue” – which after the Red Hat deal may be renamed “Big Purple” and leaving shareholders with at least one blackened eye – as the company bets everything on what may soon prove to be another disastrous gamble.

  • The Vatican Under Siege: What The Church Must Do To Restore Trust?

    Authored by Lawrence Franklin via The Gatestone Institute,

    On October 12, Pope Francis officially accepted the resignation of Washington’s archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, from the high-profile post Wuerl had occupied for 12 years. Wuerl’s resignation was the latest and most direct casualty of the sex-abuse scandal that for years has been rocking the Catholic Church. More specifically, Wuerl — a close ally of Pope Francis — stepped down as a result of a nearly 900-page Pennsylvania grand jury report from 2018, which detailed the extent of the rampant sexual abuse of priests against children and of the systemic cover-up of the crimes.

    Cardinal Wuerl was among those accused of covering for abusive priests in the grand jury’s exhaustive investigation of Pennsylvania’s dioceses, including the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which Wuerl had headed from 1988 to 2006. As a consequence of his role in re-assigning or reinstating priests accused of sexual abuse, Wuerl requested that the Pope accept the resignation he had previously submitted in 2015, at age 75, as is tradition. Although Pope Francis acceptedWuerl’s resignation, he nevertheless requested that Wuerl stay on as apostolic administrator of the diocese until a new Archbishop to Washington, D.C. is selected.

    It was, however, the Pope’s heaping of praise on Wuerl that especially angered the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clerics. In his letter accepting Wuerl’s resignation, Francis wrote:

    “To our Venerable Brother Card. Donald William Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington,

    “On September 21st I received your request that I accept your resignation from the pastoral government of the Archdiocese of Washington.

    “I am aware that this request rests on two pillars that have marked and continue to mark your ministry: to seek in all things the greater glory of God and to procure the good of the people entrusted to your care. The shepherd knows that the well-being and the unity of the People of God are precious gifts that the Lord has implored and for which he gave his life. He paid a very high price for this unity and our mission is to take care that the people not only remain united, but become witnesses of the Gospel “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21). This is the horizon from which we are continually invited to discern all our actions.

    “I recognize in your request the heart of the shepherd who, by widening his vision to recognize a greater good that can benefit the whole body (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 235), prioritizes actions that support, stimulate and make the unity and mission of the Church grow above every kind of sterile division sown by the father of lies who, trying to hurt the shepherd, wants nothing more than that the sheep be dispersed (cf. Matthew 26:31).

    “You have sufficient elements to “justify” your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes. However, your nobility has led you not to choose this way of defense. Of this, I am proud and thank you.

    “In this way, you make clear the intent to put God’s Project first, before any kind of personal project, including what could be considered as good for the Church. Your renunciation is a sign of your availability and docility to the Spirit who continues to act in his Church.

    “In accepting your resignation, I ask you to remain as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese until the appointment of your successor.

    “Dear brother, I make my own the words of Sirach: “You who fear the Lord, trust in him, and your reward will not be lost” (2:8). May the Virgin Mary protect you with her mantle and may the strength of the Holy Spirit give you the grace to know how to continue to serve him in this new time that the Lord gives you.”

    A few months earlier, in July, Pope Francis also accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, from the College of Cardinals, after he had been removed from public ministry in June over “credible allegations” of his sexual abuse of a minor nearly five decades ago, when he was a priest in New York.

    In August, former Papal Nuncio (ambassador) to the United States, Carlo Maria Viganò, called upon Pope Francis to resign the Papacy. Viganò justified this demand by claiming that the Pontiff had covered up allegations of sexual-abuse crimes by McCarrick. Viganò also named several high-ranking, pro-Pope Francis officials — including Wuerl — whom he accused of abetting a homosexual sub-culture inside the Vatican.

    In a September 13 piece in National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty posed two questions about why McCarrick’s influence had endured, despite frequent and long-standing allegations of his predatory sexual behavior.

    The first was: Did Francis spare McCarrick because he sought McCarrick’s counsel on how the Vatican should reform the American Episcopate (bishops)?

    The second was: Does Francis overlook the sins of those prelates he views as allies, such as McCarrick, in order to advance his papal agenda?

    If the response to either of those questions is yes, then the Vatican’s factional infighting between liberals and conservatives may have reached a critical level. This moment may demand a massive restructuring of church structure to sustain Catholicism’s vitality as the moral compass for half of the world’s Christians.(Non-Catholic Christians such as Orthodox and Protestant sects comprise the other half of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians.)

    Viganò’s 11-page “indictment” was published at a vulnerable moment for the Catholic Church, already reeling from ever-widening evidence of sexual abuse of innocents by predator priests. Viganò had launched his attack during the Pope’s visit to Ireland, a country where respect for the Catholic Church had already declined, following revelations of sexual crimes by priests and decades of harsh treatment of young women who have given birth to children outside of marriage.

    Given public knowledge of the bitter factional disputes within the Vatican, Viganò’s detailed accounts of political maneuvering within the College of Cardinals and the Roman Curia (the Catholic Church’s administrative bureaucracy) are indeed plausible. He is allied with high-ranking Vatican conservatives who are opposed to the apparent liberal agenda of Francis, such as permitting divorced and remarried Catholics, in some cases, to receive the Eucharist (Communion). He is also allied with whoever is against the Vatican’s recent pastoral rhetoric on same-sex attraction; and with those who are skeptical of what they perceive as the Pope’s antipathy to capitalism. Other high-ranking church officials have denounced the West for failing to support Christians being persecuted in Muslim lands.

    These denunciations can be interpreted as criticism of Pope Francis’s perceived unwillingness directly to confront the issue of clerical sexual crimes. Additionally, some Catholics have criticized the pope’s tendency to grant unscripted in-flight media interviews, and then seeming to blame them for confusion among Catholic laypeople as to where he stands on key theological and social questions.

    Viganò himself has been a casualty of inside-the-Vatican bureaucratic wars during his tenure as Secretary-General of the Vatican Governorate (2009-2011), the equivalent of serving as Mayor of Vatican City. While in this position, he was accused by some of his Vatican City adversaries of, among other things, nepotism and exhibiting “a harsh and intransigent managing style.” However, these accusations may have been generated by Viganò’s uncompromising opposition to financial improprieties he had previously uncovered in the Vatican Bank.

    Those criticisms prompted Viganò’s removal at the time by Pope Benedict XVI from his position as the Vatican Bank’s Secretary-General. Subsequently, Benedict dispatched him to the United States to serve as nuncio (ambassador from the Vatican). Viganò may also be disappointed by the failure of Popes Benedict and Francis to appoint him as president of Vatican City, a post that automatically includes a promotion to Cardinal.

    Viganò’s allegations against Pope Francis were buoyed by some recently surfaced corroborating evidence, including a letter from 2006 indicating that the Vatican had been aware of McCarrick’s alleged predatory behavior for some time. This letter, addressing McCarrick’s alleged pattern of sexual abuses, was written by Father Boniface Ramsey. Ramsey then was a faculty member at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. The university was in the Diocese of Newark, where McCarrick was archbishop at the time. The letter appears to confirm Viganò’s charge that McCarrick’s sexual criminal activity had been known by the Vatican for several years.

    On September 27, Viganò released an additional letter, appealing directly to Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, to reveal documents that would further corroborate Viganò’s allegations. Cardinal Ouellet, however, refused to substantiate them. Instead, he defended the Church as having been grievously wounded by Viganò’s unproven assertions.

    Some prominent Catholics imply that the Vatican gave a pass to McCarrick because of the Cardinal’s prodigious fund-raising capabilities for the Catholic Church’s Papal Foundation in America. That theory, which connects McCarrick’s fund-raising prowess to the Vatican’s toleration of the Cardinal’s aberrant behavior, was furthered by an announcement on September 13 that West Virginia’s only bishop, Michael Bransfield, had resigned over allegations of sexual harassment. Bransfield was the President of the Papal Foundation for several years in conjunction with his tenure as Rector of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He had worked closely with Cardinal McCarrick, raising millions for the favorite charities of Popes Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

    As for former Ambassador Viganò, he reserved some of his most pointed criticism for those in the Vatican who allegedly promoted the careers of members of homosexual networks in the Holy See. It seems likely that Viganò supports Catholic teaching that “homosexuality is a psychological and moral disorder… that is always sinful, depraved, and ruinous of character.” In addition, Viganò assertedthat one Vatican prelate possessed a “pro-gay ideology” and another favored the promotion of homosexual clerics to positions of authority.

    In his original letter, Viganò also sardonically ridiculed the Pope’s public condemnation of clerical careerism, as if that were the source of the Church’s problem, when the real issue was predatory sexual behavior. Viganò may be calling out the inadequate response of the Pope because he is genuinely horrified. The Pope’s silence on Viganò’s specific charges, however, as well as his thinly veiled comparison of Viganò to the devil, may lend further credibility to Viganò’s accusations and character.

    Moreover, Pope Francis, a week before he accepted Wuerl’s resignation, ordered a search of the Vatican Archives to determine how McCarrick managed to climb the ladder of Catholic hierarchy despite allegations that he had abused both seminarians and younger priests.

    The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, urged Francis to establish a more exhaustive investigation — called an “Apostolic Visitation” — of McCarrick’s crimes. This would be similar to the investigation that the Vatican approved recently in Chile, which helped lead to the resignation of almost all of its bishops.

    More significant than the personalities involved in these allegations of misconduct, however, is the greater question of what the American Catholic Church can do to redeem its moral authority among its approximately 70 million lay faithful. What must the Church do to restore the trust of the billions of Christians and non-Christians around the world? How can the Vatican recalibrate its primary mission that every human’s ultimate and proper destination is union with the divine presence of God?

    One thing Pope Francis should not do is resign — at least not immediately. Such a dramatic move might throw the Church into chaos and lead to a feeding frenzy by secular enemies of Catholicism and cynical media outlets. If, however, reports are verified that Francis, while Archbishop of Buenos Aires, defamed accusers of predator priests, refused to meet with them, and denied that any abuse occurred under his watch, then he may not possess the moral authority to cleanse the Church of predatory priests, and those who protected them, without resigning himself. These reports about the Pope’s tenure in Argentina were echoed in a cover story on Francis’s papacy raised in Der Spiegel, charging that there are currently 62 cases on trial in Argentina concerning allegations of clerical sex crimes.

    While Francis is still Pope, he should first demand that any cleric or lay person guilty of sexual abuse or its cover-up resign immediately. The Vatican should then invite lay investigative authorities to review all allegations of criminal behavior, including any possible related blackmail activity. Only when innocent clergy, seminarians, and lay Catholics believe that a total eradication of inappropriate sexual activity within the Church’s hierarchical structure has occurred, will harmony be restored to the Church.

    Such a purge is not likely to result in an open-season hunting period on homosexuals inside the church. The church teaching on homosexual behavior as immoral is likely to remain constant, but continued compassion towards those with a same-sex attraction is also likely. The Vatican, it seems, still needs to make a policy decision on whether to allow homosexual-oriented clergy. Paedophilia, on the other hand, needs to be treated with zero tolerance.

    The Catholic Church, one of humanity’s oldest institutions in civilization, will endure. Moreover, its followers embrace as article of faith the words of Jesus that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it (the church).” All the same, to remain relevant in this contemporary moment, the Church would do well to draw open the curtains to let fresh air and new ideas into its hallowed halls.

    The Vatican could convene a new Vatican Council where resolutions could be adopted to permit priests to marry and have children. In a world where women are increasingly recognized as equals before the law, such a council could also decree that female priests are permissible. These changes would be superficial and would not alter the eternal truths and dogma of the Catholic faith.

    The Church needs to be revolutionary in action in a revolutionary era. Its high clerics must lead, not manage. It must not seek to be popular or even welcomed in the halls of state power. The Catholic Church needs to recast itself as the conscience of the world, although this could invite censure, even persecution, and risk alienation from secular authorities and some leaders of other religions over issues such as abortion, immigration, capital punishment, religious freedom, the equality of women, and freedom of conscience. The Church’s hierarchy must not shy away from confrontation with some of society’s materialistic, one-dimensional view of man.

    If the papacy can regain its moral authority, it might also be able to rally Christians to the cause of defending Western civilization from religious totalitarian extremism, responsible for the martyrdom of hundreds of thousands of the faithful in recent decades — around 90,000 in 2016 alone.

    The failure of the Vatican to posit a comprehensive rebuttal of Viganò’s allegations has seriously wounded this Papacy. The Pope’s indecision is sapping his once-wide international acclaim. His lack of exigency is characterized by his decision to wait until January before formally addressing the issue of sexual criminality among the clergy in front of Church’s bishops. There is also confusion and anger within the body of the Catholic faithful. If support for Francis continues to ebb, it will, and should, lead to his resignation as Pontiff.

  • Hillary Teases 2020 Run: "I'd Like To Be President"

    President Trump’s wish may be about to come true.

    During a Q&A with Recode’s Kara Swisher this weekend, Hillary Clinton addressed the question of whether she would run for President again in 2020. Her response was ‘mixed’ as while initially answered “no” when asked, she quickly followed up – after some groans of sadness from her lapdog audience that “well, I’d like to be President,” she admitted with a smug cackle…

    “Look, I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office in January of 2021, there’s going to be so much work to be done.”

    Clinton went on to brag about why she would be qualified to be president (now when have we heard that before)…

    “The work would be work that I feel very well-prepared for, having been in the Senate for 8 years, having been a diplomat in the State Department. It’s just gonna be a lot of heavy lifting.”

    Finally, after Swisher pressed her, Clinton concluded:

    “I’m not even going to think about it until we get through this November 6th election about what’s going to happen after that.”

    Full clip below (via The American Mirror)

    As a reminder, it was a year ago that President Trump said that he hopes Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2020.

    “Oh I hope Hillary runs,” Trump said during a press conference at the Rose Garden.

    “Is she going to run? I hope – Hillary, please run again!”

    And, as  The American Mirror points out, it’s not entirely out of the question. Newsweek reported earlier this month:

    A longtime aide to Hillary Clinton hinted that while it’s unlikely, it’s not impossible that the United States gets a rematch election in 2020. Yes, there seems to be an ever-so-slight chance President Donald Trump could see a familiar foe come his bid for re-election.

    The aide, Philippe Reines, made the comments in a Politico piece—titled “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Hillary?”—that examined, in detail, what Clinton’s role might be moving forward in Democratic politics. The former secretary of state has remained in the public eye after her shocking election loss to Trump, and she’s set to soon embark on a speaking tour with her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president. Her future could be appearing at rallies and, importantly, fundraising for Democrats.

    “It’s curious why Hillary Clinton’s name isn’t in the mix – either conversationally or in formal polling – as a 2020 candidate,” Reines said.

    “She’s younger than Donald Trump by a year. She’s younger than Joe Biden by four years. Is it that she’s run before? This would be Bernie Sanders’s second time, and Biden’s third time. Is it lack of support? She had 65 million people vote for her.”

    Still, for now…

  • Brutally Honest: Facebook Removes, Then Restores, Images From Yemen

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

    A couple of questions describe the problem with censorship: Who controls the censors? What biases do they have?

    Please consider Photo of a Starving Girl in Yemen Prompts Facebook to Remove Posts of Article.

    For a few hours after The New York Times published an article about conflict and hunger in Yemen, Facebook temporarily removed posts from readers who had tried to share the report on the social platform.

    At issue was a photograph of a starving child.

    The article included several images of emaciated children. Some were crying. Some were listless. One, a 7-year-old girl named Amal, was shown gazing to the side, with flesh so paper-thin that her collarbone and rib cage were plainly visible. Tens of thousands of readers shared the article on Facebook, but some got a message notifying them that the post was not in line with Facebook’s community standards.

    Facebook had addressed the issue by Friday night.

    “As our community standards explain, we don’t allow nude images of children on Facebook, but we know this is an important image of global significance,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “We’re restoring the posts we removed on this basis.”

    It took Facebook a few hours to realize it made a mistake in removing brutally honest images of the effects of the civil war in Yemen.

    The images expose the blatant hypocrisy of the US in backing the corrupt Saudi Arabia regime in its war in Yemen.

    This was not a nude image. It is not a “community standards” image. Nor was there any doubt about the authenticity of the image.

    Any censor can judge “community standards” however they want, but Facebook is an international phenom, not Podunk USA.

    Facebook could have and should have said “we f*ed up yet again” but never expect that.

    Rather than rejecting that image, Facebook should have promoted it.

    Instead, we had temporary censorship. Next time it might not be temporary.

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Oct 28

Today’s News 28th October 2018

  • Retired Green Beret Warns Mainstream Media Is A Tool For Destroying America

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

    A deliberate attempt is being made by the MSM (Mainstream Media) to destroy the remaining fabric of American society and force the country’s disintegration and absorption into a global government.

    They don’t have very far to go: since the 1960s, a family-centered culture that was the “hub” of the greatest nation this world has ever seen…that bastion of the family has been eroded and all but destroyed. The replacement “culture” has been one of drug use, pornography, “sloth” within all the generations… young, middle-aged, and elderly, and a fostered unwillingness to take responsibility for anything of value. The country is an entitlement nation that “asks not what you can do for your country, but what can you take from it.” The family is not even referred to in that manner anymore. I have read the term “consumer units” to refer to households, as well as “household groupings.”

    Communities… true communities where individuals and families contribute to the overall welfare of the area and each other… are almost nonexistent. This has been replaced with Communism, currently undergoing its “genesis” from the soft form of socialism and the semi-laissez faire authoritarianism that is exemplified by the surveillance state. The socialism will turn into communism, as Lenin (Ulyanov, if you prefer) pointed out to us. A forced “communal” mindset is being blared at us by every weapon the Media has in its arsenal: the radio, newspapers, television, and the Internet/Social Media monster.

    Daily, the paradigm is shifted, and the consciousness of the people is being battered with wave after wave of unrelenting actions. No publication better exemplifies the heinous nature of the Media’s intentions than Time Magazine. A Feminist Agenda is being peddled under the guise of “equality,” but in reality it is a sinister operation carried out by nefarious individuals masquereding as “reporters,” “editors,” and “columnists,” meant to polarize groups and to foster a sense of “blame” or “guilt” with every action.

    As an example, the September 18, 2017 issue of Time Magazine has an Editorial Page (page 4) by Nancy Gibbs, Editor-in-Chief, that explains how 12 women were on the cover of Time as “Firsts,” or “groundbreaking” women who the magazine holds up as positive examples. Hillary Clinton and Ellen Degeneres are two of those examples that are upheld and lauded. Funny how they didn’t  slap a picture of Hillary Clinton on the cover around the time of Benghazi, Libya, or when she resigned her position as Secretary of State. They didn’t put one up there of Victoria Nuland, either, or Rosanne Barr. Paula Deen was also left out.

    Time didn’t skip a beat with it’s cover of its December 18, 2017 issue entitled “The Silence Breakers: the voices that launched a movement,” with the theme being women who came forward with stories of sexual harassment.  Missing from that ensemble was Asia Argento, who was accused of sexually harassing a man. January 29, 2018 issue with the photos of 48 women on the cover, with the lead article entitled “The Avengers: First they marched. Now they’re running.” This issue is all about women running for public office.

    Not “Public Servants,” but Avengers: the characterization of every one of these articles.

    If a woman takes that stance when running for office…the stance of an “Avenger” instead of a public servant, then she is doing more than a disservice to her constituents: she is committing fraud. Underlying the public oath she will take if she wins is the fact that it is done for a nefarious reason…to exact revenge against male dominance or discrimination, whether real or imagined. This is not the characterization needed by someone who holds public office, a public servant who is supposed to champion the interests of all.

    But the true crime is committed by the magazine: this is a form of hate speech treading upon eggshells.  Under the guise of freedom of speech and freedom of the press (and protection under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution) they can say anything they want, right? How about where these pieces by time were meant to polarize groups and set off one group (in this case men) to be vilified…would not this be a form of “hate speech?” Just as you are not allowed to shout “fire” in a movie theater when there is none…an action that will lead to an arrest…how are these MSM people able to force this nonsense on the rest of us? Every cover, and every article has an agenda.

    To be sure, there is no such thing as perfect reporting, because that would mean that complete objectivity has been attained, and there is no such thing. The problem lies in the fact that this is not a matter of objectivity: it is a matter of complete “slant” and deliberate obfuscation of the facts in order to mold public consciousness (they have no “conscience”) and shift it toward Communism. They trick you: they uphold “community,” but what they really mean is Communism, plain and simple. You’re a part of the group, complete with slogans and “groupthink,” until you do something as an individual, and then you either are ostracized, punished, or cast out.

    In a sheer case of reverse discrimination, males…Caucasian males, to be exact, are denounced, ridiculed, and degraded at every turn. The President of the United States is the most visible Caucasian male, and he has been the lead “scapegoat” for all of the ills that befall the “woe is me!” crowd of whining entitlement-centered voters whose only true qualification for voting is being born in the United States (we hope). Mueller is a white male, and here is how they did it: pitted two white males against one another, and the Left wins, no matter who wins!

    Mueller and his witch hunt have been a relentless, circuitous pursuit with no clear-cut objectives and no end to the hunt.  If he “found” something, it makes the President look bad. If nothing happens, then it still casts a “shadow of doubt” on the President…sometimes equally damaging as an action…and Mueller ends up appearing as a bumbling clown….two white males in a negative light, no matter what the result.

    On various Time Magazine covers are an assortment of males who are vilified: The President, Steve Bannon, Vladimir Putin. They also put one up of Harvey Weinstein, the vehicle to open the door and charge all human males in the United States who have ever looked at a woman. Amazing how the charges did not surface and Weinstein was not “quite so villainous” before the 2016 election when he was contributing heavily to the Democrats and to Hillary Clinton.

