• The Fifth-Largest Diamond In History Was Just Discovered

  Shares of Gem Diamonds surged +15% on Monday after the miner said it had unearthed one of the biggest diamonds in history. According to Bloomberg, Gem Diamonds Ltd. discovered a massive 910-carat diamond, about the “size of two golf balls” from the Letseng mine in Lesotho, the highest dollar per carat diamond mine in the world.

  

  The diamond is the largest ever recovered from Letseng and is classified as a D color Type IIa diamond, which means it has very few impurities or nitrogen atoms. More importantly, the diamond is the fifth-biggest ever found.

  “Assuming that there are no large inclusions running through the diamond, we initially estimate a sale of $40m,” said Richard Knights at Liberum, citing the 1,109-carat Lesedi la Rona discovered in 2015, and it sold for $53 million.

  “This would imply a $43m price tag for the Letseng diamond, but we place large caveats on this estimation, given that the pricing is rarely linear,” he added.

   

  

  Clifford Elphick, Gem Diamonds’ Chief Executive Officer, commented in Monday’s press release:

  Since Gem Diamonds acquired Letseng in 2006, the mine has produced some of the world’s most remarkable diamonds, including the 603 carat Lesotho Promise, however, this exceptional top quality diamond is the largest to be mined to date and highlights the unsurpassed quality of the Letseng mine. This is a landmark recovery for all of Gem Diamonds’ stakeholders, including our employees, shareholders and the Government of Lesotho, our partner in the Letseng mine.

  The Letseng mine resides in the kingdom of Lesotho, located inside South Africa, and at an elevation of 10,000 feet, it is the world’s highest mine. Perhaps, there is a correlation between the elevation and diamond size and quality since Letseng is famous for its high-quality diamonds.

  The company’s official press release on Monday gave very little information surrounding the value of the diamond, or if there was even a buyer.

  Its value will be determined by the size and quality of the polished stones that can be cut from it. Lucara Diamond Corp. sold a 1,109-carat diamond for $53 million last year, but got a record $63 million for a smaller 813-carat stone it found at the same time in 2015.

  Shares of Gem, which list in London, advanced 14.25%, valuing the company around £126.59M. Since 2012, a lack of significant discoveries coupled with deteriorating financials has declined London shares more than -78%. Monday’s press release of the discovery could bolster the company’s cash position upon the sale of the diamond.

  “The successful sale of this stone will be supportive for Gem’s balance sheet and push the company into a free cash flow positive position this year,” said Richard Hatch of RBC Capital Markets.

  Last week, the company recovered 117-carat and 110-carat rocks from its mine. The three significant discoveries back-to-back could be an upward turn for the company and allow investors to ‘b-t-f-d’.

  Here are some diamonds recovered by Gem include:

  • 2006 – Lesotho Promise (603 carat)
  • 2007 – Lesotho Legacy (493 carat)
  • 2008 – Leseli La Letseng (478 carat)
  • 2011 – Letseng Star (550 carat)
  • 2014 – Yellow (299 carat)
  • 2015 – Letseng Destiny (314 carat)
  • 2015 – Letseng Dynasty (357 carat)
  • 2018-  Letseng (910 carat)

  Bloomberg identifies the world’s largest diamond finds:

  The biggest diamond discovered is the 3,106-carat Cullinan, found near Pretoria, in South Africa, in 1905. It was cut to form the Great Star of Africa and the Lesser Star of Africa, which are set in the Crown Jewels of Britain. Lucara’s 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona is the second-biggest, with the 995-carat Excelsior and 969-carat Star of Sierra Leone the third- and fourth-largest.  

  Weaker demand for diamonds, coupled with a growing supply glut, has pushed the IDEX diamond index lower and lower. With the industry in free-fall, has Gem with its monstrous 910-carat rock produced an artificial bottom or is this a head fake?

  

  

• "The Whole World Is Sick And Tired Of US Foreign Policy"

  Authored by Darius Shatahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,

  

  According to four-star General Wesley Clark, in a 1991 meeting with Paul Wolfowitz, then-under-secretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense, Wolfowitz seemed a little dismayed because he believed the U.S. should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm but failed to do so. Clark summarized what he says Wolfowitz said:

  “‘But one thing we did learn. We learned that we can use our military in the region, in the Middle East, and the Soviets won’t stop us. We’ve got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.’” [emphasis added]

  This was certainly the case in the years that followed, as the United States used the pretext of 9/11 to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq with little to no substantive resistance from the international community. This trend continued as the Obama administration heavily expanded its operations into Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and even the Philippines, to name a few, right up until the U.S. led a cohort of NATO countries to impose regime change in Libya in 2011.

  At the time, Russia withheld its veto power at the U.N. Security Council because it had received assurances that the coalition would not pursue regime change. After NATO forces began bombing Muammar Gaddafi’s palaces directly, a furious Vladimir Putin questioned: “Who gave NATO the right to kill Gaddafi?”

  Following Gaddafi’s public execution on the streets of Sirte, Putin’s criticism of NATO’s betrayal went even further. He stated:

  “The whole world saw him being killed; all bloodied. Is that democracy? And who did it? Drones, including American ones, delivered a strike on his motorcade. Then commandos – who were not supposed to be there – brought in so-called opposition and militants and killed him without trial. I’m not saying that Gaddafi didn’t have to quit, but that should have been left up to the people of Libya to decide through the democratic process.”

  No one appreciated it at the time, but America’s unchallenged ability to intervene anywhere and everywhere it chooses ended on that day. Fast forward to Barack Obama’s plans to implement an extensive strike plan against the Syrian government in 2013, which never transpired due  strong Russian opposition and widespread protests in the U.S. A few years later, Russia directly intervened in Syria at the request of the Syrian government and effectively implemented its own no-fly zone in significant portions of the country. Donald Trump’s April 2017 strike on the Syrian government was only conducted after his administration first notified the Russians through a deconfliction hotline set up to manage the Syrian conflict.

  However, Russia isn’t the only country that is tired of America’s foreign policy, and the recent “emergency U.N. Security Council meeting” to discuss the current situation in Iran is a testament to that. Even Washington’s traditional allies cannot withhold their criticism of America’s desire to police the world.

  “However worrying the events of the last few days in Iran may be they do not constitute per se a threat to international peace and security,” French Ambassador to the U.N. Francois Delattre said. “We must be wary of any attempts to exploit this crisis for personal ends, which would have the diametrically opposed outcome to that which is wished.”

  Russia went even further, bringing up America’s own behavior and treatment of protesters as a counter-argument to the notion that Washington is motivated by human rights concerns in Iran.

  “By your logic, we should have initiated a Security Council meeting after the well-known events in Ferguson,” said Russian U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, addressing the U.S. delegation.

  Iran also insisted the matter was an internal affair and not something for the U.N. to weigh in on, and China agreed, with their ambassador calling it a purely “domestic issue.”

  French President Emmanuel Macron even went so far as to accuse the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia of instigating a war with Iran.

  “The official line pursued by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are our allies in many ways, is almost one that would lead us to war,” Macron told reporters, according to Reuters. Instead, Macron called for dialogue with Tehran as he warned against the approach adopted by the aforementioned three countries.

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also came to Iran’s aid during the protests with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, openly stating:

  “Iran’s stability is important for us…We are against foreign interventions in Iran.”

  At the end of last year, Erdogan stated that U.S. sanctions on Iran were not binding on Turkey as it sought to outmaneuver them. At the time, Hurriyet news quoted Erdogan as saying “[t]he world does not consist of the U.S. alone.”

  America’s influential decline was most evident in Donald Trump’s recent Jerusalem debacle, which saw the Trump administration issue stern threats to the entire world, warning they needed to vote in favor of Washington’s interests at the U.N. Most of the world chose to ignore those threats and gave the United States a giant “middle finger,” so to speak, voting overwhelmingly against the Trump administration.

  While Washington is more than capable of unilaterally attacking other countries both covertly and overtly with an ever depleting list of allies, what is becoming increasingly clear is that it may not be able to do so without active opposition from the rest of the world, including nuclear powers Russia and China, which refuse to stay silent as the U.S. tries to shape the world in accordance with its geopolitical desires.

  

• Ford Profit, Outlook Miss Estimates Amid Dramatic Transformation Plan

  Having admitted last March that “used car prices will drop for years”  amid near record inventories, having reached a so-called ‘plateau’ in car sales, amid rising auto-loan losses, and less than a year after it fired 10% of its global workforce, on Tuesday afternoon Ford disappointed once again, reporting preliminary financial results for 2017 and guidance that fell short of investor expectations, in a downbeat forecast that contrasted with a more positive outlook from rival automaker General Motors.

   

  
  The 2019 Ford Ranger

  In 2017 Ford said it would miss consensus estimates of $1.83, and will report adjusted earnings of $1.78 per share. For 2018, Ford expects adjusted earnings of $1.45 to $1.70 per share, below consensus of $1.62. Ford blamed exchange rates (which is odd since the dollar has been tumbling in recent months) and rising prices for the commodities used in its vehicles for the projected decline in 2018 adjusted earnings.

  Over the past year, Ford shares are up only about 4%, significantly trailing the 18% return of its arch-rival GM. Last May, Ford’s board ousted CEO Mark Fields and named Jim Hackett, who was known as a turnaround expert and had been leading Ford’s unit developing self-driving vehicles, to replace him. As Reuters reports, Hackett has promised to slash Ford’s product development costs by $14 billion and has launched reviews of the vehicle lineup.

  Ford’s disappointing forecast reinforces Hackett’s warning to investors from last fall that the cost-cutting and product strategy changes could take time.

  Ford CFO Bob Shanks told analysts at a Detroit investor conference organized by Deutsche Bank that higher costs for steel, aluminum and other metals, as well as currency volatility, would cost the company $1.6 billion in 2018, and while cost-cutting actions are under way, they will have the biggest impact “in 2020 and later,” Shanks said quoted by Reuters.

  “We are not satisfied by our performance,” Shanks said.

  * * *

  But the most surprising announcement of the day came from EVP and president of global markets Jim Farley who said that Ford is pivoting away from being a full-line automaker, and will shift to low volume, high margin cars, a substantial  metamorphosis for America’s premier auto brand.

  According to Farley, the company’s business structure was “out of sync with our revenue,” and vowed to cut costs by sharply reducing the variants of high-volume Ford models and slashing marketing costs by $200 million a year. Farley also hinted at possible significant changes in the structure of Ford’s money-losing South American business.

  Farley said that that Lincoln brand will orient toward SUVs, and that Ford will have 25 new model launches by end of 2019. He also cautioned that Ford profit would drop as electric car catch-up would be costly.

  ”We are exploring every option you can imagine,” Farley told analysts on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show.

  To boost revenue, Farley said Ford would decrease its passenger-car models and develop more trucks and sport utility vehicles aiming at profitable niches such as rugged off-road models. In all, Ford expects cars to drop below one-third of its total sales mix.

  And while the business transformation will take even longer than expected, the company decided to immediately reward its shareholders, and said it would pay shareholders an extra dividend of $500 million, or 13 cents a share, for the first quarter. Oh, and just to seal the deal, Ford said its employees would not be given pay increases or bonuses as a result of tax reform.

  

• The FBI's Attacks On MLK Jr. Are Helpful Reminders For Today

  Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

  Writing for the Wall Street Journal in 2005, federal judge and former U.S. deputy attorney general Laurence Silberman recalled how he was “shocked” to discover the extent the FBI abused its power to spy on Americans. 

   

  

  Speaking of the first time he reviewed the files of J. Edgar Hoover, Silberman writes how Hoover tasked “his agents with reporting privately to him on any bits of dirt on figures such as Martin Luther King or their families — information Hoover sometimes used as blackmail to ensure his and the bureau’s power.”

  Silberman was writing of having first learned of these abuses of power back in the 1970s. Using a well-worn Hollywood cliché, one might say those days were a “more innocent time.” Nowadays it is widely known that the FBI was the personal playground of J. Edgar Hoover who employed the agency to punish his political enemies and gain compliance from others. 

  In spite of its claims, though, the FBI has never moved terribly far from its days as Hoover’s praetorian guard. Tellingly, the FBI still refuses to remove Hoover’s name from its headquarters in Washington, and the agency’s habit of routinely violating the privacy of American citizens is now institutionalized, rather than the product of any single man’s crusade. 

  Both James Bovard and Timothy Weiner have documented in many ways the FBI legacy of using its power to destroy political threats to its power, and to do so in extra-legal ways whenever deemed “necessary.” 

  Yesterday, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, offers an opportunity to focus on some of the methods employed by the FBI. As The Daily Caller reports today: 

  In addition to tapping King’s phones and bugging his hotel rooms, the FBI used darker methods to attack the civil rights leader.

  [The FBI] sent to King’s home a “suicide package” in 1964 that contained audio recordings of King’s extramarital trysts and an unsigned letter telling him “there is only one way out for you.” The letter, which was published in un-redacted form by The New York Times in 2014, threatened to make the recordings public unless King offed himself within 34 days.

  “King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days,” the letter stated. “There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”

  (The charges of “filthy” and “abnormal” are especially cute given the unorthodox sexual activities of Hoover and then-president Lyndon Johnson.)

  Paranoia at the FBI 

  King was just one of many targets of “COINTELPRO,” a series of often-illegal operations employed by the bureau to harass and persecute the federal government’s political enemies. 

  COINTELPRO, however, was just the manifestation of FBI paranoia in that specific era. The exact nature of the motivation changes over time. In the late ‘teens, the Palmer raids were employed to go after suspected Bolsheviks and “anarchists” in an extra-legal fashion. 

  In the 1920s, the FBI was spying on US Senators who were deemed insufficiently loyal to the US regime. Weiner explains: 

  By the time Congress reconvened in March 1923, [Attorney General Harry] Daugherty and [William J.] Burns were conducting political espionage against senators whom the attorney general saw as threats to America. The bureau was breaking into their offices and homes, intercepting their mail, and tapping their telephones, just as it had done to members of the Communist party. The only rationale was the political movement in the Senate toward American diplomatic recognition of Soviet Russia.

  After all, Weiner notes how in the early 20s, “Hoover and his General Intelligence Division warned constantly of a violent communist revolution.” Hoover happily used the paranoia he produced to increase his own political power.

  40 years later, the FBI was still at it, this time tapping King’s phone’s an an attempt to get him to kill himself.

  Today, though, the FBI and other American intelligence agencies are attempting to legalize what was once considered illegal, or at least of questionable legality. 

  What the FBI wants today are modern equivalents of Dan Brookman calls “modern-day writes of assistance” or blank-check warrants that enable federal agents to simply gather every bit of private information they can on private citizens. 

  As Judge Napolitano explains, the federal government is moving toward expanding the use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to enable agencies like the FBI to more easily use surveillance data against Americans: 

  If enacted, this radical, unconstitutional hole in the Fourth Amendment would bring the country full circle back to the government’s use of general warrants to harass and prosecute — general warrants so odious to our forebears that they took up arms against the king’s soldiers to be rid of them.

  Many Americans today like to comfort themselves with the idea that “I’m not involved in any threats to national security” or “I don’t associate with terrorists” and then think themselves immune from government abuses. 

  But Martin Luther King didn’t present any threat to national security either. He didn’t call for violent acts to be perpetrated against the American state. He was, however, a political thorn in the side of powerful Washington politicians, so the federal government turned to some of the things they do best. It turned to persecuting, threatening, and spying, in the hopes of doing away with an inconvenient person.

  King’s experience (and the COINTELPRO experience in general) today remain a healthy reminder of how the federal government operates and just how little regard it has for the law. One can only imagine how flimsy will be the limits imposed on FBI and other federal agencies should the current attacks on the Fourth Amendment succeed.

  

• Ex-CIA Officer Suspected Of Helping China Assassinate US Informants Arrested At JFK

  A former CIA officer suspected of helping China identify the US spy agency’s informants was arrested at JFK International Airport on Monday on charges of unlawful retention of national defense information, according to the Department of Justice.

   

  

  Many of the agency’s informants were killed in a “systematic dismantling of the C.I.A.’s spy network in China starting in 2010,” according to the New York Times, which notes it was one of the American government’s “worst intelligence failures in recent years.” 

  The arrest of the former agent, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, capped an intense F.B.I. investigation that began around 2012 after the C.I.A. began losing its informants in China. Mr. Lee was at the center of a mole hunt in which some intelligence officials believed that he had betrayed the United States but others thought that the Chinese government had hacked the C.I.A.’s covert communications used to talk to foreign sources of information. –NYT

  According to court documents, in August 2012, Lee and his family left Hong Kong to return to the United States to live in northern Virginia. While traveling back to the United States, Lee and his family had hotel stays in Hawaii and Virginia. During each of the hotel stays, FBI agents conducted court-authorized searches of Lee’s room and luggage, and found that Lee was in unauthorized possession of materials relating to the national defense.

  Specifically, agents found two small books containing handwritten notes that contained classified information, including but not limited to, true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

  Lee appeared in an New York courtroom Tuesday afternoon where he was ordered held without bail. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

  Lee, 53, served in the U.S. Army from 1982 through 1986 and worked for the CIA between 1994 and 2007 according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent. 

  The FBI agent wrote that Lee and his family left Hong Kong in August 2012 to travel to northern Virginia. Along the way, they stayed in hotels where the FBI found the books.

  The small books were discovered inside Lee’s luggage, sealed in a small clear plastic travel pack.

  The handwritten information inside ranged in terms of classification, but the agent said at least one page contained top secret information, “the disclosure of which could cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.” –Reuters

  The FBI agent’s affidavit also noted that classified cables written by Lee while he was a case officer describing his interactions with CIA informants corroborated what was found in the two books. 

  Lee was interviewed five times by the FBI according to Reuters, never disclosing that he had the books. He also met with former CIA colleagues around that time without returning the classified materials, said the Justice Department.

   

  

  Over a dozen CIA informants were imprisoned or killed by the Chinese government, a serious setback for the agency, as discussed here first last May: 

  The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

  Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

  But there was no disagreement about the damage. From the final weeks of 2010 through the end of 2012, according to former American officials, the Chinese killed at least a dozen of the C.I.A.’s sources. According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A. –NYT

  By the end of 2011, senior CIA officials realized they had a problem; their assets in China were disappearing. The FBI and CIA opened a joint investigation in response, run by top counterintelligence officials out of an office in Northern Virginia – code named “Honey Badger.” 

  As more and more sources vanished, the operation took on increased urgency. Nearly every employee at the American Embassy was scrutinized, no matter how high ranking. Some investigators believed the Chinese had cracked the encrypted method that the C.I.A. used to communicate with its assets. Others suspected a traitor in the C.I.A., a theory that agency officials were at first reluctant to embrace — and that some in both agencies still do not believe. –NYT

  Read more about the case here. 

   

  

• DHS Report: 3 Of Every 4 Terrorism Offenders Since 9/11 Were Foreign-Born

  Authored by Will Racke via The Daily Caller,

  The Department of Homeland Security released Tuesday a study that sheds new light on the connection between the U.S. immigration system and so-called homegrown terrorism.

  

  Of the 549 people convicted of international terrorism-related charges between Sept. 11, 2001 and and the end of last year, 402  — 73 percent — were foreign-born, according to the DHS report.  Of those, 148 had become naturalized U.S. citizens before committing terrorism offenses.

   

  

  DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says the findings suggest the U.S. needs to improve its immigration vetting process, to include screening certain immigrants after they arrive.

  “I think what we take directly away from the report is we need to continue to enhance our screening and vetting,” she told CBS’ John Dickerson on Tuesday.

  “But it also tells us we need to continually vet those who are here. We have examples unfortunately over the last decades of terrorist attacks from legal permanent residents and others who were naturalized.”

  The DHS study follows a spate of recent terror-related offenses allegedly committed by foreign-born people who had immigrated to the U.S. through legal channels. The suspects two incidents in New York City – a deadly truck rampage in October and an attempted suicide bombing in December – had arrived through the diversity visa lottery and on a family preference visa, respectively.

  Last month, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan named Zoobia Shahnaz was indicted for allegedly laundering more than $85,000 through Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to fund Islamic State fighters overseas. Shahnaz came to the U.S. came to the U.S. on an F43 family-preference visa, which is granted to the children of siblings of U.S. citizens, according to DHS.

  Trump administration officials have pointed to the incidents as evidence of public safety and national security vulnerabilities in the U.S. immigration system. Shortly after taking office, Nielsen backed Attorney General Jeff Sessions – the administration’s leading immigration hawk – in calling for tighter limits on extended-family migration and ending the green card lottery.

  *  *  *
  Full Report below…

   

  

• US And China Brace For Trade War That Could Rattle Global Economy

  As we reported last week, the US non-petroleum trade deficit with China and Mexico – two of its largest trading partners – climbed to its highest level for a 12-month period in December, an embarrassing development for the Trump administration, which has repeatedly promised to protect US industry by raising trade barriers.

  However, the rising deficit, bolstered by a weakening US dollar, could ratchet up the political urgency of the Trump administration’s trade agenda. And as the Wall Street Journal points out, the White House is preparing a mix of tariffs and quotas to confront the growing economic threat from China. Though this confrontation could be potentially disruptive for the global system of free trade, even potentially leading to the collapse of the World Trade Organization, a group the Trump administration believes China should never have been allowed to join.

  In his column, the WSJ’s Andrew Browne points out that the last time the US became embroiled in a trade war, Ronald Reagan was president. And its adversary was a close US ally: Japan.

   

  

  At the time, Japan’s economy was much smaller than the US economy. Today, the Chinese economy has by some measures eclipsed the US. Such an unprecedented trade showdown between the US and China could have far reaching ramifications.

  A trade war isn’t a certainty, but if it comes, it will look nothing like the battles that raged in the 1980s over Japanese semiconductors, cars and TV sets.

  The forces are more evenly matched this time: America has never faced off in a trade skirmish with an opponent like China in terms of economic size, industrial capabilities and global ambitions.

  Japan was a U.S. ally, China increasingly a rival. That raises the risk of tit-for-tat escalation, especially since support for Beijing is crumbling across the U.S. political spectrum as well as in the U.S. business community, traditionally a strong advocate for China trade.

  Anti-trade rhetoric has been embraced by both sides, with President Donald Trump’s “America First” proclamations and President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” scenario.

  In this brewing battle fueled by protectionists in both camps (Mr. Trump’s “America First“ finds its nationalist counterpoint in President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream”), each side has an exaggerated sense of its own advantages.

  “A trade war is coming because of ideological zealotry and absolutely contradictory estimates of who has more leverage,” says Scott Kennedy, an expert on Chinese industrial policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

  Global markets are wildly unprepared for a full-blown China-US trade war, WSJ  reports. Earlier this month, the Eurasia Group highlighted “protectionism” as one of the biggest geopolitical risks of 2018. One of the reasons, Eurasia Group argues, is because industrialized economies are embracing a wider tool chest of pro-trade measures, including indirect subsidies and bailouts.

  Governments aren’t just trying to protect comparative advantages in traditional sectors such as agriculture, metals, chemicals, and machinery out of concern for lost jobs or domestic economic interests. They’re also intervening in the digital economy and innovation-intensive industries as protecting intellectual property becomes an increasingly important priority.

  But instead of traditional measures such as import tariffs and quotas, today’s tools of choice include “behind-the-border” measures such as bailouts, subsidies, and “buy local” requirements designed to bolster domestic companies and industries. These measures don’t necessarily circumvent WTO commitments; they rely on a collective inability to update and strengthen existing global trade rules.

  WSJ  agrees: Once under way, the repercussions of a trade war would be felt well beyond the combatants themselves. US friends and allies along Asian supply chains would be early collateral damage. China is still to a large extent the final assembly point for imported high-tech components from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Navigating increasingly complex global supply chains in a constant state of disruption would be hugely problematic for businesses across industries.

  Furthermore, if it escalated far enough, a trade war could take down the entire global trading architecture. That could be Trump’s goal. Many in his administration, including trade representative Robert Lightizer, believe the biggest mistake the US ever made was to usher China into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Aides say Trump regularly threatens to pull out of the rules-setting body.

  Trump has in the past suggested that Chinese help on North Korea could head off US trade action. In a phone call  with the US president on Tuesday, Xi suggested that trade issues should be resolved by “making the cake of cooperation bigger.”

  Meanwhile, Trump expressed disappointment that the US trade deficit with China has continued to grow” and made clear that “the situation is not sustainable.”

  In private, however, senior Chinese officials believe Beijing has many tactical advantages: Some are cultural – the Chinese people, one says, are more prepared to endure economic hardship.

   

  

  Perceptions of US bullying would rally the population around the Communist Party, whereas US opinion would fracture among constituencies for and against trade hostilities.

  US manufacturing giants like Boeing in General Motors would probably throw a fit and withdraw their support for Trump and his agenda. Both companies see China’s economy, which is fairly open relative to Japan’s in the 1980s, as a crucial growth market. If US initiates a trade war – something that Trump has already threatened with his investigation into Chinese IP practices – China has a detailed game plan to respond, and the total flexibility to carry it out. For example, the Chinese government would abandon Boeing in favor of European Airbus. Diversifying soybean supplies – possibly relying more on Brazil – would be another option.

  Browne says the US should count on Chinese retaliatory actions being highly targeted – state by state, congressional district by congressional district – to inflict the maximum US job losses, and single out those politicians most gung-ho about trade action.

  Many US trade experts don’t mince words: They believe China would prevail in a trade war with the US, and that the US economy would suffer lasting damage.

  Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks China would win. Among his reasons: China’s ability to concentrate pain, and the outcry from affected businesses in America’s more open political system. He argues that “the political costs to the Trump administration of maintaining new protectionist measures will be much higher than the costs of retaliation to the Xi regime.”

  Derek Scissors, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute argues that the major US advantage is that China is far more dependent on trade for its financial health.

  “A shorter, smaller-scale trade conflict favors China due to its comparative agility,” he says. “The more serious it gets, the worse China would fare because it’s badly outmatched monetarily.”

  In the 1980s, Japan had to back down, agreeing to voluntary export restraints and moving large parts of its auto manufacturing base to the US to create jobs and defuse tensions. China won’t be pushed around in the same way.

  Still, China has other leverage: Rumblings about China ditching Treasurys – reports that have been denied by Chinese authorities but still managed to rattle markets – show the PBOC might be willing to use its balance sheet as leverage against the US.

  And as central banks across Europe flock to the yuan, the US could be increasingly vulnerable to rising interest rates as its share of global reserves dwindles.

   

  

• Silver: Once And Future Money

  Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

  The Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire had gold coins called the aureus and solidus, but they also minted a popular silver coin called the denarius. One denarius was the daily wage for unskilled labor and Roman soldiers.

  Of course, in the late Empire, the aureus, solidus and denarius were all debased by mixing the gold and silver with base metals. The decline of the Roman Empire went hand in hand with the decline of sound money.

  In the early ninth century AD, Charlemagne greatly expanded silver coinage to compensate for a shortage of gold. This was successful in stimulating the economy of the predecessor of the Holy Roman Empire. In a sense, Charlemagne was the inventor of quantitative easing over 1,000 years ago. Silver was his preferred form of money.

  Under the U.S. Coinage Act of 1792, both gold and silver coins were legal tender in the U.S. From 1794 to 1935, the U.S. Mint issued “silver dollars” in various designs. These were widely circulated and used as money by everyday Americans. The American dollar was legally defined as one ounce of silver.

  The American silver dollar of the late eighteenth century was a copy of the earlier Spanish Real de a ocho minted by the Spanish Empire beginning in the late sixteenth century. The English name for the Spanish coin was the “piece of eight,” (ocho is the Spanish world for “eight”) because the coin could easily be divided into one-eighth pieces.

  Until 2001 stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange were quoted in eighths and sixteenths based on the original Spanish silver coin and its one-eight sections.

  Until 1935 U.S. silver coins were 90% pure silver with 10% copper alloy added for durability. After the U.S. Coinage Act of 1965, the silver content of half-dollars, quarters and dimes was reduced from 90% to 40% due to rising price of silver and hoarding by citizens who prized the valuable silver content of the older coins.

  The new law signed by President Johnson in 1965 marked the end of true silver coinage by the U.S. Other legislation in 1968 ended the redeemability of old “silver certificates” (paper Treasury notes) for silver bullion.

  Thereafter, U.S. coinage consisted of base metals and paper money that was not convertible into silver; (gold convertibility had already ended in 1933).

  Let’s hope that the U.S. is not following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire in terms of a political decline coinciding with the substitution of base metals for true gold and silver coinage.

   

  

  In 1986, the U.S. reintroduced silver coinage with a .999 pure silver one-ounce coin called the American Silver Eagle. However, this is not legal tender although it does carry a “one dollar” face value. The silver eagle is a bullion coin prized by investors and collectors for its silver content. But it is not money.

  Who in their right mind would pay a full ounce of silver for goods or services worth only a buck?

  In short, silver is as much a monetary metal as gold, and has just as good a pedigree when it comes to use in coinage. Silver has supported the economies of empires, kingdoms and nation states throughout history.

  It should come as no surprise that percentage increases and decreases in silver and gold prices denominated in dollars are closely correlated.

  Silver is more volatile than gold and is more difficult to analyze because it has far more industrial applications than gold. Silver is useful in engines, electronics and coatings.

  Interestingly, gold is used very little other than as money in bullion form. Gold has some highly specialized uses for coating and ultra-thin wires, but these are a very small part of the gold market.

  Both gold and silver are used extensively in jewelry. I consider jewelry to be “wearable wealth” and akin to bullion rather than a separate market segment.

  Because silver has more industrial uses than gold, the price can rise or fall based on the business cycle independent of monetary considerations. However, over long periods of time, monetary and bullion aspects tend to dominate industrial uses and silver closely tracks its close cousin gold in dollar terms.

  While gold and silver prices have a high correlation, the correlation is not perfect. There are times where gold outperforms silver and vice versa. Right now we are in a sweet spot for silver.

  Gold is performing well, and silver is performing even better!

   

  

  The latest data is telling me that silver prices are set to rally. This conclusion is based in part on a bull market thesis for gold.

  Gold staged an historic rally from 1999 to 2011, from about $250 per ounce to $1,900 per ounce, a gain of about 900% in that twelve-year span. Since then, gold prices fell in a 50% retracement (using the 1999 base) and bottomed at around $1,050 per ounce in December 2015.

  Secular bull and bear market tops and bottoms are difficult to see in real time, but they become apparent with hindsight. Gold gained over 23% in 2016-2017. From the perspective of early 2018, it is clear than the gold bear market ended over two years ago and a new multi-year secular bull market has begun.

  Silver is not only along for the ride, it is showing even better performance than gold, albeit with greater volatility. Both the gold and silver rallies are based on a combination of supply/demand fundamentals, geopolitical pressures creating safe haven demand, and increasing inflation expectations as confidence in central banking and fiat money erodes.

  In addition, silver has an excellent technical set-up right now. Precious metals analyst Samson Li writing in Thomson Reuters on January 2, 2018 offers this insight in the current technical trading position for silver:

  Technically, silver is ripe for a major breakout to the upside in 2018. The CFTC figures Managed Money positions show that COMEX silver has been in a net short for three straight weeks since 12th December. This is not unheard of but is relatively rare for silver; the last time COMEX silver was net short was between the end of June and the first week of August 2015.

  As investment sentiment can swing from one extreme to another, and given silver’s innate volatility, this net short position should point to the possibility of a sharp short-covering rally. Looking back at the corresponding period in 2015, silver price was trading at $15.61/oz on the 7th July, and it was the third consecutive week recording a net short position. Approximately a year later, silver was trading over $20/oz in July 2016…

  [T]he current poor sentiment does suggest that silver could be one of the better performing precious metals in 2018, barring any crisis that could trump most of the commodities but gold.

  The good news is that this secular rally in silver is in its early days. Recent gains will be sustained and amplified in the months and years to come.

  Silver will outperform gold in the short-run, and shares in well-managed silver mining companies will do even better than silver.

  

• China's 'Nasdaq' Tumbles To 6-Month Lows As Crypto-Related Stocks Crash

  CHINEXT – China’s index of small cap and tech stocks – has tumbled in the last few days (while the major Chinese indices have risen), as blockchain-related stocks across Asia have crashed along with the cryptocurrency carnage.

  As Bloomberg notes, stocks with exposure to digital currencies decline in Asia after Bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies slumped Tuesday amid fears of regulatory crackdowns. Bitcoin pares some of loss with 5.6% gain as of 10:03am in Hong Kong.

  • Japan: Ceres Inc. -9.8%, GMO Internet Inc. -7.2%, Infoteria Corp. -5.1%, SBI Holdings Inc. -5%, Fisco Ltd. -5.4%, Remixpoint Co. -4.4%, Metaps Inc. -4.6%
  • Korea: Vidente Co. -18%, Omnitel Inc. -13%, Kakao Corp. -3.2%
  • China: Ygsoft Inc., Brilliance Technology Co. and Shenzhen Forms Syntron Information Co. all tumble by 10% daily limit

  

  While The Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen CSI-300 Index are pushing to new highs, tech-heavy Shenzhen Composite and CHINEXT are tumbling…

   

  

  This the 4th down day in a row – the longest streak since November – to the lowest since July…

   

  

  Notably the SHCOMP and CHINEXT are drastically diverging – now at their widest divergence in 3 years…

   

  

  

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• Paul Craig Roberts: "Amnesty International Is Barking Up The Wrong Tree"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  I have received a letter from Margaret Huang, Amnesty International’s executive director.

  She is fundraising on the basis of President Trump’s “chilling disregard for our cherished human rights” and his exploitation of “hatred, misogyny, racism and xenophobia,” by which he has “emboldened and empowered the most violent segments of our society.”

  Considering the hostility of Identity Politics toward Trump, one can understand why Ms. Huang frames her fundraiser in this way, but are the Trump deplorables the most empowered and violent segments of our society or is it the security agencies, the police, the neoconservatives, the presstitute media, and the Republican and Democratic parties?

   

  

  John Kiriakou, Ray McGovern, Philip Giraldi, Edward Snowden, and others inform us that it is their former employers, the security agencies, that are empowered by unaccountability and violent by intent. Certainly the security agencies are emboldened by everything they have gotten away with, including their conspiracy to destroy President Trump with their orchestration known as Russiagate.

  The violence that the US government has committed against humanity since the Clinton regime attacked Serbia was not committed by Trump deplorables. The violence that has destroyed in whole or part eight countries, murdering, maiming, and displacing millions of peoples, was committed by the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes, their secretaries of state such as Hillary Clinton, their national security advisers, their military and security establishments, both parties in Congress. The murder of entire countries was endorsed by the presstitute media and the heads of state of Washington’s European, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese vassals. Trump and his deplorables have a long way to go to match this record of violence.

  Whether she understands it or not, Ms. Huang with her letter is shifting the violence from where it belongs to where it does not. The consequence will be to increase violence and human rights violations.

  The most dangerous source of violence that we face is nuclear Armageddon resulting from the neoconservative quest for US hegemony. Since the Clinton regime every US government has broken tension-easing agreements that previous administrations had achieved with Moscow. During the Obama regime the gratuitous aggressions and false accusations against Russia became extreme.

  Why doesn’t Amnesty International address the reckless and irresponsible acts of the US government that are violating the rights of people in numerous countries and pushing the world into nuclear war? Instead, there have been times when Amnesty International aligns with Washington’s propaganda against Washington’s victims.

  By jumping on the military/security complex’s “get Trump movement”, human rights and environmental organizations have increased the likelihood that rights and environment will be lost to war.

  There can be no doubt that Trump is undoing past environmental protections and opening the environment and wildlife to more destruction. However, the worst destruction comes from war, especially nuclear war.

  Would things be different if the liberal/progressive/left had rallied to Trump’s support in reducing tensions with Russia, in normalizing the hostile relations that Obama had established with Moscow? Would the support of the liberal/progressive/left have helped Trump resist the pressures from the neoconservative warmongers? In exchange for support for his principal goal, would Trump have mitigated industry’s attacks on the environment and vetoed the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that violates human rights?

  We will never know, because the liberal/progressive/left could not see beyond the end of its nose to comprehend what it means for the environment and for human rights for nuclear powers to be locked into mutual suspicion.

  Thanks to the failure of the liberal/progressive/left and to the presstitute media to understand the stakes, the military/security complex has been successful in pushing Trump off his agenda. The damage that a mining company and offshore drilling can do to the environment is large, but it pales in comparison to the damage from nuclear weapons.

  

• 80% Of All Bitcoins Have Already Been Mined…

  Almost exactly 9 years after the first were ‘mined’, January 13th marked an important milestone for cryptocurrencies. 16.8 million bitcoins (BTC), or 80 percent of the entire Bitcoin supply, have now been mined.

   

  

  Source

  As CoinTelegraph reports, this means only 4.2 million bitcoins, or 20 percent, are left to mine until Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap is reached.

  

  BTC contains the 21 mln cap built into its protocol by Satoshi Nakamoto, first mentioned in their 2008 White Paper, as a way to introduce digital scarcity to cryptocurrency. With such a cap in place, the more bitcoins are mined, the more scarcity is produced on the market.

  Scarcity arguably creates demand, which in turns makes the coins more valuable. Once 21 million bitcoins have been mined, it will become even harder to obtain them, also potentially making each coin more valuable.

  Miners currently receive a 12.5 BTC reward for every block that they mine, but Nakamoto’s protocol also requires that the mining reward is halved every 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years. The next miner halving will take place within two years, approximately in early June 2020 depending on hashrate, bringing the rewards down to 6.25 BTC per mined block.

  Not every digital currency is mineable like BTC. Some cryptocurrencies are created with the entire supply released all at once, in which case the total supply is either held or in circulation and there is no way to “mine” or mint new coins.

  Some examples of non-mineable digital currencies are Ripple, IOTA, NEM, NEO, Qtum, Omisego, Lisk, Stratis, Waves, and EOS.

  Increasing supply

  Skeptics have proposed that it is theoretically possible to increase Bitcoin’s 21 million capped supply of Bitcoin via a 51 percent or a Sybil attack, but so far neither of these manipulations has proven feasible in the case of BTC.

  Altcoin Krypton, which is based on Ethereum, experienced a 51 percent attack in August 2016, but no other such attacks have taken place since then.

  

• Putin Plot? Democrats Ridiculed For Claiming Moscow Behind Chelsea Manning's Senate Run

  Within hours of young trans woman whistleblower Chelsea Manning announcing her run for Senate against Benjamin Cardin, a 74-year-old white, straight man, establishment Democrats wasted no time in mocking and denouncing her bid, even embarrassing themselves by proclaiming it a Kremlin-engineered plot.

   

  

  Anti-Russia conspiracy theorists have developed another outlandish claim, stating that Moscow is behind Chelsea Manning’s Senate bid, since she’s taking on an incumbent who is against so-called “Russian aggression.”

  Manning says she’s running because “we need someone willing to fight… we need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves.”

  But, as RT notes, that reason seems too straightforward for those who apparently believe that everything related to US politics is somehow tied to Russia.

  Taking to Twitter on Saturday, foreign policy and strategy consultant Molly McKew called Manning’s decision to run “a little too convenient,” noting that she is running against Senator Ben Cardin, who is “one of [the] most active senators on foreign policy and [a] leader in making policy/legislation to respond to Russian aggression.”

   

  A little too convenient that Chelsea Manning will primary @SenatorCardin, one of most active Senators on foreign policy & leader in making policy/legislation to respond to Russian aggression, for MD Senate.
  Guess that’s what Dem Tea Party is going to look like: Snowden party.

  — Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) January 13, 2018

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  In a separate tweet, RT reports that she referenced Manning’s whistleblowing and the apparent motive behind it. “The agent of a foreign power coerced this individual, leveraging their emotional distress, into breaking their oath to the country and disclosing classified secrets.”

  I know there are a lot of people who still think of Manning as a whistleblower. But the agent of a foreign power coerced this individual, leveraging their emotional distress, into breaking their oath to the country and disclosing classified secrets. Period.

  — Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) January 13, 2018

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  If McKew’s remarks seem hard to comprehend, that’s perfectly understandable. If you need them to be interpreted, it all boils down to the same old line: Russia did it. That’s right. Russia is responsible for Manning’s whistleblowing, and Russia is somehow behind her decision to run for office.

  Her statements were called out by The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped make Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing a reality. “One of the media’s favorite Russia-obsessed ‘experts’ didn’t even wait an hour before depicting Chelsea Manning’s Senate candidacy as a dastardly Kremlin plot,” he tweeted. He went on to call out the “demonstrable, obvious falsehoods about Manning’s motives & WikiLeaks’ role” which McKew wrote about in her second tweet

   

  One of the media’s favorite Russia-obsessed “experts” didn’t even wait an hour before depicting Chelsea Manning’s Senate candidacy as a dastardly Kremlin plot. Also, the second tweet here is full of demonstrable, obvious falsehoods about Manning’s motives & WikiLeaks’ role pic.twitter.com/RYBgUBstAM

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 13, 2018

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

   

  But McKew isn’t alone in her bold statements. A person by the name of Josh Manning, whose Twitter account says he is a civil rights investigator and something to do with “Army intel,” seems to believe the same.

  “Senator Cardin authored and released a 200-page masterpiece on Russian influence in western elections. Suddenly he has a primary from Kremlin stooge Assange’s Wikileaks primary source Chelsea Manning. The Kremlin plays the extreme left to swing elections. Remember that,” he wrote.

  Senator Cardin authored and released a 200 page masterpiece on Russian influence in western elections. Suddenly he has a primary from Kremlin stooge Assange’s Wikileaks primary source Chelsea Manning. The Kremlin plays the extreme left to swing elections. Remember that.

  — (((Josh Manning))) (@joshuamanning23) January 14, 2018

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  Greenwald also chimed in on Josh Manning’s tweet. “Oh my God: This is how deranged official Washington is. The president of the largest Dem Party think-tank (funded in part by dictators) genuinely believes Chelsea Manning’s candidacy is a Kremlin plot. Conspiracy theorists thrive more in mainstream DC than on internet fringes.”

  Oh my god: this is how deranged official Washington is. The President of the largest Dem Party think tank (funded in part by dictators) genuinely believes Chelsea Manning’s candidacy is a Kremlin plot. Conspiracy theorists thrive more in mainstream DC than on internet fringes pic.twitter.com/e8g314iQHT

  — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 15, 2018

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

  We leave it up to the exquisitely mocking words of Greenwald to conclude:

  This conspiracy theory mocks itself.

  The idea that Vladimir Putin sat in the Kremlin, steaming over Benjamin Cardin’s report on Russia, and thus developed a dastardly plot to rid himself of his daunting Maryland nemesis – “I know how to get rid of Cardin: I’ll have a trans woman who was convicted of felony leaking run against him!” – is too inane to merit any additional ridicule.

  But this is the climate in Washington: no conspiracy theory is too moronic, too demented, too self-evidently laughable to disqualify its advocates from being taken seriously – as long as it involves accusations that someone is a covert tool of the Kremlin.

  Well said.

  

• Only 1-In-3 Americans Think Michael Wolff's Book Is Credible

  Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury” has proven explosive, sending shockwaves across Washington and beyond.

  In its first week of publication, it sold 29,000 copies according to NBD BookScan with digital sales reaching an estimated 250,000. President Trump has claimed Wolff was not provided with access to the White House and that the book is “full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist”.

  White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also labeled Fire and Fury “complete fantasy”.

  Wolff has defended himself against that criticism, insisting Trump is “a man who has less credibility than, perhaps, anyone who has ever walked on earth.”

  Notably, however, Wolff did include a note at the beginning of the book where he says some of his sources were definitely lying to him while others offered contradictory reports, and this has cast doubt on the book’s credibility. 

  The end result of the sensational spat between Trump and Wolff is that the book is flying off the shelves.

  But, given its success, Statista’s Niall McCarthy asks (and answers) what does the American public make of its accuracy?

  

  You will find more statistics at Statista

  A new Morning Consult/Politicopoll has found that a third of registered voters (32 percent) think the book is very or somewhat crediblewhile a quarter (25 percent) consider it not too or not at all credible. 20 percent of respondents either haven’t heard of it or have no opinion.

  When it comes to political affiliation, unsurprisingly, 46 percent of Democrats view the book as credible while percent think it’s inaccurate.

  Among Republicans, a 38 percent majority are skeptical about Fire and Fury while just under a quarter find it very or somewhat credible.

  

• This Town Is Proof That Trump's Wall Can Work

  Authored by Paul Sperry, op-ed via The New York Post,

  When charges of “racism” and “xenophobia” fail, Democrats’ fallback argument against President Trump’s proposed border wall is that it simply “won’t work,” so why waste billions building it? Tell that to the residents of El Paso, Texas.

   

  

  Federal data show a far-less imposing wall than the one Trump envisions – a two-story corrugated metal fence first erected under the Bush administration – already has dramatically curtailed both illegal border crossings and crime in Texas’ sixth-largest city, which borders the high-crime Mexican city of Juarez.

  In fact, the number of deportable illegal immigrants located by the US Border Patrol plummeted by more than 89 percent over the five-year period during which the controversial new fence was built, according to Homeland Security data reviewed by me. When the project first started in 2006, illegal crossings totaled 122,261, but by 2010, when the 131-mile fence was completed from one end of El Paso out into the New Mexico desert, immigrant crossings shrank to just 12,251.

  They hit a low of 9,678 in 2012, before slowly ticking back up to a total of 25,193 last year. But they’re still well below pre-fence levels, and the Border Patrol credits the fortified barrier dividing El Paso from Mexico for the reduction in illegal flows.

  And crime abated with the reduced human traffic from Juarez, considered one of the most dangerous places in the world due to drug-cartel violence, helping El Paso become one of the safest large cities in America.

  Before 2010, federal data show the border city was mired in violent crime and drug smuggling, thanks in large part to illicit activities spilling over from the Mexican side. Once the fence went up, however, things changed almost overnight. El Paso since then has consistently topped rankings for cities of 500,000 residents or more with low crime rates, based on FBI-collected statistics. The turnaround even caught the attention of former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other Obama administration officials, who touted it as one of the nation’s safest cities while citing the beefed-up border security there.

  Federal data illustrates just how remarkable the turnaround in crime has been since the fence was built. According to FBI tables, property crimes in El Paso have plunged more than 37 percent to 12,357 from their pre-fence peak of 19,702 a year, while violent crimes have dropped more than 6 percent to 2,682 from a peak of 2,861 a year.

  The overall crime rate in El Paso continued to fall last year, prompting city leaders to trumpet the good news in a press release that noted, “Because El Paso is a border town, its low crime rate may surprise you.”

  El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez boasted that the city will “continue to lead our country in public safety.”

  Another core promise made by Trump to justify constructing a massive wall spanning from Texas to California is that it will slow the flow of drugs coming across the border from Mexico.

  “We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety,” Trump said last week while answering questions about the sweeping new GOP immigration bill. “We need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in.”

  On that score, El Paso already has exceeded expectations.

  Drug smuggling along that border entry point has also fallen dramatically. In fact, since the fence was completed, the volume of marijuana and cocaine coming through El Paso and seized by Border Patrol agents has been cut in half.

  The year before the wall was fully built in 2010, the volume of illegal drugs confiscated by the feds along the El Paso border hit 87,725 pounds. The year after, the amount of drug seizures plummeted to 43,783 pounds. Last year, they dropped even further to a total of 34,329, according to Border Patrol reports obtained by The Post.

  All told, a legion of empirical evidence supports the idea a southern border wall could, in fact, work. There is also anecdotal evidence. In local press accounts, El Paso residents and business owners alike have praised the fence, citing it as an effective deterrent to both illegal crossings and crime.

  Now Trump plans to build a possibly bigger deterrent.

  The existing fence along the El Paso sector, which is made of a combination of corrugated steel and metal meshing, towers 21-feet high at some points and is already hard to climb. But the Trump wall, which will begin construction in El Paso, will be even taller and have multiple layers of security.

  Still, Democratic leaders are adamantly opposed to it. They argue the $18 billion wall won’t work to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs, and will only be a massive waste of tax dollars.

  “We think, frankly, the building of the wall, its cost is not justified either by its efficiency or effectiveness,” House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday.

  Even local Democrats are arguing with success.

  “That wall in itself is a racist reaction to a racist myth that does not reflect the reality of this country at all,” said Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso).

  

• From Shahs To The CIA: The History Of Western Intervention In Iran – Part 2

  In part 1 we examined the early history of the West’s domination of Persian natural resources, especially the establishment and rise of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which led to multiple 20th century British interventions in Iranian politics in an attempt to ensure permanent access to oil. Part 2 tells the story of Operation Ajax.  

  “The Empire Must Go On”

  Once Europe erupted in world war (WWI), the British dispatched their armed forced to refineries all over Iran in order to protect what they considered their property – Iranian oil.  After the cessation of hostilities in 1919, the British bribed and intimidated the new regime of Ahmad Shah into accepting the terms of the much hated Anglo-Persian Agreement which in all but name, made Iran a protectorate of the British Empire.  No longer would the Iranians control their own army, transportation system, and communications network.  It all passed under the control British occupiers and with it the last vestiges of Iranian sovereignty. This once again ignited the fervent nationalist spirit across Iran and new rounds of protests and opposition.

  Even the U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson, disapproved of the agreement.  But, true to their colonial and imperialist spirit, the British rebuffed such protestations and opposition by saying, “These people have got to be taught at whatever cost to them, that they cannot get on without us.  I don’t at all mind their noses being rubbed in the dust.”  The empire must go on.

  The opening sequence from the 2012 movie ‘Argo’ features a brief history of aggressive Western intervention which shaped modern Iran.

  And go on it did, fueled by the black gold that flowed beneath the Iranian deserts. For the next thirty years, relations between the Iranians and the British revolved mainly around oil. The British deposed and installed new kings, and prime ministers and members of Iranian parliament were bought off to help ensure the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (by that time renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, or AIOC) had a free hand in the exploration, refining, and exportation of Iranian oil.  For that was indeed the bottom line for the British – the Iranian venture was extremely profitable for the them.

  Churchill’s Dream Prize

  Indeed, for Churchill, it was, “a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams.” When they started in 1913, the British were extracting only 5,000 barrels of oils per day, and by 1950 they were extracting 664,000 per day.  Had the wealth from the oil been humanely shared with the Iranian people, the Iranians themselves likely would have seen such growth as part of a mutually beneficial relationship and endeared them to the English.  However, the long list of grievances hardened the hearts of the average Iranians and confirmed what they had long known: Britain was an empire whose only objective was preserving its interests, whatever the costs to Iranians, notwithstanding British protestations to the contrary.

  It is easy enough, however, to see why the British were prepared to go to the extreme to protect their direct access to cheap Iranian oil.  Iranian oil was vital, not only to the Royal navy, but to the entire economy of Great Britain and their way of life.  It fueled their industries and growing automobile culture. The AIOC was a vast company with seemingly limitless profits and resources, yet it sought still more from the Iranians.  From the British perspective the situation seemed like good capitalism, but from the perspective of the average Iranian, their British “benefactors” were greedy imperialists who were prepared to suck Iran dry.

  The majles (Iranian parliament, which held its first session in 1906), weakened though it was, gradually regained strength throughout the late 20s, 30s, and 40s, mainly from the rise of anti-British and anti-Shah sentiment coursing through the nation.  The majles forced the Shah and the oil companies to come to the negotiating table time and a again seeking just compensation and to redress the wrongs commited by the oil company. The list of grievances was indeed long.  At the top was the irregular bookkeeping that systematically deprived them of their contractual rights to royalties.  Instead of calculating the Iranian 20 percent before taxes, the British calculated the Iranians their portion after they had already sent huge sums to the British treasury, which meant, the Iranians received much smaller royalties.

   

  

  Recently declassified documents like the above ‘The Battle for Iran, 1953’ (Contents page: view more here) tell the CIA’s secret internal history of the 1953 coup. It was only in 2013 that the CIA formally acknowledged its role in bringing down the Mossadegh government after the agency was forced to declassify and publish secret documents related to Operation Ajax, (and first disclosed by The New York Times’ James Risen) and to this day most Americans are unaware that it happened.  

  Additionally, in 1943 the British stubbornly, and in the eyes of the Iranians, greedily, refused to renegotiate their contract to reflect the growing global trend to fairer and more equal contracts.  Venezuela signed a 50/50 deal with the foreign companies refining its oil; Aramco, an American oil company, signed a 50/50 deal with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; and Mexico took advantage of the chaos of WWII and did the unthinkable and completely nationalized American and British oil companies.  The Iranians felt it was time that the British dealt justly and fairly with them as well.

  Not only did the British fail to fairly compensate the Iranians for their oil, they only paid them in sterling, effectively barring them from buying from other countries and forcing them to buy from the British.  They also secretly conducted geological explorations without the consent of the Iranian government, much less the Iranian people.  These explorations, plus the building of pipelines, often laid waist to forests, water sources, and other natural resources resulting in massive ecological disasters.  To add insult to injury, the British often imported labor from neighboring countries, rather then giving the Iranians the opportunity to work and make a living, much less take leading and managerial positions, in their nation’s most vital industry.   Squalid company housing, hospitals, and working conditions coupled with firings and military action against unions were also on the Iranians’ long list of grievances against the oil company.

  The Shah meets the CIA

  Beginning in the mid-40s tensions between Iranian workers and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Copany came to a critical impasse.  In July of 1945  7,500 AIOC workers led an unsuccessful strike demanding equal pay, decent housing, and paid Fridays.  They took to the streets again in May of 1946 with similarly disappointing  results.  It wasn’t until May of 1946 when 50,000 workers organized the greatest strike in Iranian history that the AIOC realized it had no way forward unless it made some concessions, though they probably came too little, too late to turn the tide of antiimperialism/colonialism felt by the vast majority of Iranians.

  Negotiations between the majles and the AIOC stalled and stagnated for the next 5 years.  With each passing year, the bitterness and resentment grew among the Iranian people who were tired of decades of what they felt was theft and national humiliation at the hands of British colonialists. The thirty-year old monarch, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi did little to assist his countrymen in redressing the wrongs of the British.  In fact, at the height of the conflict between the majles and the AIOC, the young Shah abandoned Iran and set off on a American expedition where he mingled with the most wealthy and powerful of America’s elites.

  In November of 1949, at the invitation of Allen Dulles, the future head of CIA introduced Mohammed Reza Shah to the members of the newly formed Overseas Consultants Inc.  Mohammed Reza singlehandedly committed his country to paying the OCI an astonishing $650 million to complete a massive development project in Iran.  The deal was not well received at home since the majles had not approved of it or been consulted.  It did nothing more than stoke the flames of revolution that much more.  The final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came in March of 1951.

  Nationalizing Oil under Mohammed Mossadegh

  Having failed to reach a just and equitable agreement with the AIOC, the majles felt it had no other recourse than to take the course of action that the Mexicans had taken a decade before and nationalize their oil industry.  In March of 1951 the majles voted to take that fateful step and a few days later they elected the charismatic nationalist, Mohammed Mossadegh to the office of prime minister.  One of the first casualties  of the Mossadegh-led majles was the $650 million OCI deal, an act Allen Dulles would remember with bitter resentment.  Mossadegh believed with every ounce of his body that the Iranian oil fundamentally belonged to the Iranians.  Prior agreements with corrupt kings could not and should not be honored since they were made without the knowledge or consent of the people through their elected officials.

  Meanwhile the British took no notice of these legitimate claims and by June British warships menaced the Iranian coast and plans had been drawn involving seventy thousand troops invading Iran to seize what it claimed were British oil fields. The American ambassador, Henry Grady, warned the Truman administration that the British intransigence and belligerence was utter folly and could easily trigger World War III.  Truman, in no uncertain terms, informed Churchill that the United States would not agree to or support the overthrow of another democratically elected government.

  Even after nationalization, the Iranians sought to compensate the British by sharing 25 percent of  the net profits of the oil operation.  It also guaranteed that the British citizens who stayed and worked for the newly formed Iranian Oil Company would be welcome to stay.  It would also continue to sell the oil exactly as the British had done making sure not to disrupt the long established system of controls.  The British were not content with these compromises and stubbornly insisted on a return to the status quo where they, and they alone owned, managed, and controlled every aspect of the Iranian oil industry.  “We English have had hundreds of years of experience on how to treat the natives.  Socialism is all right back home, but out here you have to be the master” boasted one British minister.

  British Dirty Tricks, Eisenhower, and the Dulles Brothers

  Over the next year the British contemplated every trick they had learned in their long years of empire building: sabotage, assassination, bribery, and even a full on military invasion. But Truman’s opposition to regime change limited their options.  So in the meantime they settled  on imposing a crippling blockade of Iranian ports so that no country could buy oil from the Iranians.  Any tankers caught trying to slip through would be detained. 

  The British also took their case to the International Court of Justice in the hopes of getting the international community to bolster its position only to be told that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the case since it involved agreements between Iran and a private company.  They took their case once again to the UN in New York in the fall of 1952 but met a brick wall there as well.  Mohammed Mussadegh was present and he spoke forcefully and eloquently about the plight of the Iranians and about the history of the AIOC’s predations. His speech was well received especially by those leaders who themselves had been brought to power on the waves of nationalism in Asia, Africa, and South America.

  Having exhausted all resources, the British resolved to covertly overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh, even though 95-98 percent of the population of Iran time and time again favored him as their one true leader in elections and referendums.  They could not count on the Truman administration for support, so they bided their time until after the 1952 elections which could bring someone that was more to their way of thinking or could be brought around to it.  They found such a men in Dwight Eisenhower, in his Secretary of State, Foster Dulles, and in Allen Dulles, head of the CIA. 

  A Deep State Purge 

  The British argument for overthrow rested on the necessity to regain the control of the oil industry away from the Iranians.  However, that argument alone would not be enough to win over Eisenhower and Dulles.  All three men were ardent anti-communist and the British used that to their advantage painting Mossadegh as a communist at worst and at best, a weak leader who’s government could easily fall which could lead to a Soviet takeover of Iran.  These were all the reasons and proofs Eisenhower and Dulles needed.  Without consulting experts or career diplomats on Iranian affairs they forged ahead with their plan to help the British topple Mossadegh. 

  They even went so far as to dismiss any who disagreed with them.  One such unfortunate was none other than the chief of the CIA field office in Tehran, Roger Goiran.  If any body knew what the realities on the ground were, it was he.  Having learned of the plot he was repulsed by the idea, and thought that regime overthrow in the cause of a preemptive strike of sorts in order to prevent the Soviets from theoretically moving in was too dramatic a move.  His objection was noted after which he was quickly relieved of his duties and replaced by Kermit Roosevelt, one of the conspirators.

  Ultimately, seasoned intelligence veteran Goiran disagreed with and was subsequently purged by the ‘deep state‘ as Stephen Kinzer’s book All the Shah’s Men (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003, pg. 164) explains:

  Goiran had built a formidable intelligence network, known by the code name Bedamn, that was engaged in propaganda activities aimed at blackening the image of the Soviet Union in Iran. It also stood ready to launch a nationwide campaign of subversion and sabotage in case of a communist coup. The Bedamn network consisted of more than one hundred agents and had an annual budget of $1 million–quite considerable, in light of the fact that the CIA’s total worldwide budget for covert operations was just $82 million. Now Goiran was being asked to use his network in a coup against Mossadegh. He believed that this would be a great mistake and warned that if the coup was carried out, Iranians would forever view the United States as a supporter of what he called “Anglo-French colonialism.” His opposition was so resolute that Allen Dulles had to remove him from his post.

  This was new and unchartered territory for the United States in Iran or anywhere.  Up to then, most Iranians had a positive view of America and look up to Americans because of their own revolutionary history, constitution, form of government, and insistence on the rule of law.

  Operation Ajax Launched with False Flag subversion 

  The Iranians viewed the Americans as allies and friends.  By undertaking regime change, the Americans risked losing the goodwill of the Iranians and earning their much deserved scorn.  Nevertheless, Kermit Roosevelt took the reins of the operation and plotted his coup for several months.  Once he was given the green light by the Dulles brothers and President Eisenhower, Roosevelt set his plan in motion.  In late July of 1953 he crossed over into Iran under an assumed name and headed directly to Tehran to meet up with the valuable Iranian, British, and American assets.  They immediately set out to subvert the Mossadegh government by paying off street gangs, corrupt mullas, and radio stations to create entirely fabricated anti-Mossadegh protests.  They also bribed members of the majles to support a vote of no confidence.  Mossadegh caught on to the plot and immediately dissolved the assembly, denying the conspirators any chance at a quasi-legal way of deposing him.

   

  

  Persian soldiers chase rioters during CIA-orchestrated civil unrest in Tehran, August 1953. Archive photo via Foreign Policy magazine.

  Once plan A crumbled, Roosevelt put plan B into action which called for the Shah himself to sign royal decrees dismissing Mossadegh from office and appointing General Fazlollah Zahedi as his new prime minister.  The Shah demurred, going so far as running away to the Caspian Sea.  In the end Roosevelt caught up with him and convinced him him to sign. 

  On the night of August 14, 1953 Roosevelt sent Colonel Nassiri and a contingency of soldiers to Mossadegh’s house.  Their task was to present the royal decrees to Mossadegh and take him into custody.  To their surprise, Mossadegh had been tipped off about the plot and had in the shadows a contingency of officers of his own ready to take Col. Nassiri and his men into custody.  The following morning, Radio Tehran announced that the government had successfully foiled the plot by the Shah and foreign elements to overthrow the government.

  Having heard the news, Roosevelt’s CIA superiors urged him to give up the plot and return home.  However, not being one to back down, Roosevelt forged ahead.  For the next 4 days, through his Iranians assests Roosevelt hired more street gangs to simultaneously put on pro and anti Mossedegh demonstrations.  The demonstrations had the desired effect of plunging Tehran into an abyss of violence and lawlessness. 

  Coup d’etat

  On August 19th the violence reached its climax paving the way for the final part of Roosevelt’s plan: a full on military coup. At noon the military and police officers Roosevelt had bribed, stormed and took control of the foreign ministry, the central police station, the headquarters of the army’s general staff, and laid siege to Mossadegh’s house.  Mossadegh narrowly managed to escape, but turned himself in the following day to General Fazlollah Zahedi, not wanting to be the cause of further blood shed. Zahedi played a large role in the coup in cooperation with the CIA and Britain’s MI6, and would go on to replace Mossadegh as prime minister. 

  The fall of Mossadegh, on August 20th, 1953 also marked the end of Iran’s long and painful march to true and complete democracy and national sovereignty.  It also marked the beginning of a 26 year reign of corruption and oppression in which Mohammed Reza Shah, quickly returned to power by the 1953 coup d’état, brutally stamped out the pro-democratic reforms of the majles, violently put down any opposition, as well as what arguably angered the Iranians the most: the Shah returned the oil industry back to Western corporations, once again depriving the citizenry of the wealth that rightly belonged to them. 

  Iranians, unlike many average Americans who are not taught this history in school, have always known that America was involved in the overthrow of their democratically elected government and have thus hated the US government ever since.  This hatred was seen most vividly in 1979 Islamic Revolution when 52 embassy staff in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days. 

  It was only in 2013 that the CIA formally acknowledged its role in bringing down the Mossadegh government after the agency was forced to declassify and publish secret documents related to Operation Ajax, (and first disclosed by The New York Times’ James Risen) and to this day most Americans are unaware that it happened. Yet it is essential to understanding the historical domino effect that American and British interventionism played in bringing the US and Iran to their modern period marked by decades of animosity and enduring mutual distrust. 

  

• As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges

  Authored by Richard Blevins via The Free Thought Project,

  While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the amount of money he owes them.

  

  Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, the report claimed that the actual number is likely much larger at $300 million.

  Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.

  There have been concerns about Trump’s ties to the bank becoming a conflict of interest, dating back to the 2016 election, and the evidence to support those concerns is now becoming clear.

  During the week of Christmas, the Federal Register announced that the Trump Administration had issued waivers to Citigroup, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS, and Deutsche Bank – all megabanks facing charges of fraud and corruption.

  The banks were involved in the LIBOR Scandal, in which they colluded to deliberately depress the rate at which they paid out on investments. By suppressing the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) at the beginning of an economic crisis in 2007, the megabanks were able to boost their earnings and to give their customers a false sense of security.

  Deutsche Bank pled guilty to wire fraud in a U.S. court in 2015, and it went on to pay $3.5 billion for its role in the LIBOR scandal—more than any other bank involved—before it reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department in early 2017.

  Then in June 2017, Deutsche Bank trader David Liew, who is based in Singapore, pleaded guilty to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures in federal court in Chicago, confirming that the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.

  While Trump granted 5-year exemptions to Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Barclays, and 3-year exemptions to UBS and Deutsche Bank, it should be noted that his administration is not the only one to have done this. As International Business Times noted, “In late 2016, the Obama administration extended temporary one-year waivers to five banks,” which just happened to be the same ones Trump has now extended the exemptions on—revealing the real rulers in DC.

  Not surprisingly, the latest decision to pardon the banks comes in stark contrast to one of Trump’s most applauded campaign promises – that he would finally stand up against Wall Street and demand that the most powerful banks be held accountable to the public.

  “I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street,” Trump said during a campaign rally in January 2016.

  

• Cryptos Slide After Yet Another South Korean Shutdown Headline

  Cryptocurrencies are sliding once again as Asia opens following headlines from South Korea’s finance ministry that a cryptocurrency exchange shutdown is still an option (but admittedly it needs “serious” discussion among ministries first).

  While all of the main South Korean ministries agree that there is irrational speculation in cryptocurrency and rational regulation are needed to curb the speculation, only the Justice Ministry has said the shut down of cryptocurrency exchanges is needed as other ministries are concerned about side effects.

  As Yonhap reports again, The Office for Government Policy Coordination made the announcement, downplaying the justice minister’s remark last week that the government is working on legislation to close all virtual currency exchanges to tackle speculation.

  “The proposed shutdown of exchanges that the justice minister recently mentioned is one of the measures suggested by the justice ministry to curb speculation. A government-wide decision will be made in the future after sufficient consultation and coordination of opinions,” the office said in a statement.

  Ripple is leading the overnight slam (down around 10%)…

  

  Which leaves Ripple down 25% year-to-date (while Ethereum remains up around 65%)…

  

  Bitcoin just broke back below $13,000 having tested above $14,000 during the day…

   

  

  The irony is that all of this ‘news’ hit last night (and has done numerous times) but keeps getting regurgitated as new headlines that take the cryptos down briefly.

  

• As Petro-Yuan Looms, Bundesbank Adds Renminbi To Currency Reserves

  Just days after China’s (denied) threat to slow/stop buying US Treasuries, and just days before the launch of China’s petro-yuan futures contract, Germany’s central bank confirmed it would include China’s Renminbi in its reserves.

  The FT reports that Andreas Dombret, a member of Deutsche Bundesbank’s executive board, said at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Monday that the central bank had “decided to include the RMB in our currency reserves”.

  He said: “The RMB is used increasingly as part of central banks’ foreign exchange reserves; for example, the European Central Bank included the RMB [as a reserve currency].”

  The Bundesbank’s six-member board took the decision to invest in renminbi assets in mid-2017, but it was not publicly announced at the time. No investments have been made yet; preparations for purchases are still ongoing.

  The inclusion in the German central bank’s reserves basket underscored China’s increasing prominence in the global financial landscape, and reflected policies aimed at making the currency more freely tradable internationally.

  Mr Dombret said:

  “The notable development from the European point of view over the past few years has been the growing international role of the RMB in global financial markets.”

  The offshore Yuan strengthened on the news overnight – pushing to its strongest in over 2 years…

  

  And as Les Echoes reports, while the Bundesbank wants to integrate the yuan into its foreign exchange reserves, the Banque de France is already using it as a currency of diversification.

  The Banque de France has raised a corner of the veil on its strategy of managing foreign exchange reserves.

  “The foreign currency holdings remain overwhelmingly invested in US dollars, with diversification to a limited number of international currencies such as the Chinese renminbi.“

  Which currency would you rather hold as a stable reserve?

  

  The US Dollar has been quite volatile over the last 18 months against a broad basket of its largest trading partners.

  The Chinese Renminbi, however, has been very stable over the last 18 months against a broad basket of its largest trading partners (despite volatility against the dollar).

  As a reminder, last week, the People’s Bank of China decided to drop a mechanism it recently created to support the renminbi and safeguard it against capital flight, in a sign of rising confidence in the currency. Mr Dombret said the move was “something which we welcome very much”.

   

  

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• Is There Such A Thing As A "Shithole Country"?

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

  The question should be rephrased to whether there’s such a thing as a “shithole” period, and yes, there is, but the stereotypical “Third World” socio-economic and physical conditions that the word often embodies are also widely present in parts of the US.

  Another day, another Trump controversy, and this time it’s the Mainstream  Media going bonkers because of the President supposedly referring to some countries as “shitholes” and questioning why the government has allowed so many of their people to immigrate to America. Knowing Trump’s personality and speaking style, it’s believable that he did in fact say this, though what’s less believable is the insincere virtue signaling that’s sprung up all over social media ever since.

  Defining A “Shithole”

  Some people are predictably slamming Trump as a “racist”, “fascist”, and “white supremacist”, outraged that he would dare use such language when referring to the “Third World” conditions of Haiti and most of Africa and convinced that he was actually exploiting that as an excuse in order to have the “plausibly deniable pretext” for implying that their majority dark-colored populations are “shit”. He wasn’t, but that’s not going to stop agenda-driven individuals and organizations from pretending that that’s what he meant.

  What Trump really had in mind was the stereotypically (key word) underdeveloped economic and physical infrastructure in those places, as well as the unstated “backwardness” of their people that he thinks contributes to never-ending violence there. Using the first pair of criteria, the same “shithole” label is also very relevant in objectively describing parts of the US and the broader West as a whole, especially neglected inner-city areas with large minority populations.

  The problem is that the idea of “backwardness” is relative, and for as much as Trump and some Americans might think that African-Americans, Haitians, and Africans fit that description, they and others might feel just as strongly that the US in general is a “backwards” place as well, though for totally different reasons. “Shitholes”, whether inside the US or elsewhere, are devastated communities whose problems aren’t easily attributable to one source and are commonly the result of many factors, some of which aren’t the fault of those who were born there into those deplorable conditions.

  “Backwardness” Is In The Eye Of The Labeler

  “Backwardness”, however, is an entirely subjective comparison made at the individual level and used to generalize other people as well as societies, regions, countries, continents, and even civilizations. Just as some Americans might feel that a different category of their compatriots are “backwards”, so too might non-Americans feel the same about Americans, and whether or not this is “racist” is up to each person to determine on their own. Take for example the US’ well-known racial tensions – some “whites” might think that the “gangsta rap” prevalent in “black” culture is a “backwards” display of social “values”; likewise, some “blacks” might think that flying the Confederate flag is “backwards” behavior stemming from the Civil War period when slavery was still legal.

  There are of course uncontestably racist examples that can be mentioned in this vein, but such hatred deserves no place in a respectable analysis and therefore shouldn’t be the subject of any discussion.

  As for the larger conception of “backwardness”, some Americans firmly believe that Islam is the epitome of this idea, but some of these very same Muslims think that it’s Americans themselves who live a “backwards” lifestyle due to many examples of their cultural behavior being contradictory to the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings. Americans might retort that the “tribal conditions” of Libya, “Syraq”, Yemen, and Afghanistan play a major role in perpetuating violence there (forgetting their own country’s role in this), but these people could just as easily point to the US’ “identity politics” being responsible for why no one has yet to stop the mostly black-on-black gangland killings in Chicago or other big American cities.

  

  Moving From “Shithole” To “Shithole”

  Accepting that the objective (economic and physical infrastructure) and subjective (“backwardness”) conditions of a “shithole” can be found anywhere in the world, including in the American heartland itself and especially its inner cities & the “Rust Belt”, it’s time to ponder why people move from “shithole” to “shithole”. This phenomenon is interestingly observable not just in relation to people from foreign “shitholes” immigrating to the US, but also in terms of Americans leaving for other “shitholes” inside their own country.

  Foreign “Shitholes”:

  Haitians and Africans, to use the examples that Trump was originally referring to, depart from their “shitholes” for America because they expect that their intended destination has higher living standards in the economic, physical, and/or social senses. It’s true that the average (keyword) all-around conditions in the US are oftentimes better than in most other places due to its more effectively functioning civil society, which includes its courts and police, though serious abuses still occur in these spheres. Most attractive of all and capable of getting many immigrants to overlook these very real problems is the country’s currency, the dollar.

  The possibility of a “petroyuan” poses a latent threat to the dollar’s worldwide dominance, but for now at least the dollar is still king, and that’s why people from “shitholes” all across the world want to work in America. To put it bluntly, they’d rather be paid in dollars than whatever their national currency may be, and that explains why these migrants oftentimes support their families back home through remittances prior to abusing the immigration system to bring them to the US through legalized “chain migration” schemes. It doesn’t matter if their physical and working conditions are worse in America than back home in some cases, what’s seemingly most important to them is that they’re paid in dollars.

  American “Shitholes”:

  The same cynicism is what drives some Americans to move from one “shithole” to the next in search of what they naively believe could be a “better life” that would allow them to finally live the “American Dream”. People from the “Rust Belt” can’t easily move to the California coast without already having a job lined up because it’s too prohibitively expensive for them to do so, which is why they sometimes spend all of their meager savings and even borrow money from their families to make what they hope would be a life-changing trip for the “better”. Unfortunately, due to their limited means, they oftentimes find themselves trading one “shithole” for another because of their economic inability to climb out of the social gutter that they usually have to inhabit in order to barely make ends meet there.

  “Chain migration” is the exception once again because having a family member or close friend in the destination state could help the internal migrant cut down on costs by splitting living expenses with their hosts, thus helping the whole household. Each person could then more quickly save up money and begin planning for their next step in life as they attempt to “climb the ladder of success”, provided of course that they’re willing to sacrifice on their social conditions for the time being in order to make it possible. This could entail living in very cramped conditions inside what are popularly described as “ghettos” (colloquially known as “the hood” in the US), which are usually characterized by the proliferation of drugs, violence, and naturally, the seemingly never-ending consequent cycle of poverty.

  Dollar Delirium:

  The common thread explaining why many people (whether foreigners or Americans) move around from “shithole” to “shithole” within the US is because they’re infected with “dollar delirium”, or the fallacy that a higher gross income automatically translates to a “better life”. For people coming from the “shitholes” of inner-city Cleveland or the rural villages of the Congo, simply earning more money is assumed to be the secret to “succeeding” in life, overlooking the fact that their desired destination also has higher living expenses that may in some cases leave them with a proportionately lower disposable income than if they just stayed home. This might not bother them so long as their basic needs are taken care of and they still have some money left over to spend on entertainment or save for later, but others might come to regret it if their social expectations aren’t adequately met.

  The Social Solution To All “Shitholes”

  Silk Roads:

  Not everybody moves because they want to “get rich” or make a “quick buck”, since buying the newest iPhone isn’t as important to some people as having a stable and respectable livelihood for themselves and their families. “Shitholes” don’t typically provide this, or at least not in a way that satisfies most people, which is why they decide to move elsewhere in search of a “better life”. It would be wrong to imagine that immigrants, whether foreigners to the US or Americans within it, are all “greedy”, and the “safest assumption” is that they’re motivated by social push-and-pull factors more so than economic ones.

  That said, an obvious solution to migration presents itself in the form of encouraging socio-economic development in migrant-originating areas, which is exactly what China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity and Trump’s infrastructure plan– both of which are conceptually compatible with one another – aspire to do. A comprehensive strategy involving local, state/provincial, and national governments alongside state-owned and private businesses is the only conceivable way forward, but it’ll still take a while to yield results even if the most masterful plan was flawlessly executed, which is in any case unlikely.

  Belief System Compromises:

  Because this solution will take a long time to implement, if ever, the next best thing is to discuss the details of the infrastructural and metastructural social reasons behind migration. Social infrastructure can be described as schools, healthcare, and welfare benefits, for example, while social metastructure is culture and its related intangibles. Most socially motivated migrants are willing to compromise on social metastructure in order to reap the benefits of its infrastructural counterpart, meaning that they’ll “grin and bear it” if they dislike their new cultural conditions so long as they receive their expected access to certain “hard benefits” such as what they believe to be a better education system and state subsidies.

  Considering this, it makes sense why people who hate America’s cultural-political system still migrate there because they’re tacitly compromising on their (sometimes publicly proclaimed) beliefs in exchange for receiving expected economic and social infrastructure “rewards”, and the same goes for Americans migrating to other states or countries. To reference the example mentioned earlier in this analysis, some Muslims think that American culture is “backwards”, but they’re willing to deal with it if the pay and social infrastructural conditions are right.

  As for Americans, an “enlightened” liberal might escape from California’s dysfunctional society to seek refuge in the rural “backwaters” of a “red state’s” much more stable one despite their new destination restricting abortion and therefore being “ideologically incompatible” with one of their core beliefs. Another domestic example could be a conservative from “Middle America” moving to the liberal dystopia of New York City in the hopes of finding a better job. As for external manifestations of this “social compromise” in action, elderly Americans who look down upon what they may believe to be the “backwards” people of Latin America might “suck it up” and retire in that region simply because it’s more affordable.

  Sacrificing For The Next Generation:

  The last “solution” to the world’s “shitholes” is the passive one that’s been employed since time immemorial, and that’s migrants sacrificing their living standards by knowingly accepting that they’ll likely spend the rest of their lives in suboptimal social conditions in order to give their descendants that are born there a “better chance” at “climbing the ladder’ and “succeeding” in ways that their parents weren’t ever able to. This is the quintessential story of most American immigrants throughout history and especially from the late-19^th century until the present day, and it also describes why many civilizationally dissimilar migrants are willing to put up with Europe’s different social metastructural standards in spite of this contradicting the strict requirements of their religion.

  Another relevancy of this principle is when Americans migrate from their rural “shitholes” to urban ones, or from one “hood” to another in different cities, hoping that their children can seize the socio-economic opportunities there that their parents either weren’t able to or which didn’t exist in their hometowns.

  Sacrificing for the next generation doesn’t “solve” the problem of “shitholes” – it ignores them – though sometimes there are “activists” who try to change things for the better in their own “shitholes” or the ones that they just moved into, but their freedom of action is severely constrained by the laws of their host society. Muslim migrants wanting to impose sharia in their new European neighborhoods or build mosques there are increasingly finding it more difficult to do so, but they still have it comparatively better than a Syrian Christian refugee that somehow ends up in a Gulf Kingdom and wants to hold public church services or build their own house of worship there.

  In America, social and workplace activism is the most common form of struggle for people who have been born and raised in “shitholes” or internally migrated to them, and while they have a greater chance of succeeding with their cause inside the US than “shithole”-inhabiting people elsewhere in the world, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult by the year for them to do so.

  

  The Myth Of “Equality”

  Theoretically and in terms of “international law”, all countries and cultures are “equal” to one another as seen from the eyes of the UN and its related UNESCO body, though in reality many people have their own personal preferences and accordingly believe that some countries and cultures are “better” than others. Someone indoctrinated with “American Exceptionalism” might truly think that the US is the “best” place on earth by all measures, while some Muslims might think that their own societies are the “best” to live in for cultural-religious reasons. Each of these two might have nothing but disdain for the other, but that’s their personal right, in fact, whether one agrees with it or not. It’s up to each individual to judge on their own whether this or any of its manifestations constitute “racism”, though it must be noted that there are indeed some undeniable examples of racism that should always be condemned.

  That said, screaming “racism”, “fascism”, and “supremacism” just because someone has an individual opinion – no matter how disrespectful and offensive, though given that it doesn’t objectively conform to any of those three aforementioned terrible terms – is hypocritical because one can be certain that the person casting the stones also has their own “hierarchical” views on something or another, even if they’re more “politely” expressed. The Haitians and Africans that Trump so derogatorily described as coming from “shitholes” might think that some parts of their home region are “better” than others, just as they apparently think the US is the “best” because they’ll willing to leave their homelands to migrate there. The same can be said for Americans who favor one place of living within their own country over another, for whatever given reason, whether it’s the “shithole” that they moved to or their new place of living after escaping from a “shithole”.

  Mixed Motivations For Migration

  It’s crucial to understand that those who migrate from one “shithole” to another don’t always believe that everything in their place of residence is the “best”, but might be willing to “compromise” on certain aspects of it either due to “dollar delirium” or because they intend to sacrifice for the next generation. For example, it’s entirely natural for immigrants to retain their native culture and values inside their homes while trying to publicly assimilate and integrate into their host societies at large, such as some Arabs do when migrating to the West or some Westerners do when moving outside of their civilizational sphere (or even within it, with Poles being a perfect example). The complexity of the millennia-long phenomenon of migration means that there’s no simple explanation for why people decide to move away from their place of birth, with each instance being unique and usually motivated by multiple factors.

  Concluding Thoughts

  At the end of the day, using the word “shithole” to describe somewhere is a crass way of making objective points about economic & physical infrastructure and socially subjective ones about “backwardness”, but nevertheless is the right of every individual to use according to their taste so long as they’re not promoting actual racism or any of its related toxic ideologies such as fascism or supremacism. It’s not just Trump and “whites” in America who use this term, but other people across the world employ it or whatever the local analogue is in their language when making similar types of comparisons, and even in the absence of actual words, internal value judgements about other countries and cultures are still being formulated. It’s natural for people to have their own personal hierarchy of national-cultural preferences no matter how “politically incorrect” it may be to openly admit in some societies, meaning that the concept of the “shithole” is here to stay whether one likes it or not.

  

• These Are The 10 Companies That Dominate the Global Arms Trade

  The world puts $1.69 trillion towards military expenditures per year, and about $375 billion of that goes towards buying arms specifically.

  Whether it is guns, tanks, jets, missiles, or ships that are on your shopping list, in the international arms community, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardin notes, there is a supplier for any weapon your country desires.

  

  Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

   

  ARMS DEALERS, BY SALES

  Today’s chart organizes the world’s top arms companies by sales, location, and arms as a percentage of sales:

  

  Note: Airbus considers itself a European company. It’s registered in the Netherlands, and its main HQ is in France.

  The above data comes courtesy of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks arms deals and companies extensively.

  USA, USA!

  While it is common knowledge that the United States plays a big role in the global arms trade, the numbers are still quite astounding.

  Of the top ten companies by sales, firms based in the U.S. make up seven of them. That includes the clear #1, Lockheed Martin, which had $40.8 billion in arms-related sales in 2016, as well as the remaining constituents of the top three: Boeing and Raytheon.

  Further, on SIPRI’s wider top 100 list, a good proxy for total arms sales globally, U.S. defense companies accounted for a whopping 58% of total global arms sales. That adds up to $217.2 billion in 2016, a 4.0% rise over the previous year.

  ROUNDING OUT THE TOP 10

  Only three companies make the top 10 leaderboard from outside of the United States.

  That group includes Airbus, the massive European commercial airline manufacturer that gets 17% of its sales from arms-related deals, as well as BAE Systems (U.K.) and Leonardo (Italy).

  As a final caveat, it’s worth mentioning that SIPRI notes that some Chinese companies would likely make its Top 100 list as well – but for now, the list excludes Chinese companies as the available data is not comparable or accurate.

  

• Customs And Border Protection Clarifies: You Have No Rights While Traveling

  Submitted by Sovereign Man

  The government is like a poorly trained dog. If you let one bad behavior go, it just escalates until they bite.

  The government has been searching electronics like cell phones and laptops at the border since early in the Bush administration. But because the 9/11 attacks were fresh, and because the practice was not widespread, it went largely unnoticed.

  Fast forward to fiscal year 2015 and the Customs and Border Protection searched 8,503 airline passengers’ electronic devices. In FY 2016 they searched 19,033. And in FY 2017 CBP searched the devices of 30,200 travelers.

  The CBP obtained no warrants for these searches. Many people searched were foreign travelers to the U.S. but last year over 6,000 were American citizens.

  In response to growing complaints Customs and Border Protection revised their policy. Last week they issued a new directive. But in some ways, it is worse.

  For starters, their guidance claims the authority to search a traveler’s electronic devices “with or without suspicion.”

  The guidance now claims passengers are “obligated” to turn over their devices as well as passcodes for examination. If they fail to do so, agents can seize the device.

  That is all considered a “basic search.” Agents must have suspicion in order to conduct an “advanced search.” This includes copying information from devices, or analyzing them with other equipment.

  Finally, CBP agents can not “intentionally” search information stored on the cloud, versus on the device’s hard drive.

  What this means:

  It actually adds insult to injury that the new guidance starts: “CBP will protect the rights of individuals against unreasonable search and seizure and ensure privacy protection while accomplishing its enforcement mission.”

  Nothing could be further from the truth. This is clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. This violates the privacy of everyone searched.

  Then they demand you forgo your Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination. If you refuse to give out your password, they further violate the Fourth Amendment by seizing your device.

  CBP agents are human. There is no inherent reason that they can be trusted with information like passwords. There is no reason why passengers should have to trust that their copied information will actually be destroyed according to CBP policy.

  There is no legal justification to threaten the contacts and sensitive information that journalists might be transporting. This further adds First Amendment concerns to this intrusive policy. It could easily be used to chill free speech and freedom of the press.

  Luckily there is a lawsuit in the works challenging this policy, but a ruling cannot happen quick enough.

  In the meantime, prepare carefully for international travel. You may even want to travel only with “burner” devices; meaning you don’t mind if they are confiscated for refusing an unconstitutional search.

  

• Who Do Russians Consider Their Greatest Enemies?

  According to a new poll from The Levada Center, 23 percent of Russians believe their country is surrounded by enemies.

  While, the list of who Americans consider their enemies has been covered by Statista before, Niall McCarthy wonders what do Russians think?

  

  You will find more statistics at Statista

  The research shows that 68 percent of people in Russia consider the United States a threat.

  Considering the annexation of the Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, 29 percent of respondents also said that Ukraine is an enemy.

  Even though the Russian military is heavily committed to the war in Syria, only 5 and 4 percent of people respectively say Islamic extremists are a threat. That’s less than Germany, the UK and NATO which are all labelled enemies by 6 percent of Russians.

  Internally, only two percent of respondents consider oligarchs and bankers enemies and one percent think Vladimir Putin is a threat.

  

• Japanese Purchases Of US Treasurys Tumble

  In the last days of 2017, we showed something surprising: as a result of suddenly exploding USDJPY funding costs, there had never been a worse time for Japanese investors, traditionally some of the most ravenous purchasers of US paper, to buy US Treasurys.

  As we explained on December 27, USD funding costs for Japanese insurers and banks to invest in US Treasuries – which had surged reaching a post-financial-crisis high of 2.35% on 15 Dec – are determined by three things, namely (1) the difference in US and Japanese risk-free rates (OIS), (2) the difference in US and Japanese interbank risk premiums (Libor-OIS), and (3) basis swaps, which illustrate the imbalance in currency-hedged US and Japanese investments.

  In this particular case, widening of (1) as a result of Fed rate hikes and tightening of dollar funding conditions inside the US (2) and outside the US (3) have occurred simultaneously. This is shown in the chart below.

  

  Whatever the cause behind these sharp funding shortages, one thing was clear – dollar funding costs (FX hedging costs) for both Japanese insurers, banks and other investors to buy US Treasuries were surging (with Japanese buyers and reached a post-financial-crisis high of 2.35% on 15 Dec. And in terms of practical implications for the treasury market this means that, all else equal, marginal demand for US paper is about to plunge for one simple reason: the FX-hedged yields on US Treasurys have plunged to (negative) levels never seen before (unless of course foreign investors buy US Treasurys unhedged).

  To demonstrate this point, the chart below from Deutsche Bank shows the yields on currency-hedged US Treasuries from the perspective of Japanese investors. Annualized hedge costs had risen to 2.33% at the end of December, which means that investments in 10y US Treasuries would result in virtually no yield. Furthermore, yields from investment in shorter than 10y US Treasuries would be less than JGBs and result in negative spreads.

  

  And while TSY funding costs, and various X-CCY basis swaps in the past two weeks has dropped, Japan’s lack of appetite for US Treasurys will only continue to rise.

  The reason is that as the Nikkei reports, Japanese investors – traditionally the most enthusiastic foreign buyers of US Treasurys – have become far less enthusiastic about buying US debt last year on growing concern about rising U.S. Treasury yields. According to Ministry of Finance data released on Friday, Japanese investors’ net purchases of mid- to long-term foreign bonds tumbled 94.6% on the year to 1.1 trillion yen ($9.9 billion) in 2017, the first annual decline in four years.

   

  

  In prior years, Japanese institutional investors such as banks and life insurance companies had actively pursued foreign bonds in search of higher returns, finding few alternatives in Japan, where interest rates remained extremely low, and Europe providing few options as a result of the ECB’s NIRP policies. As a result, the only option for many was US paper.

  But the November 2016 election of Donald Trump as U.S. president sent the 10-year Treasury yield shooting up from around 1.8% to almost 2.6% in just over a month, and the yield stayed above 2% throughout 2017. Any investors holding onto Treasurys during the yield surge would have incurred significant losses as prices tumbled.

  Life insurers’ net purchases declined 8.4 trillion yen last year, and banks collectively turned into net sellers, with their net sales reaching a record 7.6 trillion yen. Over 2015 and 2016, in contrast, they bought 20.6 trillion yen more than they sold.

  In March 2017, Japan’s Financial Services Agency announced stricter oversight on foreign bond investment by regional banks. The following month, net sales of mid- to long-term bonds by Japanese investors hit a monthly record of 4.2 trillion yen.

  And, of course, as discussed at the top, the higher cost of buying the U.S. dollar is also at play. Life insurers often hedge against a strengthening yen via foreign exchange swaps when investing in foreign bonds. But hedges have become more expensive due to higher U.S. interest rates and other reasons. So the appeal of investing in U.S. bonds has faded overall, unless of course, Japanese investors bid up US paper unhedge, which however could backfire dangerously should FX volatility pick up, or if the dollar continues to devalue against most G-10 peers.

  The bottom line: foreign, and certainly Japanese demand for US Treasurys appears to be sliding, whether due to rising yields and P&L losses, or blowing out funding costs, at the worst possible time: just as net supply of US Treasurys is set to double from $488BN in 2017…

  

  … to $1,030BN in 2018, as Goldman calculated last Friday.

  Which means that just one hiccup, and yields will soar. It also means that we are one not so major bond tantrum away from the Fed begging preparations for the next massive bond monetization episode, also known as QE4.

  

• "I Paid To See A Movie About Singing. I Got Ninety Minutes Of Pentagon Propaganda."

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  To cap off a long, strange day, my husband and I took the kids out last night to see Pitch Perfect 3. The first Pitch Perfect is a firm favorite in our household, the kind of movie we end up watching when we can’t agree on what to watch. We’d been waiting til we all had a night to see the latest one together, so we made a night of it and went out for some dinner, too. I even had a Coke. The sugary kind. This was a big night, people! So we were all in high spirits and I entered the theater excited to see some good music and have a good time.

  I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but I also wasn’t expecting to be blasted in the face with ninety minutes of blatant war propaganda from the United States Department of Defense.

  Documents Expose How Hollywood Promotes War On Behalf Of The Pentagon, CIA, & NSA “The documents reveal for the first time the vast scale of US government control in Hollywood, including the ability to…”

  

  Before I go on I should mention that a group called Insurge Intelligence published a report a few months back on thousands of military and intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act which showed unbelievably extensive involvement of US defense and intelligence agencies in the production of popular Hollywood movies and TV shows. Just from the information this group was able to gain access to, the scripts and development of over 800 films and 1,000 television titles were found to have been influenced by the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA to advance the interests of the US war machine. We’re talking about big, high profile titles you’ve definitely heard of, from Transformers to Meet the Parents.

  So it’s an established fact that these depraved agencies of destruction and domination are balls-deep in Hollywood production. You can understand my discomfort, then, as it became evident that the movie I’d sat down to watch with my family was set on US military bases for no reason whatsoever. There was nothing about the plot of Pitch Perfect 3 that required this; any music tour of any kind would have worked just as well. The antagonist had nothing to do with the military, the protagonists were a civilian a capella singing group, and the general conflicts and resolutions of the film were entirely uninvolved with anything related to the armed forces of any nation.

  Indeed, the film looks like it was initially written to have taken place in a civilian setting, then after many rewrites and the involvement of God knows what agencies managed to force itself onto US military bases. As Insurge Intelligence noted in its report, once that happens the war machine is granted what amounts to total creative control of the film’s production, up to and including the ability to cancel production altogether by withdrawing support.

  Sure enough, retired Army lieutenant colonel Thomas Lesnieski, who was involved with the production of the film, says that in order to “make sure that the way the military is portrayed is done right,” changes were made to the script of Pitch Perfect 3 after the film enlisted “DoD support”.

  As far as the film in question is concerned, “the way the military is portrayed” could not have been more propagandistic. The heroines were constantly drooling over the handsome, sexy servicemen, there was nonstop saluting, flag-waving and patriotic “thank you for your service” lines, the lead cast did an entire number dressed in camouflage, a lesbian character said she wanted to enlist “now that they let gay people join,” servicemen were portrayed as charming heroes and protectors of women, and life on a military base was portrayed as a fun party where you get to go to awesome concerts and have a great time. You could not possibly pack more glorification of the US war machine into a movie if you tried.

  Air Force Captain Meredith Kirchoff, a public affairs officer at Dobbins Air Reserve Base where the film was shot, gushes over the movie for the way it “humanizes” (read: normalizes) the human resources used to power the American war machine while US civilians are deprived of the basic social safety nets accorded to everyone else in every other major country on earth.

  The US Department of Defense was given a “special thanks to” line at the tail of the end credits.

  Again: there was no discernible reason for this film to be set on military bases. At all. Anyone who gets involved in filmmaking for love of that artistic medium loathes the involvement of any outside influencer putting pressure on them to change their script and produce their movie in a certain way to advance their own agendas, but this film deliberately sought that influence out. From top to bottom, a sequel to a popular movie about an all-female singing group was built to normalize the globe-spanning war machine that is closely approaching a trillion dollar budget and recruit teenage girls into its ranks to be used for slaughter and destruction.