    We have focused on one magazine, but this same pattern is rampant in all of the publications.  September 21, 2018’s issue of “The Week” depicts the President with his back towards us, and in front of him are six black masked-and-garbed individuals staring at him. The caption reads, “The Resistance: Why Trump’s own staff is conspiring to thwart his impulses.”

    See this, and see it for what it is:  “…Trump’s own staff is conspiring to thwart his impulses.”

    His impulses? That the President acts on impulse, and not on thought-out decisions with deliberation behind them…that is the lie this magazine wishes to push on the public. It is not only in this regard that the country is being destroyed. You don’t see anything of any worth in these publications that contributes to the overall good of society, because they don’t wish that.

    The Media does not want a “good” society: they want a degenerate society that is either cowed into compliance, or so focused within and upon all its filthy acts that it does not care what goes on around it. Such leads to submission and enables control. 

    The Media has blinded the people by showing them what they wish to see: themselves. The Media has purposefully, deliberately lowered the standards. The Media (inclusive of Hollywood, mind you, and the movies and television) have presented aberrant behaviors and actions that denigrated and destroyed the former social fabric. They have enabled others of their ilk (Communists in Politics and in Business) to foster a new “Third World” society, including the abolition of the middle class and the ending of where government is the final answer and solution to all problems.

    Read. Read the “Communist Manifesto,” and the Planks of Communism, and you will see in print what was written decades ago, that is happening here and now in the U.S. Read Alexander Sozhenitsyn’s works to see what happens at the “final tipping point” of the full-blown change of a nation into a Communist totalitarian society.

    And read the newspapers, the magazines, and the like: it will all jump right out at you. We are at a tipping point where the economy is not stable, where there are many elements that could turn into tremendous social conflicts and upheavals domestically, and the rest of the world is little by little “decoupling” from the Petrodollar and reliance upon American markets.

    Throughout all of this, the Media has been there to make it worse, to skew the news, and to force societal transformation and paradigm shift through its propaganda toward a Communist society and the relegation of American sovereignty toward global governance.

  • Most Americans See A Sharply Divided Nation; The Fourth Turning Is Here 

    The October 2018 AP-NORC Poll national survey with 1,152 adults found 8 in 10 Americans believe the country is divided regarding essential values, and some expect the division to deepen into 2020.

    Only 20% of Americans said they think the country will become less divided over the next several years, and 39% believe conditions will continue to deteriorate. A substantial majority of Americans, 77%, said they are dissatisfied with the state of politics in the country, said AP-NORC. 

     

    The nationwide survey was conducted on October 11-14, using the AmeriSpeak Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Overall, 59% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president, while 40% of Americans approve. 

    More specifically, the poll said 83% of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the job, while 92% of Democrats and 61% of Independents strongly disagree. 

    More than half of Americans said they are not hearing nor seeing topics from midterm campaigns that are important to them. About 54% of Democrats and 44% of Republicans said vital issues, such as health care, education, and economic activity, Social Security and crime, were topics they wanted to hear more. 

    Looking at their communities, most American (Republicans and Democrats) are satisfied with their state or local community. However, on a national level, 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, compared to 25%, a small majority who are satisfied. 

    Most Americans are dissatisfied with the massive gap between rich and poor, race relations and environmental conditions. The poll noticed there are partisan splits, 84% of Democrats are disappointed with the amount of wealth inequality, compared with 43% of Republicans. On the environment, 77% of Democrats and 32% Republicans are dissatisfied. Moreover, while 77% Democrats said they are unhappy with race relations, about 50% of Republicans said the same. 

    The poll also showed how Democrats and Republicans view certain issues. About 80% of Democrats but less than 33% of Republicans call income inequality, environmental issues or racism very important. 

    AP-NORC Poll – Which issues are extremely or very important? 

    “Healthcare, education and economic growth are the top issues considered especially important by the public. While there are many issues that Republicans and Democrats give similar levels of importance to (trade foreign policy and immigration), there are several concerns where they are far apart. For example, 80% of Democrats say the environment and climate change is extremely or very important, and only 28% of Republicans agree. And while 68% consider the national debt to be extremely or very important, only 55% of Democrats regard it with the same level of significance,” said AP-NORC. 

    Although Democrats and Republicans are divided on most values, many Americans consider the country’s diverse population a benefit. 

    Half said America’s melting pot makes the country stronger, while less than 20% said it hurts the country. About 30% said diversity does not affect their outlook. 

    “However, differences emerge by party identification, gender, location, education, and race. Democrats are more likely to say having a population with various backgrounds makes the country stronger compared to Republicans or Independents. Urbanities and college-educated adults are more likely to say having a mix of ethnicities makes the country stronger, while people living in rural areas and less educated people tend to say diversity has no effect or makes the country weaker,” said AP-NORC. 

    Overall, 60% of Americans said accusations of sexual harassment with some high-profile men forced to resign or be fired was essential to them. However, 73% of women said the issue was critical, compared with 51% of men. The data showed that Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to call sexual misconduct significant. 

    More than 40% of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court after allegations of sexual harassment in his college years. 35% of Americans said they heartily approved of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. 

    The evidence above sheds light on the internal struggles of America. The country is divided, and this could be a significant problem just ahead. 

    Why is that? Well, America’s future was outlined in a book called “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous With Destiny.”

    In the book, which was written in the late 1990s, authors William Strauss and Niel Howe theorize that the history of civilization moves in 80-to-100 year cycles called “saecula.” 

    The idea behind this theory dates back to the Greeks, who believed that at given saeculum’s end, there would come “ekpyrosis,” or a cataclysmic event. 

    This era of change is known as the Fourth Turning, and it appears we are in the midst of one right now. 

    The last few Fourth Turnings that America experienced ushered in the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, and then the Great Depression and World War II. Before all of that, it was the Revolutionary War. 

    Each Fourth Turning had similar warning signs: periods of political chaos, division, social and economic decay in which the American people reverted from extreme division and were forced to reunite in the rebuild of a new future, but that only came after massive conflict. 

    Today’s divide among many Americans is strong. We are headed for a collision that will rip this country apart at the seams. The timing of the next Fourth Turning is now, and it could take at least another decade to complete the cycle. 

    After the Fourth Turning, America will not be the America you are accustomed to today. So, let us stop calling today the “greatest economy ever” and start preparing for turbulence. 

  • China Is Challenging The US In Central America, And Washington Can't Do Anything

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Central America late last week when he criticized China’s rising influence there by questioning the intentions behind its investment activity.

    This prompted the country’s media to angrily respond earlier this week and lambast the US for trying to “drive a wedge” into Sino-Latin American relations.

    Washington is worried that Central America is slipping out of its hegemonic control after tiny El Salvador broke ties with Taiwan in August and recognized Beijing as China’s legitimate government in exchange for economic support, which some observers feared could catalyze a chain reaction in this part of the world where the self-proclaimed country counts a handful of its dwindling supporters.

    From the US’ perspective, China’s rising economic influence is clearly having political consequences that might one day manifest themselves in these countries gradually turning away from Washington like a few of them have recently done with Taipei, which could lead to the US losing its unipolar control over the region that it condescendingly regards as its “backyard”. Even Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez hinted at what he called the “opportunity” that China’s growing diplomatic role in the region could provide despite he himself having remained in power up until now after winning a disputed election late last year that was controversially endorsed by the US.

    El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda (L) shakes hands with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on August 21, 2018

    Speaking of “opportunities”, a new one has suddenly materialized after Trump threatened to curtail the aid that his government was giving to the three “Northern Triangle” countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador as part of the so-called “Alliance for Prosperity” after they failed to stop thousands of their citizens from participating in the latest Caravan Crisis, which provides the perfect pretext for China to economically intervene in their support on the condition that the remaining two follow San Salvador’s lead and switch their recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

    This potential pivot could give China indirect control over the US’ border security by making it responsible for stability in those countries after replacing American aid there.

    It’s already recognized that many of these migrants are motivated to flee their homelands by powerful push factors such as systemic mismanagement, corruption, drugs, unemployment, and gang violence, which were what the US’ “Alliance for Prosperity” assistance was supposed to address, but it might be China that ends up doing so if Trump scales back these programs like he’s planning and Beijing steps in to replace it. Just as disturbing of a scenario for the US is if this has a knock-on effect that enhances Chinese influence in Mexico after its leftist president-elect AMLO takes office at the beginning of December, thereby representing an unprecedented challenge to the US’ political dominance in the entire Western Hemisphere.

    The Catch-22 that the US finds itself in is that its reactionary Hybrid War response could just make the Migrant Crisis even worse, so it’s unclear what America can or will do to retain its hegemony here.

  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Crypto Miner Offers Junk Loan With 12% Coupon

    Investors’  insatiable demand for yield has pushed issuance of the riskiest types of debt, i.e. “leveraged loans”, to record highs in 2018 (as risky loans cannibalize the market for junk bonds due in part to the bankers selling these loans claiming they can ‘magically eliminate all risk’, even as some companies hit leverage ratios as high as 15 times earnings, by packaging them into “diversified” CLOs and other structured debt products)…

    Loans

    …Debt investors are turning to ever-murkier areas of the debt market, despite warnings from former Fed Chair Yellen and others who have expressed concerns about the systemic risks posed by the $1.6 trillion in outstanding leveraged loans, where rising interest rates could trigger a spike in defaults.

    And in the latest indication of just how irrationally exuberant investors (and, more to the point, the bankers who are enabling them) have become, Bloomberg reports that bitcoin-focused companies are using some of their assets as collateral for junk syndicated loans that allow investors in risky debt to gain some exposure to the asset bubble du jour of yesteryear – aka cryptocurrencies, which have remained mired near their lows even as other alternative currencies (gold) have seen prices – and volatility – picking up. 

    Gold

    Gold

    Coinmint, which is in the process of converting a disused aluminum smelter near the US-Canada border formerly owned by Alcoa into the world’s largest digital-currency mining center, has decided to fuel its ambitious expansionary plans (even as crypto prices have sagged far below their highs from late 2017) with a $50 million loan over 5 years to purchase and install servers and miners at its sprawling mine. For the privilege of borrowing, the company, which has negligible revenues given that it’s key asset – the crpto mine – has yet to open for business, is willing to pay 12% a year in interest, according to BBG’s sources.

    CoinMint

    Coinmint’s smelter-turned-mine in Massena, NY.

    As BBG points out, the high rate and the opportunity to gain crypto exposure (which could pay off if bitcoin prices ever embark on another bull run) could entice lenders, despite the obvious risks.

    While the amount the company wishes to borrow is small by credit-market standards, the interest rate for the senior secured revolving-credit facility may entice lenders. Coinmint has proposed an interest rate of as much as 12 percent a year, a person familiar with the matter said, which is higher than the average yields on the lowest-rated U.S. junk bonds.

    The loan is a rare opportunity for credit investors to gain exposure to digital currencies, which remain largely isolated from traditional financial markets. In spite of the risks, it’s also a way to bet on the viability of crypto assets, which have had a torrid year, with some tokens plunging as much as 90 percent.

    “When you’re talking about lenders getting into a new space that they’re not as comfortable with, they will look at us as higher-risk, and use that as an excuse to charge higher rates,” said Prieur Leary, co-founder of Coinmint. He declined to comment on the specific terms of the loan.

    What’s more, Coinmint is hoping to invest $700 million in launching its mine, which means a return to the debt trough is likely, if not inevitable.

    Coinmint said earlier this year it would invest up to $700 million in revamping its Massena plot, which was an active smelter for Alcoa Corp. until 2014. The new loan facility will form part of this funding, Leary said.

    And unsurprisingly given that simply creating and selling digital tokens to raise money has suddenly gone out of vogue amid a crackdown by the SEC, Coinmint isn’t the only crypto firm looking for funding in traditional capital markets.

    Coinmint isn’t the only crypto company to seek to finance its growth in the credit market. Debt was also part of a recent round of finance for BCause LLC, a U.S. mining and trading company, according to founder Thomas Flake.

    But despite the risks, the bankers who put these deals together have every reason to celebrate: After a series of major booms and busts, and with crypto prices stuck in the toilet, at least they have found a way to profit off crypto in 2018.

  • Facebook Censorship Of Alternative Media "Just The Beginning," Warns Top Neocon Insider

    Authored by Max Blumenthal and Jeb Sprague via GrayZoneProject.com,

    At a Berlin security conference, hardline neocon Jamie Fly appeared to claim some credit for the recent coordinated purge of alternative media…

    This October, Facebook and Twitter deleted the accounts of hundreds of users, including many alternative media outlets maintained by American users. Among those wiped out in the coordinated purge were popular sites that scrutinized police brutality and U.S. interventionism, like The Free Thought Project, Anti-Media, and Cop Block, along with the pages of journalists like Rachel Blevins.

    Facebook claimed that these pages had “broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior.” However, sites like The Free Thought Project were verified by Facebook and widely recognized as legitimate sources of news and opinion. John Vibes, an independent reporter who contributed to Free Thought, accused Facebook of “favoring mainstream sources and silencing alternative voices.”

    In comments published here for the first time, a neoconservative Washington insider has apparently claimed a degree of credit for the recent purge — and promised more takedowns in the near future.

    “Russia, China, and other foreign states take advantage of our open political system,” remarked Jamie Fly, a senior fellow and director of the Asia program at the influential think tank the German Marshall Fund, which is funded by the U.S. government and NATO.

    “They can invent stories that get repeated and spread through different sites. So we are just starting to push back. Just this last week Facebook began starting to take down sites. So this is just the beginning.”

    Fly went on to complain that “all you need is an email” to set up a Facebook or Twitter account, lamenting the sites’ accessibility to members of the general public. He predicted a long struggle on a global scale to fix the situation, and pointed out that to do so would require constant vigilance.

    Fly made these stunning comments to Jeb Sprague, who is a visiting faculty member in sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara and co-author of this article. The two spoke during a lunch break at a conference on Asian security organized by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, Germany.

    In the tweet below, Fly is the third person from the left who appears seated at the table.

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

    The remarks by Fly — “we are just starting to push back” — seemed to confirm the worst fears of the alternative online media community. If he was to be believed, the latest purge was motivated by politics, not spam prevention, and was driven by powerful interests hostile to dissident views, particularly where American state violence is concerned.

    Jamie Fly, rise of a neocon cadre

    Jamie Fly is an influential foreign policy hardliner who has spent the last year lobbying for the censorship of “fringe views” on social media. Over the years, he has advocated for a military assault on Iran, a regime change war on Syria, and hiking military spending to unprecedented levels. He is the embodiment of a neoconservative cadre.

    Like so many second-generation neocons, Fly entered government by burrowing into mid-level positions in George W. Bush’s National Security Council and Department of Defense.

    In 2009, he was appointed director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a rebranded version of Bill Kristol’s Project for a New American Century, or PNAC. The latter outfit was an umbrella group of neoconservative activists that first made the case for an invasion of Iraq as part of a wider project of regime change in countries that resisted Washington’s sphere of influence.

    By 2011, Fly was advancing the next phase in PNAC’s blueprint by clamoring for military strikes on Iran. “More diplomacy is not an adequate response,” he argued. A year later, Fly urged the US to “expand its list of targets beyond the [Iranian] nuclear program to key command and control elements of the Republican Guard and the intelligence ministry, and facilities associated with other key government officials.”

    Fly soon found his way into the senate office of Marco Rubio, a neoconservative pet project, assuming a role as his top foreign policy advisor. Amongst other interventionist initiatives, Rubio has taken the lead in promoting harsh economic sanctions targeting Venezuela, even advocating for a U.S. military assault on the country. When Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign floundered amid a mass revolt of the Republican Party’s middle American base against the party establishment, Fly was forced to cast about for new opportunities.

    He found them in the paranoid atmosphere of Russiagate that formed soon after Donald Trump’s shock election victory.

    PropOrNot sparks the alternative media panic

    A journalistic insider’s account of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, Shattered, revealed that “in the days after the election, Hillary declined to take responsibility for her own loss.” Her top advisers were summoned the following day, according to the book, “to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up … Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

    Less than three weeks after Clinton’s defeat, the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg published a dubiously sourced report headlined, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news.’” The article hyped up a McCarthyite effort by a shadowy, anonymously run organization called PropOrNot to blacklist some 200 American media outlets as Russian “online propaganda.”

    The alternative media outfits on the PropOrNot blacklist included some of those recently purged by Facebook and Twitter, such as The Free Thought Project and Anti-Media. Among the criteria PropOrNot identified as signs of Russian propaganda were “Support for policies like Brexit, and the breakup of the EU and Eurozone” and “Opposition to Ukrainian resistance to Russia and Syrian resistance to Assad.” PropOrNot called for “formal investigations by the U.S. government” into the outlets it had blacklisted.

    According to Craig Timberg, the Washington Post correspondent who uncritically promoted the media suppression initiative, Propornot was established by “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Timberg quoted a figure associated with the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, Andrew Weisburd, and cited a report he wrote with his colleague, Clint Watts, on Russian meddling.

    Timberg’s piece on PropOrNot was promoted widely by former top Clinton staffers and celebrated by ex-Obama White House aide Dan Pfeiffer as “the biggest story in the world.” But after a wave of stinging criticism, including in the pages of the New Yorker, the article was amended with an editor’s note stating, “The [Washington] Post… does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet.”

    PropOrNot had been seemingly exposed as a McCarthyite sham, but the concept behind it — exposing online American media outlets as vehicles for Kremlin “active measures” — continued to flourish.

    The birth of the Russian bot tracker — with U.S. government money

    By August, a new, and seemingly related initiative appeared out of the blue, this time with backing from a bipartisan coalition of Democratic foreign policy hands and neocon Never Trumpers in Washington. Called the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), the outfit aimed to expose how supposed Russian Twitter bots were infecting American political discourse with divisive narratives. It featured a daily “Hamilton 68” online dashboard that highlighted the supposed bot activity with easily digestible charts. Conveniently, the site avoided naming any of the digital Kremlin influence accounts it claimed to be tracking.

    The initiative was immediately endorsed by John Podesta, the founder of the Democratic Party think tank the Center for American Progress, and former chief of staff of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Julia Ioffe, the Atlantic’s chief Russiagate correspondent, promoted the bot tracker as “a very cool tool.”

    Unlike PropOrNot, the ASD was sponsored by one of the most respected think tanks in Washington, the German Marshall Fund, which had been founded in 1972 to nurture the special relationship between the US and what was then West Germany.

    The German Marshall Fund is substantially funded by Western governments, and largely reflects their foreign-policy interests. Its top two financial sponsors, at more than $1 million per year each, are the U.S. government’s soft-power arm the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the German Foreign Office (known in German as the Auswärtiges Amt). The U.S. State Department also provides more than half a million dollars per year, as do the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the foreign affairs ministries of Sweden and Norway. It likewise receives at least a quarter of a million dollars per year from NATO.

    The US government and NATO are top donors to the German Marshall Fund

    Though the German Marshall Fund did not name the donors that specifically sponsored its Alliance for Securing Democracy initiative, it hosts a who’s who of bipartisan national-security hardliners on the ASD’s advisory council, providing the endeavor with the patina of credibility. They range from neocon movement icon Bill Kristol to former Clinton foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan and ex-CIA director Michael Morell.

    Jamie Fly, a German Marshall Fund fellow and Asia specialist, emerged as one of the most prolific promoters of the new Russian bot tracker in the media. Together with Laura Rosenberger, a former foreign policy aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Fly appeared in a series of interviews and co-authored several op-eds emphasizing the need for a massive social media crackdown.

    During a March 2018 interview on C-Span, Fly complained that “Russian accounts” were “trying to promote certain messages, amplify certain content, raise fringe views, pit Americans against each other, and we need to deal with this ongoing problem and find ways through the government, through tech companies, through broader society to tackle this issue.”

    Yet few of the sites on PropOrNot’s blacklist, and none of the alternative sites that were erased in the recent Facebook purge that Fly and his colleagues take apparent credit for, were Russian accounts. Perhaps the only infraction they could have been accused of was publishing views that Fly and his cohorts saw as “fringe.”

    What’s more, the ASD has been forced to admit that the mass of Twitter accounts it initially identified as “Russian bots” were not necessarily bots — and may not have been Russian either.

    “I’m not convinced on this bot thing”

    A November 2017 investigation by Max Blumenthal, a co-author of this article, found that the ASD’s Hamilton 68 dashboard was the creation of “a collection of cranks, counterterror retreads, online harassers and paranoiacs operating with support from some of the most prominent figures operating within the American national security apparatus.”

    These figures included the same George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security fellows — Andrew Weisburd and Clint Watts — that were cited as experts in the Washington Post’s article promoting PropOrNot.

    Weisburd, who has been described as one of the brains behind the Hamilton 68 dashboard, once maintained a one-man, anti-Palestinian web monitoring initiative that specialized in doxxing left-wing activists, Muslims and anyone he considered “anti-American.” More recently, he has taken to Twitter to spout off murderous and homophobic fantasies about Glenn Greenwald, the editor of the Intercept — a publication the ASD flagged without explanation as a vehicle for Russian influence operations.

    Watts, for his part, has testified before Congress on several occasions to call on the government to “quell information rebellions” with censorious measures including “nutritional labels” for online media. He has received fawning publicity from corporate media and been rewarded with a contributor role for NBC on the basis of his supposed expertise in ferreting out Russian disinformation.

    Clint Watts has urged Congress to “quell information rebellions”

    However, under questioning during a public event by Grayzone contributor Ilias Stathatos, Watts admitted that substantial parts of his testimony were false, and refused to provide evidence to support some of his most colorful claims about malicious Russian bot activity.

    In a separate interview with Buzzfeed, Watts appeared to completely disown the Hamilton 68 bot tracker as a legitimate tool. “I’m not convinced on this bot thing,” Watts confessed. He even called the narrative that he helped manufacture “overdone,” and admitted that the accounts Hamilton 68 tracked were not necessarily directed by Russian intelligence actors.