  I love Pitch Perfect. It’s honestly one of my favorite movies ever. It’s an effortless romp of a film about the joy of delightfully unique individuals not overcoming those differences but enthusing about them in each other, enjoying them, embracing them and collaborating together to create something beautiful, inspired, healthy and new. It speaks to my heart about what we have to do as a species to create utopia and avoid self-destruction. To take that and twist it into another advertisement for the blood-thirsty, child-killing, empire building war machine was all kinds of heartbreaking to me.

  When we came home and the kids were out of earshot my husband and I started angrily fuming about what manipulative, disgusting, art-killing parasites these people are, then remembered we have a podcast now so we hit record before we ran out of rage:

  * * *

  Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, bookmarking my website, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

  

• Citi Reveals The Reason Behind The Market's Meltup

  It is hardly a secret, that one of the biggest threats facing risk assets in 2018 and onward, is the great central bank QE/balance sheet unwind, something we have discussed extensively in the past year, and as a recent example, in “This Is Most Worrying”: In One Year, Central Bank Liquidity Will Collapse From $2 Trillion To Zero,” in which Deutsche Bank said that “the most likely causes of a shift to ‘flight mode’ and a rise in volatility” is that by the end of [2018], the combined expansion of all the major Central Bank balance sheets will have collapsed from a 12 month growth rate of $2 trillion per annum to zero.”

  This is shown in the following chart depicting the total shrinkage in central bank asset growth:

  

  And yet, despite the Fed’s methodical, if slow balance sheet shrinkage and the ECB’s recent QE tapering from €60 to €30BN per month, followed by the BOJ’s latest “stealth tapering” last week, stocks have started off the new year with a panicked melt-up euphoria the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades as the flurry of recent “serious” headlines suggests.

  The term of the week is ‘melt-up’ pic.twitter.com/6phpDc47uW

  — Mark Constantine (@vexmark) January 12, 2018

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

  How does one reconcile this historic stock surge at a time of shrinking central bank balance sheets?

  The answer comes from Citigroup’s credit research team, which points out something most central bank unwind projections have missed, namely that while risk assets on central bank balance sheets may indeed be shrinking, other reserve managers are going in the other direction.

  According to Citi’s analysts, the answer is that although both the Fed and ECB are scaling back their balance sheets, the increase in EM FX reserves recently, with Chinese FX reserves doing the majority of the heavy lifting, has largely offset all of this. This is highlighted in the left-hand chart below. In fact, as the right-hand chart shows, on a rolling 3 month basis FX reserve purchases by EMs have largely offset all of the implied downward risk impulse from the past year.

  

  As a reminder, last week China reported that its foreign-exchange reserves posted an 11th straight monthly increase, capping a year of recovery amid tighter capital controls, a stronger yuan and resilient economic growth (even if as Goldman calculated much of the reserve increase has been due to valuation effects). At the end of 2017, Chinese reserves climbed by $20.7 billion in December to $3.14 trillion, bringing the full-year increase to $129 billion.

  

  Somewhat coincidentally, the theory that China may be goosing the markets was proposed last week by a different group of Citi analysts, who proposed that “it looks like the PBoC has been adding quite a lot of liquidity in the shorter end of the curve in recent days -with a variety of interbank rates softer, and the 1y CGB yield notably lower by 21bps YTD whereas 5s and 10s yields have stayed broadly flat.”

  As we said last week, “assuming that Citi is correct, it would explain many things, not least of all the stunning surge higher in Chinese, global and even US stocks.” Here is Citi’s own “conspiratorial” take:

  “Against that background, it is no surprise that equity markets have been so well supported and the SHPROP has exploded upward.”

  In other words, just like China’s aggressive policy change after the Shanghai Accord of February 2016 unleashed a record 21 of 22 positive months for the S&P…

  S&P is up 21 of the past 22 months, starting with the Shanghai Accord in Feb 2016 pic.twitter.com/LOngt5A4ba

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 29, 2017

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  … so it again appears to be China’s stealthy asset purchases across global capital markets that has resulted in the market melt-up observed in the end of 2017 and start of 2018.

  Of course, in light of recent vocal warnings from China that its Treasury purchases may be discontinued soon, extrapolating China’s generous intervention in risk assets for the foreseeable future would be dangerous. Meanwhile, even as Beijing may flip and halt accumulating reserves, one thing is certain – at least for now – that central banks will keep on unwinding their balance sheets. Here’s Citi once more:

  given that this aggregate central bank liquidity measure has had a significant degree of correlation with risk asset performance over the past few years, we are if anything reaffirmed in our cautious stance on 2018 as a whole. Even if EM FX reserves were to continue accumulating at close to their current rate, that would be outweighed by the almost $1 trillion reduction in DM central bank balance purchases due to occur this year.

  Citi’s concludes by appropriately wrapping up the balance sheet unwind narrative in the story about the frog – stuck in boiling water – that did not realize how hot the water was until it was too late:

  As the old parable goes, a frog that has the misfortune to find itself in a pot of boiling water will generally have the sense to jump straight back out. But if the water is initially tepid and subsequently brought to boil slowly, the frog won’t realise what’s happening until it’s too late.

  * * *

  The announced trajectories of the major central bank balance sheets indicate that the level of aggregate net asset purchases will reach its 2018 lows in the latter part of the year. But while we may only reach boiling point then, we’re already heating up: the delta in tapering is currently very large, with the Fed increasing its pace of net selling and the ECB having halved its net purchase volumes already.

  Citi’s punchline: “the frog may end up getting cooked well before boiling point.” For now, however, the market’s daily record highs make a mockery of any warning, and any references to frogs stuck in boiling water are promptly deflected with tantalizing images of massaging bubbles and “nice warm Jacuzzis.”

  

• Caught On Video: Chinese Rocket Booster Crashes To Earth, Erupts In Massive Fireball

  A booster from a Chinese Long March 3B rocket created a massive explosion outside a town in Guangxiv, southwest China on Friday- and the explosion was all caught on video.

   

  

  According to the Global Times, the Long March 3B rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province at 07:18 local time on Friday, catapulting two Beidou-3 GNSS navigation satellites to earth’s orbit.

  It is no secret that China’s growth in its space program has been accelerating with the development of the Long March rocket family launching satellites into space. An expanding space program comes in addition to the country’s rising economic power and international influence, which has alarmingly challenged Western space programs.

  As the three-stage rocket with four-strap-on boosters soared towards the heavens, the four boosters separated from the rocket’s core and fell back to earth. One of the boosters landed near a town, while residents panicked as the impact caused a major explosion.

  The village of Xiangdu in Tiandeng Country, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is around 700 kilometers from the launch site and considered a “designated drop zones for debris for the launch,” according to the Global Times.

   

  This is probably why the Chinese need to recover their rockets stages soon….and for reasons other than price:

  (video of booster falling in planned drop zone from Chinese social media for today’s Long March 3B launch, taken at Baise, Guangxi, China) pic.twitter.com/SLqaDeoPf7

  — Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) January 12, 2018

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  While the booster smashed into the town, the launch seems to have succeeded in propelling two satellites into orbit. The video below shows the moment the booster slammed into a hillside releasing a toxic plume of hazardous fumes.

   

  Here’s the end of the close-up video of the booster that fell from the Long March 3B today. There’s bang then everyone runs away. Gets them away from the hydrazine for a while at least… pic.twitter.com/CbYKkDsvsO

  — Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) January 12, 2018

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  While there were no reports of human casualties; more video has surfaced of curious residents examining the booster up close.

  However, unbeknownst to the observes, the “boosters are filled with unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) hypergolic propellant, which is highly toxic,” said the Global Times.

  The Global Times calls Friday’s event “all too common,” as China’s space program continues to expand.

  The footage comes in stark contrast to United States launches, which send launch vehicles over the ocean, while private company SpaceX has mastered landing its Falcon 9 first stages back at launch sites and on drone ships off the coast.

  This means that today’s space launches pass over inhabited areas. Though drop zones for Long March rocket stages are carefully calculated and launch notices and procedures put in places, events like the above are all too common, especially with China’s space activities expanding greatly in recent years.

  An unidentified man stands in his living room next to an engine from a Long March rocket in August 2015.

   

  

  The Long March 3B rocket has about a 93% success rating, unlike Elon Musk, who has a history of fiery failures with his SpaceX program. Just last week, Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket failed to reach earth’s orbit, therefore losing a billion dollar secretive spy satellite for the United States Government. 

  It’s never good when parts of a rocket coming crashing down to earth, never mind almost smashing into a town. However, the next fireball from the heavens could in the coming months, when a Chinese space station is expected to lose orbit.

  

• Burning Iranian Oil Tanker Off China Coast Sinks After One Week

  The Iranian oil tanker burning in the East China Sea for more than a week has finally sunk, Chinese media reported on Sunday. The Sanchi tanker and a cargo ship collided 260km (160 miles) off Shanghai on 6 January, with the tanker then drifting south-east towards Japan. China Central Television said that the Sanchi had gone down after “suddenly igniting” around noon (04:00 GMT).

  Earlier, the Iranian press reported that all 32 crew members – 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis – on the tanker are dead. The tanker was carrying 136,000 tonnes of ultra-light crude but Chinese officials, credible as always, said there is no major slick.

  Even though some 13 vessels and an Iranian commando unit had been taking part in the salvage operation, amid bad weather, no survivors were found, and according to a spokesman for the Iranian team, Mohammad Rastad, there was no hope of finding any survivors.

  According to BBC, on Saturday, salvage workers had boarded the vessel and found the bodies of two crew members in a lifeboat. Only one other body had been found during the week of salvage operations. The rescue workers retrieved the ship’s black box but had to leave quickly because of the toxic smoke and high temperatures.

  
  A map showing the collision point and approximate location a week later: BBC

  The Panama-flagged Sanchi was bringing the condensate from Iran to South Korea when the collision with the Hong Kong-registered freighter CF Crystal, carrying grain from the US, happened in the East China Sea. The crewmen of the Crystal were all rescued.

  The cause of the collision is still not known.

  After the collision the Sanchi drifted at about 2.2km/h (1.4mph), south-eastwards towards the Japanese island of Amami Oshima.

  Condensate is very different from the black crude that is often seen in oil spills. It is toxic, low in density and considerably more explosive than regular crude. Condensate creates products such as jet fuel, petrol, diesel and heating fuel.

  

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• Army Strategist Exposes The Disturbing Parallels Between US Domestic Policing & Military Tactics Abroad

  Authored by Major Danny Sjursen via TheNation.com,

  “This…thing, [the War on Drugs] this ain’t police work… I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors… running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts.… pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you’re supposed to be policing, that’s just occupied territory.”

  -—Major “Bunny” Colvin, season three of HBO’s The Wire

  I can remember both so well.

  2006: my first raid in South Baghdad.

  2014: watching on YouTube as a New York police officer asphyxiated – murdered – Eric Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on a Staten Island street corner not five miles from my old apartment. Both events shocked the conscience.

   

  

  It was 11 years ago next month: My first patrol of the war, and we were still learning the ropes from the army unit we were replacing. Unit swaps are tricky, dangerous times. In Army lexicon, they’re known as “right-seat-left-seat rides.” Picture a car. When you’re learning to drive, you first sit in the passenger seat and observe. Only then do you occupy the driver’s seat. That was Iraq, as units like ours rotated in and out via an annual revolving door of sorts. Officers from incoming units like mine were forced to learn the terrain, identify the key powerbrokers in our assigned area, and sort out the most effective tactics in the two weeks before the experienced officers departed. It was a stressful time.

  Those transition weeks consisted of daily patrols led by the officers of the departing unit. My first foray off the FOB (forward operating base) was a night patrol. The platoon I’d tagged along with was going to the house of a suspected Shiite militia leader. (Back then, we were fighting both Shiite rebels of the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgents.) We drove to the outskirts of Baghdad, surrounded a farmhouse, and knocked on the door. An old woman let us in and a few soldiers quickly fanned out to search every room. Only women—presumably the suspect’s mother and sisters—were home. Through a translator, my counterpart, the other lieutenant, loudly asked the old woman where her son was hiding. Where could we find him? Had he visited the house recently? Predictably, she claimed to be clueless. After the soldiers vigorously searched (“tossed”) a few rooms and found nothing out of the norm, we prepared to leave. At that point, the lieutenant warned the woman that we’d be back—just as had happened several times before—until she turned in her own son.

  I returned to the FOB with an uneasy feeling. I couldn’t understand what it was that we had just accomplished. How did hassling these women, storming into their home after dark and making threats, contribute to defeating the Mahdi Army or earning the loyalty and trust of Iraqi civilians? I was, of course, brand new to the war, but the incident felt totally counterproductive. Let’s assume the woman’s son was Mahdi Army to the core. So what? Without long-term surveillance or reliable intelligence placing him at the house, entering the premises that way and making threats could only solidify whatever aversion the family already had to the Army. And what if we had gotten it wrong? What if he was innocent and we’d potentially just helped create a whole new family of insurgents?

  Though it wasn’t a thought that crossed my mind for years, those women must have felt like many African-American families living under persistent police pressure in parts of New York, Baltimore, Chicago, or elsewhere in this country. Perhaps that sounds outlandish to more affluent whites, but it’s clear enough that some impoverished communities of color in this country do indeed see the police as their enemy. For most military officers, it was similarly unthinkable that many embattled Iraqis could see all American military personnel in a negative light. But from that first raid on, I knew one thing for sure: We were going to have to adjust our perceptions—and fast. Not, of course, that we did.

  Years passed. I came home, stayed in the Army, had a kid, divorced, moved a few more times, remarried, had more kids – my Giants even won two Super Bowls. Suddenly everyone had an iPhone, was on Facebook, or tweeting, or texting rather than calling. Somehow in those blurred years, Iraq-style police brutality and violence – especially against poor blacks – gradually became front-page news. One case, one shaky YouTube video followedanother: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and Freddie Gray, just to start a long list. So many of the clips reminded me of enemy propaganda videos from Baghdad or helmet-cam shots recorded by our troopers in combat, except that they came from New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco.

  BRUTAL CONNECTIONS

  As in Baghdad, so in Baltimore. It’s connected, you see. Scholars, pundits, politicians, most of us in fact like our worlds to remain discretely and comfortably separated. That’s why so few articles, reports, or op-ed columns even think to link police violence at home to our imperial pursuits abroad or the militarization of the policing of urban America to our wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa. I mean, how many profiles of the Black Lives Matter movement even mention America’s 16-year war on terror across huge swaths of the planet? Conversely, can you remember a foreign policy piece that cited Ferguson? I doubt it.

  Nonetheless, take a moment to consider the ways in which counterinsurgency abroad and urban policing at home might, in these years, have come to resemble each other and might actually be connected phenomena:

  1. The degradations involved: So often, both counterinsurgency and urban policing involve countless routine humiliations of a mostly innocent populace. No matter how we’ve cloaked the terms—“partnering,” “advising,” “assisting,” and so on—the American military has acted like an occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan in these years. Those thousands of ubiquitous post-invasion Army foot and vehicle patrols in both countries tended to highlight the lack of sovereignty of their peoples. Similarly, as long ago as 1966, author James Baldwin recognized that New York City’s ghettoes resembled, in his phrase, “occupied territory.” In that regard, matters have only worsened since. Just ask the black community in Baltimore or for that matter Ferguson, Missouri. It’s hard to deny America’s police are becoming progressively more defiant; just last month St. Louis cops tauntedprotestors by chanting “whose streets? Our streets,” at a gathering crowd. Pardon me, but since when has it been okay for police to rule America’s streets? Aren’t they there to protect and serve us? Something tells me the exceedingly libertarian Founding Fathers would be appalled by such arrogance.

  2. The racial and ethnic stereotyping. In Baghdad, many troops called the locals hajis, ragheads, or worse still, sandniggers. There should be no surprise in that. The frustrations involved in occupation duty and the fear of death inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns lead soldiers to stereotype, and sometimes even hate, the populations they’re (doctrinally) supposed to protect. Ordinary Iraqis or Afghans became the enemy, an “other,” worthy only of racial pejoratives and (sometimes) petty cruelties. Sound familiar? Listen to the private conversations of America’s exasperated urban police, or the occasionally public insults they throw at the population they’re paid to “protect.” I, for one, can’t forget the video of an infuriated white officer taunting Ferguson protestors: “Bring it on, you f§ § king animals!” Or how about a white Staten Island cop caught on the phone bragging to his girlfriend about how he’d framed a young black man or, in his words, “fried another nigger.” Dehumanization of the enemy, either at home or abroad, is as old as empire itself.

  3. The searches: Searches, searches, and yet more searches. Back in the day in Iraq—I’m speaking of 2006 and 2007—we didn’t exactly need a search warrant to look anywhere we pleased. The Iraqi courts, police, and judicial system were then barely operational. We searched houses, shacks, apartments, and high rises for weapons, explosives, or other “contraband.” No family—guilty or innocent (and they were nearly all innocent)—was safe from the small, daily indignities of a military search. Back here in the , a similar phenomenon rules, as it has since the “war on drugs” era of the 1980s. It’s now routine for police SWAT teams to execute rubber-stamped or “no knock” search warrants on suspected drug dealers’ homes (often only for marijuana stashes) with an aggressiveness most soldiers from our distant wars would applaud. Then there are the millions of random, warrantless, body searches on America’s urban, often minority-laden streets. Take New York, for example, where a discriminatory regime of “stop-and-frisk” tactics terrorized blacks and Hispanics for decades. Millions of (mostly) minority youths were halted and searched by New York police officers who had to cite only such opaque explanations as “furtive movements,” or “fits relevant description”—hardly explicit probable cause—to execute such daily indignities. As numerous studies have shown (and a judicial ruling found), such “stop-and-frisk” procedures were discriminatory and likely unconstitutional.

  As in my experience in Iraq, so here on the streets of so many urban neighborhoods of color, anyone, guilty or innocent (mainly innocent) was the target of such operations. And the connections between war abroad and policing at home run ever deeper. Consider that in Springfield, Massachusetts, police anti-gang units learned and applied literal military counterinsurgency doctrine on that city’s streets. In post-9/11 New York City, meanwhile, the NYPD Intelligence Unit practiced religious profilingand implemented military-style surveillance to spy on its Muslim residents. Even America’s stalwart Israeli allies—no strangers to domestic counterinsurgency—have gotten in on the game. That country’s Security Forces have been training American cops, despite their long record of documented human rights abuses. How’s that for coalition warfare and bilateral cooperation?

  4. The equipment, the tools of the trade: Who hasn’t noticed in recent years that, thanks in part to a Pentagon program selling weaponry and equipment right off America’s battlefields, the police on our streets look ever less like kindly beat cops and ever more like Robocop or the heavily armed and protected troops of our distant wars? Think of the sheer firepower and armor on the streets of Ferguson in those photos that shocked and discomforted so many Americans. Or how about the aftermath of the tragic Boston Marathon Bombing? Watertown, Massachusetts, surely resembled Army-occupied Baghdad or Kabul at the height of their respective troop “surges,” as the area was locked down under curfew during the search for the bombing suspects.

  Here, at least, the connection is undeniable. The military has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in excess weapons and equipment—armored vehicles, rifles, camouflage uniforms, and even drones—to local police departments, resulting in a revolving door of self-perpetuating urban militarism. Does Walla Walla, Washington, really need the very Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) trucks I drove around Kandahar, Afghanistan? And in case you were worried about the ability of Madison, Indiana (pop.: 12,000), to fight off rocket propelled grenades thanks to those spiffy new MRAPs, fear not, President Trump recently overturned Obama-era restrictions on advanced technology transfers to local police. Let me just add, from my own experiences in Baghdad and Kandahar, that it has to be a losing proposition to try to be a friendly beat cop and do community policing from inside an armored vehicle. Even soldiers are taught not to perform counterinsurgency that way (though we ended up doing so all the time).

  5. Torture: The use of torture has rarely—except for several years at the CIA—been official policy in these years, but it happened anyway. (See Abu Ghraib, of course.) It often started small as soldier—or police—frustration built and the usual minor torments of the locals morphed into outright abuse. The same process seems underway here in the as well, which was why, as a 34-year old New Yorker, when I first saw the photos at Abu Ghraib, I flashed back to the way, in 1997, the police sodomized Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, in my own hometown. Younger folks might consider the far more recent case in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, brutally and undeservedly handcuffed, his pleas ignored, and then driven in the back of a police van to his death. Furthermore, we now know about two decades worth of systematic torture of more than 100 black men by the Chicagopolice in order to solicit (often false) confessions.

  UNWINNABLE WARS: AT HOME AND ABROAD

  For nearly five decades, Americans have been mesmerized by the government’s declarations of “war” on crime, drugs, and – more recently – terror.

  In the name of these perpetual struggles, apathetic citizens have acquiesced in countless assaults on their liberties. Think warrantless wiretapping, the Patriot Act, and the use of a drone to execute an (admittedly deplorable) American citizen without due process.

  The First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments – who needs them anyway? None of these onslaughts against the supposedly sacred Bill of Rights have ended terror attacks, prevented a raging opioid epidemic, staunched Chicago’s recordmurder rate, or thwarted America’s ubiquitous mass shootings, of which the Las Vegas tragedy is only the latest and most horrific example. The wars on drugs, crime, and terror – they’re all unwinnable and tear at the core of American society.

  In our apathy, we are all complicit.

  Like so much else in our contemporary politics, Americans divide, like clockwork, into opposing camps over police brutality, foreign wars, and America’s original sin: racism. All too often in these debates, arguments aren’t rational but emotional as people feel their way to intractable opinions. It’s become a cultural matter, transcending traditional policy debates. Want to start a sure argument with your dad? Bring up police brutality. I promise you it’s foolproof.

  

• These Are The States With The Best (and Worst) Credit Scores, Household Incomes

  In its latest visualization of the dominant economic trends across the disparate geographical regions of the US, HowMuch.com has created a color-coded map that displays a state’s average credit score compared with its average income.

  As the map clearly shows, there’s a correlation: States with higher median incomes tend to have higher average credit scores.

   

  

  Immediately, three regional groupings become clear: One group stretches from the Northwest across the Northern Great Plains, all the way to the Great Lakes. All of these states have similar credit scores over 685 and decent-sized incomes, with Minnesotans in the lead with a score of 722 and a median income of $63,217. There’s another pocket of rich states in the Northeast, the richest being Massachusetts at 706 and $70,954. And finally, there’s a large group of states across the Deep South where people on average have very bad credit scores. Mississippians post the worst scores in the country (648) while on average earning just $40,528.

  Here’s a list off the top 10 states ranked by average credit score, together with the median household income.

  1. Minnesota: 722 and $63,217

  2. North Dakota: 713 and $59,114

  3. Vermont: 713 and $56,104

  4. New Hampshire: 712 and $68,485

  5. South Dakota: 711 and $52,078

  6. Wisconsin: 710 and $54,610

  7. Iowa: 708 and $54,570

  8. Massachusetts: 706 and $70,954

  9. Washington: 704 and $62,848

  10. Hawaii: 702 and $71,977

  Since a good income makes it easier to pay the bills, it follows that families with higher earnings have better credit scores.

  However, there is one exception to this: Alaska.

  Alaskans enjoy some of the highest incomes in the country ($74,444) thanks to the energy industry, but the state has an average credit score of 675.

  

• The Strange Case Of The Falling Dollar – And What It Means For Gold

  Authored by Alt-Market’s Brandon Smith via Birch Gold Group,

  Trillions of dollars in uncontrolled central bank stimulus and years of artificially low interest rates have poisoned every aspect of our financial system. Nothing functions as it used to. In fact, many markets actually move in the exact opposite manner as they did before the debt crisis began in 2008. The most obvious example has been stocks, which have enjoyed the most historic bull market ever despite all fundamental data being contrary to a healthy economy.

   

  

  With a so far endless supply of cheap fiat from the Federal Reserve (among other central banks), as well as near zero interest overnight loans, everyone in the economic world was wondering where all the cash was flowing to. It certainly wasn’t going into the pockets of the average citizen. Instead, we find that the real benefactors of central bank support has been the already mega-rich as the wealth gap widens beyond all reason.  Furthermore, it is clear that central bank stimulus is the primary culprit behind the magical equities rally that SEEMS to be invincible.

  To illustrate this correlation, one can compare the rise of the Fed’s balance sheet to the rise of the S&P 500 and see they match up almost exactly. Coincidence? I think not…

  

  Another strangely behaving market factor that has gone mostly unnoticed has been the Dollar index (DXY). Beginning after the global financial crisis in 2008, the dollar’s value in reference to other foreign currencies initially moved in a rather predictable manner; collapsing in the face of unprecedented bailout and stimulus programs by the Fed, which required unlimited fiat creation from thin air. Naturally, commodities responded to fill the void in wealth protection and exploded in price. Oil markets in particular, which are priced only in the US dollar (something that is quickly changing today), nearly quadrupled. Gold witnessed a historic run, edging toward $2,000.

  In the past few years, central banks have initiated a coordinated tightening policy, first by tapering QE, then raising interest rates, and now by decreasing their balance sheets. I would note that while oil and many other commodities plummeted in relative value to the dollar after tightening measures, gold has actually maintained a strong market presence, and has remained one of the best performing investments in recent years.

  Something rather odd, however, has been happening with the dollar…

  Normally, Fed tightening policies should cause an ever-increasing boost to the dollar index. Instead, the dollar is facing a swift plunge not seen since 2003.

   

  

  What is going on here? Well, there are a number of factors at play.

  First, we have a growing international sentiment against US treasury bonds (debt), which may be affecting overall demand for the dollar, and in turn, dollar value.  For example, one can see a relatively steady decline in US treasury holdings by Japan and China over the course of 2016, with China being the most aggressive in its move away from US debt:

  

  We also have a subtle, yet increasing, international appetite for an alternative world reserve currency. The dollar has enjoyed decades of protection from the effects of fiat printing as the world reserve, but numerous countries including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are moving to bilateral trade agreements which cut out the US dollar as a mechanism. This will eventually trigger an avalanche of dollars flooding into the US from overseas, as they are no longer needed to execute cross-border trade. And, in turn the dollar will continue to fall in relative value to other currencies.

  There is also the issue of coordinated fiscal tightening by central banks around the world, with the ECB and even Japan moving to cut off stimulus measures and QE.  What this means is, other currencies will now be appreciating in terms of Forex market value against the dollar, and in turn, the dollar index will decline further.  Unless the Federal Reserve acts more aggressively in its interest rate hikes, the dollar’s decline will be brutal.

  Finally, we also have the issue of nearly a decade of Fed stimulus that has gone without audit (except for the limited TARP audit, which shows tens of trillions in money/debt creation). We truly have no idea how much fiat was actually created by the Fed – but we can guess that it was a massive sum according to the seemingly endless rise in equities from a point of near total breakdown, funded by quantitative easing and stock buybacks. You cannot conjure a market rebound merely with debt. Eventually, that currency creation and the consequences will have to set a foot down somewhere, and it is possible that we are witnessing the results first in the dollar, as well as the Treasury yield curve, which is now flattening faster than it did just before the stock market crash in 2008.

  A flat yield curve is generally a portent of economic recession.

   

  

  I believe that this is just the beginning of troubles for the dollar and for US bonds. Which raises the question, how will the Fed react to a dollar market that is so far completely ignoring their tightening policies?

  Here is where things get interesting.

  Throughout 2017, I warned that the Fed would continue to raise interest rates (despite many people arguing to the contrary) and would eventually find an excuse to increase rates much faster than previously stated in their dot plots. I based this prediction on the fact that the Fed is clearly moving to pop the enormous fiscal bubble it has engineered since 2008, and that they plan do this while Donald Trump is in office (whether or not Trump is aware of this plan is hard to say). Trump has already taken credit on several occasions for the epic stock rally, and thus, when the plug is pulled on equities life support, who do you think will get the blame? Definitely not the banking elites who inflated the bubble in the first place.

  Even the mainstream financial media has admitted at times that Trump will “regret” his campaign demands that the Fed hike rates and stop pumping up stock markets, as he will be inheriting a fiscal punch in the gut.

  The Fed, as well as the mainstream, have also planted the notion that the Fed “will be forced” to raise interest rates faster if the Trump Administration pursues its plans for Hoover-style infrastructure development.

  But, on top of this, the “problem” of the falling dollar also introduces a whole new rationale for speedy interest rate hikes. I believe that soon after Janet Yellen leaves as Fed chair and Jerome Powell transitions in, the Fed will begin an exponential increase in rates and will speed up their balance sheet reductions. And, they will blame the unusual decline in the dollar index as well as falling Treasury demand as the cause for more extreme action.

  Powell has already backed “gradual rate hikes” in 2018, and, a few members of the Fed expressed a need for “faster hikes” in the minutes of the last meeting in December. I predict this sentiment will expand under Powell.

  A small number of Wall Street economists are also warning of more rate hikes in 2018, and that this could cause considerable shock to the virtual stock rally in play right now.

  That might be the Fed’s plan. The central bankers need a scapegoat for the eventual bursting of the market bubble that they have produced. Why not simply allow that bubble to finally implode in the near term, blaming the Trump administration and, by extension, all the conservatives that supported him? To do this, the Fed needs an excuse to hike rates swiftly; and they now have that excuse with the dollar dropping like a stone (among other reasons).

  But how will this affect gold?

  So far, gold has actually spiked along with Fed rate increases, which might seem counter intuitive, but so is the dollar falling along with rate increases.

   

  

  I do think that there will be an initial and marginal drop in gold prices if the Fed increases the frequency of rate hakes. That said, eventually reality will set into stock markets that the party is over, the punch bowl is being taken away, and Trump’s tax reform will not be enough to offset the loss of access to trillions in cheap fiat dollars from the central bank.

  Once stocks begin to collapse in the wake of Fed hikes and balance sheet reductions (and they will), and uncertainty in the fate of the dollar swells, gold will bounce back stronger than ever. In the meantime, I would treat any drop in precious metals as a major buying opportunity. Gold is one of the few assets that always does well during times of crisis.

  

• The Chinese Are Now Spending As Much As Americans

  In the US, the latest batch of data, released this week, showed retail sales climbed in December for the sixth straight month – though they missed expectations, with growth slowing to 0.3% MoM.

   

  

  With the personal savings rate at a 10 year low, the US consumer is now fully tapped out: This latest uptick in spending has presumably been fueled by debt, as credit-card borrowing has reached an all-time high.

  But another milestone in the history of global consumerism passed last month: As the  Washington Post  points out, China tied the US in 2018 in terms of domestic retail sales – according to data compiled by Mizuho.

   

  

  In some important categories, China has overtaken the US: With 17.6 million vehicles sold in the US in 2016, for example, but that was far below the 24 million passenger cars sold in China. US automakers account for about one out of every five cars sold in China, even though the communist party placed a 10% tax on luxury cars and trucks imported from the United States.

  This economic heft has made the problem of confronting China intractable: China is now responsible for 20% of sales for some of the largest US corporations. This is making it difficult for Trump to confront Xi Jinping.

  Any restrictions on Chinese access  to the US market would be met with barriers to American companies selling in China.

  “China is one of the most important markets for many U.S. multinational companies,” Shen says. “This should lend China immense bargaining power.”

  One area where there’s a lot of agreement across the political spectrum is to go after China’s theft of US intellectual property. Over the summer, Trump ordered an investigation by the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to examine China’s IP policies. That investigation is ongoing, and could lead the US to file a WTO dispute. Unilateral actions might include duties or import restrictions.

  As the new year begins, it’s likely consumer spending in China will quickly surpass that in the US as more newly minted middle class Chinese discover consumer electronics, cars and fashion.

   

  

• Paul Craig Roberts Rages At The Persecution Of Julian Assange

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  “We need a political intervention to make this situation end. He (Assange) is the only political prisoner in Western Europe.” Juan Braco

  

  The persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington by the corrupt Swedish and British for torture and prosecution as a spy by giving Assange political asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Ecuador has now given citizenship to Assange and attempted to provide his safe transit out of England by giving him diplomatic status, but the British government continued in its assigned role of jailer by rejecting Ecuador’s request for diplomatic status for Assange, just as the most servile of Washington’s puppet states rejected the order by the UN Committee on Arbitrary Detention to immediate release Assange from his arbitrary detention.

  Assange got into trouble with Washington, because his news organization, Wikileaks, published files released by Bradley Manning. The files were a tremendous embarrassment to Washington, because they showed how Washington conspires against governments and betrays its allies, and the files contained an audio/video film of US military forces murdering innocent people walking down a street and then murdering a father and his two young children who stopped to give aid to the civilians the American soldiers had shot. The film revealed the heartlessness and criminal cruelty of the US troops, who were enjoying playing a real live video game with real people as their victims.

  It was Manning who suffered, not the troops who committed murder. Manning was held for two years in conditions that experts said constituted torture while a case was framed against him. Some believe the harsh conditions affected his mind. Manning was convicted by a kangaroo court and sentenced to 35 years in prison, but Obama in an act of humanity unusual for Washington pardoned Manning.

  Washington wanted Assange as well, and the chance came when two Swedish women, attracted to Assange by his celebrity status, seduced him. The two women had not secured the cooperation they wanted from Assange in the use of condoms and, brainwashd by HIV fears, wanted Assange to join them in being tested.

  Assange, misreading the extent of their fears, was too slow to comply, and the women went to the police to see if he could be required to be tested. According to the women, the police made up the charge of rape. The women themselves disavow the charge.

  The charges were investigated, and the chief Swedish prosecutor Eva Finne dismissed the charges, saying “there is no suspicion of any crime whatsoever.”

  Mysteriously, the case was reopened by another prosecutor, Marianne Ny, who many suspect was operating at the behest of Washington. On November 30, two days after Assange began publishing the Cablegate materials leaked by Bradley Manning, Ny issued an Interpol “red alert” arrest warrant for Assange. This was an unusual request as no charges were outstanding against Assange, and hitherto extradition from one country to another on an arrest warrant required actual charges, whereas Ny said she wanted Assange for questioning. Most everyone in the know understood that Washington had ordered Sweden to get its hands on Assange and to turn him over to Washington.

  Assange challenged the legality of the arrest warrant in British courts, but the British court, many believe following Washington’s orders, ruled against the law and in favor of Washington. Assange assented to the arrest and presented himself to a British police station. He was placed in solitary confinement at Wandsworth prison. If memory serves, the daughter of Sir James Goldsmith paid his bond and he was placed under house arrest. When it became clear that the Swedish prosecutor wanted Assange for Washington, not for any charges against him in Sweden, Ecuador give him asylum, and he fled to the embassy in London.

  Where he has been ever since.

  Sweden has closed the case a second time, and Assange is no longer wanted for questioning in Sweden. Therefore, there is no longer any reason for the British to hold him for Sweden. But the British government never were holding Assange for Sweden. The British were holding him for Washington. And they still are. Even though Sweden has closed a case based on a false report by police and have no basis for any charges against Assange, the British government says it will grab him the minute he steps outside the embassy.

  The British are so desperate to serve their Washington master that once they even declared that they were going to violate diplomatic immunity and invade the Ecuadorian Embassy and seize Assange.

  The British excuse for a once proud government’s continuing servitude to Washington as Assange’s jailer is that by taking asylum in the embassy Assange jumped bail and therefore the British have to arrest him for not surrendering a second time to the police for an investigation that has been closed.

  Stefania Maurizi, an Italian investigative journalist for La Repubblica, smelling the stench of fraud that covers the entire case, has been trying for two years to get her hands on the correspondence between the UK, US, and Swedish governments pertaining to the case in order to pull back the shroud of the Washington-orchestrated propaganda that colors the case. A British tribunal refused to release any documents on the grounds that it had to protect the British Prosecution Service’s relationship with foreign authorities.

  That tells you all you need to know. Julian Assange has lost seven years of his life because stinking dirty Washington wanted revenge on Assange for exercising the US Constitution-protected right of a free press, and the stinking dirty governments of Sweden and Britain did Washington’s dirty work. What we know for certain is that Assange is totally innocent and that there is no honor and no integrity in the US, Swedish, and British governments. Law means nothing to the scum that misrule these countries.

  In the US and probably throughout Europe, politicians and feminists, with the exception of Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff, used the presstitute media to paint Assange as a rapist and as a spy. The feminists cared nothing about any truth; they just wanted a man to demonize. Truth was the last thing on politicians’ minds. They just wanted to divert attention from Washington’s crimes and betrayals of allies by portraying Assange as a threat and traitor to America. They were unconcerned that Assange could not be a traitor to America as he is not an American citizen. In actual fact, there is no basis in law for any US claim against Assange. Yet because of Washington and its servile British puppet state, Assange remains interred in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Clearly, honor and respect for law reside in Ecuador, not in the US, UK, or Sweden.

  But facts, along with law and civil liberty, have ceased to mean anything in the Western world. The corrupt US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the arrest of Assange is a “priority.” The British police, mere lackeys of Washington, said that they would still arrest Assange, despite the case being dropped, if he left the embassy.

  For the British, serving Washington is a higher calling than the honor of their country.

  

• Ford's Self-Driving Test Car Severely Damaged In Crash

  It’s never good news when an autonomous automobile is involved in an accident. Lately, Alphabet’s Waymo crashed an autonomous bus in Las Vegas, and Uber managed to flip a self-driving Volvo in Arizona.

  In the latest installment of autonomous car accidents across America, a self-driving test car from the Ford-backed startup Argo-AI was severely damaged Wednesday that sent two people to the hospital.

   

  

  According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a box truck ran a red light about 10 a.m. at the 16th and Progress streets in Pittsburgh’s North Side and smashed into an Argo AI self-driving car with four people inside. Two of the four passengers in the Argo AI car were injured and taken to the hospital in stable conditions.

  

  Alan Hall, a communications manager for Ford, who handles public relations on behalf of Argo AI, stated, “we’re aware that an Argo AI test vehicle was involved in an accident. We’re gathering all the information. Our initial focus is on making sure that everyone involved is safe.”

  Hall offered limited information on whether the car was in self-driving mode during the accident, and or if the Argo AI fleet has been suspended.

  In recent times, this is the second autonomous car crash in Pittsburgh. In September, Uber grounded its fleet of self-driving cars for a half day after one of its autonomous cars crashed. After an investigation, the company determined the car’s autonomous systems were not at fault during the accident.

  In early 2017, Ford invested $1 billion in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence company that Ford has outsourced to build the brains in the company’s next generation of self-driving vehicles.  The startup anticipates the deployment of a fully driverless car, without a steering wheel or pedals, by 2021.

  Back in November, we stated that just because its legal to test autonomous cars on public streets, doesn’t  necessarily mean they’ve been optimized for safety…

  Waymo published a report for California’s Department of Motor Vehicles about how frequently its driverless cars “disengaged” because of a system failure or safety risk and forcing a human driver to take over. In the report, Waymo said this happened once every 5,000 miles the cars drove in 2016, compared with once every 1,250 miles in 2015. While that’s certainly an improvement, these types of incidents are hardly rare.  

   

  

• Oprah For President, Really?!

  Authored by Mike Whitney via Counterpunch.org,

  Being president isn’t like hosting a talk show or running a media brand. Oprah’s success in her field is no more indicative of her potential to be a good president than Trump’s success in real estate was. You can’t criticize Trump for having no relevant experience or evident understanding of public policy, then say that the solution for Democrats is just to throw up their hands and find their own celebrity to promote.

  — Paul Waldman, “Get a Grip, People. Oprah should not run for President”, Washington Post

  Will she or won’t she?

  No one knows for sure.  Best friend, Gayle King, says Oprah Winfrey has no plans to run for president, but longtime Oprah partner, Stedman Graham, disagrees. Graham says bluntly, “She would absolutely do it. It’s up to the people.”

   

  

  So who’s right and who’s wrong? And what’s up with the Golden Globes? Was the reaction to Winfrey’s emotionally-charged speech really as spontaneous as we’ve been led to believe or was the deluge of adulatory coverage in the media already in the works? I don’t know about you, but the ridiculous outpouring of praise –including more than 700 gushing articles in the MSM accompanied by a saturation campaign on social media— smells fishy to me. Was this supposed to be an inspirational speech to fans and well-wishers or a ‘product launch’ by Democratic party leaders who needed a glitzy venue to showcase their future presidential candidate, Ms. Talk TV herself, Oprah Winfrey?

  If I was a gambling man, I’d bet that the whole Sunday night extravaganza, including Winfrey’s heart-wrenching oration, was a set-up from soup to nuts.

  My guess is that the DNC honchos have cynically decided that their best chance to beat Trump in 2020 is by following the blueprint that worked for the inexperienced, 2-year Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.  First, they start with the product launch to a target audience, then they create a positive buzz in the media and on the internet, then they magnify the size of the “groundswell” of support (remember the fainting ladies at O’s speeches?), then they transport their candidate from one soapbox to the next where he/she mutters the same stale chestnuts over and over again to the adoring throng.

  Oh yeah, and one other thing: Real issues have to be avoided like the plague while promises should be made in the vaguest, but most uplifting terms possible. That was the key to Obama’s success and it looks like that Oprah is following his lead.   Here’s a brief clip from her speech:

  “I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning — even during our darkest nights.”

  Ahh, another 8 years of hope and change. Who would’ve known?

  Of course, Winfrey is enormously popular but her popularity does not necessarily translate into political support. Take a look at this excerpt from an article in the Washington Post and you’ll why her transition from TV celbrity to presidential candidate could be bumpier than many people expect:

   “A March 2017 Quinnipiac University poll found Winfrey had a 52 percent favorable rating (and just a 23 percent unfavorable rating). She was most popular with Democrats (72 percent) and independents (51 percent).

  But that doesn’t mean those polled wanted her to throw her hat into the ring: Just over 1 in 5 said Winfrey should run in 2020, and 69 percent said she shouldn’t.” (Washington Post)

  That doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause, it just means that her presidential bid is not a sure thing.  It’s going to be a long, uphill slog with plenty of pitfalls and mudslinging.  Even so,  most analysts expect Winfrey to sail through the Democratic primaries without breaking a sweat. There’s simply no prospective candidate in the party who could compete with her charisma, her name recognition or her wide-ranging fan-base. But nabbing the nomination and becoming the party’s standard-bearer merely puts Oprah in a position where she can lock horns with big Don Trump in a no-holds-barred cage match that will decide whether the country is going to be governed by a flamboyant billionaire oligarch or by a flamboyant billionaire oligarch. 

  Could things get any weirder?

  I always thought the Dems would put Michelle Obama on the 2020 ticket, after all, for the ‘identity politics’-driven Dems, Michelle has it all; she’s black, she’s a woman, she’s bright, she has massive name recognition, she has stature, gravitas, charisma, she knows how to deliver a riveting speech, she knows how to handle herself among dignitaries, and she knows ‘the drill’, that is, she knows that the president is a meaningless figurehead who has very little power and follows a tight script that is written by his big money constituents. Michelle knows all of that which is what makes her the perfect candidate.

  But Michelle probably didn’t want the job. And why would she? Hubby just cashed in on a $60 million book deal, so Michelle can afford to put her feet up and enjoy life. That’s why the Dems moved on to Door Number 2: Oprah Winfrey. If Trump can win with no political experience (the thinking goes), then why not Winfrey?

  Why not, indeed? Here’s how Paul Waldman at the Washington Post sums it up:

  “It’s true that Democrats have underappreciated the importance of charisma in presidential politics. But the answer to those electoral failures isn’t to stop caring about substance. It’s to find candidates who are both charismatic and serious, who would be able both to win and to do the job once they took office….”

  (Paul Waldman, Washington Post)

  Bingo. And what would it take to make Oprah Winfrey a “serious” candidate?

  Well, she’d have to have a good grasp of the issues which means she’d have to take a crash course in policy, world affairs, negotiation and economics.

  She’d need to have an opinion about the nuclear standoff with North Korea, the confrontation in the South China Sea, the Saudi war and blockade of Yemen, the escalating conflict in Afghanistan, the US occupation of East Syria,  frayed relations with Turkey, economic sanctions against Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Cuba. And she’d have to understand domestic issues, cuts to Medicaid, corporate tax cuts, burgeoning budget deficits, stagnant wages, the skyrocketing price of tuition,  out-of-control health care costs, free trade, deregulation, Wall Street, the environment, transportation,  law enforcement, national security and the steady evisceration of the American middle class.

  Whew.

  The fact that Oprah really has no grasp of any of these things nor any understanding of how to negotiate with congress, staff an administration, or appoint judges to the bench, makes me think that Democratic honchos are merely using her as a stalking horse to shoehorn themselves back into power so they can–once again–enjoy the spoils of war.

  Isn’t that what this whole ‘Oprah for Prez-thing’ is really all about?  Aren’t the party fatcats and their behind-the-scenes constituents just looking for the right vehicle to tout their message and fly their banner without any intention of addressing the issues that ordinary working people really care about?

  Of course they are. These people are cynics.

  

• Which US Jobs Pay The Highest Bonuses

  Submitted by Nicholas Colas and Jessica Rabe of DataTrek

  The number of job openings, hires and quits may have dipped in November, as shown in the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, but all remain near record highs dating back to when the time series started in December 2000. Overall, the data shows a very tight labor market that will hopefully help put upward pressure on wages. We also share the job titles and industries that receive the largest bonuses according to LinkedIn. Spoiler: it is finance, not tech that takes the top spot.

  * * *

  Whether or not Wall Street professionals have a good year typically boils down to their bonus. It fluctuates year to year, but is certainly a perk to make up for all the long hours. LinkedIn’s recent Salary Report shows it may pay off, as it found jobs in finance receive the largest bonuses compared to other sectors.

  Here are the job titles with the largest bonuses based on LinkedIn’s Salary tool:

  • Investment Banking Associate: Median Annual Bonus ($100k), Median Total Salary ($233k)
  • Private Equity Associate: Median Annual Bonus (85k), Median Total Salary (178k)
  • Equity Research Analyst: Median Annual Bonus ($50k), Median Total Salary ($141k)
  • Surgeon: Median Annual Bonus ($50k), Median Total Salary ($350k)
  • Cardiologist: Median Annual Bonus ($50k), Median Total Salary ($360k)
  • Radiologist: Median Annual Bonus ($50k), Median Total Salary ($366k)
  • Orthopedic Surgeon: Median Annual Bonus ($50k), Median Total Salary ($450k)
  • Investment Banking Analyst: Median Annual Bonus ($45k), Median Total Salary ($125k)
  • Senior Reservoir Engineer: Median Annual Bonus ($37,500), Median Total Salary ($204k)
  • Wealth Management Advisor: Median Annual Bonus ($35k), Median Total Salary ($124k)

  Health care jobs claimed many of those top spots, but industries with the highest bonuses are finance, energy and mining, and tech:

  • Finance: Median Annual Bonus ($12,300), Median Total Salary ($81,800)
  • Energy & Mining: Median Annual Bonus ($11,400), Median Total Salary ($91,500)
  • Software & IT Services: Median Annual Bonus ($11,300), Median Total Salary ($104,500)
  • Hardware & Networking: Median Annual Bonus ($11,200), Median Total Salary ($101,500)
  • Consumer Goods: Median Annual Bonus ($10,800), Median Total Salary ($79,500)
  • Healthcare: Median Annual Bonus ($10,300), Median Total Salary ($84k)
  • Manufacturing: Median Annual Bonus ($9k), Median Total Salary ($84,800)
  • Entertainment: Median Annual Bonus ($8,300), Median Total Salary ($78,500)
  • Corporate Services: Median Annual Bonus ($7k), Median Total Salary ($75,600)
  • Construction: Median Annual Bonus ($6,700), Median Total Salary ($77,800)

  Link to the report here.