    “We don’t even think they’re all commanded in Russia — at all. We think some of them are legitimately passionate people that are just really into promoting Russia,” Watts conceded.

    But these stunning admissions did little to slow the momentum of the coming purge.

    Enter the Atlantic Council

    In his conversation with Sprague, the German Marshall Fund’s Fly stated that he was working with the Atlantic Council in the campaign to purge alternative media from social media platforms like Facebook.

    The Atlantic Council is another Washington-based think tank that serves as a gathering point for neoconservatives and liberal interventionists pushing military aggression around the globe. It is funded by NATO and repressive, US-allied governments including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Turkey, as well as by Ukrainian oligarchs like Victor Pynchuk.

    This May, Facebook announced a partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) to “identify, expose, and explain disinformation during elections around the world.”

    The Atlantic Council’s DFRLab is notorious for its zealous conflation of legitimate online dissent with illicit Russian activity, embracing the same tactics as PropOrNot and the ASD.

    Ben Nimmo, a DFRLab fellow who has built his reputation on flushing out online Kremlin influence networks, embarked on an embarrassing witch hunt this year that saw him misidentify several living, breathing individuals as Russian bots or Kremlin “influence accounts.” Nimmo’s victims included Mariam Susli, a well-known Syrian-Australian social media personality, the famed Ukrainian concert pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a British pensioner named Ian Shilling.

    In an interview with Sky News, Shilling delivered a memorable tirade against his accusers.

    “I have no Kremlin contacts whatsoever; I do not know any Russians, I have no contact with the Russian government or anything to do with them,” he exclaimed.

    “I am an ordinary British citizen who happens to do research on the current neocon wars which are going on in Syria at this very moment.”

    With the latest Facebook and Twitter purges, ordinary citizens like Shilling are being targeted in the open, and without apology. The mass deletions of alternative media accounts illustrate how national security hardliners from the German Marshall Fund and Atlantic Council (and whoever was behind PropOrNot) have instrumentalized the manufactured panic around Russian interference to generate public support for a wider campaign of media censorship.

    In his conversation in Berlin with Sprague, Fly noted with apparent approval that, “Trump is now pointing to Chinese interference in the 2018 election.” As the mantra of foreign interference expands to a new adversarial power, the clampdown on voices of dissent in online media is almost certain to intensify.

    As Fly promised, “This is just the beginning.”

  • Porn-Watching Federal Worker Infects Gov't Network With "Rogue Russian Malware" 

    The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released a new audit of a computer network at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Earth Resouces Observation and Science (EROS) Center satellite imaging facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

    OIG initiated an investigation into suspicious internet traffic discovered during a regular IT security audit of the USGS computer network. The review found that a single USGS employee infected the network due to the access of unauthorized internet web pages. 

    Those web pages were embedded with harmful malware, and then downloaded onto a government-issued laptop, which then “exploited the USGS’ network.” 

    A digital forensic team examined the infected laptop and found porn. After further review, it was determined the USGS employee visited 9,000 web pages of porn that were hosted mainly on Russian servers and contained toxic malware.  

    OIG found the employee saved much of the pornographic content on an unauthorized USB drive and personal smartphone, both of which were synced to the government computer and network. 

    “Our digital forensic examination revealed that [the employee] had an extensive history of visiting adult pornography websites” that hosted dangerous malware, the OIG wrote.

    “The malware was downloaded to [the employees’] government laptop, which then exploited the USGS’ network.” 

    The forensic team determined two vulnerabilities in the USGS’ IT security review: website access and open USB ports. They said the “malware is rogue software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems.” The ultimate objective of the malware was to steal highly classified government information while spreading the infection to other systems. 

    The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Rules of Behavior explicitly prohibit employees from using government networks to satisfy porn cravings, and the IOG found the employee had agreed to these rules “several years prior to the detection.” 

    The employee was discharged from the agency, OIG External Affairs Director Nancy DiPaolo told Nextgov. 

    However, this is not the first time government workers have been figuratively caught with their pants down. 

    Over the last two decades, similar incidents have occurred at the Environmental Protection Agency, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the IRS. 

    Last year, a D.C. news team uncovered “egregious on-the-job pornography viewing” at a dozen federal agencies and national security officials have reportedly found an “unbelievable” amount of child porn on government devices, said Nextgov. 

    It seems that porn watching on government devices is so widespread that Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., introduced legislation banning porn at federal agencies — three separate times. 

    Government workers have a porn addiction problem, and it is now jeopardizing national security. 

  • There Is A Strange, "Plume-Like" Cloud Hanging Over Mars

    Authored by Gavin Hanson via The Daily Caller,

    A “curious” plume-shaped cloud that appeared near Mars’s equator is growing and now casts a long trail from an alien volcano, Oct. 10 photographs from the European Space Agency (ESA) show.

    Photos from the ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter show a cloud extending from behind a massive Martian volcano named Arsia Mons.

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    While the cloud, which could be “visible even to telescopes on Earth,” is hanging over the volcano, it is not being ejected from it despite its proximity, according to a Thursday ESA press release.

    “In spite of its location, this atmospheric feature is not linked to volcanic activity but is rather a water ice cloud driven by the influence of the volcano’s leeward slope on the air flow — something that scientists call an orographic or lee cloud — and a regular phenomenon in this region,” the ESA’s statement said.

    Mars’s cold, thin atmosphere is seasonally obscured by ice clouds, but scientists believe the summer’s major dust storm might have spurred on the creation of this cloud.

    Abnormal levels of dust in the atmosphere and Arsia Mons’s gigantic, 12-mile high profile worked together to form the abnormal whisp, scientists say.

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    The massive dust storm knocked NASA’s Opportunity rover offline when it blotted out the sun and prevented the 15-year-old rover’s solar panels from recharging it, according to a NASA blog post. Scientists hoped once the storm cleared, skies would “clear enough for the solar-powered rover to recharge and attempt to ‘phone home.’”

  • Iran Unleashes Death Sentence To "Sultan Of Coins" For Rigging FX Markets

    While most market watchers have grown numb to the headlines about various western bankers and traders rigging markets (from Libor to precious metals to FX), who receive wrist-slaps and sternly-worded emails for their misdeeds; things are a little more serious in Iran…

    One day after US authorities acquitted a “cartel” of currency riggers, accused of manipulating FX markets against clients in a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year scam; Radio Free Europe reports that Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld death sentences given to two financial traders convicted of illegal currency trading and “disrupting the economy.”

    With Washington waging all-out financial warfare against Iran, forcing its currency to collapse…

    As RFERL.org reports, Iranian authorities on October 22 identified the two men as Vahid Mazloumin and Mohammad Esmail Ghasemi, whom local media dubbed the “Sultan of Coins” after he was arrested and found hoarding two tons of gold coins that he allegedly used to manipulate the Iranian currency.

    Many Iranians have stocked up on gold coins and other safe haven investments as the rial has plummeted this year to record lows against the U.S. dollar.

    While most Wall Street analysts attribute the currency’s fall mostly to the pressure from U.S. sanctions, which Washington started reimposing in August, the government has responded to the economic crisis by blaming local currency traders for the rial’s fall and setting up special courts to try them for alleged capital crimes.

    The two men sentenced to death first went on trial on September 8 over charges of “disrupting the economy” through the creation of a network trading in illegal currency and gold coins, Iranian media reported.

    Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said the swift conclusion of their cases before the Iranian Supreme Court serves as a “warning to opportunists” who aim to “disrupt the economy” during the time of the “enemy’s pressure” on Iran — in an apparent reference to the economic sanctions that the United States is reimposing since withdrawing from Iran’s nuclear agreement in April.

    Authorities are clearly making an example of the two currency traders who were sentenced to death were convicted of “spreading corruption on earth,” a term used for crimes punishable by death in the Islamic Republic.

    RFERL notes that a third person, Hamid Bagheri-Dermani, was also accused of corruption and sentenced to death in preliminary hearings. His case is still up for appeal before the Supreme Court.

    So, the lesson of the day is simple – if you want to manipulate markets for your own good, move to the land of the free (from consequences)… and ‘suck it up buttercup’ if you’re hard-earned fiat currency collapses into worthless paper.

  • Why Public Debt Is A Problem – And Trade Deficits Aren't

    Authored by Carmen Elena Dorobăț via The Mises Institute,

    As the U.S. trade deficit has been widening for the fourth month running, markets and business experts appear once again bewildered by the events and unsure how to react to them.

    On the one hand, they had vehemently opposed the increase in trade tariffs and the trade war that has made headlines this year.

    But on the other hand, they now find that U.S. trade deficit reaching its largest level on record – the precise deficit tariffs purported to narrow – is very worrying.

    Furthermore, as they scramble to adjust their costs and production plans to the increasing uncertainty of world trade relations – including here not only U.S.’s trade disputes with China, but also UK’s planned exit from the EU and the fraught relationships at the WTO – global companies are also paying less attention to the Fed’s and other central banks’ monetary policies.

    It is not hard to see why they are confused. Political turmoil is bound to make navigation of global markets much more difficult, and smooth planning almost impossible. At the same time, the fallacy that trade deficits are detrimental to a nation in and of themselves is very deeply rooted in public opinion. By comparison, government deficits and easy monetary policies — the real culprit behind eroding wealth and falling purchasing power — get a lot less bad press than they deserve.

    It is thus worth reminding ourselves that trade deficits themselves are not at all problematic. As Mises (2009, 448) explained:

    While an individual’s balance of payments conveys exhaustive information about his social position, a group’s balance discloses much less. It says nothing about the mutual relations between the members of the group. The greater the group is and the less homogeneous its members are, the more defective is the information vouchsafed by the balance of payments.

    If one wants to describe a country’s social and economic condition, one does not need to deal with every single inhabitant’s personal balance of payments. But one must not form other groups than such as are composed of members who are by and large homogeneous in their social standing and their economic activities.

    The problem lies with government spending and monetary inflation, precisely those activities that global businesses have been taught either to ignore or, worse, to embrace and lobby for. Privately contracted debts, such as those part of a trade deficit, are privately paid. Publicly contracted debts, however, such as those recorded in government debts and budget deficits, and financed with credit expansion, are paid by the taxpayers. The same Mises (2009, 227-8):

    But if the government invests funds unsuccessfully and no surplus results, or if it spends the money for current expenditure, the capital borrowed shrinks or disappear entirely, and no source is opened from which interest and principal could be paid. Then taxing the people is the only method available for complying with the articles of the credit contract. In asking taxes for such payments the government makes the citizens answerable for money squandered in the past. The taxes paid are not compensated by any present service rendered by the government’s apparatus. The government pays interest on capital which has been consumed and no longer exists.

    Here’s also a short excerpt from Murray Rothbard, explaining in less than two minutes and in characteristic style, why trade deficits are innocuous compared to public debt:

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Oct 27

Today’s News 27th October 2018

  • Escobar: Who Profits From The End Of The Mid-Range Nuclear Treaty?

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    The US move to shelve the Intermediate-range Nuclear-Forces treaty could accelerate the demise of the whole post-WWII Western alliance, and herald a bad remix of the 1930s…

    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its Doomsday Clock to only 2 minutes to midnight. It might be tempting to turn this into a mere squabble about arrows and olives if this wasn’t such a terrifying scenario.

    US president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary-general of the USSR, signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1987.

    The Arms Control Association was extremely pleased.

    “The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification.”

    Three decades later, the Trump administration wants to unilaterally pull out of the INF Treaty.

    Earlier this week President Trump sent his national security adviser John Bolton to officially break the news to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

    As they were discussing extremely serious issues such as implications of a dissolving INF Treaty, the perpetuation of anti-Russia sanctions, the risk of not extending a new START Treaty and the deployment, in Putin’s words, of “some elements of the missile shield in outer space”, the Russian President got into, well, arrows and olives:

    “As I recall, there is a bald eagle pictured on the US coat of arms: it holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other as a symbol of peaceful policy: a branch with 13 olives. My question: has your eagle already eaten all the olives leaving only the arrows?”

    Bolton’s response: “I didn’t bring any olives.”

    Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, left, shakes hands with US National Security Adviser John Bolton before their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on 23 Oct 2018. Photo: Russian Foreign Press Office / Anadolu Agency / AFP

    A ‘new strategic reality’?

    By now it’s clear the Trump administration’s rationale for pulling out of the INF Treaty is due, in Bolton’s words, to “a new strategic reality”. The INF is being dismissed as a “bilateral treaty in a multipolar ballistic missile world”, which does not take into consideration the missile capabilities of China, Iran and North Korea.

    But there is a slight problem. The INF Treaty limits missiles with a range from 500 km to 5,000 km. China, Iran and North Korea simply cannot pose a “threat” to the United States by deploying such missiles. The INF is all about the European theater of war.

    So, it’s no wonder the reaction in Brussels and major European capitals has been of barely disguised horror.

    EU diplomats have told Asia Times the US decision was a “shock”, and “the last straw for the EU as it jeopardizes our very existence, subjecting us to nuclear destruction by short-range missiles”, which would never be able to reach the US heartland.

    The “China” reason – that Russia is selling Beijing advanced missile technology – simply does not cut it in Europe, as the absolute priority is European security. EU diplomats are establishing a parallel to the possibility – which was more than real last year – that Washington could nuclear-bomb North Korea unilaterally. South Korea and Japan, in that case, would be nuclear “collateral damage”. The same might happen to Europe in the event of a US-Russia nuclear shoot-out.

    It goes without saying that shelving the INF could even accelerate the demise of the whole post-WWII Western alliance, heralding a remix of the 1930s with a vengeance.

    And the clock keeps ticking

    Reports that should be critically examined in detail assert that US superiority over China’s military power is rapidly shrinking. Yet China is not much of a military technology powerhouse compared to Russia and its state of the art hypersonic missiles.

    NATO may be relatively strong on the missile front – but it still wouldn’t be able to compete with Russia in a potential battle in Europe.

    The supreme danger, in Doomsday Clock terms, is the obsession by certain US neocon factions that Washington could prevail in a “limited”, localized, tactical nuclear war against Russia.

    That’s the whole rationale behind extending US first-strike capability as close as possible to the Russian western borderlands.

    Russian analysts stress that Moscow is already – “unofficially” – perfecting what would be their own first-strike capability in these borderlands. The mere hint of NATO attempting to start a countdown in Poland, the Baltics or the Black Sea may be enough to encourage Russia to strike.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov starkly refuted Trump and Bolton’s claims that Russia was violating the INF Treaty: “As far as we understood, the US side has made a decision, and it will launch formal procedures for withdrawing from this treaty in the near future.”

    As for Russia’s resolve, everything one needs to know is part of Putin’s detailed intervention at the Valdai Economic Forum. Essentially, Putin did not offer any breaking news – but a stark reminder that Moscow will strike back at any provocation configured as a threat to the future of Russia.

    Russians, in this case, would “die like martyrs” and the response to an attack would be so swift and brutal that the attackers would “die like dogs”.

    The harsh language may not be exactly diplomatic. What it does is reflect plenty of exasperation towards the US conservatives who peddle the absurd notion of a “limited” nuclear war.

    The harsh language also reflects a certainty that whatever the degree of escalation envisaged by the Trump administration and the Pentagon, that won’t be enough to neutralize Russian hypersonic missiles.

    So, it’s no wonder that EU diplomats, trying to ease their discomfort, recognize that this, in the end, is all about the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine and the necessity of keeping the massive US military-industrial-surveillance complex running.

    Even as the clock keeps ticking closer to midnight.

  • Visualizing A Century Of New York City's Evolving Skyline

    Over New York City’s storied history, the skyline has evolved constantly.

    Smoke stacks and cathedral spires were gradually eclipsed by the stately office towers of “Newspaper Row”, and, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley writes, iconic skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building soon shared the skyline with monolithic towers in the international style.

    Today’s infographic comes to us from Liberty Cruise NYC and it charts this evolution over the last century, while highlighting just how dramatically the cityscape is set to change by 2020.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    THE EARLY HISTORY OF SKYSCRAPERS

    For decades, the ornate spire of Trinity Church towered over Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t until the late-1800s when technology and economic might converged to produce the first modern towers.

    The city’s first cluster of tall buildings appeared around City Hall, as newspapers competed to see who could build the most grand headquarters. One of the more ambitious projects in this wave of development was the New York World Building (1890), which held the title as the tallest skyscraper in the world.

    In 1908, the ante was upped further after the completion of the 47-storey headquarters of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and the 50-storey Metropolitan Life Tower. NYC was slower than its rival, Chicago, in adopting skeleton-frame construction techniques, but once that door was open, height records were eclipsed every few years.

    FROM ’20S TO ZERO

    The roaring ’20s ushered in a new age of skyscrapers in New York City that only picked up steam heading into the 1930s. Not only was the economy booming, but the United States had recently became one of the first countries in the world to have a majority-urban population. Manhattan was a magnet for growth, and its extreme population density left only one direction to grow: skyward.

    A number of iconic landmarks were constructed in this era, including the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.

    Source

    As the chart above clearly illustrates, the onset of the Great Depression had a pronounced cooling effect on construction in New York City. For more than a decade, no new 150m+ towers were added to the city’s skyline.

    NEW YORK TODAY

    The world has changed a lot since the ribbon was cut in front of the Empire State Building. Flagship skyscrapers have grown taller than we ever could’ve imagined, and relentless development has completely transformed places like Dubai and Shenzhen. Even so, New York City is still home to more 100m+ buildings than any other city on Earth.

    It’s also worth mentioning that New York City found itself back in the top 10 tallest buildings list after the completion of One World Trade Center in 2014.

    WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

    New York City’s skyline is packed with recognizable towers, but for a long time, few new projects challenged the vertical supremacy of buildings like MetLife or Empire State. Today – thanks to engineering innovations and acquisition of “air rights” on neighboring plots – the skyline is undergoing a dramatic transformation.

    Powered by a healthy ultra-high-end real estate market, slender skyscrapers are rising above the skyline.

    Source

    This style of building uses a small land footprint so effectively, that projects are springing up around the city. According to Skyscraper Center, there are 86 skyscrapers under construction or planned, with 10 projects set to surpass the height of the Chrysler Building.

    While this level of construction is dwarfed by activity in fast-growing metropolises in China, this new generation of high-visibility towers is a sign that the Big Apple is still a strong draw for the world’s ultra-wealthy.

  • The Establishment Must Undermine Alternative Economists As Crisis Unfolds

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    There is a notion within the mainstream media that certain economic indicators are unassailable; they never stop being reliable. The way they look at and report on the system is rather outdated and extremely limited in scope; showcasing and cherry picking only net-positive statistics, even if those stats don’t represent reality. The result is a kind of holographic view of the financial structure; a mirage of a healthy and vibrant foundation that simply does not exist.

    This fraudulent view appeals to the masses for a time because it provides fuel for false hopes. In economics, an analyst must always account for two major factors: the hard math and human psychology. These factors tend to conflict during times when a financial bubble is present, and they tend to converge when such bubbles implode. One must never underestimate the power of public psychology, though. Even when the math is screaming that danger is present in the system, a naive and misinformed populace (coupled with central bank manipulation) can keep a dead economy in a state of profane reanimation for much longer than seems logically possible.

    This magic show only lasts for so long, however, and eventually the truth strikes those with blind faith in the machine brutally and without mercy.

    On the financial side of the great farce, most of the “positive” signs we see are purely debt driven. Cheap debt and credit liquidity has kept zombie banks alive for years beyond their expiration date, but it has also trickled down into main street, where we see extensive commercial retail development and a spike in employment opportunities. Of course, the box stores and construction are being undertaken by developers deep in the red, and most of the debt will not be paid off for years, if at all.

    The rise in job creation extends from the retail bubble, where low wage service jobs are available in abundance, yet higher wage jobs that support families are dwindling. This explains why companies looking to fill vacant employee positions are having such a hard time. Over 95 million working-age people are unemployed in the U.S. but are not counted as unemployed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Millions of people who find it more profitable to stay home and collect welfare benefits than slave away in a McDonald’s or a Walmart.

    The stock market itself is essentially another debt bubble, driven by corporate stock buybacks that have been funded for years by overnight loans from the Federal Reserve as well as near zero interest rates. As interest rates rise even moderately, the debt becomes unserviceable, and thus, the bull market begins to fizzle and stocks begin to plunge.

    As I have covered often over the years, that which we see in the mainstream version of economic events is rarely, if ever, supported by concrete evidence. The establishment media acts not as an information source, but as a tool for encouraging public ignorance which can then be exploited to feed the broken economy for just a little while longer. I suspect some of these gatekeepers even pride themselves as “liars with a noble purpose;” the purpose being to mold perception of the system and thereby extend the life of the system. They see themselves as guardians — I see them as saboteurs.

    While many in the public do not make it their ambition to become experts on the mechanics of the economy, people still tend to sense instinctively when something is broken within the fiscal environment. They may not know why there is a problem, but absurd optimism can only levitate them above the muck for so long.

    Recent events are beginning to reveal the extent of the fantasy. These are issues that alternative analysts have been warning about for the better part of the past decade, but only now in the past year is this information being taken seriously.

    I have seen a propaganda meme flooding onto discussion boards recently in reference to alternative economists, and it goes a little something like this:

    “Alternative economists are doom and gloomers that have been wrong for 10 years, but a broken clock is still right twice a day…”

    I find this disinfo argument somewhat hilarious because of the extraordinary level of dishonesty inherent in it, but I also find it revealing in a way.

    First, let’s be clear, if alternative economists had only been stating in some broad and unspecific way that “someday” there would be a disaster caused by an undefined “something”, then there might be basis for the argument above.   This is not the case.  In fact, many of us have been very specific in our predictions, in terms of how the ongoing economic downturn would develop and what catalysts would trigger the next phase of the crash.