  Any bonus helps, especially with little upward pressure on wages over the past few years. Fortunately, last Friday’s jobs report showed average hourly earnings tick up by one tenth to 2.5% year-on-year. In order to gauge wage pressures and the health of the labor market, we always review the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). It is a one-month delayed take on the state of employment and gives a more complete view of the workforce than the Employment Situation report, as it is based on a larger population sample.

  Given that the time series dates back to December 2000, we put the numbers in the latest report for November in perspective by comparing them historically. Here is what we found:

  #1 Hires: The number of hires dropped by 1.9% m/m to 5.49 million in November, but was still up 4.3% y/y. The number of hires as a percentage of the civilian labor force was 3.4% compared to the historical average of 3.2%. The highest was 4.0% in January 2001. Other than the early 2000s, this ratio was also slightly higher in the mid-2000s during some months than the current level. It hit a low of 2.4% in March 2009. Overall, the level of hiring is strong, but still has some room to grow.

  #2 Job Openings: The number of job openings fell for a second consecutive month after registering above 6 million three months in a row for the first time. Openings were down 0.8% m/m to 5.88 million in November, but still up 4.4% y/y.

  The number of job openings as a percentage of the civilian labor force was 3.7% compared to the average of 2.6%, a high of 3.8% last September, and a low of 1.4% in July 2009. Job openings over the past few years have also bested levels during the mid-2000s when it usually fluctuated around 3%. In 2017 through November, this ratio always exceeded 3.5%.

  Bottom line, employers’ appetite for new employees is very strong.

  #3 Quits: The number of people voluntarily leaving their jobs fell 0.4% to 3.17 million, but increased 3.1% y/y. This is our favorite number in the report as it measures worker confidence to find a better opportunity. The number of quits as a percentage of the civilian labor force was 2.0% in November compared to the average of 1.7%, a high of 2.4% in January 2001, and a low of 1.1% in September 2009. Over the past year, this ratio has registered levels during the mid-2000s, but has not broken out above 2% like in the early 2000s.

  Bottom line: strong, but still room for improvement.

  Our “Take this job and shove it” indicator – or quits to total separations – was 61.0% in November compared to the high of 62.2% in September 2016. Near record highs, it bests any level achieved before the last recession.

  #4 Layoffs and discharges: Layoffs and discharges slipped 0.4% m/m to 1.69 million and are up 1.6% y/y. The number of layoffs and discharges as a percentage of the civilian labor force was 1.1% in November compared to the average of 1.2%, a low of 0.95% in September 2016, and a high of 1.7% in January 2009.

  Overall this figure remains low relative to historical averages.

  In sum, employers’ interest to add employees nears record highs, while layoffs near record lows. Hiring is healthy, but is not keeping pace with job openings, indicating employers’ difficulty finding qualified workers as noted in the Fed’s Beige Book reports. The number of workers choosing to quit their jobs is also strong, but still below levels achieved in 2001.

  Our takeaway: this data suggests a very tight labor market, which should continue to help put upward pressure on wages and overall inflation. Yesterday we outlined the challenges of getting wage growth to accelerate in 2018. Today’s JOLTS data confirms we’ll need to see some truly outstanding labor market data this year before wages can finally accelerate.

   

  

   

  

• Surging Russian-Chinese Trade Pressures Petrodollar

  Authored by Tom Luongo,

  The latest trade figures on Chinese/Russian trade should be further warning to the U.S. that economic sanctions do not work. In May 2017 Russian and China agreed to increase bilateral trade to $80 billion by the end of 2018.

  Well, they’re a year ahead of schedule…

  The official figures for 2017 came in at $84.07 billion.

  

  They did more than $8.1 billion in business in December alone. With the opening of the new ESPO oil pipeline connecting Siberia to China doubling the amount of oil China can import to 600,000 barrels per day we’ll see those numbers continue to accelerate.

  And that’s the key. Remember, the massive $400 billion gas deal China made with Gazprom in 2014 hasn’t begun delivering gas. The first Power of Siberia pipeline isn’t due to be completed until 2019. The second Power of Siberia pipeline is on the table after this one.

  And the two countries just agreed to a third pipeline to bring gas in from Russia’s far east last month.

  So, despite back-biting from western media about the profitability of these projects, they are going forward and the two countries continue to strengthen fundamental ties to one another.

  

  Greasing the Skids

  We are now just a week away from trading yuan-denominated oil futures on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange(INE). Trading begins January 18th.

  And while that won’t change the face of oil futures overnight, it will begin shifting price discovery away from U.S. dollar markets. It will also improve external yuan liquidity as well as visibility for Russian oil on the global market.

  The Shanghai contract is for Medium Sour crude which is closer to the type of oil mainly produced by Russia. Russian Urals crude is considered Medium Sour. Saudi Arabia’s and most of OPEC is sour oil (higher in sulfur with a lower pH). With the OPEC production cuts which Russia agreed to emulate, mostly hit this market.

  Both WTI and Brent crude are benchmarks for Light Sweet Crude like that of the U.S. shale producers, Venezuela, Nigeria and Libya. So, this contract is designed to properly price other grades of oil not tailored to U.S. refinery needs.

  And for that reason alone it will be a major competitor in the long run. The current oil market is heavily fragmented because there is no direct futures market for Sour grades of crude.

  Shanghai’s contract is changing that game. Between this and that profits from it can be converted to gold via the Shanghai Gold Exchange, gives this market immediate credibility.

  The effects of this have been over-stated on the one hand by hard-money advocates and under-stated on the other by entrenched financial analysts.

  The important takeaway is that China has created the first unassailable and above-ground challenge to the petro-dollar oil trade. To break the world’s use of the dollar as the sole settlement currency for oil required the right contract issued by a country the U.S. can’t immediately invade and conduct a regime change operation in – like in Iraq and Libya.

  Russia wins here because now there is a path for its Urals grade to become an international benchmark like WTI and Brent. And since Gazprom prefers to price its long-term gas contracts based on underlying oil prices rather than the more volatile natural gas price, this is also a win in the long run for them.

  Gold convertibility is a means to deepen China’s sovereign debt markets by making it less risky to hold Chinese bonds. The lack of true yuan convertibility is the big impediment to people holding them. So, gold convertibility creates a viable exit route.

  A Means to an End

  Increasing trade between Russia and China has to and will go far beyond energy for its partnership to thrive. The oil trade is simply a means to building the underlying capital flow between the two countries. It makes it easier for Russian businesses to get access to Chinese capital and vice versa.

  And this rapid acceleration of bilateral trade is necessary in the face of more severe U.S. economic sanctions against Russia likely coming next month. The way to avoid sanctions is to build alternate means to do business.

  We will continue to target Russian banks and financial oligarchs with the idea of curtailing economic growth by cutting out their ability to source overseas capital. And again, this is why China is so important to Russia.

  Because the more we push them away the more they can turn to their Chinese partners for assistance and the U.S. doesn’t dare sanction China, no matter how much President Trump bloviates about it.

  China announced last week that it would not longer be accumulating U.S. treasury assets. Presumably, this mean that it will no longer recycle its trade surplus with the U.S. to halt appreciation of the Yuan versus the dollar. [ZH: of course this was denied within 24hrs but the threat remains]

  It’s had to over the past year with the dollar weakening like it has. But that wave is coming to an end with a reversal of Fed policy and Trump’s tax cut bill. Rising rates in the U.S. will allow China to divest its Treasury holdings at its leisure without overly affecting the Yuan while it also deepens Yuan liquidity through its now gold-convertible bond market.

  Those trade dollars will be spent in pursuit of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative and overseas where it has business. I’m sure if Russia gets into another dollar-funding crisis with new sanctions China will be there to provide dollar liquidity, just like in 2015.

  Both countries understand the stakes and continue to make the right moves to support the changing macroeconomic environment. With U.S. bonds on the verge of entering a bear market conditions are ripe for China to deploy its massive savings to resume remaking the Asian continent.

  

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• U.S. Policies Continue To Fail In 2018

  Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

  As of this writing, the Russian military has had three of their bases attacked by drones. They destroyed six of them and captured another seven. The significance: the drones are of a quality that could not have been made by the ISIS “rebels,” and had to come from a technologically-advanced nation. The drones were multidirectional and able to be controlled by satellite through GPS coordinates.

  [Schwarzenegger, in “Predator”]: “Heat seeker, Dillon. Pretty sophisticated for a bunch of half-assed mountain boys.”

  Exactly. The U.S. (via Tillerson) released a statement that the U.S. was not involved in the drone strike and was unaware of who supplied the drones.

  Not only does that not hold any water, but as it turns out, a U.S. intelligence aircraft was monitored in the theatre while these drone attacks were taking place.

  Syria is still being hotly contested between Assad and the “rebels” who are none other than Al Qaeda that “morphed” several times to become the ISIS we all know and uphold in the manner of Emmanuel Goldstein, the bogeyman of Orwell’s “1984.”

   

  

  On the front with Eastern Ukraine, the Russian-backed separatists are about to receive a present… bequeathed by Obama, and allowed to be delivered by President Trump, certified by the Senate and all on the taxpayer’s dime. This being antitank weapons in the form of Javelins and other antitank missiles to the tune of about $47 million. Now the President is thinking of tripling that amount. So much for “détente,” and the reset that was supposed to happen with Russia.

  Domestically, as disturbing as our foreign policy (and in some ways more so) is the project to create a domestic “spy” service to complement the alphabet agencies. One of the individuals considered to head it is none other than Eric Prince, the former Navy SEAL and CEO of the same Blackwater that the U.S. government gave “carte blanche” in Iraq with limited ROE (Rules of Engagement) and almost no accountability.

  Internally, the same draconian measures that were emplaced by Obama to circumvent the Constitution are still in place. The police forces are growing throughout the U.S., and via the Fusion Centers and CCTV networks steadily germinating across the nation the local, state, and federal police forces are coming beneath one umbrella. The sled is still traveling downhill. A slower rate than before; nevertheless, it’s still moving in the direction it did prior to the election.

  The belligerent and imperialistic foreign policy of before is still in place, with relations souring instead of improving. In the meantime, we are watching a form of “creeping Statism” that is domestically moving almost too slowly to be noticed, but making headway. We have an Attorney General who selectively enforces the law, and has a “hands-off” policy for prominents such as Mueller, Comey, and Hillary Clinton.

  The North Korean threat has not dissipated: it persists. They will soon launch Kwangmyongsang-5, a satellite that will be able to map positions with advanced technology to be utilized for a nuclear strike.

  From this and other problems we are constantly distracted by the MSM (Mainstream Media) with Harvey Weinstein’s escapades and the “witch hunt” in progress against every male in the U.S. We are distracted by NFL players taking a knee, by Oprah Winfrey considering being a candidate for president in 2020 (would her campaign be managed by Harpo productions?), and other items that are nonsensical and nonproductive.

  Other nations are making their move, such as China with a gold-backed Yuan attempting to supplant the Petrodollar. If our country doesn’t take some drastic steps with foreign policy and domestic agendas, it may realize a few lighter moments, but that is not enough.

  This period is the calm before the storm. Those midterm elections will be along in no time, and the next presidential election is right around the corner. Hope that we last long enough as a nation to make it that far.

  

• New Survey Reveals Staggering Number Of People Are Buying BitCoin On Their Credit Cards

  A few weeks ago we presented anecdotal evidence from Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, suggesting that people are taking out home equity loans and cash advances on credit cards just to purchase BitCoin in the hopes of getting rich quick (see: “It’s In The Mania Phase”: Securities Regulator Warns That “Mortgages Are Being Taken Out To Buy Bitcoin”)

  “We’ve seen mortgages being taken out to buy bitcoin. … People do credit cards, equity lines,” said Borg, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, a voluntary organization devoted to investor protection. Borg is also director of the Alabama Securities Commission.

  “This is not something a guy who’s making $100,000 a year, who’s got a mortgage and two kids in college ought to be invested in.”

  “You’re on this mania curve. At some point in time there’s got to be a leveling off. Cryptocurrency is here to stay. Blockchain is here to stay. Whether it is bitcoin or not, I don’t know,” Borg said in an interview with “Power Lunch.”

  Now it seems that the speculation by Borg has been confirmed by a new survey conducted by LendEDU which found that, among other things, nearly 20% of people who have purchased BitCoin have done so using their credit cards.

  First, more than half (51.78%) of respondents stated that they either used a credit or debit card to ​fund their account to purchase Bitcoin. Specifically, 33.63 percent of investors were using debit cards, while 18.15 percent were using credit cards.

  Why is this concerning? The virtual currency exchanges where Bitcoin is bought and sold will charge conversion fees when either a credit or debit card is used to find an investor’s account. Coinbase, the largest of the cryptocurrency exchanges, charges a conversion fee of 3.99 percent when a user uses his or her credit or debit card to bankroll their account. ​

  Obviously, this is not the most financially-savvy move on the part of of a sizable percentage of Bitcoin investors; no one ever wants to pay extra than what is necessary, especially when dealing with something as volatile as Bitcoin. The wisest and most frugal way to fund a virtual currency exchange account would be through an ACH transfer, which is completely free of charge. Only 18.60 percent of our 672 Bitcoin-invested respondents were paying for the cryptocurrency in this fashion.

  

  Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of the folks who bought BitCoin using their attractive 25% loans admitted that they’re now stuck rolling their new debt month-to-month…

  However, this was not even the most pressing concern coming from the LendEDU poll. That recognition belongs to this data-point: 22.13 percent of Bitcoin investors did not pay off their credit card balance after purchasing Bitcoin.

  Going into debt to buy Bitcoin is not a wise decision no matter which way it is spun. There is no guarantee that Bitcoin investment returns will be profitable in the long run, but one can guarantee that the credit card company will need to be paid back. Considering the average annual percentage rate (APR) on a credit card is 15.07 percent, a Bitcoin investor that finances their investment at the wrong time will find themselves in serious debt.

  

  And while that fact should be deeply troubling to anyone with even a modest understanding of basic financial concepts, apparently the average American BitCoin buyer is more than eager to continue buying up the digital currency using 25% loans.

  

  Of course, there is no risk in these transactions because BitCoin will just always go up in perpetuity, right?  After all, making massively-levered, speculative bets on bubbly assets pretty much always works out well…just ask home flippers from 2007.

   

  

• The Real News We Ignore At Our Peril

  Authored by Andrew Bacevich via The Gatestone Institute,

  This is the threat to our democracy, not Fake News. And Exhibit A is our failed war in Afghanistan…

   

  

  As defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld used to entertain (and befuddle) reporters with his song-and-dance about Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns. This last category – “things we don’t know we don’t know,” as the inimitable Rummy put it – was the one that could really get you in trouble.

  Allow me to posit a similar taxonomy for news.

  There’s Real News, based on fact and responsibly reported. Then there’s Fake News, made up of stuff propagated by disreputable outlets ranging from the National Enquirer and Breitbart to cable news networks and a bazillion websites. And finally there’s Real News That Gets Ignored. Once again, it’s that last category that will eventually land us in trouble.

  A distinctive characteristic of the Trump era finds Fake News displacing Real News as the basis of what passes for our national conversation. This stems in part from the fact that Donald Trump himself obsessively denounces as fake any reporting he doesn’t like, with those in the news business repeating and thereby amplifying the president’s complaints no matter how bizarre or preposterous. But it’s also because Trump and his administration on a daily basis generate their own counter-narrative of news that they insist is genuine even though it’s manifestly bogus. The media landscape is thus awash in reports that one side or the other loudly condemns as fraudulent.

  With all this emphasis on Fake News, the third category of our taxonomy has mushroomed. That is, the quantity of Real News that is underreported, shrugged off, or treated as an afterthought is increasing by leaps and bounds.

  I was reminded of this the other day when the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) released its latest update on how U.S. nation-building efforts in that country are faring.

  This particular report focuses on a Defense Department-created entity called the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), charged with overseeing U.S. taxpayer-funded economic development projects in Afghanistan. From 2010 to 2014, Congress appropriated approximately $823 million to fund TFBSO operations in Afghanistan. SIGAR now provides what is, in effect, a report card.

  Among its key findings regarding TFBSO’s performance are these:

  • More than 50 percent of funds obligated for TFBSO—$359.5 million of $675 million—were spent on indirect and support costs—that is, on overhead—rather than on actual projects in Afghanistan.
  • Only $70 million of the $316.3 million obligated on contracts directly supporting TFBSO programs (22 percent) fully achieved their objectives. The remaining $246.3 million (78 percent) fell partially short or failed altogether.
  • Nearly half of the TFBSO contracts that SIGAR reviewed, worth $201 million, were let on a limited competition or sole-source basis, thereby increasing the risk of waste. Seven contracts worth $35.1 million went to firms employing former TFBSO staff as senior executives.
  • Further hampering the prospects of success was the fact that TFBSO projects routinely overlooked local conditions such as politics, culture, weather, and security, i.e., all the things that distinguish Afghanistan from Wisconsin or Vermont.
  • Ill-defined contract requirements prevented TFBSO from holding contractors accountable for poor performance, resulting in further waste.
  • Overall, the Pentagon is today unable to say whether TFBSO projects actually created jobs, facilitated foreign direct investments, increased exports, or hiked Afghan government revenues. In other words, no basis exists for determining whether TFBSO actually contributed anything useful.

  Now, SIGAR has been releasing reports about waste, fraud, and abuse in the Afghanistan War for years. TFBSO’s abysmal performance, now irrefutable, is just the tip of the iceberg.

  Notably, all SIGAR reports, including this latest one, are readily available online. There is no need for reporters to cajole some unnamed source into spilling the beans or for editors to worry about courting trouble by publishing leaked classified material. It’s all there for the New York Times, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, etc., etc., to bring to the attention of the public. Yet these prestigious outlets never seem able to spare much attention for TFBSO’s troubles.

  We should not be surprised. As it stumbles from one year to the next, the wayward U.S. project in Afghanistan receives sporadic media coverage at best. Even when some tidbit of awfulness attracts an occasional nod—when we learn, for example, that Afghan opium production has today reached yet another all-time high—the story ends up being a one-day affair, with no serious follow-up. Afghanistan, the longest war in American history, is a prime example of Real News That Gets Ignored.

  There are many other examples. Staying in the arena of national security policy, other neglected stories include foreign arms sales (here the U.S. is truly the world’s number one), the global disposition of U.S. forces (now present in two-thirds of the world’s countries), cost overruns of major weapons programs, and the ongoing trillion-dollar modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

  Let me emphasize: It’s not that you can’t find the odd reference to such matters, whether in your local newspaper or on TV. But compare the coverage such stories receive to the extravagant attention conferred on women graduating from the U.S. Army’s Ranger School or the service eligibility of transgendered persons. No doubt those are worthy topics. Yet at the end of the day they are unlikely to have anything more than marginal relevance to the safety and security of the United States.

  The Real News That Gets Ignored poses a greater threat to the nation’s well-being than any of the Fake News in which we are presently drowning. And the fault is not Trump’s alone.

  

• Staggering Animated Map Of Every Nuclear Bomb Detonation In History

  In the early 1940’s some of the greatest scientific minds of all time gathered in Los Alamos, NM for an “R&D” project, infamously dubbed the ‘Manhattan Project’, that ultimately changed the course of human history forever. 

  Just a few years later, on July 16th, 1945, that team of scientists detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon, code-named “Trinity”, in the desert just north of Alamogordo, NM.  Less than one month later, the only two nuclear weapons to ever be used in combat were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulting in over 100,000 immediate civilian and military deaths.

  And while no nuclear weapons have been used in a combat situation since August 9, 1945, as revealed by the following animation, a staggering number of tests have been conducted all over the world and most of them in the deserts of the Southwestern United States.

  Animated map shows every nuclear-bomb explosion in history pic.twitter.com/3Zellt9ml8

  — Business Insider (@businessinsider) January 12, 2018

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

  * * *

  And while nuclear tests are somewhat more rare now than they were during the height of the Cold War, there remains a devastating number of nuclear warheads deployed and ready for launch today…a fact we recently detailed in the post below entitled “15,000 Nuclear Weapons In The World – Mapping Who Has What”:

  So, how many nuclear weapons are there, and what exactly is happening right now? Let’s launch into it.

  WHO HAS ACCESS TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

  

  Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

  As VisualCapitalist’s map above demonstrates, the United States and Russia still maintain the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, holding 92% of the world’s estimated 15,000 nuclear warheads.

  While today’s arsenals seem quite excessive, they are actually quite modest compared to historical totals such as those during the Cold War. In 1986, for example, there were actually 70,300 nuclear weapons globally – but luckily for us, the number of warheads has eased down over time as countries disarm more weapons.

  Will this number of warheads continue to slide down as a result of increased international cooperation? The Brookings Institution has grouped the nine countries with nuclear arsenals into categories that identify prospective entrants to the global arms control regime:

  

  Any advancement of multilateral arms control, such as a treaty limiting limiting nuclear weapons, would likely take place between these countries.

  MAPPING NUCLEAR SITES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

  Thanks to various arms reduction agreements, thousands of nuclear warheads have been retired. That said, warheads are still stored in a number of sites around the continental United States. The map below also highlights laboratories and interstate shipping routes. (Yes, nuclear weapons are apparently shipped in big rigs.)

  

  THE WILD CARD: NORTH KOREA

  The Hermit Kingdom is a relatively minor player in the nuclear weapon ecosystem, but they have been capturing the world’s attention. Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has dramatically ramped up the frequency of missile tests, with 17 confirmed launches so far in 2017.

  Here’s a look at the country’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, along with ranges of specific weapons.

  

  More than a decade has passed since North Korea detonated its first nuclear weapon, and the country is now believed to be capable of intercontinental ballistic missile delivery. This, combined with aggressive rhetoric from North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, has forced the Trump administration to take their threats more seriously.

  

  That said, experts suggest that recent provocations aren’t much different from previous periods of tension between the two countries, and that the risk of an actual conflict is overblown.

  North Korea’s comments are clearly deterrent in nature, and the Guam ‘threat’ was exactly along those lines.

   

  – David Kang, director, Korean Studies Institute, USC

  Either way, while the prospect of an all-out war is unlikely – the war of words between North Korea and the United States is likely destined to continue.

  

• Records Show Psych Prof Who 'Diagnosed' Trump "Unfit" Lacks License

  Authored by Anthony Gockowski via Campus Reform,

  Yale University psychology professor Bandy Lee has deleted her Twitter account amid mounting allegations that she is not licensed in her home state of Connecticut.

   

  

  Accusations have been circulating on Twitter that the prominent Yale professor, known for her public diagnosis of President Donald Trump as having a “mental impairment” and who recently met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss the issue, isn’t actually a licensed psychiatrist.

  In fact, Campus Reform discovered that according to the State of Connecticut, Lee’s “physician/surgeon” license expired in 2015, and her application for reinstatement has been “pending” ever since.

   

  

  Additionally, her “controlled substance registration for practitioner” license has apparently “lapsed,” expiring in February 2017.

   

  

  In response to Campus Reform’s inquiry on the matter, Lee simply stated that “I need only one license,” though she has yet to elaborate on precisely which license that is, and, according to the state in which she resides, she allegedly has none.

  Without mentioning Lee specifically, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) put out a recent statement in which it condemned the diagnoses of public officials whom psychiatrists have not personally examined, invoking what is commonly referred to as the Goldwater Rule.

  “We at the APA call for an end to psychiatrists providing professional opinions in the media about public figures whom they have not examined, whether it be on cable news appearances, books, or in social media,” the statement read, according to The Washington Examiner.

  “Arm-chair psychiatry or the use of psychiatry as a political tool is the misuse of psychiatry and is unacceptable and unethical,” the APA concluded.

  Lee and a colleague, however, responded to criticisms in a Wednesday POLITICO piece, in which they claim that “it’s perfectly OK to question the president’s mental state,” since they are “psychiatrists.”

  

• Anti-Radiation Drug Sales Skyrocket After Trump Compares "Nuclear Button” Size

  According to NBC Health’s Troy Jones, who operates the website Nukepills, the demand for potassium iodide  jumped last week after President Trump tweeted that he had a “much bigger & more powerful” nuclear button than North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un.

  North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018

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

  “On Jan. 2, I basically got in a month’s supply of potassium iodide and I sold out in 48 hours,” said Jones, 53, who is a domestic and international distributor of emergency radiation products.

  In the 48-hour period from Trump’s “nuclear button” tweet, Jones shipped about 140,000 doses of potassium iodide, which blocks the thyroid from absorbing radiation and ultimately help thwart cancer in a nuclear event. Jones further said a typical week of shipments without President Trump stoking atomic war runs about 8,400 doses to private individuals. In other words, Trump increased Jones’ sales by over 16x last week. Jones notes the sales figures do not include government agencies, hospitals, and universities.

  To confirm this trend, Alan Morris, president of the Virginia-based pharmaceutical firm Anbex Inc, which specializes in radiation protection, said he’d seen an increase in demand, too.

  “We are a wonderful barometer of the level of anxiety in the country,” said Morris.

  Morris appears to be right: the search term “nuclear war” and “trump nuclear war” have surged since Trump entered office.

  

   

  

  Jones warns that the escalating war of words between the U.S. and North Korea has contributed to widespread fear across the country. Although Jones says some of his buyers are “preppers,” many new buyers today are regular families seeking protection from nuclear war.

  Such concerns were on displayed last week, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it would conduct an unprecedented briefing on January 16 concerning the “public health response to a nuclear detonation” over the skies of the United States.

  While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. Despite the fear surrounding such an event, planning and preparation can lessen deaths and illness. For instance, most people don’t realize that sheltering in place for at least 24 hours is crucial to saving lives and reducing exposure to radiation. While federal, state, and local agencies will lead the immediate response efforts, public health will play a key role in responding. Join us for this session of Grand Rounds to learn what public health programs have done on a federal, state, and local level to prepare for a nuclear detonation. Learn how planning and preparation efforts for a nuclear detonation are similar and different from other emergency response planning efforts.

  Back in 2011, Jones saw a massive surge in demand for potassium iodide following the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactor. With minimal known radiation threats today, sales are once more exploding on the back of mass hysteria of nuclear war from President Trump’s Twitter account.

  “I now follow his Twitter feed just to gauge the day’s sales and determine how much to stock and how many radiation emergency kits to prep for the coming week,” Jones said, adding: “I don’t think he intended to have this kind of effect.”

  Nevertheless, President Trump has managed to make the potassium iodide industry and the world of preppers great again.

  

• Pat Buchanan Warns "The Whole World Is Watching How This Plays Out!"

  Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

  After a year in which he tested a hydrogen bomb and an ICBM, threatened to destroy the United States, and called President Trump “a dotard,” Kim Jong Un, at the gracious invitation of the president of South Korea, will be sending a skating team to the “Peace Olympics.”

  An impressive year for Little Rocket Man.

  

  Thus the most serious nuclear crisis since Nikita Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba appears to have abated. Welcome news, even if the confrontation with Pyongyang has probably only been postponed.

  Still, we have been given an opportunity to reassess the 65-year-old Cold War treaty that obligates us to go to war if the North attacks Seoul, and drove us to the brink of war today.

  2017 demonstrated that we need a reassessment. For the potential cost of carrying out our commitment is rising exponentially.

  Two decades ago, a war on the Korean Peninsula, given the massed Northern artillery on the DMZ, meant thousands of U.S. dead.

  Today, with Pyongyang’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, American cities could face Hiroshima-sized strikes, if war breaks out.

  What vital U.S. interest is there on the Korean Peninsula that justifies accepting in perpetuity such a risk to our homeland?

  We are told that Kim’s diplomacy is designed to split South Korea off from the Americans. And this is undeniably true.

  For South Korean President Moon Jae-in is first and foremost responsible for his own people, half of whom are in artillery range of the DMZ. In any new Korean war, his country would suffer most.

  And while he surely welcomes the U.S. commitment to fight the North on his country’s behalf as an insurance policy, Moon does not want a second Korean war, and he does not want President Trump making the decision as to whether there shall be one.

  Understandably so. He is looking out for South Korea first.

  Yet Moon rightly credits Trump with bringing the North Koreans to the table: “I give President Trump huge credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks, and I’d like to thank him for that.”

  But again, what are the U.S. interests there that we should be willing to put at risk of nuclear attack tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Korea and our bases in Asia, and even our great cities, in a war that would otherwise be confined to the Korean Peninsula?

  China shares a border with the North, but is not treaty-bound to fight on the North’s behalf. Russia, too, has a border with North Korea, and, with China, was indispensable to saving the North in the 1950-53 war. But Russia is not committed by any treaty to fight for the North.

  Why, then, are Americans obligated to be among the first to die in a second Korean War? Why is the defense of the South, with 40 times the economy and twice the population of the North, our eternal duty?

  Kim’s drive for a nuclear deterrent is propelled by both fear and calculation.

  The fear is that the Americans who detest him will do to him and his regime and country what they did to Saddam Hussein.

  The calculation is that what Americans fear most, and the one thing that deters them, is nuclear weapons. Once Soviet Russia and Communist China acquired nukes, the Americans never attacked them.

  If he can put nuclear weapons on U.S. troops in Korea, U.S. bases in Japan, and U.S. cities, Kim reasons, the Americans will not launch a war on him. Have not recent events proven him right?

  Iran has no nuclear weapons and some Americans clamor daily for “regime change” in Tehran. But because Kim has nukes, the Americans appear more anxious to talk. His policy is succeeding.

  What he is saying with his nuclear arsenal is: As you Americans have put my regime and country at risk of annihilation, I am going to put your cities at risk. If we go down in your nuclear “fire and fury,” so, too, will millions of Americans.

  The whole world is watching how this plays out.

  For the American Imperium, our system of alliances, is held together by a credible commitment: If you attack any of our scores of allies, you are at war with the United States.

  From the Baltic to the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the South China Sea to Korea and Japan today, the costs and the risks of maintaining the imperium are growing.

  With all these promissory notes out there — guarantees to go to war for other nations — one is inevitably going to be called.

  And this generation of Americans, unaware of what their grandfathers obligated them to do, will demand to know, as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan: What are we over doing there, on the other side of the world?

  America First is more than a slogan.

  

• Shocking Footage Shows Crowd Of Hungry Venezuelans Slaughtering A Cow In The Open

  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to order markets to slash prices of food – an attempt to combat speculation and rampant inflation of the bolivar – has apparently backfired as mobs of hungry Venezuelans have started looting supermarkets and slaughtering cattle in the open to survive, Reuters  reports.

  Last week, we reported on near-riots that broke out in Caracas after the mandatory price cuts for food stoked widespread shortages as what little inventory that remained on market shelves quickly disappeared.

  Venezuelans are suffering from a plethora of economic and social maladies.Four years of recession and an inflation rate approaching 4,000% by some measures have made the country’s currency practically worthless. Widespread shortages of food and medicine led to violent riots during the spring and early summer of 2017 that resulted in more than 100 deaths, including the burning alive of one suspected Maduro supporter by a crowd of citizens. Law enforcement in the capital and many of the country’s smaller cities has effectively disbanded, leading to a rise in lynchings and streets justice. Indeed, suspected thieves are sometimes killed.

  Venezuela’s regime probably would’ve collapsed by now if it weren’t for the aide of Russia and China, which have lent the Maduro regime money in exchange for a discount on future oil deliveries. But now that the price of oil is finally climbing again, Maduro could find himself rescued by commodity markets. In apparent anticipation of higher oil prices, the administration announced late last year that it would finally introduce “the Petro” – a state-designed cryptocurrency that will help Venezuela’s customers pay for their goods while circumventing the petrodollar system.

  In a shocking example of just how severe Venezuela’s food shortages have become, a video on social media showed roughly a dozen men running into a lush pasture, chasing a cow, and then apparently beating it to death for the meat.

   

  @FernandoAmandi this the Revolution of the XXI Century of @NicolasMaduro . #TheWalkingDead is REAL in Venezuela pic.twitter.com/isViF16nFM

  — Ivette Calderon (@ivette1331) January 11, 2018

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

   

  “They’re hunting. The people are hungry!” says the narrator of the video, who filmed the incident from his car. Lawmaker Paparoni said some 300 animals were believed to have been killed, though this hasn’t been independently confirmed.

   

  

  Violent lootings and hijackings – long a staple of life for Venezuela’s remaining merchants – are also growing increasingly common.

  Zuley Urdaneta, a 50 year-old vet in Merida, witnessed the looting of a truck along the highway around 2 pm Thursday afternoon, she told Reuters. About two hours later, he said some 800 people converged on a food collection center and proceeded to plunder it.

  “They knocked down the gates and looted flour, rice, cooking oil, cooking gas,” said Urdaneta. “The police and the National Guard tried to control the situation by giving out what was left.”

  Despite the grinding poverty and widespread social unrest that has challenged the last vestiges of Chavismo, Maduro has effectively sidelined his opposition while brutally suppressing popular uprisings.

  “What we’re living is barbaric,” said opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido in a tweet referencing the slaughter the cattle. “The dehumanizing regime of Nicolas Maduro is turning a blind eye to the tragedy that we Venezuelans are living.”

  In a rare interview with western media published earlier this week, Maduro repeated his claim that the country’s economic collapse is the result of a conspiracy between his domestic political opponents and foreign powers like the CIA trying to foment an uprising and overturn what they perceive to be a hostile leftist regime.

  The irony here, of course, is that the US and Venezuela had for years maintained a relatively peaceful and lucrative commercial relationship, evidenced by the success of Venezuela’s US subsidiary, Citgo. Even when former leader Hugo Chavez spewed anti-US rhetoric, he was behind the scenes cooperating with his purported imperialist foe.

  Still, with supermarket shelves perennially empty and Treasury Department sanctions choking the regime off from the dollar-based global financial system, one can’t help but wonder how much longer Maduro can hang on before an outright rebellion erupts.

   

  

• "We Know Who They Are": Putin Claims "State Provocateur" Behind "Terrorist Drones" In Syria

  Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed those behind the massive drone attack on Russia’s two Syrian bases which took place on January 6, saying in front of a large Russian media conference Thursday, “There were some provocateurs, but they were not Turks. We know who they are, who paid who for this provocation and what the actual sum was.” Meanwhile the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reports that Putin has privately informed Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of which “provocateur” was behind a drone attack.

  Earlier this week we reported that the Russian military in Syria thwarted the highly coordinated attack on Khmeimim air base and the Russian Naval facility in the city of Tartus, intercepting 13 heavily armed UAVs launched by terrorists. And underreported in international media was also a prior New Year’s Eve attack carried out by a small squad of insurgents armed with mortars who were able to kill two Russian servicemen while damaging up to seven aircraft at Khmeimim Airbase, which constituted the single largest loss of Russian military hardware throughout the Syria campaign.

  

  Though both attacks would appear to be merely the work of Islamist rebel factions occupying nearby Idlib, multiple extraordinary factors led the Russian Ministry of Defense to immediately state that the perpetrators must have had outside state sponsorship. First there was – as the Russian Ministry of Defense mentioned in an early media statement – “strange coincidences” surrounding the terrorist attack: these included a US spy plane spotted in the area, namely a US Navy’s Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft on patrol between the Khmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base in Syria during the time of the attack. 

  Secondly, the airbase lies deep within Syrian regime territory in what is among the most secure areas in all of Syria, which also underscores the need for advanced satellite and navigational coordination from a state actors. The Russian military claims the drones came from the village of Muwazarra in Idlib, around 50 miles away, which makes Ahrar Al Sham or Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham the immediate culprit. Both groups, though blacklisted as terror organizations by the Pentagon, have received direct and indirect assistance by the CIA and allied intelligence services at various points over the course of the war, especially during the 2015 campaign to wrest Idlib city from the control of the Syrian government.

  

  Origination points of recent wave of drone attacks on Russian and Syrian forces locations. Map via Syria Live Update

  Third, the Russian military in its examination of the recovered drones found high tech components well beyond what initially appeared to be rebel-made improvised devices manufactured locally. Putin went so far as to say the drones and explosives were purposefully made to appear primitive and homemade in order to conceal the advanced technology they were outfitted with. On Thursday he said, “As for these attacks, they were undoubtedly prepared well. We know when and where these unmanned vehicles were handed over [to the attackers], and how many of them there were. These aerial vehicles were disguised – I would like to stress that – as homemade. But it is obvious that some high-tech equipment was used.”

  Russia has yet to reveal the identity of those responsible, but has strongly hinted at the United States or a regional US ally, which elicited a Pentagon response this week with a spokesperson saying the suggestion is “without any basis in fact and is utterly irresponsible.”

  The UK Daily Mail featured detailed Russian defense photographs of the recovered drones, which were noted to be “immune to jamming technology” and summarized the advanced capabilities as follows:

  • “Jam-resistant terrorist drones” could not have been made without foreign help, Russia says 

  • They carried sophisticated software and precision-guided weaponry

  • The explosives they carried were ‘stuffed with ball bearings’

  

  Recovered drones used in the attack featured in a photograph published by RT.

  

  Image source: TASS

  Though as the Daily Beast notes anti-government insurgents in Syria have long had access to black market drones sold through social media, Russia has consistently pointed to the high tech navigational and weapons components added. An earlier Russian Defense Ministry statement said the attack needed a “high-level engineer” and that “not every country is able to get sharp coordinates using space intelligence data” while also citing the presence of “foreign detonating fuses”. The statement further indicated that, “Russian specialists are determining supply channels, through which terrorists had received the technologies and devices, as well as examining type and origin of explosive compounds used in the IEDs.”

  And given Putin’s words on Thursday, it sounds like Russia believes it has proof of the outside sponsor of the operation – though it’s unclear why it is not forthcoming with the evidence as it has been in some past incidents. It could be that Russian defense doesn’t actually have the level of proof needed to convince an international audience, or the more likely scenario perhaps involves the delicacy of Russia’s current attempts to negotiate a settlement to the war and continued military withdrawal of its forces.

  Regarding these negotiations, Putin said on Thursday of the recent attacks on its Syrian bases, “Those were provocations aimed at disrupting the earlier agreements, in the first place. Secondly, it was about our relations with our partners – Turkey and Iran. It was also an attempt to destroy those relations.” Last November a trilateral Syria deal was reached between Russia, Turkey, and Iran in Sochi, Russia over the future of Syria which emphasized winding down the war while keeping the country intact and creating a humanitarian and diplomatic solution, and also included planned Moscow-sponsored talks between the Syrian government and recognized opposition.

  The US and other Western powers were notably excluded from the talks, which many analysts now see as signifying that Putin is in the driver’s seat when it comes to setting the final terms for winding down the war. Russia suspects that the latest attacks on Khmeimim are provocations designed to introduce suspicion among signatories to the deal, especially those elements of the Syrian opposition set to meet for continued Russian sponsored negotiations at the end of January.

  Interestingly, the Russian Foreign Ministry actually previously warned of “staged provocations” aimed at doing just this in the days prior to the first January mortar attack on Khmeimim. As we reported at the time of a prior missile attack on the base, FM spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned at a December 28 press conference that ongoing attacks were “another link in the chain of ongoing and, perhaps, staged provocations involving terrorists and extremists from the Syrian opposition aimed at disrupting the positive trends in the development of the situation in Syria and, in particular, at creating obstacles to convening and holding the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi on January 29-30.”

  Also notable in terms of the potential for US involvement, which also affirms that Russian suspicions are not mere “paranoia,” is that one of the high level planners behind CIA operations in Syria, former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell, declared publicly that “we need to make the Russians pay the price” in Syria by “covertly” killing them via proxies.

  The CIA’s Morell said the following in a televised Charlie Rose interview at that time:

  Morell: We need to make the Iranians pay the price in Syria; we need to make the Russians pay the price.

  Rose: We make them pay the price by killing Russians and killing Iranians?

  Morell: Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it. You don’t stand at the Pentagon and say we did this. But you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran. I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base. I want to scare Assad. I want to go after his presidential car. I want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night. I want to destroy his presidential aircraft. I want to destroy his presidential helicopters. I want to make him think we are coming after him.

  With such brazen and public past admissions by US intelligence officials it is clear that no scenario should be taken off the table regarding what happened with these recent technologically advanced attacks on Russian assets in Syria. This could indeed very likely be the United States or a regional state actor making Russians “pay the price” for being there. 

   

  

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• Military Intelligence Has Weaponized Democracy Worldwide

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

  It doesn’t matter whether it’s the US’ brand of “democracy” for export or the national-specific model of government that strengthens non-Western states, the theoretical concept behind this system has been weaponized by military intelligence agencies worldwide in a back-and-forth competition to change or retain the “deep state” status quo.

  Most people are familiar with US’ clandestine and militant export of “democracy” across the globe in order to remove uncompliant leaders and promote its enduring geostrategic interest to retain its own unipolar hegemony, but comparatively fewer have ever thought about how this very same system is actually a method of control no matter what iteration it ultimately takes. This isn’t a judgement but a fact – democracy is really a tool that’s expertly wielded by its “deep state” practitioners in order to retain the status quo in their states.

  Whether this is “good” or “bad” depends on one’s perspective – most people in the Alternative-Media Community would argue that it’s the former so long as the country in question is protecting their independent policies from outside (US/Western/Gulf) interference and striving to construct the Multipolar World Order, while the Mainstream Media would of course see this as the latter by derogatorily framing it as a “managed democracy” or at worst a “dictatorship’. Along the same token, the Alternative-Media Community believes that the US is a fake democracy and practices an insincere iteration of this ideology, while the Mainstream Media extols it as the best model in the world.

  Nevertheless, this article isn’t about arguing whether democracy is a good or bad system, or even rendering judgement on the variation that certain countries have chosen to implement, but to describe how the ideology itself has come to constitute the core of military intelligence operations across the world in carrying out long-term offensive and defensive missions.

  The Four-Step Strategy

  Military intelligence is almost always directed against foreign targets and there are multiple ways to describe the practice of this art, but the most relevant one is to draw attention to a four-step process that interestingly begins and ends with democracy. The first step is to develop concepts that can serve to widen societal divisions (second step) that provoke a crisis (third step) and allow for the implementation of reverse-engineered end game solutions (final step). While there are many theories that can catalyze this sequence and conclude it, regardless of whether they’re the same for fulfilling both roles or are different, democracy is the most effective for ‘killing two birds with one stone’.

  Part of the universal appeal for democracy is that people believe that it’s the best way to hold decision makers accountable in ensuring that they fulfill their promises to increase the living standards for the general population and empower individuals to actualize their full potential. Democracy, however, is also the proverbial Pandora’s Box, and there’s no going back once the ideals of this theory have either been introduced or practiced in a society.

  The Secret Ingredient Of Hybrid War

  By its very nature, democracy is capable of widening societal divisions, especially in the identity-diverse and mostly post-colonial states of the “Global South” that are increasingly occupying a more significant geostrategic position in world affairs due to their location and economic potential, which satisfies the second step of military intelligence operations. Depending on the composition of the targeted country, which the US can become intimately aware of through big data social media analytics and a presumably de-facto covert revival of the brief Cold War-era “Project Camelot”, various Hybrid War scenarios can be hatched for bringing the state to crisis and weaponizing the consequent chaos in order to implement the reverse-engineered “solution” for normalizing the resultant systemic change.

  Put plainly and in the context of the US’ militant proselytization of “democracy”, the ideal or some relevant variation thereof becomes appealing to the targeted population and eventually encourages or serves as a front for destabilizing societal divisions that eventually disrupt the status quo by catalyzing a crisis and paving the way for a regime change against the government. To visualize the process in its most naked conceptual terms:

  THEORY/CONCEPT ⇒
  ⇒ SOCIETAL DIVISION/DISRUPTION ⇒
  ⇒ CRISIS ⇒
  ⇒ IMPLEMENTATION OF PREDETERMINED ‘SOLUTION’

  Democracy is the US’ ideological weapon of choice because it allows for the management of “creative destruction” within the system that periodically allows the public to peacefully vent their frustrations by electorally recycling their civilian elites without interfering with their country’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (or “deep state”). This is advantageous from an external perspective of hegemony because it allows the US to indirectly retain control over its vassals, or when needed, manipulate the democratic process in order to “legally” install their public placeholder of preference.

  Managing Blowback

  There are times, however, when democracies fail to prevent the emergence of system-threatening elite, in which case the US instrumentalizes various “deep state” levers of pressure against the elected “revolutionary” in order to offset their planned changes just like it’s presently doing to Moldovan President Dodon. If the newly elected figure can’t be co-opted like Tsipras was or functionally neutralized like US-ally India is attempting to do to the newly elected Chinese-friendly communist government in Nepal prior to its official formation in what should be the next coming months, then it’ll either resort to carrying out a coup or launching a Hybrid War. Should that fail, then the direct military intervention of its “Lead From Behind” partners or even the US itself becomes possible per the Libyan model.

  Having explained the external manipulation of democracy for offensive geostrategic and regime change ends by the US, it’s now time to discuss how it’s been used by countries for defensive purposes as well.

  The Defensive Weaponization Of Democracy

  Democracy is a means, not an end, and it’s become a tool for perpetuating the “deep state” status quo in keeping the permanent bureaucracy in power (and sometimes even the public one as well) while superficially or sincerely giving the citizenry a chance to hold certain decision makers to account in the hopes that they’ll eventually bend to the majority’s political will in carrying out policies that will ultimately benefit the people. As such, democracy becomes nothing more than a pressure valve in the most cynical sense for distracting the masses by indoctrinating them with the belief that this is the most effective means for actualizing real change while staving off any real systemic threat to the “deep state”.

  Democracy or some variation thereof almost always remains the first and final step of this process, while the natural divisions that it creates (second step) are handled through the controlled “crisis” of elections (third step).

  Like was mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, this could be interpreted as “good” if it prevents a violent and possibly externally supported minority from overthrowing an elected multipolar government or “bad” if it enables an unpopular public leader or “grey cardinal” (“dictator”) to remain in power contrary to the genuine will of the majority of the population, though it must be qualified that the latter state of affairs could be manipulated through foreign infowars in order to manage the masses’ perception to this end. Either way, the “creative destruction” inherent in democratic systems gives the “deep state” the best chance for controlling the citizenry in the most cost-effective manner, controversially limiting the pace of actual change in contravention of democracy’s original conceptual mission to let this process flow freely and according to the public’s will.

  Offense vs. Defense

  When the US supports groups relying on “democratic” slogans to overthrow the leadership of other democracies (whether Western like in Poland or national-specific such as in Syria), it’s counting on them to introduce another variant of democracy to “justify” their usurpation of power and create a smokescreen for carrying out a “deep state” purge afterwards to replace the prior decision makers with their own. Conversely, the defensive application of democracy is used to cycle out unpopular leaders and “safely” introduce new ideas into the governing apparatus that aren’t “revolutionary” enough to “rock the boat” and threaten the “deep state”, thus giving the public a means through which they can periodically provide constructive feedback and channel their frustrations by pointing the authorities in the direction that they need to go in order to retain the masses’ support.