    For my part, I outlined in 2015 that the Federal Reserve would undertake a policy of interest rates hikes and fiscal tightening, and that they would pursue this action until markets, long supported by cheap debt, finally broke under the pressure.  Months before Trump’s election I stated that Donald Trump would in fact be president and that the Fed would accelerate tightening during his administration.  At the beginning of this year I predicted that Fed tightening would result in massive stock market reversal (worse than the 2008 crash) in 2018.   In September I refined the timing of this crash to begin in the final quarter of 2018.

    These are not vaporous or inconclusive statements, these are very direct predictions.  And, other economists in the liberty movement have similar analysis.

    The fact is, alternative economists have been RIGHT for the past 10 years and have been far ahead of the mainstream in terms of predicting fiscal trends based on real data. As I have always said, economic collapse is a process, not an event. It’s something that happens in stages or phases over time, not something that occurs overnight or in the span of a few days. People who think that a national or global disaster is a sudden and inexplicable affair watch far too much television. They also don’t understand that the historic moments of “crisis” we read about in books are the culmination of years of decline.

    Most, if not all, crashes are preceded by YEARS of warning signs that should have been heeded at the time but were mostly ignored.

    Throughout the 1920s, Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises predicted the collapse of the German Mark as well as the stock market crash of 1929. In 1931, after the initial crash, he also predicted that central bank interventions through interest rate increases and other measures would prolong the disaster rather than end it. Mises saw the danger well in advance, but he was ignored until it was too late. His writings from this time period can be studied in a published collection titled ‘The Causes Of Economic Crisis‘.

    Was Mises a “broken clock” that just happened to be right after years of incorrect predictions? Looking back on the complexity of the events of that era and how Mises was able to correctly outline how they would play out years ahead of time, this argument is clearly nonsense.

    Before the credit crash of 2008, there were multiple alternative economists warning about the dangers of the derivatives bubble and the coinciding mortgage debt bubble. Some of them many years before the negative effects became visible in stock markets. All of them were laughed at or ignored right up until the crash, and even after it became obvious that these analysts were correct in their predictions, the mainstream still tried to snub them.

    As is often the case, mainstream gatekeepers in economics promote false data as a means to “mold” public perception, thus aiding central banks and governments in inflating financial bubbles and perpetuating destructive fiscal practices. But once the fantasy comes tumbling down, they still seek to remain relevant.

    They deflect blame by claiming “they had always seen the crisis coming”, or that “no one saw it coming”.

    They often claim they were there, “on the front lines,” fighting to educate the masses. And sometimes this is true — the mainstream does tend to shift its rhetoric mere weeks or months before the crash happens. They were never on the front lines. They didn’t see the train wreck coming. They are Johnny-come-lately coattail riding weasels that are seeking to protect their legacies rather than protect the populace from harm.

    These people downplay the work of far better men and women in the alternative field as a means to elevate themselves and their fragile reputations.

    I believe the “broken clock” narrative is a coordinated disinformation campaign; an attack on analysts who, like Ludwig von Mises, have been accurately predicting the process of collapse for years. It is designed to inoculate the public to the alternative media just before they are about to be proven correct beyond a doubt. In other words, someone knows that the ongoing collapse is becoming more obvious to the public and that, by extension, alternative economists are about to gain more attention.

    We can’t have that, now, can we?

    If alternative economist predictions receive the attention they deserve, the risk for the establishment is that some of our solutions might be taken seriously as well. Solutions like the concept of decentralization and localization of production, a gold backed currency system, the imprisonment of the banking elites that caused the crash in the first place, etc.

    When all is said and done, mainstream gatekeepers hope that the alternative media and our work will be forgotten as “doomsday ramblings;” that one time we got lucky, but that we should be dismissed otherwise. The people who work diligently in the alternative field are meant to be discouraged — to give up. We are supposed to feel like modern day Cassandras, cursed prophets that offer correct predictions of the future that no one listens to. We are supposed to throw our hands up in the air and quit.

    I don’t see this 4th Gen warfare tactic as being very successful though. The establishment banks and the economists that pander to them have burned up all their goodwill and social capital. They have been wrong so much and so often that the public is looking elsewhere for their information. This has led to the explosion of interest in alternative economic analysis that is occurring today.

    The broken clock lie tells me two things:

    One, it tells me that the system is about to fail to the point that it can no longer be covered up or denied.

    Two, it tells me that the establishment is worried about the amount of influence the alternative media will have as the crisis unfolds.

    For the past 10 years we have been correct in our analysis, and the danger for the elites is that the wider public might find out.

    *  *  *

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  • As 'Caravan' Crosses Mexico, Trump's 'Temporary' Tent City For Migrant Kids Balloons In Size

    A new report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shows President Trump’s temporary tent city for unaccompanied alien children (UAC) at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Tornillo, Texas Land Port of Entry (LPOE) has dramatically expanded its capabilities over the last several months. 

    Tornillo’s tent city was designed to temporarily house 450 children under the supervision of HHS in June, when Trump’s zero-tolerance policy separated over 2,500 migrant children from their parents. 

    Now, the temporary shelter has 3,800 beds for UACs between ages 13 and 17, 1,400 of those beds are on special reverse status. 

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and HHS said the expansion of the facility was imperative due to the influx of immigrant children arriving at the Mexico-US border without family members. 

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    The official in charge of Tornillo’s facility told NBC on Friday, “there is no question whatsoever,” that the rise in migrant children being detained by the CBP is due to the “extra precautions” the Trump admin is now preparing to match children with family members, including their biological parents, if possible. 

    The official said that as of Oct. 12th, 826 out of the 1,500 children in Tornillo were awaiting background checks before they could be transferred to family members or homes within the US. 

    Children at Tornillo stay an average of 59 days, up from roughly 30 days under the Obama administration, according to HHS. 

    Federal officials have been strict with journalists on tours of the facility; there are no cameras, recorders, and or cell phones allowed inside. 

    The official notes that children have access to legal services, medical care, outside activities, cable television, and religious services. 

    DHS and HHS released new footage last week showing a rare glimpse inside the Tornillo facility: 

    Here are journalists on the outer perimeter of the facility:  

    NBC KTSM  spoke with a 16-year-old female from within the facility on a recent tour; she said she spent several months in a shelter in Miami and has been in Tornillo for about a month. 

    She is praying that she will be released to family members in Texas. 

    The girl said her parents live in Guatemala, and she made the decision to travel to America for a better life and education. NBC KTSM said there was sadness in her eyes when asked if she would return to her native country. 

    ACLU lawyers have argued against separating families at the Mexico-US border and sending migrant children into government-run camps. 

    Child welfare groups warn that the facility is not open to state inspection because it resides on federal land. The Tornillo official said the facility exceeds state standards when it comes to ratios for childcare, medical and mental health workers. 

    Trump’s migrant camp for kids is expanding in size but seems to be absent from news flow, until now. With the US midterm elections drawing closer, and thousands of migrants ‘caravanning’ across Mexico on route for the US border, the mainstream media could turn the Tornillo tent city into the next news cycle’s “crisis” as bomb-the-Democrats-gate fades from the headlines.

  • Here Comes The Housing Bust "Reverse Wealth Effect" – Australia Edition

    Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

    For the past few years, homeowners just about everywhere have been able to finesse life’s problems by thinking “at least my house is going up.” This home equity accretion allowed them to buy stuff on credit, safe in the knowledge that even as they maxed out yet another credit card their net worth continued to rise. They felt smart and confident, in other words, and so continued to behave in ways that the modern world defines as normal and natural.

    But now that’s ending. Home prices have stopped rising in many places and in a few canaries in the financial coal mine have begun to plunge. Here’s what “plunge” means for Australians:

    House prices ‘falling by over $1,000 a week’ in Sydney and Melbourne, Deloitte says

    The boom time is over and we’re now officially experiencing the “house price fall we had to have”, according to Deloitte Access Economics’s latest business outlook.

    It has found what many had been predicting: prices are dipping as interest rates are rising, with our biggest cities feeling the winds of change most keenly.

    “Our house prices here in Australia had streaked past anything sensible by way of valuation,” said Deloitte partner Chris Richardson.

    “Now, finally gravity has caught up with that stupidity and prices are falling.

    “In Sydney and Melbourne, housing prices are falling by over $1,000 a week.”

    Prices had surged across the country over the past five years as historically low interest rates have driven Australians to load up on debt, while investors had also cashed in.

    Not if, but by how much

    Housing forecasts have gone from disagreement over whether home prices will fall to debates about how much they’ll decline.

    “There are more falls to come, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, because the prices there got silliest and you’re seeing a range of pressures on it.”

    Mr Richardson names three particular factors putting downward pressure on prices.

    1. Banks are raising interest rates: “Even though the Reserve Bank has done nothing.”

    2. Banks have become cautious: “You’ve seen the banks being more careful with the loans they’re giving. Those loans are slower and smaller than they used to be.”

    3. Less money from overseas: “Foreign buyers are a bit more cautious.”

    The Deloitte report reflects recent data from Thomson Reuters, which shows changes in the rate of residential property price growth, year-on-year.

    A falling line in this chart doesn’t necessarily mean prices are dropping — simply the rate of growth is slowing — but if it drops below zero then prices are technically falling.

    The above chart shows that the UK — which had an epic housing boom along with, not coincidentally, one of the world’s most extreme consumer credit bubbles — now has falling home prices. Australia just tipped into negative territory with Canada right on the cusp.

    In each country, a reverse wealth effect is kicking in. Homeowners are seeing their home equity – aka their net worth – stop growing and in some cases drop by shocking amounts. In Australia it’s $1,000 a week, which is enough to darken the mood of pretty much anyone not in the 1%. A consumer with a dark mood is an unenthusiastic shopper because new debt accelerates the decline in net worth.

    As home prices fall, so therefore does “discretionary” spending. Australians will continue to eat and to air condition their bedrooms, but they’ll cut way back on vacations, new cars, etc. And the debt-based part of the economy will suffer. This will cause stock prices to fall, knocking another leg out from under the average citizen’s net worth and making them even less likely to splurge. And so on.

    Credit-bubble capitalism depends on mood, which makes it fragile. That fragility is about to be on full display pretty much everywhere.

  • AI-Generated Portrait Sells For $432,500 At Auction, Blowing Away All Estimates

    A portrait created by an artificial intelligence brought in $432,500 at Christie’s in New York on Thursday in what was the first piece of computer-generated artwork for sale by a major auction house. 

    It’s signed by the artist: min G max D Ex[log(D(x))] + Ez[log(1-D(G(z)))], which was created by Paris-based collective, Obvious Art, using an algorithm known as a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). 

    The print on canvas, titled “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy,” depicts a blurry and unfinished image of a man. Displayed in a gilded wooden frame, it was estimated to fetch $7,000 to $10,000 and offered as the final lot at Christie’s auction of prints and multiples. –Bloomberg

    “We fed the system with a data set of 15,000 portraits painted between the 14th century to the 20th,” said collective member Hugo Caselles-Dupre. 

    A bidding war erupted over Edmond, with five prospective buyers going back and forth for around seven minutes. Finally, an anonymous phone buyer prevailed according to Christie’s spokeswoman Jennifer Cuminale. 

    “It is an exciting moment and our hope is that the spotlight on this sale will bring forward the amazing work that our predecessors and colleagues have been producing,” reads a statement from the collective. “We are grateful to Christie’s for opening up this dialogue in the art community and honored to have been a part of this global conversation about the impact of this new technology in the creation of art.”

    You can read about Obvious Art’s AI work here. 

  • Paul Craig Roberts On The Triumph Of Evil

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    The murder of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey is unprecedented in its audacity. The response from Washington and the Canadian government is to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia, weapons that are being used by the Saudis in their destruction of the Yemeni population. The Russian response, if the report I saw was not fake news, is to sell the Saudis the S-400 air defense system. 

    What we can conclude from this is that armament profits take precedence over murder and genocide.

    Genocide is what is going on in Yemen. I heard a report today on NPR that Yemeni are dying from starvation and from a cholera epidemic that has resulted from the Saudi destruction of the infrastructure in Yemen. The aid worker giving the report was obviously sincere and upset, but had difficulty connecting the high death rate to the Washington-sponsored war, blaming instead a 20% devaluation of the Yemen currency that raised food prices out of the reach of most Yemeni. She said that the solution to the crisis was to stabilize the currency!

    It is difficult to understand why in the Western media and among Western politicians there is so much demonization of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and Russia. It is not these demonized countries that are murdering people in their embassies, conducting wars of aggression (war crimes under the Nuremburg Standard), and embargoing food and medical supplies to the populations that are being bombed. These crimes are being done by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States and its NATO vassals.

    Obviously, the Yemeni, like the Palestinians, don’t count. Their slaughter doesn’t cause a moral ripple in the West.

    Putin might be giving Washington tit for tat by horning in on Washington’s armaments customers, but the decision to sell the Saudis the S-400 is a strategic blunder. Saudi Arabia is a sponsor of the war against Syria, in whose defense Russian lives and treasure have been spent. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is an enemy of Iran. Iran is an ally of Russia in the defense of Syria, and a country whose stability is essential to Russia’s stability. Perhaps even more important, the minute the Saudis get their hands on the S-400 they will hand it over to Washington, and experts will figure out how to defeat it, thus negating Russia’s investment in the weapon and its advantage. The decision to sell the S-400 to the Saudis convinces Washington that Putin and his government are clueless, babes in the woods to be easily run over.

    In my opinion, the worst aspect of the S-400 sale is that it erases the moral edge that Putin has gained for Russia over the murderous and ever-threatening West. Now we have Russia putting profits above the Russian government’s professed respect for the rule of law and moral behavior.

    An even more immoral and irresponsible development is President Trump’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty. The only reason for Trump’s Zionist Neoconservative National Security Advisor to orchestrate this withdrawal is to threaten Russia. Intermediate range missiles cannot reach the US. Russian ones could reach Europe, and US ones placed in Europe on Russia’s border can comprise a first-strike nuclear attack on Russia that has no warning and is indefensible.

    President Putin has complained for years, and warned of the consequences, of Washington establishing ABM missile sites in Poland and Romania under cover that their purpose is to protect Europe from Iranian missile attack. Putin has pointed out repeatedly that these missile sites can easily, without anyone knowing, be converted into a nuclear cruise missile attack posture against Russia. Yet, the crazed US National Security Advisor claims, illogically, that it is the Russians, who have nothing to gain from violating the treaty, who are cheating.

    Europe has no capability whatsoever of being a military threat to Russia except as launching posts for Washington. If it were not for Washington’s aggression toward Russia, Europe would face no Russian threat.

    The reason President Reagan negotiated the INF Treaty with Gorbachev was to reduce the Soviet perception of the US as a threat. Reagan wanted the end of the Cold War and nuclear disarmament. Reagan hated nuclear weapons. By Reagan’s time in office, no one with any intelligence any longer believed that the Red Army intended to overrun Europe. The problem was different. The problem was to get rid of nuclear weapons that are capable, if used, of winning no war but of destroying life on planet Earth. Reagan understood this completely.

    Unfortunately, this understanding has been lost in Washington.

    If the INF Treaty is abandoned, it is impossible for Russia to tolerate any missile bases near its borders as these bases could be first-strike nuclear weapons against which Russia has no defense. The European countries sufficiently stupid to host these bases will be on a hair-trigger with the Russian military. Just one false signal, and nuclear war begins.

    Trump’s intention to normalize relations with Russia has been defeated by CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, the Democratic Party, the US liberal/progressive/left, and the presstitute media—CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Fox News, BBC, Washington Post, etc.

    We will all die, because the American Establishment lied through its teeth nonstop.

    We can conclude from the acceptance of Saudi crimes and Western indifference to Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty that morality takes a back seat to material interest. We can also conclude that evil has achieved dominance over good, with the consequences that avarice and lawlessness will escalate their destruction of truth, peoples, and life on earth.

  • Bay Area Expats Are Driving Up Home Prices From Boise To Reno

    In the not-too-distant future, it’s not improbable that low-wage laborers in San Francisco will be replaced by ubiquitous machines (the city is already home to the first restaurant run by a robot). And not just fast food workers, either – the jobs of teachers, fire fighters and law enforcement will all be assumed by robots, as NorCal’s prohibitively high cost of living and astronomical home prices spark a mass exodus of families earning less than $250,000 a year.

    Cali

    While this scenario might seem like an exaggeration (and it very well might be), we’ve paid close attention to the flight of Californians who are abandoning the Bay Area for all of the reasons mentioned above, as well as what Peter Thiel (himself a Bay Area emigre) once described as a political “monoculture” that has made California inhospitable for conservatives. And as if circumstances weren’t already dire enough for would-be homeowners (even miles away from San Francisco, relatively modest homes still sell for upwards of $2 million), a report published earlier this year by realtor.com illustrated how a lapse in new home construction has led to a serious imbalance between home supply and the increasing demand of the state’s ever-growing population, leading to a cavernous supply gap.

    Cal

    With this in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that Californians comprise a majority of the residents moving into other states in the American West – even states like Idaho where the culture is very different from the liberal Bay Area. This week, Bloomberg published a story about how Californians constitute an increasing share of out-of-state homebuyers in small cities like Boise, Phoenix and Reno, which are significantly more affordable than California, and offer some semblance of the walkable urban environment that nesting millennials crave.

    Map

    As Californians sell their homes in the Bay Area in search of roomier, cheaper locales, they’re bringing the curse of surging property prices with them. In fact, the influx of Californians is the primary factor leading to some of the largest yoy price increases in the country, as Bloomberg explains:

    About 29 percent of the Idaho capital’s home-listing views are from Californians, according to Realtor.com. Reno and Prescott, Ariz., also were popular. These housing markets are soaring while much of the rest of the country cools. In Nevada, where Californians make up the largest share of arrivals, prices jumped 13 percent in August, the biggest increase for any state, according to CoreLogic Inc. data. It was followed closely by Idaho, with a 12 percent gain.

    Even in places like deep-red Idaho, these transplants are beginning to remake the terrain in their own image, as food co-ops and Women’s Marches starting to populate the landscape. Businesses are rushing to Boise to meet every desire of the newly arrived Cali transplants.

    D’Agostino, the Bay Area transplant, isn’t ashamed of her progressive views and is finding her place: at the natural foods co-op downtown, the Boise’s Women’s March last year, and with the volunteer group she founded to collect unused food for the needy. But it was also good to get out of her comfort zone, she says. “I can’t remember a time when it’s ever been this divided, so the fact that I can have some interaction with people who might not have exactly the same beliefs as me, that’s fine,” she says. “As long as we can respect each other.”

    It’s not new for politics to factor into moving decisions—it’s just that in the age of Trump, tensions get magnified. “What’s different now is how far apart the parties are ideologically,” says Matt Lassiter, a professor of history at the University of Michigan.

    Politics aside, businesses are rushing into Boise to fill every West Coast craving. In nearby Eagle, the new Renovare gated community is selling 1,900- to 4,000-square-foot homes with floor-to-ceiling glass and “wine walls” that start at $650,000—a bargain by California standards, says sales agent Nik Buich. About half of buyers are from out of state, he says.

    One couple even opened a “boutique taqueria” and another transplant is preparing to start a blog about his experience moving to Idaho.

    Julie and John Cuevas left Southern California a year ago to open Madre, a “boutique taqueria” in Boise that would make many of their fellow transplants feel at home. It’s more fusion than typical Mexican fare, with taco fillings including kimchi short rib and the popular “Idaho spud & chorizo.” It would have cost them three times as much to open a restaurant in California, says John, a former chef at a Beverly Hills hotel.

    John Del Rio, a real estate agent sporting a beard, baseball cap, and sunglasses, just registered moving2idaho.com, where he’s planning to blog about all the things that make his new home great. He left Northern California two years ago with his wife in search of a place with less crime, lighter regulation, and more open space. Del Rio, a conservative with a libertarian bent, is reassured to see average people walking through Walmart with handguns in their holsters. In Idaho, he says, “nobody even flinches.”

    In Boise alone, Californians made up 85% of new arrivals, and have driven home prices up nearly 20% in the span of a year. One realtor described the attitude of transplants as like “they’re playing with monopoly money.”

    Nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Boise (pop. 227,000) has drawn families for decades to its open spaces and short commutes. It’s been particularly attractive to Californians, who accounted for 85 percent of net domestic immigration to Idaho, according to Realtor.com’s analysis of 2016 Census data. While it has always prided itself on being welcoming, skyrocketing housing costs fueled by the influx is testing residents’ patience. In his state of the city speech last month, Mayor David Bieter outlined steps to keep housing affordable and asked Boise to stay friendly: “Call it Boise kind, our kindness manifesto,” he said.

    It’s especially easy for buyers who have sold properties in the Golden State to push up prices in relatively cheap places because they feel like they’re playing with Monopoly money, Kelman says. The median existing-home price in Boise’s home of Ada County was $299,950 last month—up almost 18 percent from a year earlier, but still about half California’s. The influx is great news for people who already own homes in the area, says Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com. “But if you’re a local aspiring to homeownership, it feels very much that Californians are bringing high prices with them.”

    And now that Trump’s tax reform package has been implemented, it’s only a matter of time before a whole new batch of Californian home owners, unwilling to forego their SALT tax writeoffs, start looking for greener pastures in low-cost red states.

  • When Will Obama Aides Come Clean About U.S.-Saudi War Crimes?"

    Authored by Sarah Lazare via InTheseTimes.com,

    Now that Saudi Arabia has become a P.R. liability, Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes have quietly condemned the war in Yemen. But when they had the power to stop it, they were complicit…

    It took the apparent murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi for the violence of the Saudi monarchy to finally register with the U.S. media and political elite. Since March 2015, the United States, Saudi Arabia and other allies have waged a war on Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of people, pushed the poorest country in the Middle East to the brink of famine and unleashed a devastating cholera outbreak. On behalf of its Saudi partner, the United States has shipped arms, refueled bomber jets, deployed troops and provided political cover—all without a congressional vote, serious political debate or meaningful media coverage.