  The above-mentioned two examples represent the conclusion of military intelligence’s weaponization of democracy according to the offensive and defensive manifestations of the four-step sequence because it begins and ends with democracy itself, albeit sometimes “re-normalizing” the concept in the final phase depending on whether there is a visible (electoral) shift in the public elite. Like it was earlier remarked, the controlled nature of “deep state” elites managing “creative destruction” within their systems is contrary to the pure theoretical definition of democracy in allowing this process to freely unfold based on the public’s will. One should be careful to avoid attaching any judgement to this observation, however, because the proliferation of mass & social media, as well as the ease with which foreign forces can manipulate targeted citizenry abroad through these means, suggests that having certain “safeguards” might actually be a responsible move, though provided that it’s not abused.

  The Trump Anomaly

  With all of this in mind, Trump’s election was a real revolution because the same system-threatening development that occasionally occurs abroad in endangering the “deep state” actually took place within the US itself, and without any external meddling to boot. “The Kraken” is now trying to carry out changes within the same “democracy” that had hitherto assumed that it was immune from anything of the sort ever happening, which is why hostile “liberal-globalist” members of the “deep state” are activating levers of institutional pressure to counteract his changes just like what Trump’s Administration is ironically doing against Moldova’s Dodon. Even so, Trump is pragmatic enough not counterproductively inhibit the democratic execution of his desired vision by Congressional means and has thus worked with certain “deep state” figures when necessary, hence why his former Trotskyite ally Bannon backstabbed him in an unsuccessful bid to break what he truly believe was Trump’s “counterrevolutionary” Presidency.

  Concluding Thoughts

  There is nothing inherently “good” or “bad” about democracy, as such judgement calls are subjective, but one can objectively argue that the model itself is the most effective one for fulfilling military intelligence’s four-step mission, whether operationalized for offensive use abroad like the US does or defensive reasons at home such as how it’s employed by Iran. This, too, isn’t a “good” or “bad” thing, but is simply a fact of life that few people have become aware of because the existence of some sort of democratic motions is now taken for granted almost all across the world and has, to channel the fourth and final step of the military intelligence process, become “normalized”. This isn’t to say that the “solution” is to dilute democracy, or even that a “solution” is necessary at all, but just to draw attention to a little-known aspect of modern-day life that often eludes the notice of most political analysts and encourage readers to think outside the box in reconceptualizing the world around them.

  

• Mexicans Work More Hours Every Year Than Any Other Nation

  Across the globe, people are firmly back in the working groove after all the fun, relaxation and overindulgence of the holiday season.

  This year, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, some workers are going to have a far longer shift than others.

  According to the OECD, Mexicans work the most hours out of any country with 2,246 on average. That’s 467 more than an average American worker and for less than a fifth of the pay. 

  

  You will find more statistics at Statista

  In recent years, the South Korean government has attempted to reduce the long working hours in the country but its workers are still averaging 2,113 hours annually.

  Greek workers were sometimes labeled as over-paid, lazy and eager to retire early after the financial crisis struck but those accusations were certainly unfounded. People in Greece work the most hours of any European country with 2,042 every year on average.

  U.S. workers put in a 1,779 hour shift every year while across the border in Canada, the annual total adds up to 1,691. French workers get a much better deal with 1,482 hours while in Germany, the total only comes to 1,371.

  

• Paul Craig Roberts Fears "Another Step Towards Armageddon"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  The US military/security complex has taken another step toward Armageddon.

   

  

  The Pentagon has prepared a nuclear posture review (NPR) that gives the OK to development of smaller “useable” nuclear weapons and permits their use in response to a non-nuclear attack.

  As Reagan and Gorbachev understood, but the warmongers who have taken over America do not, there are far too many nuclear weapons already. Some scientists have concluded that even the use of 10 percent of either the US or Russian arsenal would suffice to destroy life on earth.

  It is reckless and irresponsible for Washington to make such a decision in the wake of years of aggressive actions taken against Russia. The Clinton criminal regime broke Washington’s promise that NATO would not move one inch to the East. The George W. Bush criminal regime pulled out of the ABM Treaty and changed US war doctrine to elevate the use of nuclear weapons from retaliation to first strike. The Obama criminal regime launched a frontal propaganda attack on Russia with crazed Hillary’s denunciation of President Putin as “the new Hitler.” In an effort to evict Russia from its naval base in Crimea, the criminal Obama regime overthrew the Ukrainian government during the Sochi Olympics and installed a Washington puppet. US missile bases have been established on Russia’s border, and NATO conducts war games against Russia on Russian borders.

  This is insanity. These and other gratuitous provocations have convinced the Russian military’s Operation Command that Washington is planning a surprise nuclear attack on Russia. The Russian government has replied to these provocations with the statement that Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory.

  Those such as myself and Stephen Cohen, who point out that Washington’s reckless and irresponsible behavior has created an enemy out of a country that very much wanted to be friends, do not get much attention from the presstitute media. The US military/security complex needs an enemy sufficient to justify its vast budget and power, and the Western media has accommodated that selfish and dangerous need.

  Russia today is far stronger and better armed than the Soviet Union ever was. Russia also has an alliance with China, an economic and military power. This alliance was created by Washington’s threats against both countries.

  Europe and Japan need to understand that they have responsibility for the resurrection of the Cold War in a far more dangerous form than existed in the 20th century. Europe and Japan, whose political leaders are owned by Washington, have taken money from Washington and sold out their peoples along with the rest of humanity.

  The entirety of the Western World is devoid of intelligent political leadership. This leaves countries such as Russia, China and Iran with the challenge of preserving life on earth as the Western World pushes humanity toward Armageddon.

  

• Henry Ford, Dot.com & Bitcoins

  Submitted by Viktor Shvets of Macquarie

  Why history matters

  Is ‘history more or less bunk?’ It provides valuable lessons

  • Henry Ford once said that “history is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today”. And yet, Ford was aware that he was making history, and his remarks were aimed at the orthodoxy.
  • What has Henry Ford to do with bitcoins? In 1900 when he was experimenting with cars, there were around 2,000 car makers globally that were producing 10,000 vehicles (some powered by steam). However by 1920, the number of car makers shrunk to around 200, and the industry was manufacturing 2.5m cars and by the 1930s in most DMs, horses were dead and buggy makers were out of business. By the 1980s, the number of car makers dropped below 50 and the industry was making over 30m vehicles. Today, there are over 1,000 cryptocurrencies and their combined value (depending on time of day) is ~US$600-800bn, or ~1% of global money in circulation. Will cryptos follow the same trajectory as their early 20th century cousin and within a decade or so become the dominant force in transactions and store of value?
  • The key that links cryptos with Henry Ford and the main difference between (say) bitcoin and tulips is that cryptocurrencies are based on sustainable and evolving technological foundations (just as cars were in the early 20th century). To argue that the blockchain is good but cryptos bad is to forget that without various forms of ledger balances (or cryptocurrencies), blockchain is an empty vessel. As in the case of the 17th century Dutch Tulip Mania, the growth of cryptocurrencies is also turbocharged by creeping monetary debasement. It is the marriage of technology and the perceived need for insurance that is likely to guarantee cryptos’ LT role, irrespective what the governments think.

  Does it mean that cryptos are a reliable store of value?

  • If one indiscriminately invested in hundreds of car makers in 1900, the chances are that one would have sustained significant losses. It was still a time for venture capitalists rather than conventional investors. However, by the 1920s, investment in the surviving automakers would have yielded considerable returns while buying buggies (even at low PERs) would have led to losses. It was a similar process in the dot.com bubble. Although there were hundreds of new companies and the shape of the future was becoming clear, neither hardware, networks nor software were ready. As in the case of cars in 1900, it was a time for venture capitalists. But by 2010-15, most elements for technological progression were in place. Hence, investment in tech today is akin to buying car makers in 1920s, not speculating on start-ups in 1900.

  Currencies are not like other assets. Perception = value

  • Money is anything that is commonly recognized as a medium of exchange and store of value. Most societies used seashells, rocks, severed skulls or metals. China invented paper money during Tang dynasty and with fits and starts, it gradually became the standard. Fiat money can’t be consumed and neither can it be used in production. Hence currencies do not have intrinsic value but rather trade on perception of value. As discussed (here), unlike fiat currencies, cryptos are more difficult to inflate, cost money & time to produce and are built around mathematics rather than fraud or politics. Hence, they already reflect the essence of money better than existing money. However, we are still closer to the 1900s than 1920s. There are serious challenges (e.g. depth, acceptance, custody etc). But cryptos & blockchain are the future

  

• Forget The North's Nukes, South Korea's Other Big Problem Is Inevitable

  Via GEFIRA,

  In the coming ten years eighty percent of the G20 countries will be facing an unprecedented population decline that will change the global economy profoundly. Economists and financial planners had better be aware of the coming demographic collapse in the so called developed world.

  Successful economies are literally on a path to extinction while those doing terribly are growing like weeds. The UN population projections are far too optimistic and have little to do with reality. The extreme low fertility rates in industrialized nation contradict the UN rosy-coloured forecasts. The South Korean government’s prognosis shows that within seven years the country’s population will start to shrink and, if the trend holds, the nation will go extinct in the far future. South Korea’s demographic collapse coincides with that of China; Japan is already shrinking at an incredible paste. The world’s second, third and eleventh economies will see their working force and consuming base becoming smaller and smaller, and somehow renowned analysts see no problem. As a rule of thumb, the working-age population, the group that produces and consumes the most, started to shrink ten years earlier.

  

  The world’s most homogeneous population and Asia’s 4^th largest economy will soon start declining. South Korea is the lowest fertility level country (for 16 years in a row), as a result of which its society is ageing. In 2016 there was the lowest number of births ever and the lowest level of fertility rate (1,17) in 7 years.
  
  The number of people had grown rapidly since the republic’s establishment in 1948, but since 1966 it has started to decline because of the birth control programme.Also urbanization, accessibility of higher education, and a greater participation of women in the labour force have begun affecting the population size. Like in many cultures, in South Korean culture male descendants were very important for the continuity of the family, as they provided financial support and took care of their parents in old age, so people tried to have a son. If the first-born child was not a male, then they had as many children as was needed to eventually have a son. In 1973 a selective abortion law, limited to special cases, was passed, but it turned out to be abused in that predominantly female offspring were aborted.In general, the population number has increased in most provinces (exceptions are big cities like Seoul, Daejeon, Gwangju). Then the government stepped in by discouraging married couples from having more offspring with the slogan “have a single child and raise it well”.In 2016 total population in South Korea was over 51 mln including about 1 mln foreigns. Each demographic forecast predicts dramatic decline in the population. In 2050 probably will be 40-48 mln Koreans and in 2100 even only about 20 mln.

  

  All these social phenomena and governmental measures have been contributing to the decrease in the nation’s birth rate and its resultant aging. Though Korea’s population growth is likely to continue for a few years yet, it will start declining rapidly, so that by 2750 South Koreans will have gone extinct. Already by 2045 Korea could be the world’s oldest country with an average age of 50. The population pyramid has begun to expand upwards which means that the number of elderly people is increasing and the number of the young and children is decreasing. The years 2016-2017 showed for the first time a decline in the working-age population aged 15-64, which means that Korea’s consumption base started shrinking. Just now people aged 65+ are 14,12% of the society and these aged 0-14 only 13,21%. Probably in less than 50 years seniors will make up over 40% of South Korea’s inhabitants.
  
  Some of the reasons for Korea’s low birth rate are similar to those in Japan in the early 90’s. Couples do not want to have a large family because of rising costs of living, including housing and education. South Koreans have the world’s longest working hours, so they do not have time for a family or private life. At the same time there is also a high unemployment rate among young people. Women do not want to have children early in their lives because of the career, unavailability of maternity-leave and little participation of men in child raising and housework.On average, women have their first child at the age of 31. Many Koreans think that marriage is just an option. Half of the singles are under 40 and they do not feel the need to start a family. This phenomenon could also be explained with a large share of atheists and believers of no formal religion.

  

  The low birth rate is not the only problem in South Korea: mortality is another one. South Korea is one of the countries with the highest suicide rate in the world. 40 Koreans commit suicide every day which is also the effect of decreasing numbers of believers.

  

  This issue very often concerns elderly people. Half of those aged 65+ live in relative poverty and ¼ of them live alone. They did not put aside capital for their retirement. They are unable to find work and the level of isolation and depression has increased in an aging society. Among young people the most frequent cause of suicide is intensified stress at the workplace and educational system. 40% of suicide cases are committed under the influence of alcohol and South Korea is the world’s largest consumer of hard liquor. The average is 14 shots a week (as compared to US 3). Koreans are ashamed of psychological problems and they hardly ever are willing to undergo relevant treatment. Alcohol abuse is more acceptable than psychiatric visits. Surely, it contributes to a large number of suicides.

  
  The demographic situation will adversely affect South Korea’s economic growth. Seoul, whose inhabitants make up 20% of the whole nation, will feel the shift in the population structure the most: its labour force will shrink. It is expected that Seoul’s population will have dropped at least by 1 million by 2040. Already in the whole country health care expenditure has increased (from 3,8% to 7,2% of GDP).

  Business Insider, a New York based financial website, said that economists have suggested that the best approach in Japan and Korea could be to abandon gender roles and get more women into the labor force^. Of course the Wall Street based economists know that this policy resulted in lower birthrates in Europe. Still, the New York based financial analysts are desperate looking for ways to boost the workforce in the world’s most productive countries.

  Korean president Moon Jae-In also attaches importance to elderly people who are now a big part of the society and there is a need to create the living conditions suitable for such a large group. Since life expectancy has increased, it is worthwhile to create jobs for that age cohort especially when the labor force is shrinking. The president’s plan is to raise pensions, double the number of jobs for older workers with an increase in the monthly wage, finance Alzheimer and dementia treatment, and increase accessibility of social housing to elderly people.

  South Korea’s government is also looking for help in having more robots in households.A good solution to South Korea’s demographic crisis would be a reunification with North Korea where the population situation appears to be more stable. The homogeneity of race would be maintained, while this seems unrealistic for now it can be an answer to the North-South crisis.

  The situation of South Korea, the world’s 11^th economy and 5^th exporter, will affect many countries. It is a global producer of telephones, integrated circuits, cars, vehicle parts, ships, LCDs, and refined petroleum and it specializes in technology and design. In the context of trade, the circumstances in South Korea will have the biggest impact on China, US, Japan, Germany, Australia and Saudi Arabia.¹⁰⁾The demographic crisis will also impact the country’s security. It will change the geo-political balance as both Japan and South Korea are an extension of the US military power in East Asia.

  The future of South Korea is very uncertain. There is a little time left to avoid the worst. Even so, some predict that a declining trend cannot be reversed.

  

• Google Earth Spots Mysterious "Hypersonic Aircraft" In Florida

  As the world seemingly marches closer to global conflict, hypersonic aircraft and missiles are being developed and tested by the United States, Russia and China at an accelerating pace. Other, less belligerent nations are developing hypersonic technologies to a lesser degree. According to Rand Corporation, “France and India are the most committed, and both draw to some extent on cooperation with Russia.” Nevertheless, “Australia, Japan, and European entities” have hypersonic programs in early stages.

  In any case, the race for hypersonic technologies is in full swing among global superpowers, who realize that the first to possess these technologies will revolutionize their civilian aerospace and military programs. However, as of January 2018, hypersonic technologies are still in development and or the testing phase, so it remains anyone’s game at this point.

  As reported previously, Lockheed Martin is understood to be working on a state-of-the-art hypersonic spy plane for the US Air Force, which could reach over 4,600mph. Which leads us an unidentified airport and testing grounds hidden in the swamplands of South Florida, some 24-miles inland on Bee-Line Highway, outside West Palm Beach or President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, where Google Earth images have surfaced of an object bearing  a startling similarity to artist’s impressions of the plane.

   

  

  While zooming into the facility, Google Earth reveals perhaps more than the public should see; a mysterious aircraft which resembles public renderings of a hypersonic aircraft.

   

  

  According to Tyler Glockner, the area belongs to an aerospace company that has a “main foothold in designing aircraft engines that are widely used in civilian and military aviation”.

  In the picture below, a truck is towing the mysterious aircraft from a large rectangular white building to the white concrete pad. One of two things are possible: Prepping for an engine test on the concrete pad; Prepping for a flight using the runway

   

  

  Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation are located just a stone’s throw away from the airbase housing the mysterious aircraft. Interesting to note, Pratt & Whitney manufactures the scramjet engine for the X-51A WaveRider hypersonic vehicle.

  

  Below are the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) family of Falcon-Hypersonic aircraft that are comparable in shape to the mysterious aircraft noted above.

  

  

• Elon Musk Attended Infamous Silicon Valley Sex Party

  Bloomberg reporter Emily Chang’s “Brootopia” – a scathing examination of White Male Privilege in Silicon Valley – was one of the most talked-about tech books of last year, thanks in part to a memorable scene that has come to represent Silicon Valley’s “bro-centric” culture, which is reportedly dominated by men who didn’t lose their virginity until they were 25.

  Earlier today, the infamous party – which reportedly took place in June 2017 – was reported to have taken place at the home of disgraced VC Steve Jurvetson of DCF.

  And just a few minutes ago, Business Insider  reported that, as it happens, Tesla CEO Elon Musk attended the party in question, but said he thought it was a “corporate costume party”. He apparently left at 1 am after standing around and talking about technology and entrepreneurship with a few other attendees.

   

  

  Musk didn’t witness any drug use, or sex, for that matter.

  In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for the Tesla and SpaceX founder confirmed he was there, but that he believed it was a “corporate” costume-themed party and spent his time there talking about technology and business before leaving at 1 am.

  They said: “Elon was at the party for a couple hours and left around 1am after talking with several DFJ-funded entrepreneurs about technology and building companies. His impression was that it was a corporate party with a costume theme, not a ‘sex party’, and there was no indication that it would become one after he left.”

  Another attendee who spoke with BI also wrote that he didn’t see any sex. “I don’t want this to be anti-climactic, but I didn’t see any sex or drugs,” he wrote.

  “I went home at 12:30 am, and I guess sex parties don’t really kick off until the boring f–kers go home. I didn’t exactly know it was a sex party, and I got bored at some point and went home.”

  We imagine Musk probably had to leave early to work on the Tesla Model 3 – which was  memorably mired in “production hell” at the time.

  

• “Trump Isn't Another Hitler. He's Another Obama“

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Not a lot of people remember this, but George W Bush actually campaigned in 2000 against the interventionist foreign policy that the United States had been increasingly espousing. Far from advocating the full-scale regime change ground invasions that his administration is now infamous for, Bush frequently used the word “humble” when discussing the type of foreign policy he favored, condemning nation-building, an over-extended military, and the notion that America should be the world’s police force.

  Eight years later, after hundreds of thousands of human lives had been snuffed out in Iraq and Afghanistan and an entire region horrifically destabilized, Obama campaigned against Bush’s interventionist foreign policy, edging out Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries partly because she had supported the Iraq invasion while he had condemned it. The Democrats, decrying the warmongering tendencies of the Republicans, elected a President of the United States who would see Bush’s Afghanistan and Iraq and raise him Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, along with a tenfold increase in drone strikes. Libya collapsed into a failed state where a slave trade now runs rampant, and half a million people died in the Syrian war that Obama and US allies exponentially escalated.

  Eight years later, a reality TV star and WWE Hall-of-Famer was elected President of the United States by the other half of the crowd who was sick to death of those warmongering Democrats. Trump campaigned on a non-interventionist foreign policy, saying America should fight terrorists but not enter into regime change wars with other governments. He thrashed his primary opponents as the only one willing to unequivocally condemn Bush and his actions, then won the general election partly by attacking the interventionist foreign policy of his predecessor and his opponent, and criticizing Hillary Clinton’s hawkish no-fly zone agenda in Syria.

   

  

  Now he’s approved the selling of arms to Ukraine to use against Russia, a dangerously hawkish move that even Obama refused to make for fear of increasing tensions with Moscow. His administration has escalated troop presence in Afghanistan and made it abundantly clear that the Pentagon has no intention of leaving Syria anytime soon despite the absence of any reasonable justification for US presence there. The CIA had ratcheted up operations in Iran six months into Trump’s presidency, shortly before the administration began running the exact same script against that country that the Obama administration ran on Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.

  Maybe US presidents are limited to eight years because that’s how long it takes the public to forget everything.

  In the lead-up to the November elections those of us on the left who backed third parties were promised over and over and over again by Democratic party loyalists that if Hillary Clinton failed to secure the election there’d be goose-stepping stormtroopers patrolling the streets and murdering non-whites with impunity, concentration camps for Muslims, and white supremacist extermination programs. Comparisons to Hitler went on nonstop, and anyone who failed to fall in line with the mainstream liberal narrative can attest that they were accused of aiding actual, literal Nazism on a regular basis.

  A year into Trump’s presidency, and not only did the apocalyptic predictions of national genocide fail to come true, he’s not even deporting as many immigrants as Obama. He is, however, out-bombing him.

  We were promised another Hitler. Instead, we got another Obama, who was himself another Bush. The march into corporatist Orwellian police state at home and globalist oligarchic hegemony abroad continues unhindered for the United States of America.

  And of course that march would have continued had Hillary won as well, it just would have looked a bit different. Fewer environmental deregulations, likely catastrophic escalations against the Syrian government and possibly Russia, the exact same approaches to Iran, just as much hawkishness toward North Korea but minus the tweets about button sizes, no attempts at dismantling Obama’s corporatist healthcare plan. Not much more than that.

  Nobody wants to hear this. The Democrats still want to believe that the sitting president is simultaneously a Nazi, a Kremlin secret agent, an idiot, and a lunatic, and Trump supporters want to believe that he’s a populist savior fighting to liberate the nation from the claws of the deep state. Because of their partisan blinders they will both find reasons to believe they’ve got either a savior or a traitor in the White House despite the fact that their country’s actual policy and behavior remains more or less the same.

  I still sometimes get Democrats telling me that Trump is about to flip into Hitler 2.0 any minute now and start throwing non-whites into extermination camps. Whenever I point out that they were wrong about their “your choices are Hillary or Hitler” alarmism I get a bunch of them telling me “give him time”. Well he’s had time. They were wrong. They didn’t get a Nazi, they got another shitty neocon. And since the Dems have been paced into alignment with the neocons there’s no one left to oppose their agendas, which is why we’re seeing so little pushback on Trump’s Iran saber rattling.

  I get Trump supporters telling me that he’s fighting the deep state, but the only way you can believe that at this point is to redefine “deep state” to mean “Democrats and their supporters,” which would actually just be more partisan bickering, which is all we’re actually seeing at this point. The only people you see pushing the collusion narrative and working for impeachment at this point are Democrats and Never-Trumpers; now that Trump has proven himself a good, compliant little boy the intelligence community has been putting its energy into the anti-detente propaganda effort to manufacture support for its new cold war escalations instead.

  The MAGA crowd tells me their guy has de-escalated the Syrian situation in an attempt to paint him as less pro-war than his predecessor, but that’s not even true either. Until US troops actually leave Syria, all this administration has done is kill a bunch of people (many of them civilians), occupy parts of a sovereign nation, and refuse to leave. Why are those troops still there when Syria and its allies are perfectly capable of handling any remaining traces of ISIS as they have been? No good reason, that’s for sure.

  This is not the fault of the American people. The American people consistently vote against interventionist wars (as evidenced by the fact that winning presidential candidates have to campaign against them), and while they may be guilted by the tribe into flag-waving once the troops are there, they consistently say no to every request for consent for more empire-building wars. In my recent article about how the CNN/CIA narrative is running the same script for Iran as they did for Libya and Syria, most of the pushback I received was from good people who wanted to make sure I knew that they didn’t consent to military intervention, they were simply offering their support for the people of Iran.

  Which is about as naive and sweet as a kid wanting to help the nice old man find his puppy. I understand you wanting to help find the puppy America, but for God’s sake please don’t get in that man’s van.

  So the will of the American people has been heard loud and clear. They do not consent to more regime change wars and more military interventions. They do not want that.

  Through the trickery of the mainstream media though, they are paced by fear-mongering and guilting into a reluctant, bargaining, “Well okay then…” consent which is quickly turned over into flag-waving enthusiasm because you have to support your troops, don’tchaknow? And I get that! Everyone knows a serviceman or woman; you don’t want to make them feel sad or like their life is being wasted. That’s such a tragedy! Who wants to make that conscious?

  Let’s be clear, too: the troops are often from some of the finest of working and middle-class families across the States, families whose strong sense of morality about right and wrong led their young sons and daughters to make the courageous decision to enter the armed forces. These young men and women were born with the most exemplary of desires. They want to make the world a better place and they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to do so. People love these families and they love their children.

  These young people really are our best new humans. They are so committed to the highest interest that they would put aside their self-interest to do so. Do you know how rare that quality is in a human? And these young people are being taken from us young, whether that be by death or by destroying their beautiful minds as they are warped by the war machine into thinking that evil is good. Taken and used to pump up the egos of a selfish few.

  In a healthy culture, the highest interest would dictate the desires of these young men and women. Unfortunately, the “highest interest” which should be assessed by the will of the people, is not being heard. It is not being enacted. The will of the people has repeatedly said that it does not want to send these young people off to kill another country’s young people to shore up the share portfolios of a few cancerous beings. The will of the people consistently says no to that, but it has been corralled by a small group of bloodthirsty vampires, parasites who will happily lay any amount of young bodies to waste to win their tiny dick battles until they are finally satisfied with the amount of zeroes on their bank statements.

  Spoiler alert: they never will be.

  Americans talk about “seeing through the partisan bullshit” of US politics like it’s some kind of magical superpower, but it’s not. Both parties act in slightly different ways toward the exact same ends, working together like the jab-cross combination of a boxer to advance the same warmongering, corporatist oligarchic agendas, and there’s no reason to believe any of them about anything. America has two corporatist war parties who serve a plutocratic class of elites; one of them wears a cowboy hat, the other has pink hair. That’s it. That’s all you need to see to free yourself from the illusion.

  Please stop attacking one another for the evils that have been inflicted on you by this small group of sociopaths, America. Stop buying into the two-party good cop/bad cop schtick that the elites use to turn urban Americans against rural Americans and turn your anger toward your real enemies.

  

• Army Finds $830 Million In "Missing" Helicopters As First Ever Audit Begins

  After several decades of nation-building and trillions of dollars missing or improperly recorded, the long-awaited audit of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has finally begun. On Wednesday, the Defense Department Comptroller David Norquist told lawmakers in Washington that the DoD’s first-ever department wide audit will cost about $367 million in 2018 and an additional $551 million to fix the problems.

  Norquist, who testified before the House Armed Services Committee, said Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan are in full support of the audit. Back in May 2017, President Trump appointed Norquist to finally put the military’s financial house back in order after many years of delays.

  What is surprising, if only in retrospect, is that according to the World Economic Forum, U.S. Department of Defense has been named the largest employer in the world with some 3.2 million members on its payroll and $2.4 trillion in assets but has never administered a full audit. .

  “This is the first time the department will undergo a full financial statement audit,”he said. “A financial statement audit is comprehensive and occurs annually and it covers more than financial management,” Norquist explained to Lawmakers.

  The purpose of the audit will document military equipment and real property along with condition and location. “It tests the vulnerability of our security systems and it validates the accuracy of personnel records and actions,” Norquist said.

  DoD News says that 1,200 auditors are currently working on the project to assess the books.

  The department will have 1,200 financial statement auditors assessing the books and records to develop a true account of the state of the department, the comptroller said. It will take time to pass all the process and system changes necessary to pass the audit and get a so-called “clean opinion,” he said. He noted that it took the Department of Homeland Security — a much smaller and newer agency — 10 years to get a clean audit.

  “But we don’t have to wait to see the benefits of a clean opinion,” Norquist said. “The financial statement audit helps drive enterprise improvements to standardize our business practices and improve the quality of our data.”

  DoD News made an interesting observation how the audit will provide “information and accountability to the American people.” Why now? How come all of a sudden the DoD wants to become transparent to the American people? Perhaps, it is due to Washington’s two-decades of failed nation-building throughout the rest of the world, although it is unlikely.

  Norquist said, “the taxpayers deserve the same level of confidence as a shareholder that DoD’s financial statement presents a true and accurate picture of its financial condition and operations. Transparency, accountability and business process reform are some of the benefits of a financial statement audit.”

  And in a preview of what is to come, Norquist told the House Armed Services Committee that an initial Army audit found 39 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter ($830,700,000) were not adequately recorded in the property system. “The Air Force identified 478 structures and buildings at 12 installations that were not in its real property system,” he added. In other words these helicopters were simply “missing” on the books.

   

  

  Alas, the mismanagement within the DoD doesn’t stop there: in a recent report, the U.S. military lost some 44,000 troops across the globe in a country location labeled as “Unknown.”

  Going even deeper into the rabbit hole, Mark Skidmore, a Professor of Economics at MSU specializing in public finance, found the Department of Defense and Housing & Urban Development may have spent as much as $21 trillion on mysterious items between 1998 and 2015.

  “This is incomplete, but we have found $21 trillion in adjustments over that period. The biggest chunk is for the Army. We were able to find 13 of the 17 years and we found about $11.5 trillion just for the Army,” Skidmore said.

  Considering that today’s already known accounting blunders at the Department of Defense are no small matter, we wonder what the 1,200 auditors will find when they perform the first ever dive down the rabbit hole of decades of failed proxy wars, regime changes and dictator slush funds in history?

  

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• Israel Confirms It Has Spies Operating Inside Iran

  In a rare admission an Israeli intelligence chief confirmed early this week that Israel has spies currently operating on the ground in Iran.

  Yossi Cohen, the director of Israel’s Mossad – the country’s powerful national intelligence and special operations agency, addressed Israeli policy and the recent Iran protests at a closed session of the Finance Ministry on Tuesday. In the midst of a talk assessing the “Iran threat” to Israeli security Cohen bluntly stated, “We have eyes and ears, even inside Iran.” 

  This stunning confirmation from Israel’s top intelligence official came the same day Iran’s supreme leader lashed out at the country’s foreign enemies, saying according a Reuters summary of his statements that “Iran has foiled attempts by its foreign enemies to turn legitimate protests into an insurgency to overthrow the Islamic Republic.” The thrust of Cohen’s speech, according to Arutz Sheva news, warned of increased Iranian hegemonic ambition across the region as Tehran is “gaining footholds across the Middle East,” which Israeli defense officials as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have long identified the chief threat to regional stability and Israel’s security, even above the threat of ISIS.

  
  Image source: Express UK

  “The Iranians are spreading across the Middle East with a vast array of forces, and there is little holding them back,” said Cohen. Iran has very nearly realized “its dream of creating what almost amounts to a land and air bridge allowing them to dump troops across the Middle East.” But as we reported in November of last year, this “land bridge” has already become a reality as the rapid demise of the Islamic State resulted in the anticipated linking up of Iraqi and Syrian troops at the shared border, along with their Shia paramilitary allies (foremost, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units/PMU and Lebanese Hezbollah, the prime ground ally of the Syrian Army).

  Both Israel and Washington’s past decade of Iran and Syria policy has been driven by fears of this so-called “Shia crescent” or Iranian land bridge which would conceivably connect Tehran with the Mediterranean in a continuous arch of influence (Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut). More recently Israeli and US officials have spotlighted claims that Iran is intervening in both Yemen and Lebanon against Saudi Arabia and Israel – both unlikely allies who’ve lately acknowledged an intelligence sharing relationship aimed at rolling back Iranian influence.

  “I don’t think there’s a land bridge right now” in Syria, Mattis – Sec. or Def. said.

  Iran has failed to establish a “land bridge” across Syria as part of an overall effort to create a “Shiite crescent” Matts says.

  Are we looking at the same map?https://t.co/HKVJOXEGce pic.twitter.com/5j1KdNAw56

  — Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) January 9, 2018

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  And with the onset of mass anti-regime protests in Iran two weeks ago (initially driven by economic grievances), which have since ceased as both security forces cracked down and demonstrators’ momentum generally waned, many analysts have speculated on the degree to which outside intelligence services may have covertly intervened to steer to protests toward Tehran regime overthrow – an accusation which the Iranian authorities have explicitly and repeatedly made.

  During the Israeli national security talk, Cohen acknowledged Israeli intelligence’s long term desire to see regime change in Iran, saying “We don’t need to start speculating, even though I would, of course, be very happy to see a social revolution in Iran. That’s something that could perhaps happen in the future.”

  Meanwhile, PM Netanyahu reportedly made an outrageous claim leveled against Iran during a lunch with NATO ambassadors in Jerusalem this week, saying “As part of Iran’s plans of conquest and colonization of Syria, they want to bring in as many as 100,000 Shias, Shia fighters… not Iranians, under Iranian command.” Netanyahu has issued repeat warnings over the past months that Israel would not allow Iran to establish and enduring presence in Syria. 

  At the same time (on Tuesday), Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei published a series of statements via twitter alleging a covert externally driven plot to destabilize Iran, and promising “this won’t be left without a response.” He said, “Once again, the nation tells the U.S., Britain, and those who seek to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran from abroad that ‘you’ve failed, and you will fail in the future, too’.”

  Khamenei also expressly accused the Israelis and an opposition militant group, the MEK [a controversial exiled opposition group, People’s Mujahedin of Iran, which has long been favored by Washington and has launched assassination campaigns targeting Iranian scientists] of secretly fueling the unrest which left at least 21 dead – among them Iranian intelligence personnel and a police officer.

  According to evidence of intelligence, there’s been a triangle pattern activating these events. The scheme was formed by U.S. & Zionists. The money came fr a wealthy govt near Persian Gulf; the 3rd element were the henchmen. The butchers, MEK, were hired as minions for this plot.

  — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 9, 2018

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  In response to prior tweets by President Trump condemning the Tehran government while expressing support for protests, Khamenei further addressed the White House and Trump directly by saying, “this man who sits at the head of the White House – although, he seems to be a very unstable man – he must realize that these extreme and psychotic episodes won’t be left without a response.”

  Thus far the Iranian authorities have only responded internally as CNN and many other outlets are now reporting as many as over 3,500 arrests following the ten days of protests. Tehran authorities have alleged that provocateurs in league with foreign sponsors drove the demonstrations to violence. There are also multiple allegations of torture and new reports of prison detainees committing suicide surfacing; however, the bulk of such reports are unverifiable and sourced to opposition activists.  

  Thus far Trump hasn’t responded to Iran’s top Muslim cleric accusing the president of “psychotic episodes” though it will be interesting to see what the next Trump tweet on Iran has to say. 

  

• Protecting The Belt And Road Initiative From US-Led Terrorism: Will China Send Troops To Syria?

  Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  An interesting theme concerning Syria is the involvement of the People’s Republic of China in the conflict. While China’s diplomatic and economic assistance has been constant, its military contribution to Syria is less known. It is important for China and Russia to contain and defeat the terrorist phenomenon in the Middle East, as well as to defang the strategists in the US deep state who are unceasing in their efforts to employ jihadism as a weapon to destabilize Eurasia’s integration projects.

   

  

  The Jihad International, under the economic and strategic guidance of the United States, has recruited tens of thousands of terrorists over the years and sent them to Syria. Among these, a significant number come from the Uighur ethnic group, situated in the autonomous Chinese province of Xinjiang, particularly from the city of Kashgar, geographically located in the extreme west and close to the borders of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

  The employment of ethnic and religious minorities to destabilize the majority of a given population has been an ancient artifice repeatedly relied upon by great powers. We thus remember how radical Islam was used in Chechnya to strike the Russian Federation at its “soft underbelly” in the south-west of the country. Two wars and repeated terrorist attacks show the area has yet to be fully pacified. The Wahhabis, a Sunni (anti-) Islamic minority, have shown themselves to be the perfect spark to ignite the tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in the Middle Eastern region and beyond. The case of the Uighur Islamist extremists in Xinjiang is no exception, and the Chinese central government is well aware of the potential danger from an internal uprising or targeted sabotage in the region. Not surprisingly, there has been a tightening of security measures in the region, with exercises against terrorist attacks and riots carried out by police and paramilitary groups. Beijing does not underestimate the danger posed by populations susceptible to foreign manipulation.

  While the economic support for Uyghur Islamist separatists more likely derives from Turkey than Saudi Arabia (for historical reasons), it is worth highlighting the highly proactive attitude of China in addressing the issue. As well as beefing up internal security and having a policy of zero tolerance towards such extremist ideologies, Beijing has since 2011 been contributing economically and diplomatically to the Syrian war against the jihadists.

  Official estimates place about 5,000 Chinese Uyghur terrorists in Syria, and Beijing’s strategy has reflected the one already implemented in the Russian Federation. Rather than waiting for highly trained killers to return home, it is better to confront the danger in a foreign land, thereby gaining a strategic and tactical advantage over those financing and manipulating terror, which is to say the American deep state and its military and security apparatus.

  Thus far, there has been a continuous support of the Syrian government coming from Beijing, both economic and diplomatic. However, rumour over the last few weeks has it that Chinese special forces and war veterans will be deployed to Syria to eliminate the Islamist threat breathing down on China’s western border.

  As always, when Beijing decides to move, it does so under the radar, with extreme caution, especially militarily. Chinese military strategists intend not only to act pre-emptively against internal destabilization, but to also respond asymmetrically to American involvement in the South China Sea and other areas lying within the China’s sphere of influence. The insertion of Chinese troops into the Middle East (albeit in limited numbers) would signal an epochal change in the region, a change that was instigated by the Saudi-Israeli-American trio in an effort to employ controlled chaos through Islamist terrorism but which is proving to be a chaos that they are incapable of controlling.

  Preventing the spread of terrorism in Asia, and more generally in Eurasia, is understandably an important goal for Russia and China, especially in view of ambitious infrastructure projects like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Much of the success of this project will depend on how well the Chinese government and its partners (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey in particular) will be able to prevent destabilization through the fanning of ethnic and religious tensions along the route of the BRI, such as in Pakistan.

  China’s foray into Syria will involve a few special-forces units, namely: the Shenyang Military Region Special Forces Unit, known as the “Siberian Tigers”; and the Lanzhou Military Region Special Forces Unit, known as the “Night Tigers”. These units will have responsibilities for advising, training and conducting reconnaissance. Similar to the Russian engagement in Syria, Chinese involvement will remain as hidden and limited as possible. The Chinese goal, unlike the Russian one, concerns the gaining of urban-warfare experience, in addition to hunting jihadists, and more generally, to test Chinese military readiness in war conditions, experience of which is lacking in Beijing’s recent experience.

  China’s involvement in Syria is less obvious than that of the Russian Federation. The strategic objectives of the Chinese vary greatly from that of the Russians, especially vis-a-vis the Russian ability to project forces a long way from home.

  The Chinese and Russians are increasing their operational capabilities, both in terms of defending their territorial boundaries as well as in their ability to project their power as a result of increased naval and aerospace capabilities. Syria offers Beijing the perfect opportunity to include itself in the global fight against terrorism, thereby preventing possible terrorist insurgencies at home. Further, it serves to send a clear message to rivals like the United States who might have thoughts of using Islamic terrorists to destabilize China. Beijing is aware of the perverse employment of terrorism to advance geostrategic goals by its Western adversaries and has no intention of succumbing to waves of attacks or chaos coordinated by the Western powers. Prevention is better than cure, and Russia and China seem to have completely embraced this philosophy by deciding, in different ways, to assist allies like Syria, Egypt and Libya to fight terrorism.

  In terms of diplomacy and economic aid, the Sino-Russian contribution could prove decisive in linking the Middle East and North Africa to major projects under development, such as the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) and the Eurasian Union. We are still at the preliminary stage for the time being, even as 2018 could end up being the year that major conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region end, with the prospect of economic reconstruction being at the forefront.

  

• 2017 Summarized (In 2.8 Billion Tweets)

  One incredible thing about the big data era is that it allows us to crunch the numbers on pretty much anything.

  Whether it’s analyzing a database of 50 million chess moves made during actual tournament gameplay, or developing a deep learning AI that sifts through billions of sensor inputs to learn how to drive a car with full autonomy, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins points out that we can power nearly any analysis or algorithm with mountains of data.

  Like the above examples, today’s infographic from Echelon Insights uses massive amounts of data to paint a picture of the news that wasn’t possible 10 or 20 years ago. By analyzing the words in over 2.8 billion tweets, the end result is a convincing set of visualizations that showcase the most talked about topics over the course of 2017

  

  Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

  THE TALK OF 2017

  Not surprisingly, the conversation in 2017 on Twitter revolved mainly around one person – and you may have heard of him.

  I love Twitter…. it’s like owning your own newspaper— without the losses.

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2012

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

   

  According to Echelon Insights, Trump was mentioned 901.8 million times on Twitter in the United States over the duration of the year.

  Here’s how that compares to some other notable politicians:

   

  

  Trump was mentioned about 30x more often than his VP, and 7x more often than his one-time election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

  And incredibly, Trump was the number one topic of daily conversation for 95% of the year, above every other issue and topic:

  There were only 17 days in 2017 where Donald Trump was NOT the top topic of conversation, and he was the #1 story every week for every audience.

  – Echelon Insights, The Year in News 2017

  But putting Trump aside, here are the specific narratives that received the most attention by users in the U.S. Twitterverse.

   

  

  The Russia story dominated headlines on an ongoing basis.

  The alleged collusion was a constant in the news cycle from February until August, and then it picked up again in November.

  It was also the top story for two of the major groups that Echelon Insights tracks, the “Liberal Base”, as well as the “Conservative Base”. However, Russia was only the second most important story for the group “Beltway Elites”, falling behind the much-discussed topic of healthcare.

  

• South Korea Prepares Bill To Ban Cryptocurrency Trading, Raids Largest Exchanges For Tax Evasion

  Update: Reuters is now piggybacking on the previous report from Bloomberg, with the news that South Korea’s justice ministry said on Thursday it was preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through its exchanges.

  “There are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges,” said Park Sang-ki at a press conference, according to the ministry’s press office.

  He added that he cannot disclose details about the proposed shutdown of virtual currency exchanges but will jointly work with the government task force.

  Ripple is down 25% today and now down 20% YTD…

   

  

  * * *

  EARLIER:

  While the earlier report  from Bloomberg that South Korea is preparing a Crypto-exchange shutdown bill has yet to be confirmed, moments ago Reuters reported that in the latest crackdown against thr frothy sector, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bithumb and Coinone, were raided by police and tax agencies this week for alleged tax evasion.

  An official at Coinone, one of the country’s largest crypto exchanges, told Reuters that “a few officials from the National Tax Service raided our office this week.” He added that “local police also have been investigating our company since last year, they think what we do is gambling,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said Coinone was cooperating with the investigation.

  On Wednesday tax authorities also raided, Bithumb, the second largest virtual currency operator in South Korea.

  “We were asked by the tax officials to disclose paperwork and things yesterday,” an official at Bithumb said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

  To be sure, this is not the first time the South Korean government has cracked down on potential money-laundering and tax evasion. Authorities previously said they are inspecting six local banks that offer virtual currency accounts to institutions, amid concerns the increasing use of such assets could lead to a surge in crime.

  The crackdown on Seoul-based operators of some of the world’s busiest virtual currency exchanges comes as the government attempts to calm frenzied demand for cryptocurrency trading in Asia’s fourth largest economy.

  Two weeks ago, the entire sector plunged following news that South Korea would require cryptocurrency transactions to name participants and ban banks from offering virtual accounts, and that the government may also direct law enforcement officials to close some exchanges.

  Separately, Bloomberg reports that officials at South Korea’s Justice Ministry are looking at various steps to regulate cryptocurrencies due to their “seriousness and riskiness,” a spokesman says by phone. SBS TV earlier reported the ministry will begin discussions with other ministries as early as this week after preparing a bill that would shut down cryptocurrency exchanges

  As a result of Bitcoin’s record surge last year, demand for cryptocurrency in South Korea has exploded, drawing college students to housewives and sparking concerns about a gambling addiction. We profiled the plight of the nation’s bitcoin trading addicts in “A Stunning Look Inside The World Of South Korea’s “Bitcoin Zombies”.

  For now, the double whammy of news out of South Korea has had a modest impact on cryptocurrency prices, but nowhere near the 40% plunge observed two weeks ago.

   

  

  

• Second Developer Of WikiLeaks-Inspired "SecureDrop" Commits Suicide At 36

  A second member of a three-man team who created a secure system for whistleblowers to submit information to news outlets has committed suicide at the age of 36, reports the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Software engineer James Dolan took his own life nearly five years to the day after the death of “SecureDrop” co-creator and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz.

  
  James Dolan

  Dolan, a former Marine, helped create the system in 2012 along with Swartz and Wired editor Kevin Poulsen – who spearheaded the project first known as “StrongBox” and later “DeadDrop.” The trio’s secure submission system has been used by The New Yorker, the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Associated Press and Gizmodo – allowing “highly secure communication between journalists and sources in possession of sensitive information or documents,” per Gizmodo. 

  Co-creator Kevin Poulsen described Dolan’s role in the project’s creation in the New Yorker in 2013:

  In New York, a computer-security expert named James Dolan persuaded a trio of his industry colleagues to meet with Aaron to review the architecture and, later, the code. We wanted to be reasonably confident that the system wouldn’t be compromised, and that sources would be able to submit documents anonymously—so that even the media outlets receiving the materials wouldn’t be able to tell the government where they came from. James wrote an obsessively detailed step-by-step security guide for organizations implementing the code. “He goes a little overboard,” Aaron said in an e-mail, “but maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

  Co-creator Aaron Swartz committed suicide on January 11, 2013 at the age of 26. Swartz left no suicide note in his New York apartment, however some have noted that he was depressed and was facing jail time under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for hacking into MIT’s computer network and stealing copies of 4.8 million academic papers. 

  Second developer of WikiLeaks inspired submission system “SecureDrop”, security expert James Dolan, aged 36, has tragically died. He is said to have committed suicide. The first, Aaron Swartz, is said to have taken his own life at age 26, after being persecuted by US prosecutors.

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 9, 2018

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  Swartz’s father believes the government “indirectly killed” Swartz, while his girlfriend at the time, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman think Swartz was driven to suicide by a two-year prosecution over the MIT hacking case which had “drained all of his financial resources”  – despite not fitting any of the signs of clinical depression and associated disorders.

  
  Aaron Swartz

  After Swartz’s death, co-creator Kevin Poulsen donated the SecureDrop project to the Freedome of the Press Foundation, while James Dolan was “literally the only person in the world who knew all the ins and outs of the system, how to install it, and how to make it better” according to the FPF. 

  He had a high-paying computer security job at a large company by then, but I asked him if he’d be willing to come work for us so we could try to get SecureDrop into more newsrooms. We had hardly any money at the time, yet he immediately agreed—even though it meant taking an 80% pay cut. (Later, he would even refuse to accept a raise, insisting that we use any new funding to hire additional people to work on the project instead.)

  In a tribute post, the Freedom of the Press Foundation said that Dolan had “long suffered from PTSD from his time serving in the Marines during the Iraq war,” adding “It was an experience that affected him in multiple ways. He often cited the Iraq War as his inspiration for wanting to help journalists and whistleblowers; it made him realize governments needed to be much more transparent and accountable.”