    Recently, the dogged work of activists and the war’s undeniable brutality have led to greater scrutiny from some in Congress. Also among the war’s new critics are former high-ranking Obama aides, including former UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, both of whom got in line behind the U.S.-Saudi war on Yemen and defended the intervention. As U.S. participation in Saudi war crimes becomes a P.R. liability for those who built their personal brands on the Obama administration’s supposed moral authority, former aides’ criticisms force us to grapple with what constitutes atonement for complicity in mass killing—and how to distinguish true accountability from a hollow exercise in image rehabilitation.

    On September 26, Power tweeted her support for a bill introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to invoke the War Powers Resolution and end U.S. backing of the Saudi-led war.

    Noting the “horrific, pointless bloodshed,” she acknowledged “we in the Obama admin should have cut off aid.” On October 4, Rhodes called the War Powers Resolution “a much-needed check on a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe in Yemen.”

    While any acknowledgement of wrongdoing, no matter how understated, is better than nothing, their half-hearted attempts demand a more thoughtful examination of what real public atonement—and justice—should look like when one admits to complicity in an unjust war of aggression.

    What we do know is that, when Power in her role as a UN ambassador actually had the power to help stop the war on Yemen, by publicly breaking with her boss and encouraging meaningful action at the United Nations, she did nothing. Instead she embraced a policy of silence—and shielded the U.S.-Saudi coalition from meaningful international scrutiny as it dropped bombs on homes, schools, hospitals and funerals.

    Rhodes, for his part, as deputy national security advisor, did not publicly dissent from Obama’s decision to send the United States into the war. Rhodes acknowledged his culpability in a revisionist October 12 piece for The Atlantic, which downplayed the Obama administration’s direct responsibility for atrocities. He wrote of the Yemen war, “Looking back, I wonder what we might have done differently, particularly if we’d somehow known that Obama was going to be succeeded by a President Trump.” In reality, the horrors of the war were fully underway during the Obama administration.

    In an eyebrow-raising tweet published October 21, Rhodes claimed that the Obama administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia grew “chilly.” In reality, throughout his presidency Obama offered the kingdom more than $115 billion in weapons, as well as military equipment and training, and at the end of his tenure, he collaborated with Saudi Arabia on an aggressive war that is still ongoing.

    Understated and self-serving admissions by Power and Rhodes demand an examination of what  real accountability should look like when one is complicit in unjust war. Neither’s critique included an exhaustive account of their wrongdoing or a robust plan to make things right. Power and Rhodes are following the well-trod path in which lawmakers and White House officials support U.S. wars of aggression only to admit, years later and with little personal consequence, that they made a mistake. From Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to Hillary Clinton, quietly acknowledging that the Iraq War was a bad idea has become a political rite of passage. These penitents fail to mention that their actions (or lack thereof) contributed to the deaths of more than a million Iraqi people. And the media allows them to simply issue a vague mea culpa and move on.

    Politicians and officials likely make the calculus that it’s less politically risky to support bipartisan wars at the time, even if it means having to apologize for it later. (Of course, following the polls is not always a winning strategy over the long run, as Clinton learned when she lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential primary, likely due to her support for the Iraq War.)

    Power and Rhodes’ support for the War Powers Resolution is one step toward rectifying the harm they have done. Obama, meanwhile, remains silent. But the architects of war must not be allowed to determine the parameters of their own accountability. The question remains: What would a real public apology for mass murder entail? Vowing to leave public life, dedicating one’s remaining days to ending the war and repairing the damage? Who should decide what reparations mean? Certainly, Yemenis who have been harmed, including those who were children when Obama led the United States into the war in 2015 and must now grow up with a decimated education and medical system, should be at the forefront.

    Nothing is stopping Power and Rhodes from giving a full and honest account of who was responsible for advocating, overseeing and covering up the horrors of the Yemen War, starting with themselves. This would provide useful information about how U.S. institutions function, whose interests were served at the expense of the Yemeni people, who is undeserving of re-election and political power, and what keeps the war machine whirring. It would build political pressure to finally end the war, far more than a handful of muted tweets and articles ever could.

    But that’s not likely to happen. Far more likely is that former aides will issue vague regrets without providing any real inventory of their own roles, while raking in undisclosed – and presumably high – fees for lectures on human rights and foreign policy. Instead of buying into this ex post facto rebranding, it’s up to all of us to make the launching of unjust wars of aggression politically nuclear – and to ensure that no one can get away with shrugging off the killing of tens of thousands of people as an unfortunate, but forgivable, “mistake.”

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Oct 26

Today’s News 26th October 2018

  • Meet The Obscure Russian Bank Helping Venezuela Defy U.S. Sanctions

    A new Bloomberg report has exposed deepening Russian-Venezuelan ties as the Nicolas Maduro government attempts to thwart aggressive U.S. sanctions amidst continued economic collapse while cut off from the global economy. Bloomberg names a little known Moscow-based state-run bank called Evrofinance Mosnarbank as a “key player” based on high level sources with direct knowledge of the bank’s role in giving Venezuelan companies access to the outside world, confirmed by recent statements of Caracas officials themselves. 

    It’s not the first time the obscure bank has made headlines as last May it was revealed to be the world’s only financial institution to sponsor Venezuela’s experimental and now already in trouble before official launch state-backed cryptocurrency – called the petro – allowing investors to buy the petro by wiring a minimum of 1,000 euros to a Venezuelan government account at Evrofinance.

    The bank is increasingly involved in Venezuelan markets, with its unique capital structure set up to delicately evade punitive oversight mechanisms while tapping into alternative markets — something said to be the brainchild of Vladimir Putin and the late Hugo Chavez — especially useful now as Maduro is forced to depend on the likes of Turkey, China, Russia and Iran.

    The Evrofinance Mosnarbank building in Moscow, via VOA News

    And now Bloomberg reveals the following: 

    Evrofinance Mosnarbank, which is jointly owned by Russia and Venezuela but not subject to sanctions itself, has been tapped by the Maduro government as an alternative to handle payments to its suppliers. What’s more, officials in Caracas are urging local banks and companies to channel international transactions through Evrofinance, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. 

    Without Evrofinance’s financial pipeline, transactions as simple as importing and exporting goods or wiring money to international companies or individuals are becoming increasingly impossible. According to the report, the tighter US sanctions have become the more emboldened Evrofinance’s activities in the pariah state become. 

    For a prime example of how the Moscow-based bank has remained “unmoved by these concerns” Bloomberg details the following:

    In at least two meetings in the past month, central bank officials have told local private banks that they need to open Evrofinance accounts in order to take part in currency auctions, according to two people who participated in the discussions. Those auctions are now swapping bolivars for euros, yuan and other currencies instead of U.S. dollars, Economy Vice President Tareck El Aissami said last week.

    And the report further cites unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the situation to say authorities are increasingly directing the oil sector toward the Russian bank. Bloomberg cites: “state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s contractors are also being told to open accounts with Evrofinance to receive payments abroad, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.”

    The only official statement that Bloomberg received on the matter after contacting Venezuela’s central bank and PDVSA, as well as the bank itself was from Evrofinance. The bank said in an email statement that its recent observable growth was “mainly due to shocks to the banking sector such as the rehabilitation of lenders and revoking of licenses from large players on the market,” but didn’t comment directly on Venezuela when asked. The statement continued: “An influx of clients from troubled banks due to these circumstances, as well as favorable fees, settlement speed and attractive interest rates for deposits, has had a positive impact on the bank’s performance.”

    Essentially Russia and Venezuela perceive themselves as fighting a common bully in the form of American-led sanctions, so likely more Western pressure will push them further into a united front. Russia has already provided Caracas with billions in debt relief while being a lead investor the the state oil industry. 

    For its part Venezuela’s government purchased a 49 percent stake in Evrofinance in 2011, transforming it into a vehicle for binational trade and investment projects with almost $800 million in assets, according to Reuters. Russian state-controlled VTB and Gazprombank hold the rest of the shares – though these are under sanction by the US and Europe after the Russian annexation of Crimea.

    Likely, the more visible Evrofinance becomes as a prime international financial vehicle in Venezuelan markets, and the more that local officials go on record directing contractors and Venezuelan companies its way, the more likely it is that the resulting headlines make it target #1 for the US Treasury Dept. and European regulators. 

  • Britain's Grooming Gangs: Part 3

    Authored by Denis MacEoin via The Gatestone Institute,

    Read Part 1 here…

    Read Part 2 here…

    Not all Muslims remained silent about the grooming gang problem. We have already seen how the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, a Muslim of Pakistani origin, took rapid action to open an enquiry into the crimes. A number of Muslim organizations and individuals have spoken out against the gangs, and condemned them for bringing their faith into disrepute. The integrative Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), for one, has spoken out strongly about grooming culture.

    In May 2013, Julie Siddiqi, chief executive of the ISB, coordinated a Muslim-led coalition to campaign against offenders, known as The Community Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, which, in turn, was launched in Bradford with the backing of the Bradford Council of Mosques. The following month, a Muslim group called Together Against Grooming (TAG) declared that a Friday prayer sermon (khutba) would be read out in around 500 mosques across the country to draw attention to the grooming issue. The sermon was written by Alyas Karmani, an imam who has a background in psychology and serves at several mosques around Bradford. Karmani specializes in sexual counselling from a non-fundamentalist perspective and has worked on a PhD entitled, “The Crises of Masculinity and Urban Male Violence”. His detailed understanding of the grooming gangs and their various motivations are perhaps the most sophisticated yet advanced by a Muslim expert and should be taken into account by any present or future investigation.

    Some other Muslim organizations such as the progressive Islamic Society of Britain have sent out sermons on the same issue. There can be no question that there is an important and growing range of Muslim reaction to the shame brought on the communities by the grooming gangs and the reluctance in many places even to talk about sexual matters. This reformist activity in the migrant community needs to be encouraged and backed by government resources.

    There are, however, other, sometimes deeper aspects to the problem that still remain to be explored. Not all mosques agreed to read Karmani’s sermon, and some claimed — quite incorrectly, as it happened — that the grooming issue was a thing of the past. Many of those deeper aspects are directly related to the persistence of religious fundamentalism and a wide refusal among many to integrate within British society. Despite the efforts of moderate Muslims, mosques and institutions to stop young men and women travelling abroad to take part in jihad or bring back wives from abroad, many have done so. Sermonizing, even with good intentions, may not address the underlying reasons for seemingly anti-social behaviour.

    Also in 2013, Taj Hargey, imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation, and a controversial reformist, spoke out following the trial and conviction of six members of a child sex ring from Oxford. He contended that some imams were indirectly inspiring the grooming gangs through their contempt for non-Muslim women:

    On one level, most imams in the UK are simply using their puritanical sermons to promote the wearing of the hijab and even the burka among their female adherents. But the dire result can be the brutish misogyny we see in the Oxford sex ring.

    He wrote at length about the ways in which fundamentalist attitudes influenced some men:

    True Islam preaches respect for women but in mosques across the country a different doctrine is preached – “one that denigrates all women, but treats whites with particular contempt”….

    The men are taught that women are “second-class citizens, little more than chattels or possessions over whom they have absolute authority”…

    The view of some Islamic preachers towards white women can be appalling. They encourage their followers to believe that these women are habitually promiscuous, decadent, and sleazy — sins which are made all the worse by the fact that they are kaffurs [sic for kuffar, pl. of kafir] or non-believers.

    Their dress code, from miniskirts to sleeveless tops, is deemed to reflect their impure and immoral outlook. According to this mentality, these white women deserve to be punished for their behaviour by being exploited and degraded.

    The largest and most influential of all UK mosques are those of the Deobandis, a highly conservative majority denomination in Pakistani Islam that also dominates the seminaries within the UK and in which future imams are trained.

    According to the author and Investigations editor at BBCNewsnight, Innes Bowen:

    What most Deobandi scholars have in common is a conservative interpretation of Islamic law: television and music for the purposes of entertainment, for example, are frowned upon if not banned; attitudes towards women are deeply conservative, with, for example, some scholars advising Muslim women that their religion does not permit them to travel any distance unless accompanied by a close male relative. That this description of such an austere brand of Islam sounds similar to that propagated by the Taliban in Afghanistan should not be surprising – the Taliban movement grew out of the Deobandi madrasas of Pakistan.

    Many Deobandi and other fundamentalist preachers and online fatwa sitespromulgate the doctrine of al-Wala’ wa’l-Bara’, which may be roughly translated as “loyalty [to Islam] and avoidance [of unbelievers]”. This belief reinforces the need to stay away from, and even to have enmity towards, the inferior non-Muslim world. It is not far-fetched to see how, through this doctrine, a sense of total difference from, and contempt for, non-Muslims in general — and non-Muslim girls and women in particular — may have given many of the grooming gangs a debased level of justification, even self-righteousness in the members of the grooming gangs.

    Hargey’s link between the grooming gangs and hard-line religious leaders is borne out by an article published in 2018 by the serious liberal newspaper, The Independent. The author is Ella Hill, one of the girls abused in Rotherham and now part of the largest child sexual abuse investigation. She begins:

    As a teenager, I was taken to various houses and flats above takeaways in the north of England, to be beaten, tortured and raped over 100 times. I was called a “white slag” and “white c***” as they beat me.

    They made it clear that because I was a non-Muslim, and not a virgin, and because I didn’t dress “modestly”, that they believed I deserved to be “punished”. They said I had to “obey” or be beaten.

    Later, she refers to a Swedish government meeting in 2017, when it was stated that:

    Sexual and gender-based violence is used as a tactic of terrorism by a range of today’s violent extremist groups. This makes it essential to address violence against women and girls as an integrated part in countering and preventing violent extremism.

    She then argues that:

    Religious indoctrination is a big part of the process of getting young men involved in grooming gang crime. Religious ideas about purity, virginity, modesty and obedience are taken to the extreme until horrific abuse becomes the norm. It was taught to me as a concept of “othering”.

    “Muslim girls are good and pure because they dress modestly, covering down to their ankles and wrists, and covering their crotch area. They stay virgins until marriage. They are our girls.”

    [Author’s note: Italicized in the original, but should probably have been in quotation marks. The passage is evidently meant to be words spoken by gang members who used her.]

    She also emphasizes this religious background to her treatment, stating that “My main perpetrator quoted scriptures from the Quran to me as he beat me.” Nevertheless, she goes on to say that “Most grooming gang survivors I know absolutely condemn anti-Islamic hate, and we’re uncomfortable with English Defence League protests. We certainly don’t want random attacks on ‘all Muslims’. You can’t cure harm with more harm.”

    The connection between fundamentalist religiosity, terrorism and gender crime is not as fanciful as it might have seemed at first. There are decent Muslims everywhere who work hard to counter all the anti-social and criminal activities in which so many of their co-religionists engage and the theological positions through which they try to justify what they do. But terrorist attacks, anti-Semitic hate speech, and sexual harassment of young white women are real crimes committed by a different kind of Muslim and must be addressed as such.

    In a report published on December 12, 2017, the important Muslim counter-extremism think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, addressed at length the problem of the grooming gangs. Written by Quilliam’s CEO, Haras Rafiq with media strategist and researcher Muna Adil, the report, “Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation: Dissecting Grooming Gangs”, consists of a comprehensive data analysis of grooming gang cases identified in the UK since 2005. Ten case studies from 2010-2017 are also analysed in depth to help determine any similarities and identify any patterns that exist across the cases.

    At the root of the problem seems to lie the fact that many Muslim men have failed to integrate into British society. According to Muna Adil:

    There are elements from within the British Pakistani community that still subscribe to outdated and sexist views of women embedded within their jaded interpretations of Islam. These backward views are passed down from generation to generation until the lines between faith and culture dissolve, making it increasingly difficult to criticise one without being seen as a critic of the other.

    Quilliam’s findings echo a number of earlier reviews and surveys of the British Muslim community as a whole. In her 2016 government-commissioned review into integration and opportunity in isolated and deprived communities, Dame Louise Casey found evidence that the hardest group to integrate was the Muslim community. In her Executive Summary, she notes (paragraph 30) that:

    People of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnicity tend to live in more residentially segregated communities than other ethnic minority groups. South Asian communities (people of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi ethnicity) live in higher concentrations at ward level than any other ethnic minority group. These concentrations at ward level are growing in many areas.

    She adds that that, “Compared to other minority faith groups, Muslims tend to live in higher residential concentrations at ward level”. She continues:

    [Paragraph] 32. The school age population is even more segregated when compared to residential patterns of living. A Demos study found that, in 2013, more than 50% of ethnic minority students were in schools where ethnic minorities were the majority, and that school segregation was highest among students from Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic backgrounds relative to other ethnic groups.

    Again:

    [Paragraph] 44. Polling in 2015 also showed that more than 55% of the general public agreed that there was a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society, while 46% of British Muslims felt that being a Muslim in Britain was difficult due to prejudice against Islam. We found a growing sense of grievance among sections of the Muslim population, and a stronger sense of identification with the plight of the ‘Ummah’, or global Muslim community.

    She also highlights problems with the national language:

    [Paragraph] 52. English language is a common denominator and a strong enabler of integration. But Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups have the lowest levels of English language proficiency of any Black or Minority Ethnic group and women in those communities are twice as likely as men to have poor English.

    Finally, we should note her statement on gender equality, which is clearly linked to the Muslim communities:

    [Paragraph] 57. … in many areas of Britain the drive towards equality and opportunity across gender might never have taken place. Women in some communities are facing a double onslaught of gender inequality, combined with religious, cultural and social barriers preventing them from accessing even their basic rights as British residents. And violence against women remains all too prevalent in domestic abuse but also in other criminal practices such as female genital mutilation, forced marriage and so-called “honour” based crime.

    Casey was not the first to draw attention to most of these issues. In 2007, the British think tank Policy Exchange, published a detailed report titled “Living apart together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism”, written by three young Asian researchers. Their most striking finding, drawn from a survey, was that the youngest generation (16-24 year olds) were more radical in their beliefs than their grandparents (55+ year olds). Thus, 37% of the youngest would prefer to live under shari’a law than British law, compared to only 17% of their elders; 36% of the youngest believe that if a Muslim converts to another religion they must be punished by death, compared to only 19% of the oldest; a high 74% of 16-24 year olds prefer Muslim women to wear the veil, compared to a mere 28% of 55+ year olds — an astonishing reversal. Most immigrant communities — notably Jews, Italians, Irish, Poles and others in the United States’ “melting pot” — come to identify with their host country within the second and third generation, and that has been largely true of the United Kingdom.

    One particular feature that distinguishes Muslims from the rest of the increasingly secular UK population is the extent to which religion plays a major role in people’s lives. Figure 2 of the report shows that 66% agree strongly and another 20% of Muslims tend to agree that “My religion is the most important thing in my life”. In Figure 1, 49% say they pray the full 5 times a day, and 22% 1-3 times a day, with a tiny 5% replying “never”. It is important to read the report in full. for it has many supportive things to say about British Muslims:

    However, there is also considerable diversity amongst Muslims, with many adopting a more secular approach to their religion. The majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain as with Muslims abroad. There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not. For these reasons, we should be wary of treating the entire Muslim population as a monolith with special needs that are different to the rest of the population.

    An extensive poll of Muslim opinion conducted in 2016 by ICM showed that things were much the same or worse than in 2007. It was reported on by Trevor Phillips, a son of Caribbean immigrants and former chairman of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. In an article for the Sunday Times, he expressed his deep frustration with the Muslim failure to integrate:

    …for a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.

    Another 2016 survey, carried out by a Czech think tank, European Values, found that some 44% of Muslims held views corresponding to radical Islamic fundamentalism.

    “The survey discovered 57 percent of Muslims reject homosexuals as friends, 45 percent said they don’t trust the Jews and 54 percent think of the West as an enemy of Islam. Among fundamentalist Muslims, 72 percent of respondents said they would use violence to defend Islam. Among regular Muslims, that number amounted to 35 percent.

    “An incredibly large number of Muslims want Islamic Sharia law to dominate over local laws. For instance, 72 percent of Muslims in France want to see Sharia as the main or only source of law in the country. That figure remains astonishingly high in the United Kingdom at 69 percent.”

  • Will Ireland Decriminalise Blasphemy?

    Today, Ireland will hold a referendum to decide whether blasphemy should be decriminalised.

    As of today, the Irish Constitution states that:

    “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.”

    Although there has been no actual prosecution for blasphemy since 1855, Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out  that its opponents say that its inclusion in the Constitution amounts to a restriction on the freedom of expression. Liam Herrick, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties issued a statement on Monday in which he said:

    “Criminalising blasphemy has no place in a modern democracy such as ours. Irish people don’t want criminal prosecution for those who call into question the authority of religious teachings“.

    The Irish Catholic Church has also admitted that the reference to blasphemy in the Constitution is “largely obsolete”, adding that it “may give rise to concern because of the way such measures have been used to justify violence and oppression against minorities in other parts of the world”.

    Qualifying this however, it was also noted that the right of people to practise their faith without being subjected to attack or ridicule “needs to be acknowledged and respected”.

    The law was brought most recently into the spotlight when Stephen Fry, speaking on Irish television, described God as “mean-minded” and an “utter maniac”. While the investigation was eventually dropped due to an apparent lack of people that had been outraged, the case has arguably led to tomorrow’s referendum to some degree.

    The vote is to be combined with the presidential election and, according to a new poll by The Irish Times, a majority of voters are likely to vote in favour of decriminalisation.

    Infographic: Will Ireland decriminalise blasphemy? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

  • Two Stories From The Propaganda War

    Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Two recent stories about Russians have demonstrated how the news is selected and manipulated in the United States.