  Dolan’s friends and supporters were heartbroken over Twitter:

  Secure Drop co-creator James Dolan has passed away. A huge loss. His work did so much to make journalism safer—and potentially louder. https://t.co/4s5LHBGXZA

  — Joe Brown (@joemfbrown) January 9, 2018

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  As a journalist who uses SecureDrop every day, and as a citizen who wants more transparency, I am immensely grateful for the work of James Dolan, who I learn, only after his passing, took an 80 percent pay cut to keep working on SD. https://t.co/vSubLANgAt

  — Ryan Tate (@ryantate) January 9, 2018

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  Very sad news. James Dolan, co-creator of @SecureDrop, has passed away at age 36. He was an amazing talent and a wonderful person. He will be sorely missed. https://t.co/gMQgGwhKsb

  — Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) January 9, 2018

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  Timm, FPF’s Executive Director, wrote “It is impossible to overstate how fundamentally important James Dolan was to the development of both Freedom of the Press Foundation and SecureDrop.”

  

• Party While You Can – Central Banks Are Ready To Pop The 'Everything' Bubble

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

  Many people do not realize that America is not only entering a new year, but within the next month we will also be entering a new economic era. In early February, Janet Yellen is set to leave the Federal Reserve and be replaced by the new Fed chair nominee, Jerome Powell. Now, to be clear, the Fed chair along with the bank governors do not set central bank policy. Policy for most central banks around the world is dictated in Switzerland by the Bank for International Settlements. Fed chairmen like Janet Yellen are mere mascots implementing policy initiatives as ordered.  This is why we are now seeing supposedly separate central banking institutions around the world acting in unison, first with stimulus, then with fiscal tightening.

   

  

  However, it is important to note that each new Fed chair does tend to signal a new shift in action for the central bank. For example, Alan Greenspan oversaw the low interest rate easy money phase of the Fed, which created the conditions for the derivatives and credit bubble and subsequent crash in 2008. Ben Bernanke oversaw the stimulus and bailout phase, flooding the markets with massive amounts of fiat and engineering an even larger bubble in stocks, bonds and just about every other asset except perhaps some select commodities. Janet Yellen managed the tapering phase, in which stimulus has been carefully and systematically diminished while still maintaining delusional stock market euphoria.

  Now comes the era of Jerome Powell, who will oversee the last stages of fiscal tightening, the reduction of the Fed balance sheet, faster rate increases and the final implosion of the ‘everything’ bubble.

  As I warned before Trump won the election in 2016, a Trump presidency would inevitably be followed by economic crisis, and this would be facilitated by the Federal Reserve pulling the plug on fiat life support measures which kept the illusion of recovery going for the past several years. It is important to note that the mainstream media is consistently referring to Jerome Powell as “Trump’s candidate” for the Fed, or “Trump’s pick” (as if the president really has much of a choice in the roster of candidates for the Fed chair). The public is being subtly conditioned to view Powell as if he is an extension of the Trump administration.

  This could not be further from the truth. Powell and the Fed are autonomous from government.

  As Alan Greenspan openly admitted years ago, the Fed does not answer to the government and can act independently without oversight.

  So, why is the media insisting on misrepresenting Powell as some kind of Trump agent? Because Trump, and by extension all the conservatives that support him, are meant to take the blame when the ‘everything’ bubble vaporizes our financial structure. Jerome Powell is “Trump’s guy” at the Fed; so any actions Powell takes to crush the recovery narrative will also be blamed on the Trump administration.

   

  

  But, is it a certainty that Powell will put the final nail in the coffin of “economic recovery?” Yes. Last Friday the Fed finally released the transcripts of its monetary policy meetings in 2012, and in those transcripts are some interesting admissions from Powell himself. After reading these transcripts I am fully convinced that Powell is the man who will stand as the figurehead of the central bank during the final phase of U.S. decline.

  Here are some of the most astonishing quotes by Powell from those transcripts along with my commentary. These quotes are yet another piece of evidence that vindicates my position on the Fed as an economic saboteur and my position on the historic market bubble the bank has created:

  Powell: “I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons.

  First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce?”

  Assessment: By all indications the Fed did do more, MUCH more. Including QE3, various stimulus packages and incessantly low interest rates for years, the Fed has essentially stepped in every time stock markets in particular were about to crash back to their natural state of decline. Powell is being rather honest in his estimation here that these stopgaps are in fact temporary and that the Fed cannot produce true economic growth to support the market optimism they have created through their interventions. He is stating openly that markets will only remain optimistic so long as they are assured that the Fed will continue to intervene.

  This is probably why it took almost six years before these transcripts were released.

  Powell: “When it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much the sale, the duration; it’s also unloading our short volatility position.”

  Assessment: And here we have Powell’s shocking admission, clarifying his previous point — the “strong response” that Powell is referring to is a market reversal, or bubble implosion. He even admits the existence of the Fed’s “short position on volatility.” This explains the strange behavior of the VIX index, which has plunged to record lows as “someone” continually shorts VIX stocks in order to interfere with any decline in markets.

  This interference in the VIX has conjured an aberration, a market calm and investor confidence that is artificial. Such overconfidence, when optimism turns into mania, has happened before. In fact, the end of the Greenspan era was awash in such exuberance. And this delusion always ends the same way — with crisis.

  I would also like to mention here that I have seen some disinformation being planted on Powell’s statements in 2012, asserting that he was “not talking about stock markets” specifically. Obviously he is, as you will see in other parts of his statement, but to reinforce the point, here is a quote from another Fed member who spilled the beans, Richard Fisher:

  “What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.

  It’s sort of what I call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.”

  Fisher went on to hint at his very reserved view of the impending danger:

  “I was warning my colleagues, Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10 to 20 percent correction at some point… Everybody you talk to… has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.” [In reference to interest rate hikes]

  So, what happens when the Fed stops shorting volatility and ends the easy money being pumped into markets? Well, again, I think Powell and Fisher have just told you what will happen, but let’s continue.

  Powell: “My third concern — and others have touched on it as well — is the problems of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. We’ve got a set of principles from June 2011 and have done some work since then, but it just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly. Markets can be much more dynamic than we appear to think.

  When you turn and say to the market, “I’ve got $1.2 trillion of these things,” it’s not just $20 billion a month — it’s the sight of the whole thing coming. And I think there is a pretty good chance that you could have quite a dynamic response in the market.”

  Assessment: The Fed balance sheet is being reduced NOW, and Powell as chairman will only continue the process if not expedite it. Some people may argue that Powell is displaying an attitude that would suggest he is not on board with tightening policies. I disagree. I believe Powell will make the argument that the band-aid must be ripped off and that stock markets need some “tough love”.

  In fact, Fed members including Yellen and former member Alan Greenspan (is there such a thing as a “former” member of the Fed?) have already been fielding the notion that stock markets are suffering from “irrational exuberance” and that something must be done to “temper inflation.”

  Powell is also acknowledging the mass-psychological aspect of investors, now trained like Pavlovian dogs to salivate over stock tickers instead of thinking critically on the implications of equities that “can’t lose”.  When they finally begin to realize that equities can indeed lose, and that the Fed is going to let them lose, what will the result be, I wonder?

  Powell: “I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.”

  Assessment: Wow! And there you have it. The new Fed chair’s own prognostications. He even used the dreaded “B” word — bubble. Yes, as I have been arguing for quite some time, the Fed will continue to raise rates and cut off the low cost money supply to banks and corporations that has helped boost stock markets as well as numerous other asset classes.  And now we discover after six years a Fed official, soon to be the Fed chairman, telling you EXACTLY what is about to happen within American markets, reinforcing my long held position.

  Powell even mentions that “this is their strategy.” Now, that could be interpreted a few ways, but I continue to hold that the Fed plans to deliberately crash markets and that this will be a controlled demolition of the U.S. economy.

  Trump may actually clash with Powell over these measures in the near future, considering Trump has thoroughly taken credit for the insane stock market rally that has dominated since his election. But, this will only add to the fake drama. Imagine, the very man Trump “picked” as the new head of the Federal Reserve undermining the market bubble which Trump boasts about on his Twitter account. The Kabuki theater will be phenomenal.

  All the while, the true culprits behind the bubble and the crash, the international financiers and banks, will escape almost all scrutiny as the public mindlessly follows the political soap opera played out in the mainstream media.

  

• China Calls Bloomberg Treasury Report "Fake News", Yields Slide

  Less than 24 hours after Bloomberg headlines rang around the world proclaiming China would “slow purchases” of US Treasuries, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, SAFE, pushes back on the report, saying it is “fake news.”

  As Blooomberg reports, SAFE says its investment in Treasuries is based on market conditions and its needs, and adds that it always diversifies investment of FX reverses.

  Additionally, SAFE says the earlier report may have quoted a wrong source.

  Reuters headlines provide a little more color:

  • CHINA’S FX RESERVES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENTS ARE RESPONSIBLE INVESTORS -FX REGUATOR: RTRS
  • CHINA HAS BEEN DIVERSIFYING ITS FX RESERVES INVESTMENTS: RTRS
  • CHINA FX REGULATOR SAYS INVESTMENTS IN U.S. TREASURIES MARKET DRIVEN. CHINA HAS BEEN DIVERSIFYING ITS FX RESERVES INVESTMENTS: RTRS
  • REPORT ON CHINA CONSIDERING REDUCING OR STOPPING PURCHASES OF U.S. TREASURIES COULD BE BASED ON WRONG INFORMATION -CHINA GOVT SOURCE: RTRS

  Following is a translation of a statement from China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange in response to a report that said China may slow or halt purchases of U.S. treasuries.

  “We are also aware of the news through some media reports. We think the report might have cited wrong sources or may be fake news.

  “China has always managed its forex reserves investments in accordance with the principle of diversification, to ensure the overall safety of FX assets, to maintain and increase their value. Like other investments, FX reserves investments in U.S. treasuries is managed in a professional way according to market conditions and investment needs. China’s FX reserves management department is a responsible investor both for the FX reserves and for the market in which it participates. China’s investments have promoted the stability of international financial markets and the preservation and appreciation of China’s foreign exchange reserves.”

  US 10Y Yields immediately tumbled 2bps, well below the pre-China-headlines levels from this morning…

  

   

  And Treasury futures volume surged…

   

  

  Presumably, Beijing’s message was heard loud and clear (and acknowledged) in Washington.

  

• Canadian Pensions Eager To "Re-Risk" After Rule Change Allows Greater Speculative Bets

  So, what do you do when your pension funds are hopelessly underfunded and haven’t a chance of ever reaching breakeven again?  Well, you just change national laws to allow them to swing for the fences by loading up on risky investments and hope for the best.  Who cares…the losses are backstopped by taxpayers anyway, right?

  According to Pensions & Investments, that is precisely what legislators in Canada have decided to do and it has sparked an asset rotation wave toward risky “alternative investments.”

  Canadian pension plan executives are starting 2018 expecting to invest more in alternative investments, specifically infrastructure and real estate, as the easing of funding rules in Ontario gives plans more opportunity to take on risk, sources said.

  “This funding rule change is a game-changer,” said Manuel Monteiro, partner and head of the financial strategy group at Mercer (Canada), Toronto. “It could change plan design, change investment strategies and should impact funding strategies.”

  

  Martin Leclair of Phillips, Hager & North has even coined a new term to describe the asset rotation among Canadian pension funds: “rerisking“….presumably because ‘investing in the highest beta garbage possible at the highest valuation multiples of all time’ was just too honest for marketing presentations.

  The change will make higher-yielding investments like alternatives more popular among Canadian institutional investors as more money will be freed up for riskier investments with the potential for higher return, sources said.

  “Any alternatives, infrastructure particularly,” said Ian Struthers, partner and practice lead, Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting, Toronto. “We expect growth in those asset classes to continue, particularly among the large pension plans. It’s easy for plans the size of Canada Pension Plan to do; they have long time horizons and huge asset inflows. But for small to midsize plans, they can take on more exposure to alternatives through diversified investments with external managers. But there’s a lot of money looking for infrastructure and for real estate. There will be more interest in less vanilla kind of investments to add value, like brownfield projects.”

  Martin Leclair, portfolio manager at Phillips, Hager & North ​ Investment Management, Toronto, said the move to those strategies already is happening. “What we’re seeing from the solvency rule changes is a lot of rerisking. That’s already happening. It’s more about yield than about risk. So fundamentally, yes, there will be a lot of rerisking.”

  Leclair continues by saying that traditional bond and equity strategies just have no place in the portfolio of a modern 2018 investor and suggests that you’ll have to be “creative” this year to “find alpha…”

  “2018 will not be the year of one strategy, it will be the year of being creative,” Mr. Leclair said. “Traditional bond and equity strategies will not get you there. You have to find alpha. These strategies are out there … I think you’ll see departures from traditional benchmark-oriented strategies, away from being a ‘closet indexer.'” PH&N Investment Management has C$90 billion in institutional assets under management, according to its website.

  Which presumably means that the retirements of 1,000s of Canadians are about to be invested in Ripple?

  

• Justice Denied: The Government Is Not Going To Save Us

  Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled: it will not hear the case of Young v. Borders.

  Despite the fact that a 26-year-old man was gunned down by police who banged on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves as police, and then repeatedly shot and killed the innocent homeowner who answered the door while holding a gun in self-defense, the justices of the high court refused to intervene to address police misconduct.

  Although 26-year-old Andrew Scott committed no crime and never fired a single bullet or lifted his firearm against police, only to be gunned down by police who were investigating a speeding incident by engaging in a middle-of-the-night “knock and talk” in Scott’s apartment complex, the Supreme Court refused to balance the scales between justice and injustice.

  Despite the fact that police shot and killed nearly 1,000 people nationwide for the third year in a row (many of whom were unarmed, mentally ill, minors or were shot merely because militarized police who were armed to the hilt “feared” for their safety), the Supreme Court will not act to right the wrongs being meted out by the American police state.

  Although “knock-and-talk” policing has become a thinly veiled, warrantless—lethal—exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with heavily armed police who “knock” on their doors in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court will not make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.

  The lesson to be learned: the U.S. Supreme Court will not save us.

  No one is coming to save us: not the courts, not the legislatures, and not the president.

  According to journalist Michael Harriot:

  More people died from police violence in 2017 than the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in action around the globe (21). More people died at the hands of police in 2017 than the number of black people who were lynched in the worst year of Jim Crow (161 in 1892). Cops killed more Americans in 2017 than terrorists did (four). They killed more citizens than airplanes (13 deaths worldwide), mass shooters (428 deaths) and Chicago’s “top gang thugs” (675 Chicago homicides).

  Americans are dying at the hands of the police, and the U.S. government doesn’t care.

  Worse, the U.S. government is actively doing everything in its power to ensure that the killing spree continues.

  Take Jeff Sessions, for example.

  While the president’s conveniently-timed tweets distract the public and dominate the headlines, his attorney general continues to bulldoze over the Constitution, knocking down what scant protections remain between the citizenry and the hydra-headed police state.

  Within his first year as attorney general, Jeff Sessions has made a concerted effort to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant.

  What this means is more militarized police, more asset forfeiture, more private prisons, more SWAT team raids, more police shootings of unarmed citizens, and more wars waged by the government against the American people.

  And while the crime rate may be falling, the death toll—casualties of the government’s war on the American people—is growing.

  Even so, it’s not just the police shootings that are cause for concern.

  We are inching ever closer to a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen before, and “we the people” are woefully unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with a government that is corrupt, topsy turvy, unjust, immoral, illegal, brutal, violent, war-hungry, greedy, biased, imbalanced, unaccountable, non-transparent, fascist and as illegitimate as they come.

  Where do we go from here?

  We’ve been through troubled times before.

  In fact, it was 50 years ago this year, in 1968, when the country was buffeted by assassinations, riots and protests: “The assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The riots that shook Washington, Chicago, Baltimore and other U.S. cities. Campus protests. Civil rights protests. Vietnam War protests. The Tet Offensive. The My Lai massacre. The rise of Richard Nixon and the retreat of Lyndon Johnson.”

  Fifty years later, we’re no better off.

  The nation is still being buffeted by economic instability, racial inequality, injustice, police brutality, government misconduct and a rising discontent on the part of the populace.

  I can’t help but wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would have to say to about his dream of a world without racism, militarism and materialism: America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots.

  We cannot afford to wait until it is too late to act.

  This is no time to stand silently on the sidelines. It’s a time for anger and reform. Most importantly, it’s a time for making ourselves heard. And there is no better time to act than the present.

  As Robert F. Kennedy reminded his listeners in a speech delivered at the University of Cape Town in 1966, “Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men’s lives. Everything that makes man’s life worthwhile—family, work, education, a place to rear one’s children and a place to rest one’s head—all this depends on decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people.”

  What can ordinary citizens do?

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, instead of sitting around and waiting for someone else to change things, take charge. Never discount the part that everyday citizens play in our nation’s future. You can change things, but there can be no action without education. Get educated about your rights and exercise them. Start by reading the Bill of Rights. You can do so online at www.rutherford.org. Or, if you want a copy to keep with you, email me at staff@rutherford.org and I’ll send you a free one.

  Most important of all, just get out there and do your part to make sure that your government officials hear you. The best way to ensure that happens is by never giving up, never backing down, and never remaining silent. What matters is that you do your part.

  It’s midnight in America right now. But the real question is, will there be a dawn?

  That’s up to you and me. The future is in our hands.

  

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• Highly Classified Satellite Plummeted Into Indian Ocean After SpaceX Launch, Official Confirms

  After the launch of the secretive Zuma satellite into outer space aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, reports circulated that the new eye in the sky, which is worth billions, “is presumed to be a total loss after it failed to reach orbit.”

  

  Then, as we reported this morning, in the absence of any official statement from either the government or SpaceX itself – understandable since the cargo was so “secret” nobody was willing to make any statements on the record – the mystery around the launch and the payload continued, as in an emailed statement, company President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, said that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday “did everything correctly.”

  For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately.  Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false.

  Due to the classified nature of the payload, no further comment is possible.

  Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule. Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight. We are also preparing for an F9 launch for SES and the Luxembourg Government from SLC-40 in three weeks.

  Which is odd as Bloomberg reported that the second-stage booster section of the Falcon 9 failed, although again there was no official statement. It didn’t help that Tim Paynter, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman which was commissioned by the Defense Department to choose the launch contractor, said “we cannot comment on classified missions.”

  Further, as we discussed last night, the mystery grew due to the secretive nature of the mission, and SpaceX did not show the entire Zuma mission during its livestream. Typically for its commercial flights, the company will show the launch all the way through to the payload’s deployment into orbit. However, the Zuma webcast did not broadcast the separation of the nose cone, which surrounds the satellite during launch, nor did it show the satellite being deployed. SpaceX has censored its livestreams like this before with other classified government payloads that the company has launched. But usually SpaceX or the government agency its working with will confirm a successful mission afterward. So doubts started circulating late Sunday night when neither SpaceX nor Northrop Grumman — the manufacturer of the Zuma satellite — confirmed if the launch was successful.

  Of course, Northrop Grumman wouldn’t comment on the launch. “This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions,” Lon Rains, communications director for Northrop, said in a statement to The Verge. But a payload adapter failure would explain a lot: it would mean the spacecraft and the rocket’s upper stage made it to orbit still attached, where they were picked up by Strategic Command’s tracking. Then the two somehow de-orbited, on accident or maybe even on purpose — it’s possible SpaceX used the rocket to send the pair careening toward Earth, since Zuma was not designed to live in orbit with a rocket strapped to its back.

  Meanwhile, Army Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis, the Pentagon spokesman for space policy, referred questions to SpaceX.

  
  SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Zuma satellite into orbit

  In short: i) nobody wants to talk and ii) nobody wants to take the blame. The confusion prompted The Verge to actually post “Did SpaceX’s secret Zuma mission actually fail?”

  We now have the answer to at least one of the questions, because as ABC reports, a US official confirmed that the highly classified satellite launched by SpaceX this weekend ended up plummeting into the Indian Ocean.

  Here is what we now know:

  Following its launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Sunday night, the satellite failed to remain in orbit, the official said.

  Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor that manufactured the payload — reportedly a billion-dollar spy satellite — told ABC News its mission is classified and declined to comment on the loss of the satellite.

  But SpaceX suggested that it was not at fault, telling ABC News its rocket, named Falcon 9, “did everything correctly.”

  And yet, the confusion remains: as noted above, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell denied the company was at fault: “The data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational, or other changes are needed.” Furthermore, the Zuma indent won’t impact the schedule of SpaceX’s upcoming launches, including the maiden flight of Falcon Heavy, the company said.

  So what really happened? As the Verge notes, until someone speaks on the record, it’s hard to know for sure. Meanwhile, SpaceX is pretty pleased with the launch. The company has been tweeting pictures from the mission, indicating that all went well. Plus, SpaceX rolled out its new Falcon Heavy rocket to its primary launchpad for an upcoming test, which probably wouldn’t have happened if there was a major issue with the company’s rocket hardware. “Since the data reviewed so far indicates that no design, operational or other changes are needed, we do not anticipate any impact on the upcoming launch schedule,” Shotwell added in her statement. “Falcon Heavy has been rolled out to launchpad LC-39A for a static fire later this week, to be followed shortly thereafter by its maiden flight.”

  But since Zuma is a classified mission, it seems doubtful we’ll get a straight answer. It’s possible that there’s a dead government satellite in orbit right now, but it seems likely it succumbed to Earth’s atmosphere over the weekend.

  

• Former Reagan Economic Adviser: "Are Whites Being Setup For Genocide?!"

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  Identity Politics has responded with outrage against People Magazine’s choice of white male country singer Blake Shelton as “sexiest man in the world.”

  

  According to adherents of Identity Politics, the choice indicates that People Magazine is itself racist and part of the white supremacy movement to elevate white people above people of color.

  The choice is doubly outrageous because, according to a writer in Salon, it reinforces and celebrates toxic white male sexuality and elevates a white man to a position of popular acclaim.

  Every white person needs to read this article to understand how they are being demonized and marginalized to the point of oblivion.

   

  

  By focusing primarily on white heterosexual males, Identity Politics tries to split white women off from white men by the use of the pejorative “misogynist”, but, as the article reports, white women, such as Taylor Swift, are also publicly demonized for their whiteness.

  Reading this article in The Unz Review reminded me of an article I read last November in a Texas university newspaper that declared white DNA to be an abomination. 

  Think about this for a minute. Suppose the writer had said “homosexual DNA is an abomination,” or “black DNA is an abomination,” or, heaven forbid, “Jewish DNA is an abomination.” Anyone who declared homosexuals, blacks, or Jews to be an abomination would be instantly fired, sued, charged with hate crimes and driven so deep into the ground that they would never reemerge.

  The article in the student newspaper was a bit too much for Texas and produced a furor of its own. Lost in the furor was the realization that the writer was correctly interpreting the Identity Politics that today defines the liberal/progressive/left.

  Hillary Clinton herself expressed Identity Politics when she declared Americans who rejected her as president to be “deplorables.” CounterPunch printed an essay by its radio host that concluded Trump’s election was not legitimate because he was elected by racist, sexist, homophobic white male Trump deplorables.

  In other words, Identity Politics cannot be dismissed as some sort of idiocy on the part of a few kooks. It is institutionalized in American politics and culture and is becoming a habitual way of thinking. The growing demonization of white people parallels the demonization of the Jews and can result in marginalization and physical destruction.

  The immigration policies of white countries have created a diversity basis for ganging up on whites. If we put together a diverse population with the anti-white ideology of Identity Politics, we have a political and cultural trap for white people.

  It seems paradoxical that Identity Politics is led by white/liberal/progressive/leftists advocating their own marginalization.

  However, as it is a correct conclusion from Identity Politics that white DNA is an abomination, white adherants of the ideology can logically see their demise as a benefit to humanity. But why should they be allowed to condemn whites who do not see themselves as an abomination?

  What we are seeing unfold with Identity Politics was foretold by Jean Raspail in his futuristic novel The Camp of the Saints. Perhaps white people should read it as an indication of their possible fate.

  

• "A Strange Coincidence": US Spy Plane Circled Near Russian Base During Massive Drone Attack

  On Tuesday, we reported  that the Russian military in Syria thwarted a massive drone attack at the Khmeimim air base and Russian Naval point in the city of Tartus on January 6, intercepting 13 heavily armed UAVs launched by terrorists.

  #SYRIA: Security system of the Russian #Khmeimim air base and #Russian Naval CSS point in the city of #Tartus successfully warded off a terrorist attack with massive application of #UAVs through the night of 5th – 6th January, 2018 https://t.co/nHiUrEWonL pic.twitter.com/3EgrFhYeHh

  — Минобороны России (@mod_russia) January 8, 2018

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

  Shortly after, the Russian Ministry of Defense  released new information, noting “strange coincidences” surrounding the terrorist attack: these included a US spy plane spotted in the area, namely a US Navy’s Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft on patrol between the Khmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base in Syria during the time of the attack.

   

   

  

  Boeing P-8 Poseidon

  While the Russian Ministry of Defense consciously didn’t point any fingers when talking about the January 6 attack, it demonstratively pointed out that the technology used in the attack was telling. Advanced training in engineering in “one of the developed countries” would be necessary to program the principal controllers and bomb-release systems of an aircraft-type combat drone, the Russian statement stressed and added that “not everyone is also able to get exact [attack] coordinates from the space surveillance data.”

  “This forces us to take a fresh look at the strange coincidence that, during the attack of UAV terrorists on Russian military facilities in Syria, the Navy reconnaissance aircraft Poseidon was on patrol over the Mediterranean Sea for more than 4 hours at an altitude of 7 thousand meters, between Tartus and Hmeimim.“

  The Russian Ministry of Defense also declared that this is the “first time that terrorists massively used unmanned combat aerial vehicles of an aircraft type that were launched from a distance of more than 50 kilometers, and operated using GPS satellite navigation coordinates.”

  #СИРИЯ Использование боевиками ударных беспилотных летательных аппаратов самолетного типа свидетельствует о том, что боевикам переданы технологии, позволяющие проводить террористические акты с применением подобных БПЛА в любой стране

  — Минобороны России (@mod_russia) January 8, 2018

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  The statement said the drones “carried explosive devices with foreign detonating fuses,” adding that the “usage of strike aircraft-type drones by terrorists is the evidence that militants have received technologies to carry out terrorist attacks.”

  #SYRIA: The fact of using such strike aircraft-type drones by terrorists is the evidence that militants have received technologies to carry out terrorist attacks using such UAVs in any country.

  — Минобороны России (@mod_russia) January 8, 2018

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  Which is why the presence of the Navy Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, a high-tech spy plane with electronic warfare components, in the region during the drone attack, does appear rather suspicious.

  The Pentagon countered that while the US was “concerned” over the incident, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian Rankin-Galloway, however, claimed that “those devices and technologies can easily be obtained in the open market.” He later also told Sputnik that the US already saw what it called “this type of commercial UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] technology” being used in Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) missions.

  Russia has repeatedly warned that US military supplies aimed at supporting “moderate” Syrian militants eventually end up in the hands of terrorists.

  Meanwhile, as we noted earlier, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial withdraw of troops from Syria back in December, militants have been eager to gain an edge with swarming high-tech drones that have remarkable long-range capabilities. However, in light of these latest development, the one latent question we -and others are asking in this incident – seem even more pressing: who is supplying the militants with these high-tech, long-range drones, and in  – light of the above – who is supervising their proper deployment?

  

• Venezuelan President Lashes Out At Trump In Rare Interview

  A day after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered the issuance of the first 100 million Petros – the mysterious oil-backed cryptocurrency issued by the Venezuelan government to help compensate for US Treasury Department sanctions – the New Yorker published what it described as a “rare” interview with the leader of Latin America’s favorite socialist paradise.

  While the transcript of the interview has yet to be released, New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson discussed his meeting with Maduro with New Yorker Executive Editor Dorothy Wickendon on the magazine’s “Politics and More” podcast.

  Anderson has a long history of writing about Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez – whom he first met around the beginning of his presidency in 1999. The reporter said Trump’s threats of military intervention, made back in August.

  “When the mistakes of Trump’s government are reckoned with, the military threat against Venezuela will be noted. It will stay with him all his life,” Maduro said.

  Maduro’s view, according to Anderson, is that he has no problem with Donald Trump – instead, he sees Trump as the inevitable result of America’s hyper-capitalist system.

  Maduro added that he is willing to sit down and talk with Trump.

  “From a personality and leadership standpoint, Chavez was the strongest, most powerful and greatest leader Venezuela had since the liberators. Thanks to his military background and values, he knew how to embody and rediscover the ideals of Simon Bolivar,” Maduro said, in another clip shared by the New Yorker.

  

  Anderson recounted how Chavez won many Democratic victories, including being elected by overwhelming majorities, while also winning a referendum to rewrite the constitution. Maduro didn’t inherit this political capital, despite being the anointed heir of Chavismo. Instead, he took power in 2013 after winning an election with a razor-thin majority.

  Maduro was an awkward fit, Anderson said. At one point, he said that Chavez’s spirit had spoken to him in the form of a little bird – earning widespread ridicule.

  After oil prices collapsed and Venezuela’s economy was thrown into disarray, opposition parties made gains in the Venezuelan Congress for the first time since Chavez took power. Unwilling to give up his grip on power, Maduro decided to disband Congress and replace it with a constituent assembly stocked with ruling party loyalists.

  Over the summer, Maduro pushed through the vote on the constituent assembly in an election that was found to be fundamentally anti-democratic by foreign monitors and the political opposition.

  When asked if this is a transition from a democracy to a dictatorship, Anderson said it’s a little more complicated. He described the contemporary political system in Venezuela as an “authoritarian democracy” (which to us sounds like an oxymoron).

  “If in the US, the political opposition launched a campaign like the opposition did in Venezuela this year, all would be sent to the electric chair. Nobody would be saved. All nations have laws and all nations have a right to defend themselves,” he said.

  Street violence in Venezuela between March and July lead to hundreds of deaths. If the opposition tries to create these types of disturbances, Maduro said, the crackdown will be much more severe.

  Moving on to the discussion of sanctions, Anderson said that while Maduro is worried about the sanctions, he pointed out that there are still many powerful countries that want to do business with Venezuela.

  According to Anderson, US officials begrudgingly acknowledge this state of affairs: The US doesn’t have the tools to deal with Maduro’s government because Russia and China have shown a willingness to come to Venezuela’s rescue.

  The US is now allowing Russia and China to “pick up the slack” as its own influence wanes.

  Anderson adds that we should be engaging with Venezuela because it’s “going through the sewer” on our watch. The US is still buying Venezuelan oil – in a sense, the US is “keeping [the country] alive.” Meanwhile, Maduro insists he wants a powerful opposition in Venezuela – but one that’s not controlled by Washington.

  Of course, with inflation set to reach 3,000% this year and mobs of starving Venezuelans still taking to the streets in Caracas, the future of Maduro’s rule looks as uncertain as ever.

  Listen to the discussion between Wickendon and Anderson below:

   

  

• Meritocracy Is A "Tool Of Whiteness", Math Professor Claims

  Authored by Toni Airaksinen via CampusReform.org,

  A math education professor at Brooklyn College contends in a recent academic article that “meritocracy” in math classes is a “tool of whiteness.”

   

  

  Laurie Rubel implicates both meritocracy and “color-blindness” as ideological precepts that hold back racial minorities from succeeding in math classes in an article for the peer-reviewed Journal of Urban Mathematics Education.

  Rubel, who taught high school math for nine years before becoming a professor, argues that while meritocracy is commonly linked to hard work and talent, it also “functions as a tool of whiteness” because it “ignores systemic barriers and institutional structures that prevent opportunity and success.”

  Color-blindness, too, can be an issue for math teachers, according to Rubel, who asserts that “Teachers who claim color-blindness—that is, they claim to not notice the race of their students—are, in effect, refusing to acknowledge the impact of enduring racial stratification on students and their families.

  “By claiming not to notice, the teacher is saying that she is dismissing one of the most salient features of the child’s identity and that she does not account for it in her curricular planning and instruction,” Rubel adds, citing education theorist Gloria Ladson-Billings.

  Even math teachers who acknowledge race, such as those who indicate that they “can’t relate” in certain ways to students who are of a different race, are called out in Rubel’s paper.

  If math teachers notice racial differences between themselves and their students, Rubel elaborates, “those differences are typically cast in terms of deficit constructions about students, their places, and their families.”

  To mediate this, Rubel recommends that math teachers incorporate more social justice issues into math lessons, but warns that even “teaching for social justice” can be a “tool of whiteness” if teachers are not sufficiently attuned to the experiences of minority students.  

  This is because even social justice-minded professors may inadvertently hold the “belief that effort is always rewarded, [which corresponds] to various tools of whiteness, like the myths of meritocracy and colorblindness,” Rubel writes.

  Campus Reform reached out to Rubel for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

  

• Top 10 Revelations From Leaked Fusion GPS Testimony

  After Senator Dianne Feinstein leaked the transcripts of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson’s Congressional testimony – tainting every single witness from here on out who can now corroborate their testimony, some interesting findings have come to light after parsing through the 312-page document. 

   

  

  Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele

  While analysis of the transcript is ongoing, here are the top-10 revelations to come out of Simpson’s testimony so far: 

  1) As we reported earlier, “somebody’s already been killed” as a result of Buzzfeed publishing the dossier, according to Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson’s attorney: 

  #FusionGPS attorney Levy: “Somebody’s already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier” (pg 279) #SteelDossier #FusionGPSTranscripts https://t.co/aTR6zLoPUy pic.twitter.com/VjYDsVrVbb

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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

  It’s been theorized that this is ex-KGB guy Oleg Erovkinin, who was chief of staff to Igor Sechin. But he was killed under suspicious circumstances on Dec. 26, 2016, before the dossier was published. https://t.co/mnFnAUT5PY

  — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) January 9, 2018

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  2) The FBI had a “human source” within the Trump campaign:

  Fusion GPS: Before Steele met w/ FBI, there was already an FBI “human source from inside the Trump organization” pic.twitter.com/SAVrxE18VI

  — Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 9, 2018

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  Simpson: FBI source inside the Trump Campaign that he declines to identify per pre-testimony agreement. (pgs 174-175) #FusionGPSTranscripts pic.twitter.com/Ce8rh0HclJ

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  This “human source” is thought by many to be former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos, who reportedly told Australian diplomat Alexander Downer at a London bar in May, 2016 that “Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.” When DNC emails began to leak, Australia apparently contacted US intelligence to report the drunken admission by Papadopoulos – igniting the Russia probe. 

  Except, this was already public information…

  1) Um Maggie, [@maggieNYT ] hate to undercut your *explosive story* on origin of Russia Probe. But George Papadopoulos talking in May 2016, is likely about this *open and public information* from April 2016. https://t.co/t9qtqDoLdQ

  — TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) December 30, 2017

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  3) Christopher Steele, who assembled the Trump-Russia dossier for Fusion, went to the FBI with concerns that Trump could be blackmailed, then reported back to Fusion GPS that the FBI found his information credible because it had corroborated information from a Trump source. 

  Glenn Simpson also told Congressional investigators that the FBI already had a relationship with Steele due to his role as an MI6 agent, which may have boosted his credibility with the agency: 

  This is key.

  Steele talked to FBI, and then reported back to Fusion GPS founder that FBI viewed Steele’s info as credible, because it corroborated other info the FBI *already* had, including from a Trump source: pic.twitter.com/beHYKyYGBQ

  — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 9, 2018

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  Another important detail:

  Fusion GPS founder says that FBI already had a relationship with Steele due to his role at British intelligence, and as a result may have viewed him as more credible.

  That’s hard to square with the Hannity alt-narrative. pic.twitter.com/Vzu85Togmr

  — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 9, 2018

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  4) Steele stopped dealing with the FBI after becoming concerned that the agency “was being manipulated” by “Trump people.” 

  Fusion GPS: Steele stopped dealing with FBI just before 2016 election, worried FBI “was being manipulated” by ‘Trump people’ pic.twitter.com/sE0ngJSkeo

  — Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 9, 2018

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  5) The first dossier memo containing the “pee pee tape” claims was unprovable and not unusable: 

  Glenn Simpson saying that the 1st dossier memo — the one about the pee tape — was essentially unusable and unprovable. pic.twitter.com/Q8c16J9Ll4

  — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) January 9, 2018

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  6) Simpson denied employing any other Russian-speaking individuals, while having hired Nellie Ohr – the wife of demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr who is fluent in Russian.

  Why did Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson conceal from Congress last August that he retained the services of the Russian-speaking wife of a top DOJ official? He was asked directly, and he denied it. pic.twitter.com/1fSJgVap1N

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 9, 2018

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  We know from public reports that Fusion GPS hired Nellie Ohr, who speaks Russian fluently. Yet when asked which Russian language experts he retained, Simpson claimed he had only hired an Edward Baumgartner. Quite the omission.

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 9, 2018

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  7) Fusion gave information to Bloomberg, New York Times, Wall St. Journal, “probably” Reuters, and Legal 360:

  Glenn Simpson does appear very forthcoming in the Senate transcript. He reveals which outlets he talked about Bill Browder with. Note NBC News… pic.twitter.com/8arEqlCqGm

  — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) January 9, 2018

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  8) Senator John McCain allegedly became involved with #Fusion after the election:

  Simpson: John McCain became involved with #FusionGPS after the election (pg 219) #FusionGPSTranscripts pic.twitter.com/HGLGzhVgpq

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  9) Fusion agreed to discuss questions “5 through 13” from Sen. Grassley’s March 24 letter:

  #FusionGPS attorney states the agreed terms of the interview: “As you know, we’ve agreed to an interview about questions 5 through 13 of the March 24 request.” #FusionGPSTranscripts

  March 24th request PDF: https://t.co/YTzYJDTJ4I

  August 22 Interview PDF:https://t.co/aTR6zLoPUy pic.twitter.com/7V8Neq8pd8

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  Of note, questions 1-4 have to do with the identities of Fusion GPS clients. 

  Questions 1-4 of the March 24th request are outside of the agreement. They have to do with the identities of GPS clients. #FusionGPS #FusionGPSTranscripts https://t.co/aVvLFEsevh pic.twitter.com/kQcdSMLrV4

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  10) After being denied a copy of the transcript, Fusion GPS attorney Mr. Levy requested it be kept confidential. Months later Simpson asked that they be released in a NYT op-ed:

  August 22, 2017 After being denied a copy #FusionGPSTranscripts, #FusionGPS attorney requests it be kept confidential. (pg 310)
  Months later on January 2, 2018 Simpson writes an Op-Ed in the NYT calling for them to be made public. https://t.co/aZlA8pzBB9 pic.twitter.com/defhSGzzOZ

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  Commentary for further consideration: 

  Glenn Simpson was with Natalia Veselnitskaya hours before the Trump Tower meeting and they were together after the meeting as well. Simpson’s research ended up in the Trump Tower meeting in the form of a four-page memo carried by Veselnitskaya. Yet…. pic.twitter.com/Z7nvEoajvs

  — Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) January 9, 2018

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  Natalia Veselnitskaya meets with Simpson before and after Trump Tower – https://t.co/akqVzc5OQE

  Simpson’s research ends up in Trump Tower meeting in a four page memo carried by Veselnitskaya – https://t.co/5GGMmd9H5v

  — Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) January 9, 2018

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

  Fusion GPS just wants transparency and to tell its story, y’all. Just as long as that story doesn’t involve its partners, staff, clients, contractors or their FBI contacts. pic.twitter.com/yc5zm3ShBk

  — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 9, 2018

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  Did the FBI know that Fusion GPS pitched Russian propaganda for another client as it pushed the phony Trump dossier? https://t.co/wNXqdLfp2G pic.twitter.com/EnhORUEaaf

  — Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) July 26, 2017

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

  Was FBI aware that FusionGPS was working as an unregistered agent for Russian interests at the time it made dossier? https://t.co/RXeGZkPvzV pic.twitter.com/kPSCVVZQYl

  — Nick Short 🇺🇸 (@PoliticalShort) May 1, 2017

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  Q. How many employees and associates does #FusionGPS currently have?
  Simpson gives a rough estimate “about a dozen”
  Drops names that are redacted
  There may be one or two others that he can’t recall#FusionGPSTranscripts (pg 19) pic.twitter.com/dhfPEa7kls

  — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 9, 2018

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  So, wait: In other words, nobody from within Trump camp went seeking out the FBI? So much for that narrative. And also: A “source close” to Simpson says he mislead the committee? https://t.co/7CZ389y1F0

  — Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) January 9, 2018

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• Ripple Now Red For 2018 As Crypto-World Rotates Into Ethereum

  Well that de-escalated quickly…

  Having soared over 50% in the first few days of 2018, Ripple is now down 2% for the year as the entire cryto-space appears to be rotating into Ethereum.

  

  At the start of the year we suggested…

  XRP wave moving to ETH

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 2, 2018

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  And now, up almost 75% for the year, ETH topped $1300 ($1301 record high) for the first time today…

  

  Additionally, Ethereum has regained its place behind Bitcoin as the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

  

  As CoinTelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson details, Ethereum’s flagship smart contract system sets it apart from Bitcoin and has led to it becoming the leading platform for ICOs, allowing developers to use the underlying code for their own applications – commonly known as decentralized applications (dapp).

  This is in essence Ethereum’s raison d’étre, providing a monetized Blockchain solution for developers to create applications as described by Investopedia.

  Speaking to CNBC this week, Ethereum advisor Steven Nerayoff says the open-source functionality of Ethereum’s protocol could well lead to mass adoption for a wide variety of Blockchain applications.

  “You’re seeing a tremendous amount of growth across a wide variety of industries. Fintech is actually the natural area, but now you’re seeing it becoming increasingly more creative — you find projects in the oil and gas industry, you’re finding government using it in their applications, you’re seeing it in gaming, all kinds of different areas.”

  The success of CryptoKitties is a prime example of how developers can use the Ethereum software to create innovative applications. The popular online game was so successful that it placed a massive strain on the Ethereum network in 2017 as it became the biggest dapp.

  Inevitably, the increasing use of Ethereum will see it’s price soar, according to Nerayoff.

  “What you’re seeing with Ethereum is an exponential increase in the number of projects. There are billions of dollars being poured into the ecosystem right now, maybe 10 times more projects this year than last year, which could easily lead to a doubling, probably a tripling in price by the end of the year.”

   

  And as money pours into Ethereum, it is rotating out of many of the other major cryptos, which we pointed out earlier, some have suggested the broad selling in Bitcoin (and LTC and XRP) is driven by comments from early Bitcoin investor and well-known venture capitalist Fred Wilson. As CoinTelegraph reports, Wilson insists that investors with a large amount of Bitcoin would be wise to practice profit taking, as reported by CNBC this week.

  “If you are sitting on 20x, 50x, 100x your money on a crypto investment, it would not be a mistake to sell 10 percent, 20 percent or even 30 percent of your position. Selling 25 percent of your position on an investment that is up 50x is booking a 12.5x on the entire investment while allowing you to keep 75 percent of it going. I know that many crypto holders think that selling anything is a mistake. And it might be. Or it might not be. You just don’t know.”

  Wilson posted the advice on his personal blog, in a post grappling with the difficulties of managing a venture capitalist portfolio.

  

• North Korea: "All Our Atomic Bombs And ICBMs Are Aimed At U.S., Not At Southern Brethren, China Or Russia"

  While there were some tentative signs of a diplomatic detente and mending of relations between North and South Korea after today’s summit between the two nations, the first in more than two years, it appears any attempts to ameliorate tensions hit a sudden hurdle when the United States is brought into the equation. Case in point, as Reuters reports, North Korea said that it would not discuss its nuclear weapons with Seoul because they were aimed only at the United States, not its “brethren” in South Korea.

  
  Head of the North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon shakes hands with his
  South Korean counterpart Cho Myoung-gyon

  Officials from the two nations sides said they agreed to meet again to resolve problems and avert accidental conflict, amid high tension over North Korea’s programme to develop nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States, but Pyongyang said disarmament would not be part of the discussions.

  “All our weapons including atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and ballistic missiles are only aimed at the United States, not our brethren, nor China and Russia,” Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Ri Son Gwon, said.

  While disarmament was not on the agenda, more diplomacy was: in a joint statement after 11 hours of talks North Korea pledged to send a large delegation to next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea but made a “strong complaint” after Seoul proposed talks to denuclearise the Korean peninsula

  Meanwhile, North Korea was clear that its beef is not with South Korea, but with just one person: Donald Trump.

  “This is not a matter between North and South Korea, and to bring up this issue would cause negative consequences and risks turning all of today’s good achievement into nothing,” Ri, chairman of the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, warned in closing remarks.

  * * *

  Today’s meeting between the Korean neighbors comes just hours after the WSJ strategically leaked that the Trump administration, and especially the generals in it, were advocating a “bloody nose” approach to a military conflict with North Korea, effectively a surgical strike which would most likely take out Kim himself.

  Desperate to stay relevant, and part of the process, a spokesperson for the White House’s national Security Council said North Korean participation in the Olympics would be “an opportunity for the regime to see the value of ending its international isolation by denuclearising.” Not surprisingly, the US initially responded coolly to the idea of inter-Korean meetings, but Trump later called them “a good thing” and said he would be willing to speak to Kim.

  “At the appropriate time, we’ll get involved,” Trump said on Saturday, although U.S.-North Korean talks appear unlikely, given entrenched positions on both sides. Also, in keeping with the party line, the US insists that any future talks must have the aim of denuclearization, and the North-South thaw has not altered the U.S. intelligence assessment of North Korea’s weapons programs.

  From a game theoretical standpoint, the Nash (dys)equilibrium between the US and N.Korea looks roughly as follows (via Reuters):

  The consensus, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the classified analysis, is that Kim remains convinced the United States is determined to overthrow him and that only a nuclear arsenal that threatens America can deter that.

  One of the officials said the North-South talks were likely to follow the pattern of past diplomatic efforts, in which the North has benefited from additional food and other aid without making any concessions on the weapons front.

  The additional danger now, said a second official, was that Kim would seek to use the talks to take advantage of Trump’s sometimes bellicose rhetoric to try to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.

  For now, South Korea is much more receptive to the North’s overtures. Still, in spite of the North Korean negotiator’s remarks, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it believed Tuesday’s talks could lead to discussion of a “fundamental resolution” of the nuclear issue.

  “We will closely coordinate with the United States, China, Japan and other neighbours in this process,” it said, adding that Seoul had asked North Korea to halt acts that stoke tension.

  Tuesday’s meeting followed a year of ramped-up North Korean missile launches and its sixth and most powerful nuclear test, which have prompted a stepped-up U.S.-led campaign to toughen U.N. sanctions, which Pyongyang has called an act of war.

  * * *

  As we reported this morning, in an act of concession, Seoul said it was prepared to lift some unilateral sanctions temporarily so North Koreans could visit for the Winter Olympics. North Korea said its delegation would include athletes, high-ranking officials, a cheering squad, art performers, reporters and spectators. Talks to work out details would be held soon, the South’s unification ministry said.

  “We came to this meeting with the thought of giving our brethren, who have high hopes for this dialogue, invaluable results as the first present of the year,” Ri said at the start of the meeting.