    The first is about Maria Butina, who apparently sought to overthrow American democracy, such as it is, by obtaining a life membership in the National Rifle Association. Maria, a graduate student at American University, is now in detention in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She has been in prison since July, for most of the time in solitary confinement, and has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk.”

    Maria, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is now seeking donations to help pay for her legal defense as the Russian government renews demands that she be released from jail or be tried on whatever charges the Justice Department can come up with, but her release is unlikely as she is really a political prisoner.

    The media has been silent about Maria Butina because the case against her is falling apart. In early September prosecutors admitted that they had misunderstood text messages used to support claims that she had offered to trade sex for access to information. Demands that she consequently be released from prison were, however, rejected. Her lawyer observed that “The impact of this inflammatory allegation, which painted Ms. Butina as some type of Kremlin-trained seductress, or spy-novel honeypot character, trading sex for access and power, cannot be overstated.”

    In an attempt to make the Butina embarrassment disappear from the news, the Justice Department has proposed an unprecedented gag order to prevent her attorney from appearing in the media in a way that could prejudice a jury should her case eventually come to trial.

    Currently there is no court date and Maria remains in jail indefinitely, but the press could care less – she is just one more Russiagate casualty in an ongoing saga that has long since passed her by.

    Given the Maria Butina story and the hysteria over all things Russian it was perhaps inevitable that the tale of Kremlin interference in American elections would be resurrected and repeated.

    Federal prosecutors are now reporting that another Russian woman has illegally conspired with others to “defraud the United States” and interfere with the U.S. political system, to include plans for conducting “information warfare” to subvert the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

    The complaint was filed on October 19th at a federal court in Virginia which handles most national security cases. According to the court documents, Elena Alekseevna Khusyainova, a 44-year-old resident of St. Petersburg in Russia, has worked as the head accountant for “Project Lakhta,” a Russian influence operation backed by an oligarch close to President Vladi­mir Putin. According to the Justice Department, the operation “spread misinformation about US political issues including immigration, gun control, the Confederate flag, and protests by NFL players. It also used events including the Las Vegas mass shooting, and the far-Right rally in Charlottesville, to spread discord.”

    Khusyainova, who is not likely to be extradited to the United States for trial, allegedly purchased advertising in social networks and also supported dissident groups. The accusation of the American authorities emphasizes the connection between Khusyainova and St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was previously identified by the media as the owner of a ‘Troll Factory’ in St. Petersburg. In the U.S., several charges have already been brought against him and his staff, including interfering in the presidential elections in 2016. 

    The Maria Butina story reveals how there is a fundamental flaw in the justice system in the United States. When someone is found guilty by the media there is no way to right the wrong when the story shifts and starts to break down. The New York Times or Washington Post is unlikely to leap to the defense of the accused. Maria Butina has been raked over the coals in stories that were partly true but mostly false in terms of any criminal intent. She is still waiting for justice and will likely be doing so for some time.

    The case of Elena Khusyainova is Maria Butina redux, only even more idiotic. No actual evidence is presented in the indictment and since Elena is in Russia and not likely to visit the United States, the entire affair is a bit of theater intended to heighten hysteria about the U.S. midterm elections. Is the U.S. electoral system really so fragile and what did Elena actually seek to do? The Justice Department is silent on the issue beyond vague accusations about trolling on the internet by Russians. One wonders who in the federal government ordered the investigation and signed off on the indictment.

    Both Maria and Elena are victims of a politicized miscarriage of justice. Maria Butina should be released from prison now and allowed to pay her fine for being an unregistered agent before leaving the country. There is no justification for holding her in prison. And the indictment of Elena Khusyainova is not worth the paper it is written on. It should be torn up and thrown away.

  • Top Communist Party Official Threatens Military Intervention Over Pence's Support For Taiwan

    With the on-again-off-again trade war detente back in “off again” mode as China is once again refusing to bow to the US’s demands for concessions, and with military tensions simmering in the background as the US seriously considers withdrawing from the INF, the Communist Party’s top defense official demanded that the US end its aggressive policy toward China during a speech at the Xiangshan security forum in Beijing in front of a crowd of 500 foreign delegates from 74 countries (including the US).

    According to the South China Morning Post, Wei Fenghe, the Chinese defense minister, criticized Washington for “seriously damaging the Sino-US relationship and mutual trust” by accusing China of interfering in the midterm elections and by characterizing China’s “debt diplomacy” as a neo-colonialist tool for acquiring foreign resources for its “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

    Without referencing Pence by name (the Vice President delivered one of the most sweeping condemnations of China’s foreign and economic policies during a speech earlier this month), Wei articulated China’s “anger and resolute opposition” and demanded that the Trump Administration drop its aggressive posture toward China. “We strongly call on the US to remedy the mistakes, stop damaging China’s interests and the Sino-US relationship.”

    The remarks followed similarly hostile remarks directed at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who became embroiled in a dramatic confrontation with China’s foreign minister during a recent trip to Beijing.

    China

    In the latest sign that the Trump Administration’s friendly stance toward Taiwan has rattled China, Wei, reiterating a threat made by numerous senior Chinese officials, warned that the mainland wouldn’t hesitate to bring the full brunt of is military to bear against Taiwan – and any country aiding the Taiwanese – if its rogue province tries to formally break away from the mainland.

    Another senior CCP official, Li Zhanshu, a trusted ally of President Xi Jinping, issued a similar warning during the conference’s opening remarks on Wednesday. Li, chairman of the National People’s Congress and the third-highest-ranking official on the Politburo Standing Committee, denounced “confrontational thinking” – a veiled attack on the Trump administration’s policy.

    He condemned what he implied were recent efforts by world powers to push other nations to form an alliance against China.

    “The alignment is a small group that engages in exclusivity, and aimed at third parties,” Li told the dinner without naming the US.

    “This confrontational thinking is an important reason for global unrest, and the main source of all international hotspot issues.”

    A “Beijing-based source” (code for a senior Communist Party official) told the SCMP that Li’s aggressive speech represented Xi’s thoughts on the US-China trade war.

    “Xi wants the trade row with US to stop as soon as possible, which he believes is also the common hope of some American politicians and entrepreneurs,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity．

    Li said China’s adherence to the principle of formal non-alignment with or against any major power bloc was the way to go in international relations.

    Dealing only with “the concept of reciprocity and win-win”, China advocated partnerships that sought “common ground” and “not aimed at third parties”, he said.

    China “respects the choices of people all over the world for their independent social system and development approaches”, he said.

    In the era of the global village, “no country can independently deal with all the challenges that humankind is facing, and no country can return to a self-enclosed system”, Li said.

    Li added that cooperation was “the only choice” for the US if it hopes to have cordial relations with China, and that the two sides should try to resolve their issues with “dialogue and consultation.” 

    “Cooperation is the only correct choice for Sino-US relations: both sides will be hurt if they fight each other,” he said.

    “The two sides should properly resolve problems through dialogue and consultation to ensure that Sino-US relations move along the right track.”

    On top of the trade war, China-US relations have been hurt by US accusations that Beijing is trying to interfere in the upcoming US midterm elections.

    “Some countries have adopted a series of wrong practices on the Taiwan issue, damaging the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait and threatening the region and peace,” Li said.

    “[Beijing] firmly opposes [those independent moves] and will keep sticking to the principle of ‘peaceful reunification, one country, two systems’.”

    It would also continue to “strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification with the utmost sincerity and best efforts,” he said.

    The Xiangshan Forum has become a platform for China to try and persuade foreigner officials that its claims on the South China Sea should be respected – and that the US should seriously consider removing its weapons from the South Korean peninsula. Two issues that the US will likely never give up on.

  • Twitter Bans Former Asst. Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts

    Twitter has suspended noted anti-war commentator, economist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts. 

    The suspension came without warning and was noted by journalist Caitlin Johnstone and others Thursday evening: 

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    Roberts, 79, served in the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1982. He was formerly a distinguished fellow at the Cato Institute and a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has written for the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek. Roberts maintains an active blog. 

    He’s also vehemently against interventionary wars around the world, and spoke with Russia’s state-owned Sputnik news in a Tuesday article – in which Roberts said that President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty was a handout to the military-security complex. 

    The former Reagan administration official clarified that he does not think “that the military-security complex itself wants a war with Russia, but it does want an enemy that can be used to justify more spending.”  He explained that the withdrawing from the INF Treaty “gives the military-security complex a justification for a larger budget and new money to spend: manufacturing the formerly banned missiles.”

    …

    The economist highlighted that “enormous sums spent on ‘defense’ enabled the armaments corporations to control election outcomes with campaign contributions,” adding that in addition, “the military has bases and the armaments corporations have factories in almost every state so that the population, dependent on the jobs, support high amounts of ‘defense’ spending.” 

    “That was 57 years ago,” he underscored. “You can imagine how much stronger the military-security complex is today.” –Sputnik

    Roberts also suggested that “The Zionist Neoconservatives are responsible for Washington’s unilateral abandonment of the INF treaty, just as they were responsible for Washington’s unilateral abandonment of the ABM Treaty [in 2002], the Iran nuclear agreement, and the promise not to move NATO one inch to the East.” 

    Is this what got him suspended? 

    Roberts goes on to say that the ideology of US neoconservatives is “akin to the German Nazy Party last century” in their ideology of American supremacy and exceptionalism. 

    “Their over-confidence about their ability to quickly defeat Israel’s enemies and open the Middle East to Israeli expansion got the US bogged down in wars in the Middle East for 17 years … During this time, both Russia and China rose much more quickly than the neoconservatives thought possible.”

    Dr. Roberts opined that US policy makers are seeking to weaponize the Russian opposition and “pro-Western elements” to exert pressure on Moscow into “accommodating Washington in order to have the sanctions removed.” On the other hand, the Trump administration’s new arms race could force Russia into spending more on defense, according to the author. –Sputnik

    While we don’t know if Roberts’ Sputnik interview resulted in his Twitter ban 48 hours later, it’s entirely possible.  

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  • Military Plane Accidentally Drops Humvee On North Carolina Neighborhood 

    A Boeing C-17 Globemaster military transport plane accidentally dropped a Humvee onto a community in Harnett County, North Carolina, Wednesday afternoon, Fort Bragg officials confirmed. 

    The incident occurred around 1 pm in the small town of Cameron, which CNN said the Humvee landed approximately seven miles north of the intended Fort Bragg drop zone. 

    Tom McCollum, Fort Bragg spokesperson, said the plane was several miles from the military installation, flying at an altitude of 1,500 feet when the Humvee prematurely dropped. 

    “We don’t know what happened, but the platform went out early and landed in a rural area. There was no one hurt. No property was damaged,” McCollum said. 

    He said all three parachutes opened, and the vehicle landed between two homes on Walter Lane, off Gilchrist Road, which is between Jacksonville and Spout Springs. 

    James Gran, 78, lives on Walter Lane where the Humvee touched down. He said his wife was outside, saw the parachutes opening and screamed for him.

    Moments later, Grant heard a loud bang as the Humvee and skid that it was secured to, weighing more than 3 tons, hit the ground with massive force. 

    “It sounded like a car crashing,” Grant said.

    “When it happened, my wife and I went to see. We saw a parachute laying on the road.”

    Grant called 911 because he thought a soldier(s) might have had a bad jump. 

    “That’s when everybody came,” Grant said, referring to firefighters, law enforcement, and the military. 

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    “A few moments later, they [first responders] told us there might be explosives and had us all move back.”

    Bobby Brown and his wife live down the street from the incident. 

    The Browns saw parachutes coming down behind family member’s home. The Humvee ended about 300 feet behind the house. 

    The C-17 Globemaster was conducting a heavy drop from the 437th airlift wing based at Joint Base Charleston, McCollum said. The unit specializes in testing new equipment and procedures to support the aerial transportation unit of the military.

    It is evident that either new equipment or human error was at play. The incident is still under investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board currently heading to the scene to get to the bottom of this massive failure that could have had civilian casualties. 

  • TSA Confirms Biometrics, Facial Recognition To Be Condition For All Air Travelers

    Authored by Edward Hasbrouck via Papers, Please! blog,

    Today the US Transportation Security Administration released a detailed TSA Biometric Roadmap for Aviation Security & the Passenger Experience, making explicit the goal of requiring mug shots (to be used for automated facial recognition and image-based surveillance and control) as a condition of all domestic or international air travel.

    This makes explicit the goal that has been apparent, but only implicit, in the activities and statements of both government agencies and airline and airport trade associations.

    It’s a terrifyingly totalitarian vision of pervasive surveillance of air travelers at, quite literally and deliberately, every step of their journey, enabled by automated facial recognition and by the seamless collaboration of airlines and airport operators that will help the government surveil their customers in exchange for free use of facial images for their own business purposes and profits.

    The  closest contemporary counterpart to what the TSA envisions for the USA is the pervasive surveillance and control of travelers in China through automated facial recognition by the Public Security Bureau.

    Automated surveillance of air travelers by the TSA will begin with people who have “voluntarily” provided photos for other purposes such as background checks:

    In the near term, TSA will deploy Credential Authentication Technology (CAT) to authenticate the security features of passengers’ ID credentials and allow Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) to retrieve passenger pre-screening status in near-real time…. In the future, TSA will be able to use TSA Pre✓® enrolled facial images for matching…. Moving forward, TSA Pre✓® will increase its access to and utilization of voluntarily-provided biometric data, including facial images, to modernize the trusted traveler experience for TSA Pre✓® travelers.

    In a press release announcing its roadmap, the TSA says that:

    TSA has already begun testing biometrics for TSA Pre✓® travelers….  As of September 2018, passengers who enroll in TSA Pre✓® or renew their membership in person are required to provide their photograph. Using applicants’ photographs, TSA will test facial biometric technology in TSA Pre✓® lanes at select airports once enrollment numbers support this testing.

    The roadmap released today is dated September 2018. We’ve already begun to receive reports suggesting that the TSA may already be using automated facial recognition — without explicit notice or any obvious way to opt out — in “TSA Pre-Check” lanes at checkpoints at some airports. If you see something, say something: Ask whether facial images are being collected, by whom, for what purposes, and subject to what if any option to opt out.

    In its next stage, the TSA Biometrics Roadmap envisions expanding automated facial image surveillance to include photos from drivers licenses and state ID cards:

    Additionally, TSA will work with DHS and other stakeholders to ensure mobile drivers’ licenses (mDL) are REAL ID compliant and explore their acceptance at aviation security touchpoints across the passenger experience. Several state issuance authorities have started to securely provision mDL onto driver’s mobile devices in addition to issuing a physical license. These solutions may include biometric data that TSA could leverage for identity verification…. TSA will explore opportunities to more effectively use existing information within DHS systems including DHS databases (e.g., IDENT/HART), State Department passport photos, and solutions that may broker verification touchpoints between federal and state systems.

    The obvious “touchpoint” between federal and state ID databases would be DHS access to the SPEXS database of information from drivers licenses and state IDs. SPEXS is operated by a contractor of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), and already includes personal information about more than 50 millionUS residents.

    Participation in SPEXS is a de facto condition of state compliance with the Federal REAL-ID Act.  SPEXS records sourced from drivers license and state ID databases don’t yet include facial images. But if AAMVA decides to add facial images to the SPEXS dataset, states won’t be able to say no without immediately becoming noncompliant with the REAL-ID Act.

    AAMVA is listed among the “stakeholders” collaborating with the TSA.  But AAMVA is identified as a “government” stakeholder, even though AAMVA itself claims to be a nongovernmental organization and is not subject to any of the transparency or accountability rules that would apply to a government agency.

    “Various” technology vendors were consulted by the TAA and are, presumably, building this infrastructure of enhanced surveillance and control of travel, but are unnamed.

    The TSA claims that:

    TSA will adopt a “privacy by design” mindset that incorporates privacy considerations into each phase of biometric solution development (design, build, implement). Privacy protections will include restrictions to prevent the use of biometrics for purposes other than transportation security unless individuals have opted into other uses.

    But that claim is belied by the fact that none of the stakeholders consulted by the TSA in designing its roadmap for automated facial recognition of travelers were travelers or privacy, civil liberties, or human rights experts or advocates. Other than the conclusionary claim quoted above, there is no actual consideration in the TSA roadmap of its privacy, civil liberties, or human rights implications.

    Two other issues beside privacy are are also notably absent from the TSA roadmap:

    First, there is no mention of the procedural due process required by the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. The DHS has been sitting on a formal petition for rulemaking regarding its secret non-rules for biometric identification of travelers. But that petition is not mentioned in  the TSA Biometric Roadmap. As usual, the TSA and DHS appear to be substituting administrative fiat for public notice and comment.

    Second, there is no mention of the substantive legal basis, if any, for TSA authority to conduct this surveillance or of its compatibility with the First Amendment, the Privacy Act (which prohibits the collection of information about how individuals exercise rights protected by the First Amendment, such as the right to assemble, without explicit statutory authority), or the obligations of common carriers.  What — if any — personal information an airline can demand of a passenger as a condition of travel, consistent with its obligations as a common carrier, under US law recognizing a public right of tranit by air, and under international aviation and human rights treaties, is likely to be a key issue in future litigation.

    Travel is a right, not a privilege subject to arbitrarily imposed government conditions. Travelers should continue to “Just Say No” to demands for mug shots or ID papers.

  • This Little Piggy Went Missing: Hog Prices Surge After Mysterious Shortfall Makes Traders Squeal

    A funny thing happened on the way to hog slaughter this year; after much talk of the domestic herd swelling in size – and a setback after Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina which should have normalized by now, analysts expecting a a spike in slaughter rates have been left scratching their heads over a puzzling shortfall, according to Bloomberg. 

    Further compounding supply woes is a highly contagious pig virus, African Swine Fever, which is spreading rapidly through China – the world’s #1 consumer of pork. Several new outbreaks of the disease were reported his week. 

    The spread of swine fever in China is increasing the chances the Asian nation will need to import more of the meat, according to Cobank. China would likely buy from the European Union and Canada, but American producers could still capitalize on the reduced global competition in pork, the U.S. agricultural lender said in a report Tuesday.

    The pig-virus outbreak has caused increased volatility for hog futures. A measure of 60-day volatility peaked last month, but could surge anew if the disease continues to spread. –Bloomberg

    The combined factors sent hog futures up by the exchange limit of 3 cents on Wednesday, settling at 57.525 cents a pound – a spike of 11% this week. 

    “We don’t have this backup in market hogs like we expected,” said Rich Nelson, chief strategist at Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Illinois – who suggested that perhaps USDA estimates of rising animal inventories may have been improperly calculated. 

    Nelson says that the industry had anticipated a prolonged slaughter this year, topping 2.6 million animals per week – yet the actual figures have been consistently lower than expected, and are unlikely to breach the expected figures until just before Thanksgiving at this point. 

    “Where are all of the hogs?,” asked Archer Financial Services senior account exec, Dennis Smith last week. “We’re missing 4 percent to 5 percent” of the expected supplies, he said.

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Oct 25

Today’s News 25th October 2018

  • Macron Squirms When Asked About France-Saudi Arms Sales

    French President Emmanuel Macron retreated after journalists asked him whether France would follow Germany’s lead in discontinuing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia after it acknowledged the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul, reports France 24.

    “This has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Nothing. So I won’t answer that question. I’m sorry but as long as I’ll be in office this is how it will be, whether people like it or not,” a visibly agitated Macron told reporters, adding: “It’s not because one leader says something that I must react to it every time. So I won’t answer that.” 

    On Monday German Chancellor Angela Merkel lashed out at Riyadh, calling Khashoggi’s murder a “monstrosity,” while vowing to halt all German arms sales to the house of Saud until the situation is rectified. 

    Macron previously sought to downplay French arms exports to the Saudis, claiming that they are not a major customer of France. As France24 notes, however, the Saudis were the second largest buyer of French arms from 2008 – 2017, with over 11 billion Euros (US $12.6 billion) spent on munitions, artillery, armored vehicles and tanks. 

    Trudeau doesn’t like the early cancellation fee… 

    Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his government isn’t likely to cancel a large 2014 contract with Saudi Arabia for armored personnel carriers – blaming the previous administration for including a giant cancellation fee. 

    “There was a contract signed by the previous (Tory) government that makes it extremely difficult for us to withdraw from that contract without Canadians paying exorbitant penalties,” said Trudeau, who added “We are looking at our options.” 

    Both the United States and Great Britain – the first and second largest arms exporters to the Saudis – have been delicately dancing around the Khashoggi case. 

    Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC that the killing of the journalist was “terrible” but that London would maintain its close relationship with Riyadh, which buys hundreds of millions of pounds in weapons from Britain each year.

    Highlighting that a “huge number of British jobs” depend on London’s ties with Riyadh, he argued that British influence is best maintained by continuing to talk to the Saudis.

    “We have got one of the most rigorous export regimes in the world which makes sure arms are very carefully monitored,” Raab added.

    President Trump, meanwhile, has suggested it would be a bad idea to scrap a multibillion-dollar US-Saudi arms deal.

  • Media Is Ignoring The Escalating Militarization Of The Arctic

    Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific are not the only potential theaters of military operations. The Arctic is an area of geopolitical rivalry. The situation there is undeservedly kept out of media spotlight. Meanwhile, 2018 has brought new record lows in the extent of sea ice in the region.

    Russia has presented a 1.2 million square kilometers Arctic claim to the UN. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a Coastal state may claim rights to the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles by presenting scientific proof that it is a natural prolongation of its continental margin. The Russian Coastal exclusive economic zone can be extended, giving the state exclusive rights to exploit natural resources in the seabed and the ocean. Actually, Russia sits on $8.5 trillion oil reserves.

    Moscow considers the Northern Sea Route (NSR) lying east of Novaya Zemlya and specifically running along the Russian Arctic coast from the Kara Sea, along Siberia, to the Bering Strait as the water area within Russia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in accordance with Article 234 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This article grants all littoral states the right, within their exclusive economic zones (200 nautical miles), to pass non-discriminatory laws and regulations concerning navigation in ice-field areas. The US is a signatory but Congress has not ratified the document. Washington does not recognize the Russia’s claims and seeks to internationalize the region.

    The US, Canada, Denmark and Norway have their own claims. The Arctic is believed to hold more than $22 trillion worth of resources hidden beneath the ice, including 90 billion barrels of oil and 47 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. It’s only natural for states to have disputes as long as they are addressed on the basis of international law through negotiations. But the gradual escalation of tensions in the Arctic is a fact.

    According to the Danish government’s 2018-2023 defense guidelines, there will be an impressive 20 percent increase in defense spending in the next six years. The Arctic is mentioned as an area of increased activity and military presence. In summer, Norway recommitted itself to NATO defense spending target of at least 2% of GDP with its new long-term plan for 2021-2024 having this commitment as a key premise. Oslo is to invest in “strategic capabilities”, such as the new F-35 stealth fighter, submarines and P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. Canada is to deploy an Arctic naval flotilla. Last year, Ottawa unveiled a plan to boost its defense spending by 70 percent (or more than $30-billion) over the next decade – much of it going to new warships and fighter jets. The Lomonosov Ridge is the main object of territorial dispute between Russia and Canada. It stretches 1,800 km from the New Siberian Islands cross the Arctic Ocean to the Canadian Ellesmere Island. Canada conducts military exercises in the area. 

    US green berets are training to fight Russia in the region. So US attack submarines are also holding drills. In March, more than 1,500 US military personnel from 20-plus units were brought together for the Arctic Edge 2018 military exercise. The US Coast Guard is looking to “weaponize” its icebreaker ships used to clear paths through the frozen seas. The US has stationed F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters in Alaska. The deployment provides the US with air superiority across the entire northern hemisphere. 

    Russia is implementing the State Policy in the Arctic Till 2020 and for a Future Perspective. The Arctic is a source of threat to Russia. US submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from the waters near Norway would leave the Russian military less than 15 minutes to decide if an incoming object was a threat of not, where it was coming from, and how to respond. The Arctic is the only location to enable submarine-launched Tomahawks to strike the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) bases in the Orenburg and Krasnoyarsk regions, as well as the Urals.

    The Russian Northern Fleet is a joint force comprising 38 large surface ships, over 40 submarines, and an Army Corps including two infantry brigades. The 61st Naval Infantry Brigade is under the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command. 7 of 10 combat ready fleet ballistic submarines are based there. About 60% of the operational fleet’s inventory falls on new weapons.

    The Ratnik infantry combat system weighs 19–20 kg. It is designed for operations in the Arctic weather conditions to include a night vision helmet, body armor, communications equipment and headphones. All in all, the set comprises 10 subsystems and about 60 individual items. Weighing 7.5 kg, the class 6 armor protects almost 90% of a soldier’s body from 7,62mm rounds, even if fired at short range. It boasts special protection from detection by infrared devices. Made of lightweight carbon fiber, the exoskeleton supports the musculoskeletal system to help a soldier carry weights up to 50 kg during long distance marches.

    The Strelets-2 voice and video communication system includes a GLONASS navigation module enabling a squad leader to see the location of each soldier on his book-sized computer as well as send videos and photos to headquarters. Besides each soldier has an individual telephone-sized tactical computer.

    The soldiers have the Ruslan all-terrain vehicle, the GAZ-3344-20 all-terrain Tracked Vehicle, and the DT-10PM amphibious carrier. Able to defend airspace from enemy air attacks within a radius of at least 15 kilometers (9 miles), the new Tor-M2DT short-range air defense missile systems is the only system of its class designed specifically for the Arctic region weather conditions. It can protect from homing anti-radiation and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, gliders, fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Its DT-30PM platform will be used for Grad and Smerch multiple launch rocket systems.

    The air defense capability is going to be boosted with the S-400 Triumf and upgraded Pantsir-1S self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems.

    The T-80BVM is perfectly suited for the specific weather conditions of the Arctic. It is the first Russian operational tank to be fitted with this new explosive reactive armor. Its upgraded gas-turbine engines has better performance in arctic conditions, starting in temperatures as low as 40 degrees Celsius and be ready for action in only minutes. Tanks with conventional diesel engines need some 40 minutes to warm up in Arctic weather conditions.

    This year, Russia unveiled the new Chaborz M-3 buggy destined for operations in the Arctic version. This is a multipurpose lightweight off-road vehicle 4×2 designed for operation by Special Forces units in off-road conditions. It can accelerate it on road to a speed of 130 km/h.

    This year, Ilya Muromets, the first icebreaker built for the Russian Navy in almost 40 years, entered service along with Elbrus logistics support vessel, Admiral Gorshkov Project 22350 frigate equipped with Kalibr long-range cruise missiles, and Ivan Gren large landing ship (Project 11711), the first vessel of the class. Bastion coastal defense missile systems have been deployed in the Murmansk region.

    Academic Pashin tanker (Project 23130) is going through sea trials. Two Arktika-class nuclear double-hulled icebreakers out of six have already been launched. The plans include the construction of Lider, the projected super-powerful nuclear powered icebreaker. The first Ivan Papanin (Project 23550) class multipurpose patrol icebreaker, the lead ship of a series of two, is expected to be delivered to the Russian Navy by 2021. The ship is destined for monitoring and protection of Arctic waters, search and rescue operations, escorting of ships in polar waters, transportation of equipment and towing as well as maintenance and support for auxiliary vessels. It can provide protection for vessels operating in polar waters from air, sea and coastal targets.

    Three more fleet ballistic submarines (Project 955) and three attack nuclear submarines (Project 885) as well as two more frigates (Project 22350) will enter service with the Northern Fleet in near future. Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier will also be back to the ranks after upgrade equipped with the naval version of Pantsir close-in air defense system. Bal coastal defense systems are going to be deployed too.

    The gradual militarization of the region is a reality. There are two options here. One is turning the Arctic into a hotbed where a spark could kindle a big fire. The other launching a full-fledged dialogue to address security issues related to the region. Five of the Arctic Council’s eight members are part of NATO with Sweden and Finland being the privileged partners of the Alliance. It makes the issue part of the Russia-NATO relationship. Russia’s military activities in the region have nothing to do with saber-rattling but it has to protect its legitimate interests.

    The events related to the US decision to leave the INF Treaty, Syria, sanctions wars and other things in focus of public attention should not eclipse this issue of utmost importance. Cooperating with each other is the only way to maintain safety and regional order in the icy region. A coordinated regional approach to Arctic governance under the framework of the Law of the Sea Convention will build confidence and prevent militarization. The time is right for the Arctic Council to turn into a security-focused forum.

  • 'Bloggers' Blasted For Questioning Establishment 'White Helmets' Narrative

    Authored by Rick Sterling via Oriental Review,

    The October 16 issue of NY Review of Books has an article by Janine di Giovani titled “Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets”. The article exemplifies how western media promotes the White Helmets uncritically and attacks those who challenge the myth.

    Crude & Disingenuous Attack

    Giovani’s article attacks several journalists by name. She singles out Vanessa Beeley and echoes the Guardian’s characterization of Beeley as the “high priestess of Syria propaganda”. She does this without challenging a single article or claim by the journalist. She might have acknowledged that Vanessa Beeley has some familiarity with the Middle East; she is the daughter of one of the foremost British Arabists and diplomats including British Ambassador to Egypt. Giovanni might have explored Beeley’s research in Syria that revealed the White Helmets founder (British military contractor James LeMesurier) assigned the name Syria Civil Defence despite the fact there is a real Syrian organization by that name that has existed since the 1950’s. For the past several years, Beeley has done many on-the-ground reports and investigations in Syria. None of these are challenged by Giovanni. Just days ago Beeley published a report on her visit to the White Helmets headquarters in Deraa.

    Giovanni similarly dismisses another alternative journalist, Eva Bartlett. Again, Giovanni ignores the fact that Bartlett has substantial Middle East experience including having lived in Gaza for years. Instead of objectively evaluating the journalistic work of these independent journalists, Giovanni smears their work as “disinformation”. Presumably that is because their work is published at alternative sites such as 21st Century Wire and Russian media such as RT and Sputnik. Beeley and Bartlett surely would have been happy to have their reports published at the New York Review of Books, Newsweek or other mainstream outlets. But it’s evident that such reporting is not welcome there. Even Seymour Hersh had to go abroad to have his investigations on Syria published.

    The New McCarthyism

    Max Blumenthal is another journalist singled out by Giovanni. Blumenthal is the author of three books, including a NY Times bestseller and the highly acclaimed “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel”. Giovanni describes his transition from “anti-Assad” to “pro-Assad” and suggests his change of perspective was due to Russian influence. She says, “Blumenthal went to Moscow on a junket to celebrate RT’s tenth anniversary. We don’t know what happened during that visit, but afterwards, Blumenthal’s views completely flipped.” Instead of examining the facts presented by Blumenthal in articles such as “Inside the Shadowy PR Firm that’s Lobyying for Regime Change in Syria”, Giovanni engages in fact-free McCarthyism. Blumenthal explained the transition in his thinking in a public interview. He also described the threats he experienced when he started to criticize the White Helmets and their public relations firm, but this is ignored by Giovanni.

    Contrary to Giovanni’s assumptions, some western journalists and activists were exposing the White Helmets long before the story was publicized on Russian media. In spring 2015 the basic facts about the White Helmets including their origins, funding and role in the information war on Syria were exposed in my article “Seven Steps of Highly Effective Manipulators”. The article showed how the White Helmets were a key component in a campaign pushing for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria. It confirmed that the White Helmets is a political lobby force.

    In spring 2016, Vanessa Beeley launched a petition “Do NOT give the Nobel Peace Prize to the White Helmets”. That petition garnered more support than a contrary petition urging the Nobel Prize committee to give the award to the White Helmets. Perhaps because of that, the petition was abruptly removed without explanation from the Change.org website. It was only at this time, with publicity around the heavily promoted nomination of the White Helmets for a Nobel Peace Prize that RT and other Russian media started to publicize and expose the White Helmets. That is one and a half years after they were first exposed in western alternative media.

    White Helmets and Chemical Weapons Accusations 

    Giovanni ignores the investigations and conclusions of some of the most esteemed American journalists regarding the White Helmets and chemical weapons incidents in Syria.

    The late Robert Parry published many articles exposing the White Helmets, for example The White Helmets Controversy and Syria War Propaganda at the Oscars. Parry wrote and published numerous investigations of the August 2013 chemical weapons attack and concluded the attacks were carried out by an opposition faction with the goal of pressuring the US to intervene militarily. Parry also challenged western conclusions regarding incidents such as April 4, 2017 at Khan Shaykhun. Giovanni breathlessly opens her article with this story while Parry revealed the impossibility of it being as described.

    “Buried deep inside a new U.N. report is evidence that could exonerate the Syrian government in the April 4 sarin atrocity and make President Trump look like an Al-Qaeda dupe.”

    Legendary American journalist, Seymour Hersh, researched and refuted the assumptions of Giovanni and the media establishment regarding the August 2013 chemical weapons attacks near Damascus. Hersh’s investigation, titled The Red Line and Rat Line, provided evidence the atrocity was carried out by an armed opposition group with active support from Turkey. A Turkish member of parliament provided additional evidence. The fact that Hersh had to go across the Atlantic to have his investigation published suggests American not Russian disinformation and censorship.

    In addition to ignoring the findings of widely esteemed journalists with proven track records, Giovanni plays loose with the truth. In her article she implies that a UN investigation blamed the Syrian government for the August 2013 attack. On the contrary, the head of the UN investigation team, Ake Sellstrom, said they did not determine who was responsible. “We do not have the evidence to say who did what ….The conflict in Syria is surrounded by a lot of rumors and a lot of propaganda, particularly when comes to the sensitive issue of chemical weapons.”

    First Responders or Western Funded Propagandists?

    Giovanni says, “But the White Helmets’ financial backing is not the real reason why the pro-Assad camp is so bent on defaming them. Since 2015, the year the Russians began fighting in Syria, the White Helmets have been filming attacks on opposition-held areas with GoPro cameras affixed to their helmets.”

    In reality, the ‘White Helmets” have a sophisticated media production and distribution operation. They have much more than GoPro cameras. In many of their movie segments one can see numerous people with video and still cameras. Sometimes the same incident will be shown with one segment with an Al-Qaeda logo blending into the same scene with a White Helmets logo.

    Giovanni claims “The Assad regime and the Russians are trying to neutralize the White Helmets because they   are potential witnesses to war crimes.” However the claims of White Helmet “witnesses” have little credibility. The White Helmet “volunteers” are paid three times as much as Syrian soldiers. They are trained, supplied and promoted by the same western states which have sought to regime change in Syria since 2011. An example of misleading and false claims by a White Helmets leader is exposed in Gareth Porter’s investigation titled “How a Syrian White Helmets Leader Played Western Media” . His conclusion could be directed to Giovanni and the NYReview of Books:

    “The uncritical reliance on claims by the White Helmets without any effort to investigate their credibility is yet another telling example of journalistic malpractice by media outlets with a long record of skewing coverage of conflicts toward an interventionist narrative.”

    When the militants (mostly Nusra / Al-Qaeda) were expelled from East Aleppo, civilians reported that the White Helmets were mostly concerned with saving their own and performing publicity stunts. For example the photo of the little boy in east Aleppo looking dazed and confused in the back of a brand new White Helmet ambulance was essentially a White Helmet media stunt eagerly promoted in the West. It was later revealed the boy was not injured, he was grabbed without his parent’s consent. Eva Bartlett interviewed and photographed the father and family for her story “Mintpress Meets the Father of Iconic Aleppo Boy and says Media Lied About his Son”.

    A Brilliant Marketing Success

    The media and political impact of the White Helmets shows what money and marketing can do. An organization that was founded by a military contractor with funding from a western governments was awarded the Rights Livelihood Award. The organization was seriously considered to received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize just three years after its formation.

    The Netflix infomercial “The White Helmets” is an example of the propaganda. The scripted propaganda piece, where the producers did not set foot in Syria, won the Oscar award for best short documentary. It’s clear that lots of money and professional marketing can fool a lot of people. At $30 million per year, the White Helmets budget for one year is more than a decade of funding for the real Syrian Civil Defence which covers all of Syria not just pockets controlled by armed insurgents.

    Unsurprisingly, it has been announced that White Helmets will receive the 2019 “Elie Wiesel” award from the heavily politicized and pro-Israel Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. This, plus the recent “rescue” of White Helmets by the Israeli government, is more proof of the true colors of the White Helmets. Vanessa Beeley’s recent interview with a White Helmet leader in Deraa revealed that ISIS and Nusra terrorists were part of the group “rescued” through Israel.

    The Collapsing White Helmets Fraud

    Giovanni is outraged that some journalists have successfully challenged and put a big dent in the White Helmets  aura. She complains, “The damage the bloggers do is immense.”

    Giovanni and western propagandists are upset because the myth is deflating. Increasing numbers of people – from a famous rock musician to a former UK Ambassador – see and acknowledge the reality.

    As described in Blumenthal’s article, “How the White Helmets Tried to Recruit Roger Waters with Saudi Money”, rock legend Roger Waters says, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions…”

    Peter Ford, the former UK Ambassador to Syria, sums it up like this:

     “The White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries… They are not, as claimed by themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.”

    Giovanni claims her article is a “forensic take down of the Russian disinformation campaign to distort the truth in Syria.” In reality, Giovanni’s article is an example of western disinformation using subjective attacks on critics and evidence-free assertions aligned with the regime change goals of the West.

  • Cartel Chaos: Tijuana Murders Top 2,000; US Offers $10mln For Cartel Boss 'El Mencho' 

    As a dangerous cartel war erupts in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, a total of 2,000 homicides were reported by government officials in the first ten months of 2018, said Frontera.info, a local Mexican news agency. 

    As of Saturday, a total of 126 homicides were recorded for October, with the new total coming in at 2,005 killings for the year, as per the Attorney General’s Office of the State (PGJE) report. 

    “I believe that there is still a lack of coordination of the authorities of the three orders of the government; this coordination requires the political will and the main one must be the Governor of the State, that the corresponding work be done to have results also in the matter of homicides (translated in English via Google Translator),” said the head of the Citizen Council of Public Security of the State (CCSP), Juan Manuel Hernandez Niebla. 

    Niebla said the record number of homicides for the Tijuana region had caused citizens to seek shelter as the cartel drug war spirals out of control. 

    Tijuana homicides per month during 2018: 

    • January – 191 
    • February -177
    • March – 184
    • April – 212
    • May – 216
    • June – 221
    • July – 253
    • August 211
    • September – 214
    • October – 126 (as of Oct. 20th)

    The Secretary of Municipal Public Safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezuca, reiterated that a spike in murders is due to a power struggle between two drug cartels: the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generacion. 

    “What has been happening in this time is the empowerment of a criminal group that has gained more strength; they began to hear the presence of a foreign cartel and even the authorities do not have much information, it was said that there was no presence and suddenly we realized that there was a presence, even before this administration (translated into English via Google Translator),” Amezuca explained. 

    Last week, the U.S. Government offered an unprecedented $10 million bounty for the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel. 

    Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, 52, known as “El Mencho,” is a fugitive and labeled as a major “Kingpin” under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April 2015. 

    The cartel’s primary business is running methamphetamines into Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta.  

    Experts have said, “El Mencho” is primarily the reason for the violent flare-up in Tijuana. Drug cartels have recently launched a cartel war for control of Tijuana because of its strategic importance of transporting drugs into the U.S.

    In August, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unveiled a few strategies to combat drug cartels with the Mexican government, military, and the federal police. These plans called for attacking cartels’ financial structure and the creation of a new enforcement program based in Chicago that monitors international investigations of cartels. 

    As long as the American addiction crisis continues to spur demand of low-cost drugs from Mexican drug cartels, the war over US market share between cartels will only get worse.

      

  • US Must Protect Itself Against China Cyber War

    Authored by Richard Fisher via The Epoch Times,

    The storm of controversy has yet to subside following the Oct. 4 Bloomberg Businessweek blockbuster story that San Jose, California-based Super Micro Computer Inc.’s made-in-China computer motherboards were secretly “hacked” by the People’s Liberation Army over a two-year period. Another episode in the China cyberwar saga.

    This particular hack potentially enabled back-door access to the computers of companies such as Apple and Amazon and U.S. government agencies including the Department of Defense, CIA, NSA, and the Navy.

    Immediate security implications for the United States and many other countries are enormous, so it’s not surprising that, weeks later, denials of the report far exceed affirmations.

    The day the story was released, Super Micro, Amazon, and Apple denied being affected, and on Oct. 18 Apple CEO Tim Cook asked Bloomberg to retract its story.

    Officials from the NSA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security have expressed doubts.

    During a U.S. Senate hearing Oct. 9, Kirstjen Nielsen, DHS director, said while DHS did not have evidence to support Bloomberg’s contention of computer supply chain interference, she also said, “It is a very real and emerging threat that we are very concerned about.”

    Also on Oct. 9, Bloomberg reported that “a major U.S. telecommunications company” had removed Super Micro computer hardware deemed “manipulated” by China, citing Yossi Appleboum, cybersecurity expert and former Israeli Army intelligence officer.

    He also told Bloomberg that he has seen similar Chinese manipulations of computer hardware made by various Chinese vendors, noting there are “countless” points in the Chinese supply chain where manipulations can be introduced.

    China Wants to Control Global Cyberspace

    This controversy will continue, but we can pause to consider its first major message: China is engaged in a war to control global cyberspace.

    This is a vital part of its driving ambition to eclipse the United States as the principle global military power and to impose military control over the Earth-Moon system. Furthermore, until the United States can revive Cold War-era-like cooperation among the democratic allies which protects their military dual-use technology and fights back against China’s cyber war, China increasingly will pervert and weaponize the life-enhancing potential offered by digital technologies in its effort to contain and eventually dominate us.

    A stark lesson in the pitfalls of cyber-hubris was offered by former President Bill Clinton, who in an October 2000 speech argued for China to be allowed to join the World Trade Organization. He stated the internet would “change China,” suggesting it would weaken Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control.

    Today, CCP totalitarianism is enhanced by its control over its internet Great Wall, which isolates Chinese from the global web; allows increasingly intimate control over them via “smart cities” that record their physical movement; and enables future “social credit scores” that will grade their online support for the CCP in order to determine access to better cities, education, and jobs.

    Could China someday assign similar social credit scores to everybody who works or plays online?

    The China-Super Micro Connection

    To do so, China would require the kind of global backdoor access to computer systems said to have been provided by the Chinese contractors making the hardware for Super Micro.

    This past January, it was reported that for five years the new African Union headquarters built by China also has been hacked to send confidential information back to China.

    Governments increasingly ban or discourage relying on Chinese telecommunication equipment vendors like Huawei or ZTE, while since October 2016 the Pentagon has warned against using Chinese-made Lenovo computers.

    Add to this China’s pervasive 24-7 mining of global computer networks, and its specific attacks against companies and databases to amass military, economic, political, and personal data.

    This becomes deadly serious considering that in late 2015 the People’s Liberation Army created a new military service, the Strategic Support Force, to ensure China wins in new battlefields dominated by cyber warfare, databases, electronic warfare, energy weapons, and space warfare.

    If China can stealthily “manipulate” their computer hardware, it might also be able to turn against us our future unmanned weapons, made deadlier with advances in artificial intelligence.

    Thinking of waging a war against an interest of China’s? It may not be unreasonable to expect your officers, soldiers, and their families to receive dissuasive robocalls from China as the opening move in a much more destructive cyber assault. Imagine how China might seek to manipulate your future “brain chip,” especially if it was made in China.

    Consequently, as the Trump administration has sought to illustrate in an Oct. 5 report on the U.S. manufacturing and defense industrial base, the United States must invest in reviving domestic American sources for military-critical industries, including those feeding our electronic infrastructure.