  The talks were the first between the two Koreas since 2015 and were held at the Peace House on the South Korean side of Panmunjom truce village. North Korea cut communications in February 2016, following South Korea’s decision to shut down a jointly run industrial park.

  

• Robo-Strippers "R2-Double D" And "Triple CPU" Battle Humans At Sapphire Las Vegas

  The annual CES gadget show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, as over 4,000 technology companies from around the world converge to showcase their wares to over 170,000 people during a week of of drinking, gambling and hardcore nerding out.

  And while some attendees surely plan to indulge in any one of Vegas’s many strip clubs to blow off some steam thinking about Intel’s hot new 8th generation Core processors, CES participants (with badge) can take a free Tesla ride over to Saphire and partition their hard-drives to the gyrations of “R2 Double D” and “Triple CPU,” a pair of non-judgmental “fully animated electronic twins” who hope you don’t mind silicon implants.

  

  The pair was unveiled with much pump and circumstance the night before CES officially kicks off – showcasing their sexy CCTV camera heads and moves to match.

  Best CES ever! Robot strippers work the poles at Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club in Las Vegas pic.twitter.com/n79KhOus3O

  — Wade Tyler Millward (@WadeMillward) January 9, 2018

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  And in case anyone is vacillating between silicon or silicone, R2-DD and Triple-CPU were pitted against human strippers during a Monday night preview party.

  Oh they’re pitting the human strippers against the robot strippers now in the spirit of innovation pic.twitter.com/EdgVpqWDdX

  — Taylor Lorenz @ CES (@TaylorLorenz) January 9, 2018

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  CES, hour 10: At da club where there are robot strippers pic.twitter.com/hPMOmWUHw5

  — Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) January 9, 2018

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  UK artist Giles Walker created the robot pair in 2008, explaining to The Verge that they were created as a commentary on government surveillance, a decidedly unsexy thing. That said, they could just as easily draw attention to the growing trend of automation replacing human labor. 

  On second thought, they may have a long way to go…

  Them robots comin for EVERYBODY job pic.twitter.com/sHYVt88Zta

  — Lamborghini Merci (@Namastaywoke) December 3, 2017

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• Only 1-In-5 South Koreans Expect Korean War In 2018

  Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that he has a bigger nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

  The tweet was the latest in a series of spats between the two and many observers fear the squabbling could spiral into nuclear war.

  Despite the tensions, however, North and South Korea are due to hold talks today, focusing on the Winter Olympics.

  Nevertheless, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the world is worried about the prospect of war on the Korean peninsula, if research from Ipsos is anything to go by.

  

  You will find more statistics at Statista

  Their latest polling has revealed that approximately half of people in Brazil, Turkey, the United States and Canada think war between the two countries will break out in 2018.

  In Asia, people are far less fearful.

  32 percent of respondents in China think there will be a war, along with 30 percent in China and 21 percent in South Korea.

  Simply put, it seems fearmongering works to transform Americans from deplorables into terrified and compliant agreeables.

  

• Paul Craig Roberts: Iran In 2018

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  In 1953 Washington and Britain overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed a dictator to rule Iran for the benefit of Washington and the British.

  In declassified documents, the CIA has admitted its role in overthrowing the Iranian government. The overthrow pattern is always the same. Washington hires protesters, then introduces violence, controls the explanation, and unseats the government.

  Ever since the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Washington-installed dictator in1979, Washington has been trying to regain control of Iran.

   

  

  In 2009 Washington financed the “Green Revolution,” which was an attempt to overthrow the Ahmadinejad government.

  Today Washington is again at work against the Iranian people. It is difficult to believe that any Iranian, after watching what Washington-organized protests have done to Honduras, Libya, Ukraine, and Syria, have attempted to do to Iran in 2009, and is attempting to do today to Venezuela, could possibly in good faith go out into the streets against their own government.

  Are these Iranian protesters utterly stupid or are they hired to commit treason against their country?

  Why does Iran permit foreign-funded operatives to attempt to destabilize the government as Ukraine did and as Venezuela does today?

  Are these governments so brainwashed by the West that they think that democracy means permitting foreign agents to attempt to overthrow the government?

  Are governments so intimidated by the Western presstitutes that they find it challenging to defend themselves against foreign-paid provocateurs?

  Having succeeded in causing violent protests in Iran, Washington now intends to use an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Iran in order to set the stage for more intervention against Iran. The Washington-incited violence has been turned into a “human rights issue” against Iran. Will Washington get away with it?

  Iran’s fate is up to Russia and China. If Washington succeeds in destabilizing Iran, Russia and China are next. Russia seems to understand this. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said yesterday: “We warn the US against attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

  Just as the Russian government comprehended that Russia could not permit Washington’s destabilization of Syria, Russia understands she cannot permit the destabilization of Iran.

  The leader of Turkey has aligned with Russia, declaring “obviously some people from abroad are provoking the situation.”

  That is obvious to everyone but Americans, who are constantly lied to by “their” government and by the presstitute lie factories such as CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC.

  Trump and Haley are the type of loudmouths who are likely to break Washington’s power and influence over the world.

  They “take names,” admit that they bribe foreign leaders, and issue insane threats. If this doesn’t wake up the rest of the world, nothing will.

  

• Highly Classified Spy Satellite Is A "Total Loss" After SpaceX Mission Fails

  On Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. EST, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the secretive Zuma satellite  into space aboard its Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral. However, less than a day later, the WSJ reports that the secretive spacecraft built by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. government military industrial complex, and worth billions “is presumed to be a total loss after it failed to reach orbit.“

  SpaceX spokesperson regarding the Zuma failure: “We do not comment on missions of this nature; but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”

  — Robin Seemangal (@nova_road) January 8, 2018

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

  Peter B. de Selding, a reporter for Space Intel Report, first broke the story just after at 4:00 p.m. EST on Monday. In a tweet, his sources suggested that the “Zuma satellite from @northropgrumman may be dead in orbit after separation from @SpaceX Falcon 9.”

  Zuma satellite from @northropgrumman may be dead in orbit after separation from @SpaceX Falcon 9, sources say. Info blackout renders any conclusion – launcher issue? Satellite-only issue? — impossible to draw. pic.twitter.com/KggCGNC5Si

  — Peter B. de Selding (@pbdes) January 8, 2018

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

  According to the WSJ, “lawmakers and congressional staffers from the Senate and the House have been briefed about the botched mission.” Meanwhile, the secret payload—code-named Zuma and launched from Florida on board a Falcon 9 rocket—is believed to have plummeted back into the atmosphere because it didn’t separate as planned from the upper part of the rocket.

  Once the engine powering the rocket’s expendable second stage stops firing, whatever it is carrying is supposed to separate and proceed on its own trajectory. If a satellite isn’t set free at the right time or is damaged upon release, it can be dragged back toward earth.

  It isn’t clear what job the satellite was intended to perform, or even which U.S. agency contracted for the satellite. As usual for classified launches, the information released by SpaceX before liftoff was bereft of details about the payload. A video broadcast Sunday night narrated by a SpaceX official didn’t provide any hint of problems, though the feed ended before the planned deployment of the satellite.

  The WSJ admits that the lack of details about what occurred means that some possible alternate sequence of events other than a failed separation may have been the culprit. And since this is another Musk project/failure, which means the eccentric billionaire will certainly not be tweeting up a storm explaining what went wrong, we may not know the exact reason for the failure for some time.

  As of Monday night, nearly 24 hours after the launch, uncertainty surrounded both the mission and the fate of the satellite, the WSJ reports. Notably, the Pentagon’s Strategic Command, which keeps track of all commercial, scientific and national-security satellites along with space debris, hadn’t updated its catalog of objects to reflect a new satellite circling the planet.

  Neither Northrop Grumman Corp., which built the satellite, nor SpaceX, as Elon Musk’s space-transportation company is called, has shed light on what happened.

  A Northrop Grumman spokesman said, “We cannot comment on classified missions.”

  A SpaceX spokesman said: “We do not comment on missions of this nature, but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.” That terminology typically indicates that the rocket’s engines and navigation systems operated without glitches. The spokesman declined to elaborate.

  What we do know, is that the secretive spy satellite was worth “billions”, which makes this the second billion-dollar satellite Musk has managed to lose up in two years; Facebook’s internet satellite was strapped on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, which it spontaneously blew up on the launch pad in September 2016.

  The failure could be a major setback for SpaceX, since government contracts can tend to be extremely lucrative and taxpayers will now demand alternatives to the Musk venture. Further, the company faces fierce competition for ULA, operated by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who will kick off its 2018 launch schedule with a Wednesday flight.

  The failure also comes at a very sensitive time for SpaceX:  Musk’s closely held company has projected ramping up its overall launch rate to more than 25 missions in 2018, from 18 in 2017, and is scheduled to start ferrying U.S. astronauts to the international space station before the end of the year.

  Good luck to them all, because while Musk is certainly best known for his success, we can now add one more failure to the list.

  

• Firearms Sold By Washington State Police Ended Up In The Hands Of Criminals

  In a development that echoes the infamous “Fast and Furious” scandal – which exposed that the ATF had allowed dangerous criminals to hang on to firearms that were supposed to be recovered in sting operations – the Associated Press has discovered another similar example of law-enforcement malfeasance.

  As we highlighted back in April, Holder was held in contempt of Congress after resisting the release of documents outlining the agency’s role in the scandal. Unsurprisingly, the DOJ decided not to prosecute itself, and Holder got off scot-free.

  This time around, the AP has discovered – following a lengthy investigation – that more than a dozen firearms sold by law enforcement agencies in Washington State since 2010 later became evidence in new criminal investigations. While federal agencies weren’t involved, the AP report exposes the carelessness exhibited by Washington State Police and many local departments throughout the state.

  SEATTLE (AP) — A yearlong Associated Press analysis found more than a dozen firearms sold by law enforcement agencies in Washington state since 2010 later became evidence in new criminal investigations.

  Identifying guns sold by law enforcement and matching them to new crimes required extensive research and dozens of public records requests to individual agencies.

  Using those records, the AP created a database of almost 6,000 firearms sold by law enforcement since 2010. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined to release tracking information on guns associated with crimes, so the AP collected that information from individual agencies and compared it with its own database to find firearms with matching make, model, caliber and serial numbers.

  In its report, the AP discusses in great detail how these weapons were used by criminals to violently victimize innocent bystanders. Homicides and armed robberies are disturbingly common. In one incident, police arrested a convicted felon who was barred from owning guns. He was found to be in possession of a firearm that had been traded to an arms dealer by Washington State Police.  Suicide and threats of lethal force were also unjustifiably common.

   

  

  Here’s a complete breakdown of the various crimes committed by people in possession of these weapons, courtesy of the AP.

  TEXT THREATS

  The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office in April 2014 sold a list of guns at auction that included a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. In October 2016, Jaylen Bolar sent text messages to his mother, threatening to kill her and others. Angela Almo contacted a behavioral health center instead of the police because she knew her son had firearms, including a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun and she feared he’d be killed in a standoff with authorities.

  When the Tacoma police became involved, he denied it, but his aunt confirmed that she, too, had received threats. Robin Olson showed an officer her phone, which contained a message from Bolar asking his uncle to kill him because he was tired of living.

  Bolar also threatened to kill a woman who used to be his boss. He was taken into custody, and a search of his home found two firearms in his bedroom. One was the Mossberg shotgun sold by the sheriff’s office.

  JUVENILES IN STOLEN CARS

  The Aberdeen Police Department sold a Lorcin Model L380 pistol in February 2011. In May 2016, the Kent Police Department located a stolen vehicle parked at the Benson Village Apartments and found a gun under the seat — the Lorcin Model L380 pistol sold by Aberdeen police. The three juveniles who stole the car were convicted felons.

  DRUNKEN FELON

  The Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office sold a Hi Point 9mm pistol in March 2014. In October 2015, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call from a woman who said she heard what she thought was a gunshot and went outside to find her daughter’s intoxicated boyfriend passed out on the front porch. When deputies arrived, they found a handgun, the Hi Point 9 mm pistol, on the ground next to the man. It was the gun sold by the Kitsap sheriff’s office. A search found that the man was a convicted felon who wasn’t permitted to have a gun. The deputy put the man in handcuffs and called for medical help.

  PROHIBITED FROM HAVING GUN

  The Washington State Patrol traded a Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol with a firearms dealer in June 2010. In May 2015, the Kent Police Department was investigating a 911 call and encountered four people outside the house. One of the men was prohibited from having a gun, but they found he was carrying a handgun, the Lorcin L380 semi-automatic pistol sold by the State Patrol. The gun had been reported stolen, and he was arrested.

  DRUG HOUSE ASSAULT

  The Aberdeen Police Department traded a JC Higgins .22-caliber rifle with a firearms dealer in February 2011. In April 2015, the Yakima Police Department responded to a domestic violence assault involving a JC Higgins .22-caliber rifle with the same serial number. The dispute involved an elderly man who had handled his wife roughly and threatened her sister. The man was charged, and police took his firearm. In October 2015, Kent police searched a suspected drug house and arrested several people wanted on felony warrants. They found a .22 caliber rifle — the JC Higgins rifle sold by the Aberdeen police.

  FACEBOOK POSTS ABOUT KILLING

  The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force sold a Smith & Wesson pistol in August 2012. In October 2013, the Tacoma Police went to the University of Washington, Tacoma to investigate a report of a student who was posting photos of a gun on Facebook and said he had “vivid, colorful dreams of shooting and killing lots of people last night.” Police found in his backpack a Smith and Wesson pistol, the one sold by the narcotics task force.

  COCAINE PARTY FAVORS

  The Bonney Lake Police Department in March 2011 traded a Davis Industries .380-caliber handgun with a firearms dealer who sold it to the public. In February 2012, Kent police stopped a man for an expired registration and discovered baggies of cocaine in his car. He said they were party favors. They also found his concealed handgun, the firearm sold by the police.

  THREATS TO KILL

  Longview Police Department sold a Davis Industries .22 caliber pistol in August 2016. The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call in April 2017 from a man who said his father headed to a house with a gun and planned to threaten the occupants. Jesse Brown threatened to kill the men who lived there and was arrested. Officers confiscated his Davis Industries .22 caliber pistol — the one sold by Longview police — and 15 other firearms.

  DRUNKEN FATHER

  The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office sold a Mossberg, Model 590, 12-gauge shotgun in December 2014. In March 2016, the Tacoma police responded to a call by a 12-year-old girl who said she and her sister fled their home because their father was drunk and was threatening to shoot his girlfriend and threatening to beat up one of the girls because he couldn’t find his gun. The police later found a Mossberg, Model 590, 12-gauge shotgun — the gun sold by the Sheriff’s Office — in the bathtub.

  MAN’S SUICIDE

  The Washington State Patrol traded a batch of guns to a firearms vendor in June 2010 that included a Smith and Wesson .9mm handgun. In September 2014, the Yakima Police Department responded to a report of a suicidal man with a gun. They arrived to find 24-year-old Kyle Juhl with a gunshot wound to the head. He used a Smith and Wesson .9mm handgun, the one sold by the State Patrol.

  MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY

  The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force sold a Springfield Armory .40-caliber pistol in December 2013. In February 2014, the Seattle Police Department helped take firearms from a man who was having a mental health emergency and was at the Involuntary Treatment Act court. One of the guns was the Springfield Armory .40-caliber pistol sold by the task force.
  EN

  Almost nothing was said in the report about how law enforcement agencies in Washington justified their use of the program. According to  US News and World Report,  Washington is the 37th safest state in the US, a surprisingly weak performance, though data provided by the FBI show the rate of violent crime has been steadily declining in Washington. Indeed, across the US, violent crimes are becoming less common.

  Meanwhile, as we noted last year, gun sales – measured by the number of FBI background checks on would-be gun owners that had been conducted during that period – have continued to climb despite the election of the first NRA-endorsed president in nearly a decade.

   

  

  But that doesn’t excuse the notion that law enforcement agencies handed out powerful weapons to dangerous individuals with little, or no, oversight.

  We now wait and see how – and, indeed, if – the Department of Justice will react to this report.

   

  

• US Army Major Exposes American Warfare's Giant Open Secret

  Authored by Major Danny Sjursen via TheNation.com,

  All of the wars waged by the United States in the last 70 years have had one thing in common…

   

  

  On September 1, 1970, soon after President Nixon expanded the Vietnam War by invading neighboring Cambodia, Democratic Senator George McGovern, a decorated World War II veteran and future presidential candidate, took to the floor of the Senate and said,

  “Every Senator [here] is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave.…

  This chamber reeks of blood.… It does not take any courage at all for a congressman or a senator or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed.”

  More than six years had passed since Congress all but rubber-stamped President Lyndon Johnson’s notoriously vague Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which provided what little legal framework there was for military escalation in Vietnam. Doubts remained as to the veracity of the supposed North Vietnamese naval attacks on ships in the Tonkin Gulf that had officially triggered the resolution, or whether the Navy even had cause to venture so close to a sovereign nation’s coastline. No matter. Congress gave the president what he wanted: essentially a blank check to bomb, batter, and occupy South Vietnam. From there it was but a few short steps to nine more years of war, illegal secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia, ground invasions of both those countries, and eventually 58,000 American and upwards of 3 million Vietnamese deaths.

  Leaving aside the rest of this country’s sad chapter in Indochina, let’s just focus for a moment on the role of Congress in that era’s war making. In retrospect, Vietnam emerges as just one more chapter in 70 years of ineptitude and apathy on the part of the Senate and House of Representatives when it comes to their constitutionally granted war powers. Time and again in those years, the legislative branch shirked its historic—and legal—responsibility under the Constitution to declare (or refuse to declare) war.

  And yet, never in those seven decades has the duty of Congress to assert itself in matters of war and peace been quite so vital as it is today, with American troops engaged—and still dying, even if now in small numbers—in one undeclared war after another in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, and now Niger… and who even knows where else.

  Fast forward 53 years from the Tonkin Gulf crisis to Senator Rand Paul’s desperate attempt last September to force something as simple as a congressional discussion of the legal basis for America’s forever wars, which garnered just 36 votes. It was scuttled by a bipartisan coalition of war hawks. And who even noticed—other than obsessive viewers of C-SPAN who were treated to Paul’s four-hour-long cri de coeur denouncing Congress’s agreement to “unlimited war, anywhere, anytime, anyplace upon the globe”?

  The Kentucky senator sought something that should have seemed modest indeed: to end the reliance of one administration after another on the long-outdated post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) for all of America’s multifaceted and widespread conflicts. He wanted to compel Congress to debate and legally sanction (or not) any future military operations anywhere on Earth. While that may sound reasonable enough, more than 60 senators, Democratic and Republican alike, stymied the effort. In the process, they sanctioned (yet again) their abdication of any role in America’s perpetual state of war—other than, of course, funding it munificently.

  In June 1970, with 50,000 troops already dead in Southeast Asia, Congress finally worked up the nerve to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Senator Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican. As it happens, there are no Bob Doles in today’s Senate. As a result, you hardly have to be a cynic or a Punxsutawney groundhog to predict six more weeks of winter—that is, endless war.

  It’s a remarkably old story actually. Ever since V-J Day in August 1945, Congress has repeatedly ducked its explicit constitutional duties when it comes to war, handing over the keys to the eternal use of the military to an increasingly imperial presidency. An often deadlocked, ever less popular Congress has cowered in the shadows for decades as Americans died in undeclared wars. Judging by the lack of public outrage, perhaps this is how the citizenry, too, prefers it. After all, they themselves are unlikely to serve. There’s no draft or need to sacrifice anything in or for America’s wars. The public’s only task is to stand for increasingly militarized pregame sports rituals and to “thank” any soldier they run into.

  Nonetheless, with the quixotic thought that this is not the way things have to be, here’s a brief recounting of Congress’s 70-year romance with cowardice.

  The Korean War

  The last time Congress actually declared war, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor, and there were Nazis to defeat. Five years after the end of World War II, however, in response to a North Korean invasion of the South meant to reunify the Korean peninsula, Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, decided to intervene militarily without consulting Congress. He undoubtedly had no idea of the precedent he was setting. In the 67 intervening years, upwards of 100,000 American troops would die in this country’s undeclared wars and it was Truman who started us down this road.

  In June 1950, having “conferred” with his secretaries of state and defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he announced an intervention in Korea to halt the invasion from the North. No war declaration was necessary, the administration claimed, because the was acting under the “aegis” of a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution—a 9-0 vote because the Soviets were, at the time, boycotting that body. When asked by reporters whether full-scale combat in Korea didn’t actually constitute a war, the president carefully avoided the term. The conflict, he claimed, only “constituted a police action under the UN” Fearing that the Soviets might respond by escalating the conflict and that atomic reprisals weren’t out of the question, Truman clearly considered it prudent to hedge on his terminology, which would set a perilous precedent for the future.

  As American casualties mounted and the fighting intensified, it became increasingly difficult to maintain such semantic charades. In three years of grueling combat, more than 35,000 American troops perished. At the congressional level, it made no difference. Congress remained essentially passive in the face of Truman’s fait accompli. There would be no war declaration and no extended debate on the legality of the president’s decision to send combat troops to Korea.

  Indeed, most congressmen rallied to Truman’s defense in a time of… well, police action. There was, however, one lone voice in the wilderness, one very public congressional dissent. If Truman could commit hundreds of thousands of troops to Korea without a congressional declaration, Republican Senator Robert Taft proclaimed, “he could go to war in Malaya or Indonesia or Iran or South America.” As a memory, Taft’s public rebuke to presidential war-making powers is now lost to all but a few historians, but how right he was. (And were the Trump administration ever to go to war with Iran, to pick one of Taft’s places, count on the fact that it would still be without a congressional declaration of war.)

  Vietnam and the War Powers Act

  From the start, Congress rubber-stamped President Johnson’s Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed unanimously in the House and with only two dissenting Senate votes. Despite many later debates and resolutions on Capitol Hill, and certain strikingly critical figures like Democratic Senator William Fulbright, most members of Congress supported the president’s war powers to the end. Even at the height of congressional anti-war sentiment in 1970, only one in three members of the House voted for actual end-the-war resolutions.

  According to a specially commissioned House Democratic Study Group, “Up to the spring of 1973, Congress gave every president everything he requested regarding Indochina policies and funding.” Despite enduring myths that Congress “ended the war,” as late as 1970 the McGovern-Hatfield amendment to the Senate’s military procurement bill, which called for a withdrawal from Cambodia within 30 days, failed by a vote of 55-39.

  Despite some critical voices (of a sort almost completely absent on the subject of American war in the 21st century), the legislative branch as a collective body discovered far too late that American military forces in Vietnam could never achieve their goals, that South Vietnam remained peripheral to any imaginable security interests, and that the civil war there was never ours to win or lose. It was a Vietnamese, not an American, story. Unfortunately, by the time Congress collectively gathered the nerve to ask the truly tough questions, the war was on its fifth president and most of its victims—Vietnamese and American—were already dead.

  In the summer of 1970, Congress did finally repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, while also restricting cross-border operations into Laos and Cambodia. Then, in 1973, over President Richard Nixon’s veto, it even passed the War Powers Act. In the future, that bill stated, only a congressional declaration of war, a national defense emergency, or “statutory authorization” by Congress could legally sanction the deployment of the armed forces to any conflict. Without such sanction, section 4(a)(1) of the bill stipulated that presidential military deployments would be subject to a 60-day limit. That, it was then believed, would forever check the war-making powers of the imperial presidency, which in turn would prevent “future Vietnams.”

  In reality, the War Powers Act proved to be largely toothless legislation. It was never truly accepted by the presidents who followed Nixon, nor did Congress generally have the guts to invoke it in any meaningful manner. Over the last 40 years, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have insisted in one way or another that the War Powers Act was essentially unconstitutional. Rather than fight it out in the courts, however, most administrations simply ignored that law and deployed troops where they wanted anyway or made nice and sort of, kind of, mentioned impending military interventions to Congress.

  Lots of “non-wars” like the invasions of Grenada and Panama or the 1992-1993 intervention in Somalia fell into the first category. In each case, presidents either cited a UN resolution as explanation for their actions (and powers) or simply acted without the express permission of Congress. Those three “minor” interventions cost the 19, 40, and 43 troop deaths, respectively.

  In other cases, presidents notified Congress of their actions, but without explicitly citing section 4(a)(1) of the War Powers Act or its 60-day limit. In other words, presidents politely informed Congress of their intention to deploy troops and little more. Much of this hinged on an ongoing battle over just what constitutes “war.” In 1983, for example, President Ronald Reagan announced that he planned to send a contingent of troops to Lebanon, but claimed the agreement with the host nation “ruled out any combat responsibilities.” Tell that to the 241 Marines killed in a later embassy bombing. When combat did, in fact, break out in Beirut, congressional leaders compromised with Reagan and agreed to an 18-month authorization.

  Nor was the judiciary much help. In 1999, for instance, during a sustained air campaign against Serbia in the midst of the Kosovo crisis in the former Yugoslavia, a few legislators sued President Bill Clinton in federal court charging that he had violated the War Powers Act by keeping combat soldiers in the field past 60 days. Clinton simply yawned and pronouncedthat act itself “constitutionally defective.” The federal district court in Washington agreed and quickly ruled in the president’s favor.

  In the single exception that proved the rule, the system more or less worked during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf crisis that led to the first of our Iraq wars. A bipartisan array of congressional leaders insisted that President George H.W. Bush present an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) well before invading Kuwait or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. For several months, across two congressional sessions, the House and Senate held dozens of hearings, engaged in prolonged floor debate, and eventually passed that AUMF by a historically narrow margin.

  Even then, President Bush included a signing statement haughtily declaring that his “request for congressional support did not…constitute any change in the long-standing position of the executive branch on…the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution.” Snarky statements aside, sadly, this was Congress’s finest hour in the last 70 years of near-constant global military deployments and conflicts—and it, of course, led to the country’s never-ending Iraq Wars, the third of which is still ongoing.

  Approving Enduring and Iraqi “Freedom”

  The system failed, disastrously, in the wake of 9/11. Just three days after the horrific attacks, as smoke still billowed from New York’s twin towers, the Senate approved an astoundingly expansive AUMF. The president could use“necessary and appropriate force” against anyone he determined had “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Caught up in the passion of the moment, America’s representatives hardly bothered to determine precisely who was responsible for the recent slaughter or debate the best course of action moving forward.

  Three days left paltry room for serious consideration in what was clearly a time for groupthink and patriotic unity, not solemn deliberation. The ensuing vote resembled those in elections in Third World autocracies: 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House. Only one courageous person, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, took to the floor that day and spoke out. Her words were as prescient as they are haunting:

  “We must be careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target.… As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.”

  Lee was simply ignored. In this way, Congress’s sin of omission set the stage for decades of global war. Today, across the Greater Middle East, Africa, and beyond, American troops, drones, and bombers still operate under the original post-9/11 AUMF framework.

  The next time around, in 2002-2003, Congress proceeded to sleepwalk into the invasion of Iraq. Leave aside the intelligence failures and false pretenses under which that invasion was launched and just consider the role of Congress. It was a sad tale of inaction that culminated, just prior to the ignoble 2002 vote on an AUMF against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in a speech that will undoubtedly prove a classic marker for the decline of congressional powers. Before a nearly empty chamber, the eminent Democratic Senator Robert Byrd said:

  “To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences.… As this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. Yet, this chamber is, for the most part, silent—ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

  “We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events.”

  The evidence backed up his claims. Late on the night of October 11th, after only five days of “debate”—similar deliberations in 1990-1991 had spanned four months—the Senate passed a so-called war resolution (essentially a statement backing a presidential decision, not a congressional war declaration) and the invasion of Iraq proceeded as planned.

  Toward Forever War

  With all that gloomy history behind us, with Congress now endlessly talking about revisiting the 2001 congressional authorization to take on Al Qaeda (but not, of course, the many Islamic terror groups that the military has gone after since that moment) and little revisiting likely to occur, is there any recourse for those not in favor of presidential wars to the end of time? It goes without saying that there is no antiwar political party in the United States, nor—Rand Paul aside—are there even eminent antiwar congressional voices like Taft, Fulbright, McGovern, or Byrd. The Republicans are war hawks and that spirit has proven remarkably bipartisan. From Hillary Clinton, a notorious hawk who supported or argued for military interventions of every sort while she was Barack Obama’s secretary of state, to former vice president and possible future presidential candidate Joe Biden and present Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrats are now also a party of presidential war making. All of the above voted, for instance, for the Iraq War Resolution.

  So who exactly can antiwar activists or foreign policy skeptics of any sort rally to? If more than 70 years of recent history is any indication, Congress simply can’t be counted on when it comes time to stand, be heard, and vote on American wars. You already know that for the representatives who regularly rush to pass record Defense spending bills – as the Senate recently did by a vote of 89-9 for more money than even President Trump requested – perpetual war is an acceptable way of life.

  Unless something drastically changes: the sudden growth, for example, of a grassroots antiwar movement or a major Supreme Court decision (fat chance!) limiting presidential power, Americans are likely to be living with eternal war into the distant future.

  It’s already an old story, but think of it as well as the new American way.

  

• Ron Paul Rages "Just Say No"… To Jeff Sessions

  Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

  Attorney General Jeff Sessions kicked off the New Year by reversing the Obama-era guidance for federal prosecutors to limit their enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, Sessions’ announcement came days after California’s law legalizing recreational marijuana sales went into effect. Sessions’ action thus runs counter to the wishes of the majority of the people in the most populous US state, as well the people of the 28 other states (and DC) that have legalized some form of marijuana use.

  Federal laws criminalizing marijuana and other drugs have failed to reduce drug use.

  

  However, they have succeeded in giving power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats what was, before 9-11, the go-to justification for violating our civil liberties.

  The federal war on marijuana has also wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Far from reducing crime, outlawing drugs causes crime by ensuring criminals will control the market for drugs. Outlawing drugs also provides incentives for drug dealers to increase the potency, and thus the danger, of drugs, as higher potency products take up less space and are thus easier to conceal from law enforcement.

  The US Constitution does not give the federal government any authority to criminalize marijuana. Thus, the question of whether marijuana is legal is one of the many issues reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. If the Constitution gives Congress the power to ban marijuana, then why was it necessary to amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to ban alcohol?

  Sessions’ usurpation of state marijuana laws is the type of federal intrusion into state issues usually opposed by conservatives. Sadly, too many conservatives are just as willing to sacrifice constitutional government and individual liberties for the war on drugs as they are for the war on terror.

  Conservative hypocrisy is especially strong when it comes to medical marijuana. Many Americans have used medical marijuana for conditions such as cancer and glaucoma. Yet many conservatives who (properly) decry Obamacare’s mandate forcing every American to purchase health insurance cheer Jeff Sessions’ effort to deprive suffering individuals of the medical treatment of their choice. Cruel paternalism in healthcare policy is often associated with progressives, but unfortunately conservatives are just as guilty.

  States that have legalized medical marijuana have fewer deaths related to opioid abuse. These states have also experienced a decrease in crime and black market activity. This is perhaps because some have found medical marijuana a viable alternative to opioids.

  Laws outlawing marijuana criminalize peaceful behavior that, while potentially harmful to the individual, does not violate the rights of others. Therefore, these laws, like all laws authorizing government force against peaceful, if immoral, actions, are incompatible with a free society. Once again we see the hypocrisy of conservatives who decry progressives’ war on tobacco and fatty foods, yet support jailing marijuana users.

  Federal laws outlawing marijuana violate the Constitution, justify violations of civil liberties, and increase violence. By criminalizing nonviolent behavior voluntarily chosen by individuals, drug laws undermine the moral principles underlying a free society.

  President Trump should fire Jeff Sessions and replace him with someone who respects the Constitution and individual liberty. Also, officials from states with legal medical or recreational marijuana should refuse to cooperate with those tasked with enforcing federal marijuana laws.

  If President Trump and state officials stand up for liberty, the people will join them in saying no to Jeff Sessions.

  

• "Risk Appetite" Indicator Hits All Time High As World Stocks Have Longest Ever Streak Without 5% Correction

  Over the weekend we showed  that while the US stock market has smashed virtually all records, some still remain: one is that while the S&P is rapidly approaching 400 days without a 5% correction, it still has several days to go before it breaches the 409 consecutive day record set on August 3, 1959.

  

  Seen another way, major US indexes haven’t been more than 5% from a 52-week high for nearly 400 days, another record which will be breached in just a few days.

   

  

  Yet while equities may be on the cusp of record stretches without a correction in the US, in world markets these records are already in the history books. The reason for this, as Goldman explains in a note released today, is that global risk appetite for stocks has just hit an all time high.

  So far this year, risk appetite has picked up materially (Exhibit 17), nearing its all-time high, led by equities (Exhibit 18), which have rallied across regions, the most in Asia and EM.

  

  The underperformance of “safer” low vol stocks has also become pronounced. Credit total returns have been positive, in particular high yield, notwithstanding bonds selling off. Cross-asset volatility has fallen back to near its lowest levels, with equity skew also declining sharply.

  What explains this unprecedented demand for risk with the market “screamingly overbought“, at record high valuations, and at at a time when investors have seemingly forgotten how to sell? Well, as the following two charts show, traders no longer fear selloffs for the simple, if circular, reason that stocks simply do not sell off.

  Which brings us to the first record: the MSCI World index is currently at its longest streak in history without a 5% correction…

  

  … while, for record number two, we have the MSCI EM which is at its longest streak in history without a 10% correction.

  

  Is Goldman concerned by this record stretch without any sharp declines? Not really.

  While we think equity correction risk in 2018 is high after a strong rally and at high valuations, we also think an equity bear market is unlikely given the supportive macro backdrop.

  And why should it be concerned? As we first showed on Friday when the 2012 Fed transcripts were released to the public, both Goldman and retail investors have little to fear because as none other than the next Fed chair admitted, it is the Fed itself that is now “encouraging risk-taking”:

  I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.

  “Almost”… just as one can “almost” see this whole experiment in central planning having a happy ending.

  

• CEO Of Porn-Focused Cryptocurrency Disappears With Investors' Money

  The burgeoning market for initial coin offerings is rife with fraud and abuse thanks to unscrupulous people like the creator of FMtokens, a coin designed as a means for paying performers for live webcam chats. The New York Post reported Monday that investors in FMtokens – which purportedly raised just shy of $5 million – are complaining that the company’s shadowy CEO, Jonatha Lucas, has absconded with their money while refusing to deliver the promised tokens.

  Lucas aimed to raise as much as $25 million, according to an investment plan.

  A cryptocurrency built for watching live-streaming porn is turning out to be a buzz-kill.

  Four investors in the digital currency, called Fantasy Market, claimed last week that its shadowy CEO disappeared with their money — and has not refunded all their investment despite repeated requests.

  The alleged inability of investors to trade out of the Fantasy Market tokens, or FMtokens, could stand as a warning to all investors in the red-hot cryptocoin market.

  Jonathan Lucas, the brains behind FMtokens, was aiming to raise as much as $25 million last year, according to Lucas’ white paper — the investment plan circulated among investors.

  The tokens were to be used to pay for livestreaming porn.

  Small-time investors from around the world have scrambled to invest in the largest digital currencies – like bitcoin, Ethereum and ripple – which have seen astronomical returns.

  Circling back to FMtokens, the venture flamed out in November after the NYP  questioned Lucas for about an hour about how his ICO would work and about statements he made in the white paper. The CEO insisted he wasn’t trying to scam anybody, and that he was using his real name. Several of the investors who lost their money believe the name John Lucas is an alias.

  

  “Jonathan Lucas (most likely an alias) has scammed us and run off with the cryptocurrency,” one irate investor fumed to The Post, more than two months after investing in Fantasy Market.

  According to the Post, it’s unclear how close Lucas got to his $25 million fundraising goal. He told a reporter in November he had raised less than $2 million.

  It’s unclear whether the SEC intends to act against Lucas (at this point, he’s probably already fled to some non-extradition country where he can safely deploy his ill-gotten gains). No legal or civil actions have been taken against him at this time. But the agency has been stepping up its enforcement against fraudulent ICOs since it declared in July that all digital tokens should be treated as securities, and that all pertinent laws and regulations would apply. In China, financial authorities have banned ICOs. And other governments have considered acting to suppress the market.

  Back in September in private chats seen by The Post to being just 13% away from raising $5 million, which translates to about $4.4 million.

  On the company’s website, Lucas posted a message asking out-of-pocket investors to contact the company “in the next 90 days” to secure a refund.

  One investor told the post that the company refunded some of the Ethereum he had invested in the project. Instead of returning his initial investment along with the 160% return that’s accrued since he invested in September, the company pocketed the difference.

  “[Recently] I wrote threatening to file police and FBI reports,” a second aggrieved investor told The Post. “Within hours they refunded me ethereum with a dollar amount equal to what I had contributed in early September, but since the coin has more than tripled in value since then, they kept the rest of my contribution, essentially stealing quite a lot of money from me.”

  Another investor claimed that Lucas appears to be actively trading on cryptocurrency exchanges, possibly with the money stolen from his erstwhile investors.

  This is hardly the only example of outright fraud in the ICO space. Tezos, which raised more than $230 million in an ICO over the summer that attracted the interest of several big-name Silicon Valley VC firms, has elicited several investor lawsuits after the company has missed deadlines to deliver the tokens it promised investors during the crowdsale.

  According to chat records obtained by the post, Lucas repeatedly assured his investors that FMtokens aren’t a scam.

  “I’m not in the business of scamming people, or again, I wouldn’t have used my real name for the project,” Lucas wrote in a Nov. 14 chat.

  His behavior would suggest the opposite is true.

  

• Has The World Gone Mad? A Look At The 'New Normal' Low-Volatility Regime

  Authored by Anthony Mirhaydari via Pitchbook.com,

  Snakes sometimes do a funny thing. Unable to regulate their body temperature when they overheat, a false sense of hunger is created. In the confusion that follows, they devour their tail. Until they die…

   

  

  This strange phenomenon is depicted by the ouroboros, which for millennia has represented a cycle of constant renewal, of self-fertilization, and ironically, of immortality.

  According to Christopher Cole, founder and CIO at Artemis Capital Management, it also represents the current situation in financial markets where stability and asset price gains have created a feedback loop encouraging more aggressive bets on low volatility and low interest rates, which in turn makes these strategies more and more lucrative.

  It’s hard to argue the world isn’t manic right now.

  Global central banks have pumped $15 trillion in cheap money stimulus into capital markets since 2009. Long-term government bond yields are at the lowest levels in recorded human history. As of last summer, there was $9.5 trillion of debt carrying a negative yield. Austria issued a 100-year bond in September with only a 2.1% coupon.
   

  

  The S&P 500 rose on a total return basis in each month of 2017 for the first time ever and has climbed in 21 of the last 22 months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average just crossed 25,000. The NASDAQ, 7,000. The only time stocks have been more expensive, on a cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings basis, was in the final stages of the dot-com bubble. Corporate profits remain below the highs hit more than three years ago. When the Dow was trading near 18,000.

  On a relative strength indicator basis, stocks haven’t been this overbought since the 1950s. Corporate bond issuance pushes to new highs as bond spreads test record lows. Thanks to debt-funded share buybacks, 40% of post-recession earnings growth has been fueled by financial gimmickry. In Europe, junk bond yields have fallen below comparable US Treasuries. Measures of investor sentiment and positioning are off the charts. (e.g., Investor cash levels at Charles Schwab have fallen below the depths seen as the last two stock bubbles were preparing to pop.)

  Oh, there’s more.

  Private market unicorns are badly overvalued. Corporate leverage is extremely high. Private markets are drowning in cheap cash. Underfunded pension plans are taking more aggressive bets on alternative assets in a desperate attempt to close asset-vs.-liability deficits in a low-return world, increasing the likelihood of a taxpayer bailout when it all goes sideways.

  And the tail-eating dynamic seems to have accelerated over the last couple of months, as asset prices become more extreme and startup ideas more bizarre.

  Bitcoin’s rise has eclipsed the Dutch Tulip Mania, as crypto true believers bounce between bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Ripple, chasing momentum as new coin-based billionaires are created seemingly overnight. Ripple’s founder, for example, is now worth more than Mark Zuckerberg. Struggling publicly traded companies are enjoying huge rallies by simply adding “blockchain” to their name.

  Doug Evans – the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind the $400 Juicero press that squeezed juice from $8 bags of fruits and veggies about as well as your hands could – is making a comeback as one of the proponents for “raw water,” which is unfiltered, contains no additives and turns green from microorganisms if left too long. You know, ones like Vibrio cholerae, the bacteria that causes cholera and kills upward of 143,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization.

  But is the fever about to be broken?

  It’s not just independent hedge fund managers like Cole who are sounding the alarm, but also Wall Street stalwarts including Societe Generale and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The former is looking for the S&P 500 to drop to 2,000 by the end of 2018, a loss of 26% in what would be a bear market decline. The latter, courtesy of chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett, fears a 1987/1994/1998-style “flash crash” within the next three months caused by a withdrawal of central bank support as interest rates rise, ending a 50-year low in stock market volatility.

  The Eurasia Group is warning of geopolitical risks in the new year, with a focus on hot spots like North Korea, Syria, Russia and now Iran.

  Cole blames a dynamic of self-reflexivity that is filtering down to private markets, as investors of various types in different securities are all taking a “short bet” on volatility in a bid to boost returns. These could be explicit bets, such as option overwriting by pensions, or implicit bets, such as risk parity funds and allocations to Commodity Trading Advisors.

  In his words, as captured in Artemis Capital Management’s report “Volatility and the Alchemy of Risk”:

  “The investment ecosystem has effectively self-organized into one giant short volatility trade, a snake eating its own tail, nourishing itself from its own destruction. It may only take a rapid and unexpected interest in rates, or geopolitical shock, for the cycle to unwind violently.”

  The lynchpin, by Cole’s reckoning, would be a persistent rise in inflation that would prevent central banks from riding to the rescue with more cheap money stimulus. This would also push bond yields higher, cutting off the flow of corporate share buybacks, which in his estimation now total upwards of $800 billion a year.

  Key antecedents suggesting we’re nearing that outcome include the closing of the post-recession potential GDP output gap (meaning the economy is running above its “speed limit”) and the ongoing tightening of the labor market. And this comes amid a need to roll over some $300 billion in high-yield corporate debt between now and 2020. No less than the International Monetary Fund recently warned that 22% of US companies are at risk of default should there be even a modest rise in borrowing costs.

  In an interview last week, Cole admitted that the risk doesn’t necessitate the outcome: “Keeping a barrel of nitroglycerin in your office is a terrible idea, but you could do it and maybe not get hurt.” But the trigger of a 2% to 3% rise in interest rates within, say, a six-month period has happened many times before. Like in 1987, just months before the Black Monday crash. And is likely to happen again.

  His key takeaway? The post-recession environment of ultra-low yields has forced pensions and other limited partners to desperately reach for yield, thus encouraging investment professionals to indulge in aggressive financial engineering to boost returns. On the surface, it looks like downside risks have been destroyed—papered over by ultra-low interest rates. But he said they’ve only “shifted it in form and time creating new and unique fragilities as they try to transmute what cannot be changed.”

  

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• How Three European Oligarchs Looted 100s Of Millions From Ukraine

  Via AlJazeera.com,

  Three Ukrainian oligarchs traded part of around $1.5bn in illicit assets traced to cronies of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, an exclusive investigation by Al Jazeera revealed on Sunday.

  They did so as the war-torn country struggled to return suspected misappropriated funds to its coffers.

  An unsigned contract obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit identifies Alexander Onyschenko – the gas tycoon, former member of parliament and currently one of Ukraine’s most-wanted men – and Pavel Fuchs, a real estate tycoon who made his fortune in Moscow, as the buyers in the illegal deal.

  Other documents suggest the seller was Serhiy Kurchenko – a fugitive Ukrainian gas tycoon based in Moscow who was known as Yanukovich’s “family wallet”.

  The contract obtained by Al Jazeera, revealed in The Oligarchs investigation, said Onyschenko and Fuchs paid $30m, including cash and a private jet, for the Cyprus-based company, Quickpace Limited.

  That company held $160m-worth of bonds and cash, which was frozen by a Ukrainian judge as they were suspected of being proceeds of crime.

  The findings were “unbelievable”, said Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (ANTAC).

  “It sounds like an agreement between criminal bosses, you know? You can sign it with your blood.”

  It is illegal in Ukraine and abroad to trade with frozen assets.

  “The whole idea is I’ve frozen the asset because I think it’s the proceeds of crime,” said Jon Benton, former director of the International Corruption Unit at Britain’s National Crime Agency.

  “It’s like trading in stolen goods that have been taken by the police. You’re putting the cash in the getaway car,” he told Al Jazeera.

  The buyers aim to make a $130m profit by persuading a judge to unfreeze the assets.

  Article 4.4 of the contract said that the buyers would cooperate in “taking action to remove the arrest from the accounts” held by Quickpace Limited.

  Looted state

  Ukrainian authorities froze the assets in June 2014 across numerous companies in Cyprus, the UK, Panama, Belize and the British Virgin Islands totalling $1.5bn. It is estimated that that Yanukovich and his cronies stole far more.

  Evidence found on Yanukovich’s abandoned property hidden outside Kiev showed one of his clan’s corporate networks. Documents obtained by Al Jazeera expose another.

  They reveal how Yanukovich’s clan pumped stolen money into companies in Ukraine with bank accounts in Latvia and gradually passed it through dozens of offshore shell companies in Cyprus, Belize, British Virgin Islands and other money-laundering hotspots including the UK.

  “The philosophy of money launderers is just to create a situation where the money has moved through so many different companies and so many different countries, in so many different accounts that it would be almost impossible to recreate the trail,” said Bill Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital.

  Yanukovich’s name never appeared on any of the paperwork.

  The companies bear the names of nominee directors – cut-out characters who appear to be the owner of a company, but simply act on instruction by the real owner.

  Ukraine’s new authorities started to look into the corrupt schemes after Yanukovich’s removal from office in 2014.

  It began a series of reforms that included the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).

  But nothing important has been achieved in terms of the prosecution of the corrupt individuals or the recovery of the stolen assets.

  “Resistance is very strong from the elites who are in power now and the more we investigate, the more we face this resistance,” Artem Sytnyk, NABU director, told Al Jazeera.

  “Parliament is taking steps to sideline the management of the Anti-Corruption Agency and take control.”

  Nazar Holodnitsky, Ukraine’s special anti-corruption prosecutor, refused Al Jazeera’s requests for information, saying: “Until this investigation is complete, any comments, assertions regarding the existence or absence of certain documents is premature.”

  Onyschenko took the position that there was nothing wrong with buying a company holding frozen assets. “You can buy cheap and try to fix the problem to make money,” he told Al Jazeera.

  Onyschenko confirmed Fuchs’ and Kurchneko’s role in the deal, but denied the deal went ahead.

  “It was like normal business, but this has not happened. We didn’t buy.”

  However, a Cypriot lawyer and the NABU, who worked on the deal, confirmed the sale of Quickpace went through and company documents record a transfer of ownership to one of Mr Fuchs’s companies.

  Al Jazeera obtained a record of an initial payment of $2m from an account at Barclays Bank to another at a Russian-owned Latvian bank, Norvic Banka.

  Currently, Quickpace is owned by Evermore Property Holdings Limited, a Cyprus company, which, in turn, is owned by Dorchester International Incorporated. Fuchs is its owner.