    Washington also must go on the offensive. It should seek to revive proven institutions like the former Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls to better control China’s access to Western military technology.

    There is also a need for a multilateral cyber and information campaign that exploits China’s cyber weaknesses. For example, obtaining the ability to manipulate the internet social credit scores of 300 million Chinese could turn up the political heat on the 90 million members of the CCP.

  • "A Game-Changing And Lifesaving Capability" – Robots That Deploy Other Robots 

    FLIR Systems Inc., based in Wilsonville, Oregon, has developed a self-contained housing and launch unit for the world’s smallest combat-proven nano-unmanned aerial system. The launcher can mount to any vehicle, including uncrewed ground vehicles. 

    FLIR Black Hornet 3 

    The Black Hornet Vehicle Reconnaissance System (VRS) debuted on Oct. 09 at the Annual Meeting and Exposition of the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) in Washington, D.C. The new launcher features the Black Hornet 3 nano-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for the military, government agencies, and first responder vehicle-mounted operations. 

    FLIR Black Hornet 3 debuting at AUSA in Washington, D.C.

    The launch unit includes slots for four Black Hornet 3 drones, each the size of a hummingbird, plus an electrical charging station within. With the flip of a switch, the launcher opens, a drone pops out and takes flight. 

    “The Black Hornet combines with the VRS to create a real-time situational awareness (RSTA) airborne system for warfighters protected inside a vehicle. The Black Hornet VRS includes launch unit that holds multiple Black Hornet UAVs and mounts to the exterior of any military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and light utility vehicles. Operators inside a vehicle can use an integrated battle management system or only a display to launch and fly the Black Hornet on its mission. The complete system is easily integrated with modern battlefield management systems and is vehicle platform dependent,” said FLIR press release.  

    According to the Black Hornet 3’s customer brochure, the GPS-guided drone has roughly 25-minutes of flight time depending on weather conditions, and has a range of over 1 mile, “it can fly from outdoors into buildings or caves, and help asses a situation before putting personnel in harm’s way.” 

    Mount the Black Hornet VRS on top of a robotic reconnaissance vehicle or a remote controlled-tank, and the military-industrial complex has a wartime robot deploying small unmanned scouts to extend its field of view. “A game-changing and lifesaving capability,” according to FLIR. 

    Black Hornet VRS mounted on a robot 
    Black Hornet 3 flying over robot tank 
    Black Hornet 3 flying over robot tank 

    Stuard Russell, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, Berkley, spoke with Motherboard about robots deploying robots, especially the FLIR VRS system. 

    Russell gives an ominous warning that the Black Hornet 3 combined with VRS is like something out of the Terminator. If terrorists were able to weaponize these miniature drones, it would be a perfect tool for a mass casualty event, he said. “I estimate, for example, that roughly one million lethal weapons can be carried in a single container truck or cargo aircraft, perhaps with only two or three human operators rather than two or three million, Russell wrote by email to Motherboard.

    “Such weapons would be able to hunt for and eliminate humans in towns and cities, even inside buildings. They would be cheap, effective, unattributable, and easily proliferated once the major powers initiate mass production and the weapons become available on the international arms market,” Russell warned.  

    Drones deploying other drones — what could possibly go wrong? Not too long ago, the FBI director delivered a written testimony to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Commitee in which he warned about the increasing threat from weaponized drones by Al-Qaeda, ISIS, MS-13, and Mexican drug cartels. 

  • Has America Become A Dictatorship Disguised As A Democracy?

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own gain.”—They Live, John Carpenter

    We’re living in two worlds, you and I.

    There’s the world we see (or are made to see) and then there’s the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

    Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America – privileged, progressive and free – is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and “freedom,” such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.

    All is not as it seems.

    “You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

    This is the premise of John Carpenter’s film They Live, which was released 30 years ago in November 1988 and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.

    Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, Carpenter’s larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.

    Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.

    In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.

    In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.

    In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.

    In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.”

    And then there is Carpenter’s They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace—blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives—has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.

    It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy Piper) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses—Hoffman lenses—that Nada sees what lies beneath the elite’s fabricated reality: control and bondage.

    When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on them. 

    Likewise, billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages: a bikini-clad woman in one ad is actually ordering viewers to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Magazine racks scream “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” A wad of dollar bills in a vendor’s hand proclaims, “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”

    When viewed through Nada’s Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed into the people’s subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.

    This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.

    A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.

    In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as dictatorship in democracy, “the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom.”

    We’re being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to reality.

    The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers).

    They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being.

    They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.

    Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.

    Tune out the government’s attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what’s really going on in this country, and you’ll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and discarded.

    In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups.

    In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.

    Not only do you have to be rich—or beholden to the rich—to get elected these days, but getting elected is also a surefire way to get rich. As CBS News reports, “Once in office, members of Congress enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further.”

    In denouncing this blatant corruption of America’s political system, former president Jimmy Carter blasted the process of getting elected—to the White House, governor’s mansion, Congress or state legislatures—as “unlimited political bribery… a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over.”

    Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session. There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

    Sound familiar?

    Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests.

    We have moved into “corporatism” (favored by Benito Mussolini), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown fascism. 

    Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests—not elected by the citizenry—rule over the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a. concentration) camps.

    For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the majority of the people will have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary.

    But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?

    The answer is the same in every age: fear.

    Fear makes people stupid.

    Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And, as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.

    The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control, and it is working on the American populace.

    Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives to government officials who treat us as a means to an end—the source of money and power.

    As the Bearded Man in They Live warns, “They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”

    In this regard, we’re not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live. 

    From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.

    Despite the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful, controlled, pacified zombies.

    We live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American police state by wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.

    Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic screen, even when they’re crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what’s going on around them. Young people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away. 

    Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens—that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month.

    The question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have on one’s mind?

    Psychologically it is similar to drug addiction. Researchers found that “almost immediately after turning on the TV, subjects reported feeling more relaxed, and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a lack of tension.” Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers’ brain waves slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.

    Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify disruptive people. “Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and counseling, more and more prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet,” according to Newsweek.

    Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels controlled by six mega corporations, what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so on a large scale.

    If we’re watching, we’re not doing.

    The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a 1958 speech:

    We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

    This brings me back to They Live, in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.

    When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own. 

    We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and underclasses are also growing. Racial injustice is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent. We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.

    Oblivious to what lies ahead, we’ve been manipulated into believing that if we continue to consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that’s never been true of emerging regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.

    So where does that leave us?

    The characters who populate Carpenter’s films provide some insight.

    Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters. 

    When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live, he restores hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.

    That’s the key right there: we need to wake up.

    Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay attention to what’s really going on in the country.

    The real battle for control of this nation is not being waged between Republicans and Democrats in the ballot box.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the real battle for control of this nation is taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.

    The real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if we would only open them.

    All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.

    Wake up, America.

    If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because “we the people” sleep.

  • ECB Preview: What Does Draghi Really Think About Italy

    Submitted by RanSquawk

    The ECB Monetary Policy decision is due at 13:45 CET, 07:45 EDT, On Thursday 25th October 2018, with the press conference 45 minutes later. Unanimous expectations look for the ECB to leave its three key rates unchanged while markets await any updates on the bank’s assessment of Europe’s economy and the bank’s reinvestment policy after Draghi stated the issue will be discussed before the end of 2018. Draghi likely to be grilled on the Bank’s concerns over Italy’s budgetary demands.

    BACKGROUND

    PREVIOUS MEETING: As was the case with the July meeting, September’s policy announcement delivered little in the way of fireworks with the governing council’s statement broadly unchanged from the prior release. The press conference saw Draghi note that incoming data confirmed the Bank’s previous assessment that growth is broad-based, inflation is rising and the strength of the economy supports confidence. In terms of the latest economic projections, 2018 and 2019 growth forecasts were lowered to 2.0% and 1.8% respectively with all other projections maintained. Furthermore, Draghi gave very little away with regards to the Bank’s intentions for further policy normalisation by stating that the ECB’s first rate hike was not discussed. Draghi also stated that reinvestments were not discussed but would be at one of the meetings before the end of 2018.

    ECB MINUTES: ECB minutes drew little in the way of a market reaction with the release more of an account on the governing council’s view on the Eurozone economy rather than any insight into what policy discussions took place. The release highlighted the view that factors behind the growth slowdown may not be transitory, trade tensions could lead to a more general decline in confidence and that the adverse effects of trade tensions have been so far limited but might still impact the euro area over time.

    SOURCE REPORTS: In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, sources revealed that a few ECB policymakers wanted the September policy message to say risks were tilted to the downside. Elsewhere, sources on October 11th reported that the Bank would not come to the rescue of Italy if the government and banks run out of cash unless an EU bailout is in place.

    ECB RHETORIC: One of the most notable interjections seen since the previous meeting came from ECB President Draghi who stated that he sees a vigorous pick-up in underlying inflation. This was met with a hawkish reaction by the market. However, the comments appeared to be the policymaker justifying the economic projections released at the September meeting and thus wasn’t necessarily new information; a view point that was backed up by Praet the following day. Knot recently stated that the ECB are comfortable with the wording of forward guidance adding that a hike may come sooner or later than guided. Knot even went on to state that one potential option for the Bank would be publishing how many times they intend to raise rates in a given year. Elsewhere, Chief Economist Praet recently suggested that the market had moved a little too dovish.

    DATA: On the growth front, HSBC highlight that the most recent growth forecasts from the Bank could be in jeopardy with analysts suggesting that the ECB’s references to soft manufacturing activity in the September minutes could make a Q3 0.5% GDP print unlikely. From an inflation perspective, Eurozone CPI in September remained at 2.1% Y/Y, however, the super-core metric remains subdued at 0.9% Y/Y and thus is showing little sign of gaining momentum. The latest survey data from the Eurozone was relatively unencouraging with the composite EZ metric slipping to 52.7 from 54.1 with Markit noting the multi-bloc economy grew at its slowest level in over two years whilst expectations of future growth slipped to the lowest for nearly four years

    CURRENT ECB FORWARD GUIDANCE (INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT)

    RATES: We continue to expect them to remain at their present levels at least through the summer of 2019, and in any case for as long as necessary to ensure the continued sustained convergence of inflation to levels that are below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. (Sep 13th)

    ASSET PURCHASES: After September 2018, we will reduce the monthly pace of the net asset purchases to €15 billion until the end of December 2018 and we anticipate that, subject to incoming data confirming our medium-term inflation outlook, we will then end net purchases. We intend to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an extended period of time after the end of our net asset purchases, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation. (Sep 13th)

    GROWTH/TRADE: The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook can still be assessed as broadly balanced. At the same time, risks relating to rising protectionism, vulnerabilities in emerging markets and financial market volatility have gained more prominence recently. (Sep 13th)

    INFLATION: The underlying strength of the economy continues to support our confidence that the sustained convergence of inflation to our aim will proceed and will be maintained even after a gradual winding-down of our net asset purchases. (Sep 13th)

    POTENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS TO ECB FORWARD GUIDANCE (INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT)

    RATES: No adjustments expected on this front. Even ECB-hawk Knot has suggested that such adjustments on rate guidance wouldn’t be discussed until early next year. That said, HSBC suggest that some at the ECB “might be starting to worry that, having tied its hands too tightly with its forward guidance, it might miss the chance to raise rates”. As such, HSBC believe that if the ECB remain confident in their ability to fulfil their inflation objectives, Draghi at some stage will need to “hammer home the message that markets should expect a rate hike, sooner rather than later”.

    ASSET PURCHASES: The central bank will likely signal that purchases will continue to run at EUR 15bln a month until December with GS suggesting that the bar to an extension is simply too high. Instead of an extension to policy, market focus continues to remain on the Bank’s plans for its reinvestment policy (please see below for more detail analysis on this matter).

    GROWTH/TRADE: In terms of adjustments, this aspect of the statement could be of greater focus for the market given the September minutes state concerns that “factors behind the growth slowdown may not be transitory, trade tensions could lead to a more general decline in confidence”. As such, some in the market have speculated whether or not this could force the Bank to review their ‘broadly balanced’ assessment. However, GS suggest that since these remarks ‘various Governing Council members have suggested that the broad view is still that the risk assessment of the economic outlook is balanced’; subsequently GS look for little in the way of material changes to the introductory statement.

    INFLATION: Despite the market focus on Draghi’s comments in September whereby he spoke of a “relatively vigorous pick-up in underlying inflation”, UBS suggest the ‘remarks do not signal a change in the ECB’s assessment, but are more of a description of what the ECB has expected for some time”. Furthermore, UBS “think that recent speeches by Mr Draghi and other key ECB policymakers constitute explanations as to why the ECB introduced its monetary policy normalisation in June 2018 – rather than first indications that the ECB is about to further accelerate the pace of normalisation”. Therefore, it is unlikely that the ECB will materially alter their guidance on inflation at this stage.

    PRESS CONFERENCE: WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR

    In terms of the contents of the press conference, a bulk of the ECB’s assessment on the Eurozone economy will be incorporated into the introductory statement with no staff economic projections this time around. Draghi will likely be quizzed on his assessment of the Eurozone economy in the Q&A but the tone presented by Draghi will likely be in-fitting with the introductory statement with the central banker likely to be mindful of not wanting to rock the boat as the ECB’s PSPP draws to a close. Interestingly, Rabobank questions whether Draghi’s optimism at the previous conference was driven by the economic outlook or the desire to curtail asset purchases. As part of the discussion regarding the Eurozone’s economic outlook, Draghi will likely be presented with specific questions on the Bank’s view on ongoing trade tensions, particularly given source reports ahead of the previous meeting which flagged concerns from the fallout of trade disputes. Since then, there has still been no material improvement on this front with the US recently accusing the EU of ‘dragging its heels’ in talks. That said, it is unlikely that the Governing Council will have enough information at this stage to provide a more coherent update and will most likely wish to see how talks between the EU and US play out.

    Another line of questioning from journalists will likely centre around the Bank’s approach to its reinvestmnet policy. At the previous meeting, Draghi stated that reinvestments had not been discussed but would be a topic for discussion at one of the meetings before the end of 2018. As such, this leaves the ECB with either this week’s meeting as an opportunity to update markets or the final 2018 meeting in December before the PSPP concludes. For context, various reports over the past few weeks have hinted at a potential Fed-type ‘operation twist’ which would involve reinvestments being focused on longer maturities with the objective of maintaining control over the long-end of the curve. However, HSBC are “of the view that any formal announcement in that direction is unlikely: the ECB has been vague on the maturity of purchases and reinvestments, which allows it to be flexible in what to buy”. Furthermore, HSBC also highlight the issue of Bond scarcity for the Bank which could pose issues in buying bonds at the long-end, particularly Bunds. Barclays back this view by stating that any updates will likely be from more of a technical standpoint rather than anything that would imply changes to the ECB’s monetary policy course. In terms of actual timing for the announcement, as mentioned above, the next update from the Bank will come either this week or in December; GS and Rabobank suggest that the latter is more likely.

    Given the current political climate in Italy, journalists will likely probe Draghi over events in his home nation and what the ECB could do to prevent economic spill-overs from a deterioration in the Italian economic outlook. To recap recent events, Italy has put itself on a collision course with the European Commission with regards to its budgetary plans which has prompted the Commission to write to Italy, highlighting their concerns. At the time of writing, it appears to be unclear how much (if any) ground Italy will concede with various media reports painting a mixed picture of the situation. The main concern for the Bank is that whatever compromises are struck between Italy and the EC, Italy appear to be adopting a particularly laissez faire approach to their structural deficit. In September, the ECB stated “full adherence with the Stability and Growth Pact is critical for safeguarding sound fiscal position”. As such, markets will be looking to state whether the ECB ups the intensity of their message to Italy with HSBC highlighting that the Bank could “play a crucial role in the future negotiations between Italy and the EU, with QE reinvestments being key to support the Italian sovereign bond market”. GS state that they believe “Draghi may provide some broad comments highlighting the importance of fiscal prudence” but “do not expect him to signal that any special measures targeting Italy are forthcoming”

     

  • The Future Of Privacy In The New World Order

    Via InternationalMan.com,

    Roughly one hundred years ago, the people who “ran things,” – the drivers behind governments, big business and banking – formulated a concept which became known by a number of names, but, predominantly, as the “New World Order.”

    The concept was to put an end to unnecessary competition and warfare and have a central, unelected group of people run the entire world. It was not considered necessary to completely eliminate individual countries; the idea was to control them all centrally. It also didn’t necessarily mean that wars would end. Warfare can be quite useful for rulers, as they provide an excellent distraction from resentment toward the leaders who impose control over a people.

    Ever since that time, this same rough group of people has continued generationally. Sometimes, but not always, the family names change. Useful people are added on and less useful ones removed. But the concept itself has continued, evolved and, in fact, gained strength.

    But, as yet, the process remains incomplete. Several facets to a New World Order are not yet in place. It’s proven difficult to “fool all of the people all of the time,” so the effort to subjugate an entire world has taken more time than originally anticipated.

    An essential component of this control is the elimination of the personal holding of wealth. Whilst the leaders intend to expand their own wealth in an unlimited fashion, they seek to suppress the ability of the average person to increase his own wealth. Wealth leads to independence and independence from a New World Order is unacceptable. Wealth gives people options. They must be taught to accept being herded like cattle and being compliant, or they will become troublesome.

    Not surprising then, that, recently, organisations like the OECD have been created to eliminate the individual’s ability to create and maintain wealth for his own benefit.

    The OECD’s dual purpose, from its inception, has been to achieve two things: 1) to eliminate tax shelters, so that people could not escape oppressive taxation in their home jurisdictions and, 2) to create uniform taxation worldwide. (Whilst they proudly boast that they are pursuing the former objective, under the pretense of preventing “money laundering and terrorism,” they have not yet revealed the latter objective, as it cannot be so easily disguised as a benefit to those being ruled over.)

    But the OECD has, over time, done a bang-up job of convincing most people that “privacy” – the right to keep your personal affairs to yourself – is the same as “secrecy” – the desire to hide your misdeeds from others.

    The majority of people have now accepted the absurd notion that they should have no right to personal privacy. They owe it to the powers that be, to allow them to freely rummage through their financial lingerie drawer.

    Every year, the OECD and others have successfully chipped away at the privacy offered by Switzerland and similar jurisdictions. Through repeated black lists, gray lists, sanctions and outright threats, the OECD has diminished privacy considerably there.

    A significant blow has recently been announced by the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) that has brought an end to numbered Swiss accounts and allows for the automatic transfer of information between jurisdictions.

    Henceforth, the account holder’s name, address, country of residence and tax identification number as well as the reporting institution, account balance and capital income are to be made available to other jurisdictions so that they can monitor the wealth of their citizens.

    Tellingly, this new “openness” does not necessarily include reciprocal reporting. Many other nations will not be expected to send theiraccount information to the Swiss. This has been described by the FTA as being due to “technical reasons.”

    Periodically, people located in OECD countries (the western world’s primary powers that drive the New World Order effort) have declared that “privacy is dead.” At least once a year, some new level of control has been achieved somewhere in the world and, each time, the proclamation is repeated, as though for the first time.

    So – is this the case? Is the new Swiss event the one that, will really, truly, no kidding this time, bring wealth privacy to an end?

    Hardly.

    Singapore and Hong Kong are in fact making forward strides as to privacy. And other freedom-supporting jurisdictions (almost all of them geographically small jurisdictions) are in the continual habit of losing a bit of ground / gaining a bit of ground. However, within the OECD countries, the process has the appearance of a turnstyle that only goes one way – away from freedom and toward a New World Order.

    The people living in OECD countries are inclined to say, “Okay, I understand that those jurisdictions that favour financial privacy are putting up a valiant fight, but surely, the big boys will one day crush them. It may not be all over yet, but it’s just around the corner.”

    In my estimation, this is far from being a done deal. What we are instead witnessing is a race against time. The OECD countries are undeniably bankrupt. But, through the excessive creation of counterfeit money, they’re presently maintaining and even expanding their power over the rest of the world.

    As long as they can maintain the illusion that they’re solvent, yes – they will succeed in chipping away the right to privacy. But it’s become a far more formidable task than the OECD at first thought. Other countries have been habitually creative in finding loopholes and creating alternative methods to maintain privacy. They most certainly never announce these developments and they’ll unquestionably not be acknowledged by the elite-controlled media, but in fact, they’ve been holding their own quite well. The question is: for how long?

    Historically, governments have always sought to control their minions as much as they possibly can. Empires are even more fervent in this effort. But all empires eventually collapse from within – self destructing through top-heaviness. In their final days, they redouble their efforts at control, as they become aware that their days are numbered and they try to take a last squeeze at the lemon, with regard to their citizens’ wealth.

    The OECD countries are a textbook example. They’re in their final throes and are going all out to control and appropriate the wealth of their citizens. But, again, they’re bankrupt and living on borrowed time. When the inevitable economic collapse does arrive in the not-distant future, something highly significant will happen that very few people are presently taking into account.

    Historically, in all such situations, when a collapse happens, all the counterfeit money dries up quite suddenly and the empire can no longer continue to fund even its basic subsistence programmes, let alone costly peripheral programmes such as the OECD.

    That’s when the controls fall by the wayside.

    What we’re witnessing is a waiting game. Jurisdictions that support wealth privacy have always existed and always will, but they’re presently operating much like the French Resistance in 1944. They need only keep the game moving until the day of liberation.

    After that date, they’ll once again begin their inevitable expansion.

    *  *  *

    Clearly, there are many strange things afoot in the world. Distortions of markets, distortions of culture. It’s wise to wonder what’s going to happen, and to take advantage of growth while also being prepared for crisis. How will you protect yourself in the next crisis? See our PDF guide that will show you exactly how. Click here to download it now.

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