  

• Who Killed The Iran Protests?

  One prime indicator that anti-government protests in Iran have truly died down to the point of now being completely snuffed out as reports today suggest, and as we began reporting at the end of last week, is that current headlines are now merely focused on the barely lingering and ephemeral “social media battle” and anonymous YouTube activism, along with multiple postmortem accounts of a failed movement already out. It seems there’s now clear consensus that Iran’s streets have grown quiet. 

  It was evident by the end of last week that demonstrations were fizzling – even as the headlines breathlessly attempted to portray a bigger and more unified movement than what was really occurring on the ground. By many accounts, it was the much larger pro-government rallies that began to replace the quickly dying anti-regime protests by the middle of last week.

  But a central question that remains is, who killed the Iran protests? There seemed to be a direct correlation between Western and outside officials weighing in with declarations of “solidarity” and support for regime change, and the drastic decline in protest size and distribution. 

  
  Image source: Breaking News TV

  One such postmortem on the now dead Iran protests published on Sunday begins by lamenting:

  Less than 10 days ago, a few sporadic demonstrations about economic hardships across Iran sparked a global media frenzy. In a matter of hours, social media became delirious with #IranProtest, awash with confident assertions that “The Iranian People want regime change”. Donald Trump waded in with his support. Nigel Farage, the unlikely new champion of Iran’s revolution, hosted an LBC radio Iran special.

  Despite all of this excitement, reports from Tehran over the past few days have suggested that #IranProtests may – for now – be fizzling out (read brutally contained by the authorities).

  Within the first days of protests and rioting, we posed the obvious question, “Are we witnessing regime change agents hijacking economic protests?” – this after the US State Department’s first statement declared solidarity with “freedom and democracy seeking” protesters while prematurely speaking of “transition of government”. Immediately came the predictable flurry of tweets and statements from government officials and think tankers alike echoing the familiar script which seems to roll out when anyone protests for any reason in a country considered an enemy of the United States.

  The fact that the CIA has ramped up operations in #Iran during this administration is by itself reason enough to be intensely skeptical about everything you hear about that nation. It is the CIA’s job to start wars, collapse governments, and lie to you.https://t.co/cclNr4Nnu2

  — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 6, 2018

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  And then there was Bibi Netanyahu’s surprising televised address to “the Iranian people” on behalf of the state of Israel, wishing them “success in their noble quest for freedom” – something which we predicted would only have an adverse effect on the demonstrators’ momentum, considering that authorities in Tehran accused protest leaders of serving the interests of and being in league with foreign “enemies” like Saudi Arabia and Israel nearly from day one. 

  The address was surprising precisely because it was the surest way to kill the protests as quickly as possible. From the moment Netanyahu publicly declared, “When this regime [the Iranian government] finally falls, and one day it will, Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again” – all the air was sucked out of whatever momentum the protesters had. 

  For many average Iranians who had not yet joined anti-government demonstrations at that point, Bibi’s speech gave them every incentive to stay home. All that the regime had to say at that point was, “see, you are in league with enemies of the nation!” And that is exactly what Tehran did. It was on the very Monday of Netanyahu’s speech that Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced it would be taking charge of the security situation in Tehran, though likely they were mobilized earlier. 

  Fox News Pundits Who Cheered On Iraq War Suggest Arming Iranian Protesters#Iran #IranProtests #IranianProtests #Iraq #Hannityhttps://t.co/itEoSN1E3c

  — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 4, 2018

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  Early on Sunday the IRGC declared that rioting, sedition, and demonstrations are now finished: “Iran’s revolutionary people along with tens of thousands of Basij forces, police and the Intelligence Ministry have broken down the chain [of unrest] created… by the United States, Britain, the Zionist regime [Israel], Saudi Arabia, the hypocrites [Mujahideen] and monarchists,” a statement from the group’s Sepahnews website said. Also on Sunday state TV reported that Iranian Parliament held a closed-door meeting to assess the security situation throughout the country – no doubt they were talking about the plotting of external enemies to exploit Iran’s domestic situation.

  And who can blame the Iranian authorities for believing this? Even France seemed to be in rare agreement with both Russia, China, and even the Iranian authorities on this one. 

  Speaking of Iran’s parliament, Iranian citizens probably remember very well that a short time ago (June 2017), parliament was hit by a deadly ISIS attack which involved gunmen and suicide bombers terrorizing central Tehran, leaving 12 dead and 42 injured. What was Washington’s response? The White House essentially said that Iran had it coming:

   

  
  White House response to the June 2017 ISIS attack on downtown Tehran: “We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.”

  A few months before the #IranProtests took hold, Trump responded to an ISIS attack on Iran’s parliament with an official statement taunting Iran. Remember this every time the White House says it supports the “Iranian people.” https://t.co/nG6CfUBJMH

  — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 5, 2018

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  So likely, Iranians don’t believe for a minute that either the American or Israeli governments actually care for people protesting on the streets – only a short while ago they were told “it’s your fault” as ISIS shed blood in their streets and government buildings. 

  During Friday’s UN emergency session in which the US found itself isolated, France stuck by President Macron’s earlier words blaming the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia for stoking tensions and exploiting Iran’s domestic unrest in a situation he said could lead to war. French Ambassador Francois Delattre urged Iran’s enemies to back off, saying just before the UN meeting, “Yes, of course, to vigilance and call for full respect of freedom of expression, but no to instrumentalization of the crisis from the outside – because it would only reinforce the extremes, which is precisely what we want to avoid.” 

  His call to cautiously prevent the “instrumentalization of the crisis from the outside” was a clear reference to the repeat Israeli and US officials’ demands for international solidarity with the anti-Tehran protesters in cause of regime change. Or perhaps France also simply understood the obvious truth… that all the premature foaming at the mouth talk of Tehran regime overthrow coming out of Washington and Tel Aviv or other Western capitals would be the surest way to halt protests dead in their tracks. 

  Because nobody wants to be hijacked in their cause… nobody wants to play stooge to foreign powers… nobody wants to be a geopolitical pawn, not the least of which the Iranians, who’ve had a long and bloody history of outside foreign meddling in their politics. Though the usual pundits will now simply fault the brutal and efficient IRGC for snuffing out the protests, they should look much closer to home. 

  

• CNN's Jake Tapper Abruptly Cuts Off White House Adviser Stephen Miller

  President Donald Trump’s Saturday morning tweet storm has been the dominant news story in the US over the weekend. And with the White House staff still in disarray following the publication of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” book, senior aide Stephen Miller took to the Sunday shows, appearing on “State of the Union” With Jake Tapper to rebut CNN’s questions about Trump’s fitness for office and some of the claims in Wolff’s book about former Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon’s role in the administration.

  But the mood on camera quickly turned caustic, as Tapper accused Miller of cynically repeating talking points crafted to placate the president, while ignoring questions about the claims raised in Wolff’s book.

  Miller responded by lashing out at CNN for inaccuracies of its coverage of the president, and accused it of failing to represent the perspective of the American voters who voted for Trump.

  Tapper replied with more jokes about Miller performing for an audience of one.

  “I’m sure he’s watching and he’s happy that you said that,” Tapper said

  WATCH: Jake Tapper just abruptly cut off Steve Miller on CNN #SOTU after calling him obsequious and saying he “wasted enough of our viewers’ time.” Miller kept avoiding questions, repeating himself and belittling CNN’s coverage. Trump tweeted minutes later. pic.twitter.com/f6V3w3s7uV

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 7, 2018

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  After Miller refused to answer questions about Bannon’s influence on the administration, Tapper cut off his guest and accused him of wasting his audience’s time.

  “There’s one viewer you care about. You’re being obsequious and you’re being a factotum in order to please him – and I think you’re wasting my viewers time. Thank you Stephen.”

  Tapper then abruptly launched into a teaser for an upcoming piece about Attorney General Jeff Sessions before the camera cut away.

  * * *

  For what it’s worth, Trump tweeted his approval after Miller’s performance, writing that “Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!”

   

  Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

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• Upcoming OIG Report Likely To Trigger Second Special Counsel; Comey, Lynch And Clinton In Crosshairs

  While most of the MSM fixated last week on whether or not President Trump eats McDonald’s in bed while watching Gorilla TV, a flurry of investigative bombshells involving Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and conduct by the FBI’s top brass during the 2016 election splashed across the headlines. As a quick review: 

  • The DOJ is “taking a fresh look” into the Hillary Clinton email ‘matter’ 
  • The FBI has launched a new investigation into the Clinton Foundation the day after the Clinton’s Chappaqua property catches fire
  • Former FBI Director James Comey’s full Clinton memo was released, revealing felony evidence of changes which “decriminalized” Hillary Clinton’s behavior. Oh, and every one of the memos he leaked to his Cornell professor buddy was classified, per a sworn statement by the FBI’s “chief FOIA officer” in a sworn declaration obtained by Judicial Watch.
  • The House Intelligence Committee will be granted access to “all remaining investigative documents,” unredacted, along with all witnesses sought per a deal reached between Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Nunes 
  • Opposition research firm Fusion GPS was forced to hand over banking records detailing various clients and their intermediary law firms, including the Clinton Campaign and a Russian money launderer whose lawyer was none other than Natalia Veselnitskaya of Trump Tower meeting fame

  Most of these wheels which appear to be in motion are the result of corresponding groundwork laid on Capitol Hill you may not be aware of, including what might be the most important document in the entire process, expected in a little over a week. 

  On January 15, the DOJ’s internal watchdog – the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), is expected to present their findings to Congressional investigators regarding a wide variety of alleged bias and malfeasance by the FBI, the Clinton campaign, and the Obama Administration – both during and after the 2016 election. Moreover, the man heading up the OIG investigation, Michael Horowitz, fought the Obama Administration to regain investigative powers which were restricted by former Attorney General Eric Holder during the Fast and Furious scandal. 

  As you will read below, this highly anticipated report is likely to be the legal impetus behind a second Special Counsel – as detailed by an independent researcher from New York who goes by the Twitter handle “TrumpSoldier” (@DaveNYviii). His reporting, conveyed below, is a deep dig into the OIG’s ongoing investigation, how Congress and the OIG have worked in tandem to pave the way for a Special Counsel, and how Michael Horowitz went to war with the Obama Administration to restore the OIG’s powers. 

  Who is Michael Horowitz? 

  

  Michael Horowitz testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Horowitz was appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April, 2012 – after the Obama administration hobbled the OIG’s investigative powers in 2011 during the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allowed Holder (and other agency heads) to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright. 

  What did Horowitz do? As one twitter commentators puts it, he went to war…

  In March of 2015, Horowitz’s office prepared a report for Congress  titled Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations. It laid the Obama Admin bare before Congress – illustrating among other things how the administration was wasting tens-of-billions of dollars by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG. 

   

  

   

  After several attempts by congress to restore the OIG’s investigative powers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz successfully introduced H.R.6450 – the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016 – signed by a defeated lame duck President Obama into law on December 16th, 2016, cementing an alliance between Horrowitz and both houses of Congress. 

  1) Due to the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, the OIG has access to all of the information that the target agency possesses. This not only includes their internal documentation and data, but also that which the agency externally collected and documented.

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

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  See here for a complete overview of the OIG’s new and restored powers. And while the public won’t get to see classified details of the OIG report, Mr. Horowitz is also big on public disclosure: 

  13) Horowitz in 2017 took his organization to a new level via public disclosure. He no longer wants his findings hidden from us by the media. In May he created the twitter account @OversightGov. On October 1st his website https://t.co/TJqbITz0IR went live. pic.twitter.com/H8MKD6WzVE

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

  Horowitz’s efforts to roll back Eric Holder’s restrictions on the OIG sealed the working relationship between Congress and the Inspector General’s ofice, and they most certainly appear to be on the same page. Moreover, brand new FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to be on the same page as well. Click here and keep scrolling for that and more insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. 

  Here’s a preview: 

  13) “UNRING THAT BELL”#ChristopherWray reveals the IG Sword’s power to re-open investigations. After a tangled legal exchange that runs out the clock he puts the Hillary investigation back on the table almost as an afterthought. Easily my favorite moment. pic.twitter.com/Y8xmf3vaQ0

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) December 8, 2017

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  Which brings us back to the OIG report expected by Congress a week from Monday.

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  On January 12 of last year, Inspector Horowitz announced an OIG investigation based on “requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations (such as Judicial Watch?), and members of the public.” 

  The initial focus ranged from the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, to whether or not Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe should have been recused from the investigation (ostensibly over $700,000 his wife’s campaign took from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe around the time of the email investigation), to potential collusion with the Clinton campaign and the timing of various FOIA releases. 

   

  

  Courtesy @DaveNYviii

  On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in 14 questions pertaining to “actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” 

  The questions range from Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation, Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and the (mis)handling of her email investigation by the FBI, the DOJ’s failure to empanel a grand jury to investigate Clinton, and questions about the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and whether the FBI relied on the “Trump-Russia” dossier created by Fusion GPS. 

  19) 14 Questions for the IG!
  This powerful letter is a thing of beauty that expands the scope and establishes the legal framework for a special counsel. Read in it’s entirety to see where we are headed. (Steel Dossier, Uranium One, Clinton Foundation)
  PDF> https://t.co/gscpkulJ5O pic.twitter.com/VjXjwGRkr8

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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  20) 14 Questions Summary
  1-5 clinton email investigation
  6-8 Clinton Foundation Uranium One
  9 DNC Election Rigging
  10 -14 Weaponized DOJ/FBI SteeleDoss Russian HOAX

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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  23) The July 27th letter is the key document. Everything needed to appoint a special counsel is contained within it. The letters preceding it were precursors and the ones after are add ons. All the IG has to do is reinforce that letter and a special counsel will be appointed.

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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  On September 26, 2017, The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview. 

  21) #Comey‘s Lies are catching up to him.
  September 26th, 2017 continues the call for a special counsel as well as targets Comey’s lie to Congress. They have Comey dead to rights. PDF>>https://t.co/G0ujwXzTE1 pic.twitter.com/zJuL0tbKm5

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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  And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together – as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel.

  As illustrated below by TrumpSoldier, the report will go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees of Congress, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected on January 15. 

   

  

  DOJ Flowchart, Courtesy TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii)

  2) Congress will receive the Inspector General Report on January 15th, 2018. We learned this on December 13th, 2017 at The House Judiciary Committee hearing with Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. pic.twitter.com/ZvzSKFdcrL

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

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  Once congress has reviewed the OIG report, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will use it to supplement their investigations, which will result in hearings with the end goal of requesting or demanding a Special Counsel investigation. The DOJ can appoint a Special Counsel at any point, or wait for Congress to demand one. If a request for a Special Counsel is ignored, Congress can pass legislation to force an the appointment. 

  And while the DOJ could act on the OIG report and investigate / prosecute themselves without a Special Counsel, it is highly unlikely that Congress would stand for that given the subjects of the investigation. 

  The OIG report could be in the hands of the DOJ as soon as January 8 for review, however it is unclear whether their response will be included in the copy of the report issued to Congressional investigators on January 15. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis, the DOJ can take various actions regarding “Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded).” 

  10) The DOJ response is critical! Here Wray discusses actions that can be taken based upon the OIG Report. Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about everything. (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded) pic.twitter.com/Rf2qiXtVgm

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 3, 2018

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  Meanwhile, recent events appear to correspond with bullet points in both the original OIG investigation letter and the 7/27/2017 letter forwarded to the Inspector General: 

  31) Recent events that match 1/12/17 IG Bullet Points
  1/3/18 Senate Judiciary Cmte letter to DOJ (memos)https://t.co/EiwWwbHhJU
  1/4/18 SHGA Cmte releases Comey Edits https://t.co/YzOiRGPHfg
  1/5/18 FBI Release Conflict of Interest McCabe Probehttps://t.co/RGMBzPuG16 pic.twitter.com/swnSfr4qqg

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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  32) Events matching 7/27/17 Letter Forwarded to the IG
  12/17/17 Uranium Onehttps://t.co/362tO1g4el
  1/4/18 Fusion GPShttps://t.co/xdsMXowND3
  1/4/18 Clinton Foundationhttps://t.co/ZxFpuVyM0Y
  1/4/18 Clinton Emailhttps://t.co/kiVyTGRUzZ
  1/5/18 Dossier https://t.co/3Z63mpHJZ1 pic.twitter.com/LsvMLZeUWp

  TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) January 6, 2018

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

  With the wheels set in motion last week seemingly align with Congressional requests and the OIG mandate, and the upcoming OIG report likely to serve as a foundational opinion, the DOJ will finally be empowered to move forward with an impartially appointed Special Counsel with a mandate to investigate whether or not we should “lock her up” (along with members of her motley crew). Maybe that’s why Sessions has been sitting on his hands? 

  

• "Spare Us The Thought Police!" Germans Rage As New Hate Speech Law Backfires

  As we reported recently, in what was officially a noble attempt to eliminate online hate speech in social media, and unofficially a devious crackdown on free speech, on January 1, 2018, Germany passed a law that forces websites to censor content deemed illegal under the new law and have it deleted within 24-hours. Ironically, as we observed last week, just hours after the law’s passage it immediately backfired when it claimed its first victim, a German satirical magazine’s Twitter account which “parodied anti-Muslim comment.”

  Incidentally, this perfectly predictable if “totally unexpected” outcome is exactly what we, and many others had warned would happen. And now, it is finally dawning on Germany that any time the government gets involved in defining what is allowed and what isn’t – especially when it comes to that most fundamental of liberties, free speech – the result is always a disaster.

  According to Germany’s top-selling, and most popular newspaper, Bild, the new German law meant to curtail online hate speech is “stifling free speech and making martyrs out of anti-immigrant politicians whose posts are deleted.”

  The law which took effect on Jan. 1 can impose fines of up to 50 million euros ($60 million) on sites that fail to remove hate speech promptly and threatens the profitability  of such social media giants as Twitter and Facebook.

  “Please spare us the thought police!” read the headline in Wednesday’s Bild above an article that called the law a “sin” against freedom of opinion enshrined in Germany’s constitution, Reuters reported.

  

  While the law requires social media sites to delete or block obviously criminal content within 24 hours, Bild Editor-in-Chief Julian Reichelt said it could be applied against anything and anyone since there was no definition of what was “manifestly unlawful” in most cases.

  Intended to prevent radical groups from gaining influence, “it was having precisely the opposite effect,” he warned.

  “The law against online hate speech failed on its very first day. It should be abolished immediately,” Reichelt wrote, adding that the law was turning AfD politicians into “opinion martyrs”.

  * * *

  Two examples where the German law was already applied, included tweets deleted by AfD lawmaker Beatrix von Storch criticising police for tweeting in Arabic, saying they had sought “to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men”. Police have since asked prosecutors to investigate her for possible incitement to hatred.

  

  There was also deleted tweet by another AfD member of parliament, Jens Maier, called Noah Becker – the son of former tennis champion Boris Becker – a “half-nigger”.

  In response to the criticism, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas defended the law, telling Bild that freedom of opinion did not mean carte blanche to spread criminal content on the internet.

  “Calls to murder, threats, insults and incitement of the masses or Auschwitz lies are not an expression of freedom of opinion but rather attacks on the freedom of opinion of others,” he said.

  Germany is no stranger to limiting free speech: the country has some of the world’s toughest laws on defamation, incitement to commit crimes and threats of violence, with prison sentences for Holocaust denial or inciting hatred against minorities.

  Maas said social networks needed to stick to the law like everyone else, adding: “Those who care about protecting freedom of opinion can’t just look on as criminal incitement and threats inhibit the open exchange of views.”

  And so, the government refuses to back down even as the rest of Germany realizes what a profound chilling effect the new law will have on online speech everywhere. Once the lawsuits start flying and the social networks are punished a few hundred million, it will only embolden the critics, who will then lash out again “anything and anyone” because, as the Bild editor correctly noted, “there is no definition of what was manifestly unlawful.” Incidentally, this inexplicably broad definition, one which puts any content creator immediately on the defensive, is precisely what the government intended.

  

• How Jeff Bezos' Washington Post Became The US Military-Industrial Complex's Chief Propagandist

  Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  It used to be that the New York Times and the Washington Post competed against each other to be the chief propagandist for the hundred or so top firms who sell to the US federal government – the 100 top “federal contractors,” almost all of which are Pentagon contractors – mainly these are weapons-manufacturing firms, such as the biggest, Lockheed Martin. The federal government is a large part of these firms’ essential market; so, invasions by the US against other countries require lots of their goods and services; and, also, America’s foreign allies additionally buy these weapons; and, right now, US President Trump is demanding that they increase their ‘defense’ budgets to buy more of them. Wars produce corporate profits if (like in the United States) the military suppliers are private corporations instead of government-owned (socialized). Selling wars is crucial to such firms’ bottom lines. And, since there is no law against owning a ‘defense’ contractor and owning or donating to newsmedia (especially newsmedia such as the Times and Post, which publish lots of international news and so can encourage lots of invasions), a sensible business strategy for investors in ‘defense’ stocks is to also own or donate to some international-‘news’ media, in order to generate additional business for the arms-maker or other ‘defense’ firm. Not only does this business-plan relate to such newspapers as the NYT and WP, but they’ll be the focus here, because they are the most important of America’s international-news media.

   

  

  Serious periodicals, such as The New Republic, The Atlantic, and Mother Jones, have also been steady propagandists for ‘defense’ companies, but magazines don’t reverberate through the rest of the mass-media to the extent that the serious national (NYC & DC) newspapers do. TV and radio pick up on, and transmit, their news (and even CNN and others rely upon them more than these newspapers rely upon the broadcast media); and, in America, a lion’s share of the national political news, and especially of international news, is originated in the New York Times and Washington Post. This megaphone-effect forms the public’s opinions about whether we should invade or not. The owners of those two powerful newspapers, via their boards of directors and appointed editorial boards, make the key decisions regarding hiring, firing, promotions, and demotions, which determine news-slants from their employees (both from the reporters and especially from the editors who select what stories to publish and whether on page-one or inside the paper), and this power that these owners have, reverberates immensely (especially in regards to international relations) and thus largely shapes the results in the national polls (sampling the public, who view the world through the newsmedia); and, thus, every US President and every member of Congress becomes heavily impacted by that ‘news’, that ‘world’ the voting public see. And this coloring of the ‘news’ especially concerns international-news reporting, and the opinions that Americans have of foreign countries — such as of Iran.

  Back in 2002, when the US Government was lying through its teeth about what it knew for certain and didn’t know about “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD),” the New York Times (NYT) was then the leading neoconservative (i.e., pro-imperialistic, pro-invasion, pro military-industrial-complex or “MIC”) propaganda-organ, stenographically transmitting to the public this Government’s provably false allegations, and the Washington Post (WP) was only #2 in this regard. But that order has now switched, and now the WP is even worse.

  The latest MIC-promoted top story-line concerns the protests in Iran – a country the US long controlled via America’s agent, the brutal Shah, by and after a 1953 CIA coup there, and which country thus very reasonably loathes and fears the US Government. What caused these protests, and what they mean, are much in the news; and, the news-reporting and editorials and op-eds in the NYT have been significantly more honest and varied than in the WP. Here’s a sampling of that:

  As of the time of this writing (January 5th), there has not yet been an editorial from the NYT regarding the protests in Iran. (Similarly, many other newspapers, such as Britain’s Guardian, haven’t yet ventured official editorial opinions regarding this matter.) However, one opinion-piece that has been published regarding it, has become an especially prominent target of attack by the more overtly pro-MIC propagandists: the NYT’s “How Can Trump Help Iran’s Protesters? Be Quiet.” It’s by “a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was an assistant secretary of state and White House coordinator for the Middle East during the Obama administration.” That writer closes by saying: “If Mr. Trump blows up the [Iran nuclear] deal and reimposes sanctions, he will not be doing the opposition a favor but instead giving Iranians a reason to rally to — rather than work against — the government they might otherwise despise. The protests taking place in Iran today are perhaps a sign that, in the long run, the Iranian people want to be accepted as free, responsible members of the international community and that in time they might demand and achieve real change. The best way for Mr. Trump to help test that proposition and increase the chance of its success is to do nothing.” That’s a rare example of an anti-MIC (military-sales-suppressing) opinion-piece in a major American ‘news’medium.

  Less ‘controversial’ (more clearly mainstream) than that has been another NYT opinion-piece, “The Worst Thing for Iran’s Protesters? US Silence.” It’s by “a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, … a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.” The FDD is an Israeli front US think-tank, funded by many MIC-invested billionaires in both countries. The author concludes: “The Trump administration can do better [than did the Obama Administration]. The president’s tweets in support of the protesters were a good start. Washington should also let loose a tsunami of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards, the linchpin of Iran’s dictatorship. Policy-wise, that would be a good place to start. Contrary to received wisdom, the absolute worst thing that the United States can do for the Iranian people is to stay silent and do nothing.”

  Another NYT op-ed is “Why Iran Is Protesting” and it’s by “an Iranian novelist and journalist.” He concludes that in Iran, “something has fundamentally changed: The unquestioning support of the rural people they relied on against the discontent of the metropolitan elite is no more. Now everyone seems unhappy.” That too is mainstream — it implies that the people of Iran have a bad Government, which should be removed.

  The closest thing yet to being a NYT editorial on the subject of these protests is a column by the Times’s Roger Cohen, “Trump Is Right, This Time, About Iran.” It closes by advising the Administration: “It should not, whatever happens, impose new sanctions: They only benefit the Revolutionary Guards. And it should learn, finally, that Iran is not, as Steve Bannon told Joshua Green, ‘like the fifth century — completely primeval’ — but rather a sophisticated society of deep culture full of unrealized promise better served by engagement than estrangement.” That is a remarkably sympathetic (to the Iranian people) statement, but it nonetheless argues the exact opposite: “Trump Is Right, This Time, About Iran.” Its conclusion is the opposite of its title, but the main part of the article’s text is irrelevant to both the title and the conclusion. People such as this become columnists at top ‘news’media.

  Those are the relevant opinions selected by the owner of the NYT for publication. They’re pro-MIC, but not fanatically so.

  The WP published on January 1st their editorial on the subject, “The Post’s View: The West should support the protesters in Iran.” It’s like Roger Cohen’s column in the NYT. It closes: “Mr. Trump should avoid acts that would undercut the protests and empower the regime’s hard-liners. Foremost among these would be a renunciation of the 2015 nuclear accord. That would divide the United States from European governments when they should be coordinating their response to the uprising, and it would give the regime an external threat against which to rally. Reform of the nuclear accord can wait. Now is the time for Mr. Trump to focus on supporting the people of Iran.” Both Roger Cohen and the WP favor “supporting the people of Iran” while opposing and hoping for an overthrow of the President who was chosen by those people in the 2017 Iranian Presidential election, which was at least as democratic as was America’s 2016 US Presidential election. The Iranian polls right before the 19 May 2017 Presidential election showed the top three candidates as being Rouhani 35%, Raisi 18%, and Ghalibaf 2%. (20% “Won’t say.”) Ghalibaf and some of the other and even smaller candidates withdrew just days before the election. The final election result was Rouhani 57.14%, Raisi 38.28%. Raisi campaigned on a platform emphasizing that “Preventing the mixing of men and women in the office environment means that men and women can serve the people better” and advocating “Islamization of universities, revision of the Internet and censorship of Western culture.” Probably many of the recent protesters had voted for him. Perhaps if Iran becomes ruled by a “regime” instead of by an at least marginally democratic Government, then they’ll get a President like Raisi, after the US coup — which would be America’s second one in Iran. But, instead, Iranians chose Rouhani — and the U.S Government and its media call it a “regime” and say that the US Government wants to “support the people of Iran” by overthrowing the Government that Iranians voted for and support — support more than Americans support ours. (But whereas America’s CIA stirs protest-groups to overthrow Iran’s leaders, Iran has no equivalent operating in America, to overthrow our aristocracy’s choice of our leader.)

  On January 3rd, the WP issued an opinion-piece by US V.P. Mike Pence, whose views are much closer to Raisi’s than to Rouhani’s. It was titled, “This time, we will not be silent on Iran.”

  Another opinion-piece from the WP was the far-right Israeli Natan Sharansky’s ”The West should stop dithering and show its support for the protesters in Iran”, which attacked the Times’s “How Can Trump Help Iran’s Protesters? Be Quiet.” Sharansky said: “As an opinion piece in the New York Times recently put it, the best way for the US government to help the Iranian protesters is to ‘Keep quiet and do nothing.’ Fortunately, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have already shown themselves unwilling to follow this advice.”

  Yet another opinion-piece that the WP’s editors selected for publication on this topic was “Europe’s best chance on Iran could soon evaporate.” It criticized the Iran nuclear deal, and urged the Trump Administration to work with the EU “to sculpt a bipartisan policy that can save us from the next crisis, which is quickly coming our way.” This string of clichés ignored the fact that the only two actual available options for the US are to commit to the deal or else to depart from the deal; because Iran won’t leave it unless the US does, but it might leave it if the US does. And then, everything would be worse than it was previously. For the US to leave it while some of its allies don’t, would turn those allies to opposing the US Government and supporting Iran’s Government. And for the US to ‘renegotiate’ it would be impossible. Any European Government that would join with the US in order to attempt to force Iran to renegotiate it, would become embarrassed amongst its EU colleagues, and amongst its public. And yet, still, Iran would promptly resume its prior nuclear program, not renegotiate. To force Iran isn’t going to be so easy as such commentators presume it will. The article didn’t say how anything that it proposed to be achieved, could be achieved. It was simply trash.

  Another WP opinion-piece was “The protesters in Iran need real help from Washington” and it was written by a top official of a think thank, WINEP, about which, as one knowledgeable person has said, “WINEP was to be AIPAC’s cutout. It was funded by AIPAC donors, staffed by AIPAC employees, and located one door away, down the hall, from AIPAC Headquarters (no more. It has its own digs). It would also hire all kinds of people not identified with Israel as a cover.” None of this information was revealed by WP about the piece’s author. It can only be called blatant Israeli propaganda, surreptitiously fed to readers as if it weren’t.

  The WP columnist David Ignatius bannered “Trump is right to tell Iran the world is watching.” He closed by saying, about the “surprise explosion” of these protests: “Khamenei will want to crush it. The best gift the United States can give the Iranian people is a digital lifeline, so humanity can witness their brave struggle and encourage them to prevail.” The US regime already gave the Iranian people its ‘best gift’ in 1953 when it destroyed their democracy and instituted a 26-year-long dictatorship — and, Iranians can see through the US propaganda-media’s hypocrisies, even if the US public have been too deceived by those media, for too long, to be able to see through those lies. 

  So, the WP has become even more neoconservative (i.e, more in favor of invading countries that haven’t invaded us) now than it was back in 2002 when it cheered on George W. Bush’s lies about Iraq, after 9/11. How did this change happen?

  In 2013, Jeff Bezos and Donald Graham met at the Bilderberg conference, and two months later, Bezos agreed to buy the Washington Post from Graham.

  Less than a year after that, Bezos’s Amazon won the CIA-NSA cloud computing contract, vital to the US military.

  Bezos’s most profitable operation has been that military contract — it is allegedly responsible for changing Amazon from a money-losing to a profit-making corporation. The money-losing Washington Post already had been, under Graham and before, a longstanding supporter of US armed invasions, which now require lots of cloud computing (and not only of the types of weaponry that Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, etc., supply). For example: the WP was gung-ho for regime-change in Iraq in 2002, as well as, more recently, for bombing Libya, Syria, and the bombing in Ukraine’s civil war after the coup. The main topic at the next year’s, 2014, meeting of the Bilderberg group was the war in Ukraine, but other wars were also on the agenda, such as Syria, and so were President Obama’s ’trade’ treaties: TPP, TTIP, and TISA. Luminaries present at that year’s secret discussions were Timothy Geithner, Eric Schmidt, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Charles Murray, etc., and Europeans such as Christine Lagarde and Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Perhaps some sales were made there, too.

  Meanwhile, the NYT became the most-frequently-cited mis-reporter of such things as “Saddam’s WMD” during the years after the 2003 invasion on the basis of lies; and its publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., was forced quietly to fire his close friend and star White House stenographer (oops, ‘reporter’ — and she was even a Pulitzer-winning one!), Judith Miller, on account of the fraud-based Iraq War that she had so prominently and exceptionally helped to promote in her ‘news’-stories. Probably, Sulzberger’s successor, Arthur G. Sulzberger, is happy that when on 14 December 2017 his father handed the corporation’s controls over to him (effective on January 1st), the NYT’s position as the nation’s #1 PR-agent for US invasions has now been taken over by Jeff Bezos’s WP.

  But, of course, Sulzberger’s profits don’t depend nearly as much on America’s MIC as Bezos’s do. The WP’s business plan is even more dependent upon war-promotion than the rest of America’s major ‘news’media’s are. However, if, say, a firm such as General Dynamics were to buy out the Sulzbergers, then perhaps the NYT would become #1 in the neoconservative league, once again. But, even when a major ‘news’medium, such as Mother Jones, isn’t owned (like the WP now is) by someone who also largely owns (via Amazon) a major military contractor, it still promotes invasions, and has deep connections to America’s Deep State. You can count on the fingers of a fingerless hand the number of major American newsmedia — online, print, or broadcast — that are not neoconservative. There are none — right, left, or center. Today’s ‘respectable’ American purveyors of alleged news have some ideological diversity, but all exist within the framework of being neoliberal and neoconservative.

  

• Bitcoin Futures Traders Are Quietly Building A Big Short Position

  In retrospect, the launch of bitcoin futures one month ago has proven to be a modestly disappointing event: while it helped send the price of bitcoin soaring as traders braced for the institutionalization of bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency has stagnated since the beginning of December when first the Cboe then CME started trading bitcoin futures, trading in a range between $12,000 and $17,000.

  And while bitcoin futures markets volumes have been lower than most had expected, the past 4 weeks have provided enough data to observe how volumes and open interest have evolved.

  We discussed previously  that Bitcoin futures were off to a slow start in the first week of trading, with volumes of CBOE Bitcoin futures averaging just around $40MM per day, despite intense media hype helping fuel heavy trading when both contracts launched, at least in the first hours of trading.

  Since then, volumes spike briefly in the following week coinciding with the launch of the CME futures, with volumes of on both exchanges at relatively similar levels.

  Then, as JPM’s Nikolaos Panagirtzoglou shows, after a spike in volumes to around $200mn on 22 December, which saw sharp swings in underlying Bitcoin prices, volumes have averaged around $50mn and $60mn per day on the CBOE and CME futures, respectively.

  

  One month after their launch, futures trading volumes remain very modest compared to average Bitcoin trading volumes of around $15bn per day since futures contracts were launched according to coinmarketcap.com data. While open interest in both the CBOE and CME contracts has risen steadily, it too remains rather modest at around $60mn and $70mn, respectively.

  Putting futures volumes in context, on Friday, the combined size of the bitcoin-futures markets at the two exchanges was roughly $150 million, measured in terms of the value of outstanding contracts, while the total value of all bitcoins in existence was around $290 billion. 

  

  Another factor behind the slow volume growth may be the reluctance of many Wall Street banks to touch bitcoin futures. Firms such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch haven’t offered their clients access to bitcoin futures.

  Another notable observation: with both volumes and open interest between the two sets of futures contracts converging, it suggests that a large degree of arbitraging of price differentials has taken place between the contracts which initially showed significant divergence. As JPM further notes, when trading in the CBOE futures initially started, a striking feature was the wide basis between the futures contract and the underlying bitcoin prices, which intraday exceeded $2000 or more than 12% of the underlying price at the time. While traders provided numerous explanation for the spread, since then the difference between futures prices on both the CBOE and CME contracts and underlying bitcoin prices has narrowed significantly (chart below), and even turned negative briefly last week.

  

  That covers bitcoin futures volumes, but what about positioning? Well, as many traders expected, it appears that institutions are using the futures product to slowly but surely build a short position in bitcoin. According to the CFTC Commitment of Traders report (available CBOE futures), non-commercial traders held a net short position of around $30mn as of Tuesday Dec 26, or around half of the total open interest.

  Separately, the Traders in Financial Futures breakdown provided by the CFTC show that the leveraged funds category that consists largely of hedge funds and various money managers had a short of around $14mn, or around a quarter of the total open interest.

  In other words, spec investors have used the futures contracts to establish Bitcoin shorts.

  How does this compare with other asset classes typically used as a store of wealth such as gold and silver? As JPMorgan explains, for gold futures, non-commercial investors held as of Dec 26 a net long position of around 30% of open interest, of which the managed money category held around 80%, while in silver futures both the non-commercial and managed money categories were close to zero.

  

  * * *

  An analysis by the Wall Street Journal  confirms that while hedge funds and other large traders are betting that bitcoin will fall, small investors remain convinced that bitcoin prices will keep on rising.

  As the WSJ reports, for traders who hold fewer than 25 of Cboe’s bitcoin futures contracts—a category that likely encompasses many retail investors—bullish bets are 3.6 times more common than bearish ones, according to the latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data that cover trading through Tuesday.

  Meanwhile, the big CBOE players in bitcoin futures tend to be short. For instance, among “other reportables”—large trading firms that don’t necessarily manage money for outside investors—short bets outweighed bullish “long” bets by a factor of 2.6 last week.

  

  The historical data will probably not come as a big surprise: many skeptics on Wall Street have called bitcoin a bubble and would be more apt to bet on its decline. In a sign of how more conservative firms are keeping their distance, the CFTC data show near-zero trading in Cboe’s bitcoin futures by banks and asset managers.

  “There is probably more optimism in the retail segment than there is in the institutional segment,” said Steven Sanders, an executive vice president at Interactive Brokers Group Inc., an electronic brokerage firm that offers its customers access to bitcoin futures.

  And sure enough, presenting JPM’s data in a slightly different context, COT data shows that hedge funds and other money managers had placed almost 40% more short bets than long bets last week.

  Curiously, it is worth noting that that represented a less bearish outlook than they had in late December, when such funds had more than four times as many short bets as long bets.

  To be sure, shorting bitcoin futures doesn’t necessarily mean a trader expects bitcoin to crash. In a natural hedge, a cryptocurrency trading firm with significant holdings of bitcoin might go short to hedge those inventories against a price fall. That would make the firm indifferent as to whether bitcoin goes up or down.

  As the WSJ further notes, shorting futs could also be part of certain sophisticated trading strategies, such as betting that rival cryptocurrencies will outperform bitcoin. One such rival, Ethereum, rose above $1,000 for the first time last week, more than double its value from the beginning of December.

  With the CFTC data, “you’re not seeing the full picture,” said James Koutoulas, chief executive of hedge-fund firm Typhon Capital Management, which trades futures in bitcoin as well as commodities. Typhon has swung back and forth, being long and short bitcoin futures at various times, Mr. Koutoulas said.

  Of course, it’s not just bitcoin.

  As JPM writes, any given cryptocurrency faces competition from other cryptocurrencies, posing risks to their individual valuations. Indeed, the market capitalisation of Bitcoin has risen by around $100bn to around $270bn since late November, while other cryptocurrencies have seen a significant increase in market cap from around $130bn to nearly $500bn currently.

  

  Other cryptocurrencies – mostly ethereum and ripple – have benefited from the increased interest in Bitcoin amid the listing of exchange traded futures, as well as the sharp rise in Bitcoin average transaction costs from around $6 per transaction in early December to nearly $60 per transaction on Dec 22, before settling in a $25-$30 range in recent days.

  

  By contrast, average transaction fees in Ethereum reached a high of $1.50 in early December and were around $1 on Jan 4, while average transaction fees in Ripple measure a few cents according to bitinfocharts.com. The one-third share of Bitcoin of the total cryptocurrency market cap of around $770bn represents a new low. In contrast, the market of $770bn for the total cryptocurrency market represents a new high.

  * * *

  And while we await futures contracts to be announced on other cryptos, most likely ethereum and ripple next, events which we believe will be catalysts for substantial price upside in both cryptocurrencies, the question for bitcoin is who will be right: institutions, who are short, or retail investors (especially those in Japan and South Korea) who remain fervently long. If the past 7 years – in which retail has consistently trounced “smart money” returns are any indication, bitcoin is about to soar as yet another major short squeeze develops in the coming weeks and months.

  

• US Border Patrol Conducted Record 30,000 Phone Searches In 2017

  While civil-libertarian minded lawmakers and the ACLU push to tighten restrictions on phone searches of American citizens, particularly when leaving or entering the US, the Customs and Border Protection Agency reported that the number of phone searches executed at the border skyrocketed in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported.

  The border patrol conducted a record number of cellphones and other devices at US points of entry last year as they intensified their hunt for smugglers and terrorists.

  In fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 30, the government searched the devices of 30,200 people, the vast majority leaving the country, up from 19,051 in fiscal year 2016. More than 80% of the devices belonged to foreigners or legal permanent residents, with less than one in five owned by a U.S. citizen.

  “In this digital age, border searches of electronic devices are essential to enforcing the law at the U.S. border and to protecting the American people,” said John Wagner, deputy executive assistant commissioner for the agency’s Office of Field Operations.

  The agency on Friday released a new written policy outlining procedures for searching and seizing electronic devices at the border. The new guidance makes clear that agents can only examine information stored on the device, not data stored “in the cloud” that’s accessible from the device.

  The policy makes clear that while agents can ask for passwords to access a device, the passwords aren’t to be retained in any way.

  And the policy sets forth standards for agents to do an “advanced search,” which involves connecting the device to a computer to retrieve and copy information. Under the rules, advanced searches are allowed only if there is “reasonable suspicion” and “articulable facts” to support it, and with the approval of a supervisor. The standards for more in-depth searches hadn’t been spelled out before. No such standard exists for basic searches.

  The new policy also requires border agents to notify a traveler when his or her device is to be searched, unless telling the traveler would harm “national security, law enforcement, officer safety, or other operational interests.”

  Still, the ACLU and its plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the federal government believe these guidelines are still too loose.

   

  

  Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the administration on behalf of 10 US citizens and one legal permanent resident whose devices were searched or seized at the border. The groups argue in their suit that the government should be required to have a warrant to look at a traveler’s electronic devices.

  Among the plaintiffs is a NASA engineer who said he was forced to unlock his phone and give customs agents access to its contents when he returned to the U.S. from Chile on Jan. 31, in the midst of chaos at airports from the fallout of President Donald Trump’s original travel ban. Sidd Bikkannavar is an American-born engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

  Privacy advocates wanted more protections for travelers’ rights. “This policy still falls far short of what the Constitution requires—a search warrant based on probable cause,” said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement.

  Specifically, ACLU believes these types of searches should require a warrant based on probable cause in every case – a standard we imagine the border patrol would roundly reject.

  Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and Kentucky Republican Rand Paul are working together on a bill that would raise the requirements for law enforcement searches of individuals’ phones.

  Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has introduced a bill that would require officials to obtain warrants before such searches, suggested the policy didn’t go far enough to protect U.S. citizens’ rights.

  “There’s more work to do here,” Mr. Wyden said. “Manually examining an individuals’ private photos, messages and browsing history is still extremely invasive, and should require a warrant. I continue to believe Americans are entitled to their full constitutional rights, no matter where they are in the United States.”

  However, given the Trump administration’s emphasis on tightening border security – a battle that is just ramping up in Congress – it’s unlikely the administration would stand by and let lawmakers handicap the border patrol.

  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has even hinted that border patrol agents might start asking for the social media passwords of non-citizens trying to enter the country.

   

  

• Pakistan's Asymmetrical Response To Trump Is A Clever Way To Flip The Tables On Afghanistan

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

  Pakistan’s announcement that it will seek the expulsion of over 1,5 million Afghan refugees in the next 30 days is being tacitly justified by Trump’s tweet and channels his zero-tolerance stance towards immigration from “terrorist”-prone states, but it also represents the employment of reverse-“Weapons of Mass Migration” in pushing Kabul closer towards the edge of collapse and consequently filling the Taliban’s rank of supporters.

   

  The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018

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  Trump is going to soon regret what he tweeted about Pakistan on New Year’s Day in accusing it of “giving safe haven to terrorists”, since Islamabad is poised to hit Washington with an asymmetrical counterpunch that it surely won’t forget.

   

  

  The Pakistani government just announced that over 1.5 million Afghan refugees must leave the country within the next 30 days, a plan that it’s been working on for a while but which just received a fresh impetus and internationally-acceptable justification with Trump’s tweet.

  Had it not been for the American President’s zero-tolerance towards immigration from what his administration labels as “terrorist”-prone countries, which crucially includes Afghanistan for substantial and not political reasons (as the latter relates to Iran’s inclusion and Saudi Arabia’s exclusion), then Pakistan would have risked drawing heavy pressure from the State Department on exaggerated claims that it’s “violating the human rights” of the refugees.

  Trump, however, said that Pakistan was “giving safe haven to terrorists”, and since the US formally regards Afghan refugees as being too much of a potential security hazard to allow into its own country, it’s forced to accept Pakistan’s expulsion of 1,5 million of them on the implicit basis that they also constitute a serious terrorist threat to the state such as the one that the President just tweeted about.

  This isn’t at all what Trump meant when he issued his tweet, nor the reaction that he was expecting, but by cleverly exploiting the President’s own policies at home and the suggestion he was making towards Pakistan abroad, Islamabad found a creative way to asymmetrically strike back at Washington.

  Not only could Pakistan soon rid itself of actual terrorist sleeper cells and societal malcontents who have long overstayed their welcome in the neighboring country, it will also be catalyzing a series of cascading crises for Kabul through the employment of what can be described as reverse-“Weapons of Mass Migration”.

  To briefly explain, Ivy League researcher Kelly M. Greenhill introduced the concept of “Weapons of Mass Migration” in 2010 to describe the ways through which large-scale population movements — whether “naturally occurring”, engineered, or exploited — impact on their origin, transit, and destination societies, theorizing that this phenomenon can have a strategic use in some instances.

  Of relevance, the influx of millions of Afghan “Weapons of Mass Migration” into Pakistan since 1979 had the effect of destabilizing the host country’s border communities and eventually contributing to the spree of terrorist attacks that have since claimed over 60,000 lives in the past 15 years, but now the large-scale and rapid return of these “weapons” to their country of origin will also inevitably destabilize Afghanistan.

  The landlocked and war-torn country is utterly unable to accommodate for what amounts to a roughly 3% increase in its total population in the next 30 days, especially seeing as how the Kabul government exerts little influence beyond the capital and has no sway in the approximate half of the country that’s under the control of the Taliban.

  The US-backed Afghan government is already failing its citizens as it is and that’s why so many of them have either joined the Taliban or sympathize with it in the first place, so the odds of the returned refugees successfully reintegrating into their homeland’s socio-economic fabric and becoming “model citizens” is close to nil, meaning that it should be expected that the vast majority of these 1,5 million people will more than likely come to side with the Taliban than Kabul and consequently make the country much more difficult for the US to control.

  In essence, what Pakistan has done is throw Trump’s tweet right back at him by using it as the internationally plausible pretext for initiating this long-planned move that was originally predicated on solely apolitical security-centric domestic interests but has now pertinently come to embody geostrategic contours by powerfully turning the tables against the US in Afghanistan through the employment of reverse-“Weapons of Mass Migration”.

  

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