• "Significant Slowdown" Spooks Maersk At Mediterranean's Third Largest Port

  Malta Freeport, the third largest transshipment port in the Mediterranean region and located on the island of Malta, has seen a “significant slowdown in business activity” since 2H18.

  One of its major clients, Maersk, the largest container ship and supply vessel operator in the world, has decided to move its operations from Malta to other ports in North Africa after Mediterranean shipping routes have been severely affected by the synchronized global slowdown.

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  The Times of Malta reported that Freeport’s management notified unions and other clients that Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) will be shifting operations from Malta to other African ports, is expected to reduce business at Malta’s container terminal by 35% next month.

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  Last year’s figures show the port handled 3.3 million containers in its transshipment activities, but with Maersk and MSC halting operations, that number is expected to be dramatically less.

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  A spokesman for Freeport confirmed to the Times of Malta that Maersk and MSC have departed.

  “Maersk recently informed us that it will be shifting some of the services that are being carried out through Malta Freeport to a new fully-automated facility in Tangier Med, Morocco, and to Port Said in Egypt.”

  Maersk has been operating from Malta for at least a decade, handling import shipping routes to and from China.

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  Industry sources said shipping volumes have already decreased at Freeport, as a severe economic slowdown in Europe and Asia have sent container rates between both regions into a tailspin in the last several quarters.

  “The slowdown can already be felt and there are already fewer people working, particularly on overtime,” the source said. 

  Last month, data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis revealed world trade volume fell 1.8% in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as a global slowdown gained momentum.

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  The International Monetary Fund warned last month that this is a “delicate moment” for the global economy as many countries are in the midst of a severe slowdown.

  The global economy has “lost further momentum” in the last six months, said IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

  Lagarde pinned trade volume deterioration on decelerating global growth and “the impact of increased trade tensions on spending” on producer goods.

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  The threat of the U.S.-China trade war escalating into a full-blown trade war is starting to be realized. President Trump last Friday raised the tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China’s move came Monday, as it increased its tariff rate from 10% to 25% on $60 billion worth of American goods.

  The tit-for-tat trade war has led to a massive re-pricing of global trade expectations for 2H19, expected to trigger a global trade recession if Trump initiates a 25% tariff on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese goods.

  The global downturn in trade is widespread geographically. The disruption at Malta Freeport highlights that China and Europe are in a synchronized slowdown with no trough in sight.

  

• Europe Is Powerless In Growing Conflict Between The US And Iran

  Authored by Patrick Cockburn via Counterpunch.org,

  Brexiteers in Britain are denouncing the EU as an all-powerful behemoth from whose clutches Britain must escape, just as the organisation is demonstrating its failure to become more than a second-rate world power.

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  The EU’s real status – well behind the US, Russia and China – has just been demonstrated by its inability to protect Iran from US sanctions following President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal of 2015. A year ago, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron made humiliating visits to Washington to plead vainly with Trump to stay with the agreement, but were rebuffed.

  Since then the US has successfully ratcheted up economic pressure on Iran, reducing its oil exports from 2.8 to 1.3 million barrels a day. The UK, France and Germany had promised to create a financial vehicle to circumvent US sanctions, but their efforts have been symbolic. Commercial enterprises are, in any case, too frightened of the ire of the US treasury to take advantage of such measures.

  Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran would stop complying with parts of the nuclear deal unless the Europeans provided the promised protection for the oil trade and banks. Everybody admits that Iran is in compliance but this is not going to do it any good.

  These are the latest moves in the complex political chess game between the US and Iran which has been going on since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. It is this conflict – and not the US-China confrontation over trade, which has just dramatically escalated – which will most likely define any new balance of power in the world established during the Trump era. It is so important because – unlike the US-China dispute – the options include the realistic possibility of regime change and war.

  The Europeans have proved to be marginal players when it comes to the Iran deal and it was never likely that they would spend much more diplomatic capital defending it once the US had withdrawn. In the long term, they also want regime change in Tehran, though they oppose Trump’s methods of obtaining it as reckless. Nevertheless, the contemptuous ease with which Trump capsized the agreement shows how little he cares what EU leaders say or do.

  The Europeans will be spectators in the escalating US-Iran conflict. The US potential is great when it comes to throttling the Iranian economy. Iranian oil exports are disappearing, inflation is at 40 per cent and the IMF predicts a 6 per cent contraction in the economy as a whole. The US can punish banks dealing with Iran everywhere, including countries where Iran is politically strong such as Iraq and Lebanon.

  Tehran does not have many effective economic countermeasures against the US assault, other than to try to out-wait the Trump era. Caution has worked well for Iran in the past. After 2003, Iranians used to joke that God must be on their side because why else would the US have overthrown Iran’s two deeply hostile neighbours – the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

  Many Iranian leaders appear confident that they can survive anything Trump can throw at them other than a full-scale shooting war. Past precedent suggests they’re right: in the wars in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1982, Iran came out on top and helped created Hezbollah as the single most powerful political and military force in the country. Likewise, after the US/UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran undermined their occupation and saw a Shia-led government sympathetic to its interests hold power in Baghdad. In Syria after 2011, Iranian support was crucial in keeping its ally Bashar al-Assad in control.

  Iran was on the winning side in these conflicts in part because of mistakes made by its opponents, but these will not inevitably happen again. Because the media and much of the political establishment in Washington and western capitals are so viscerally anti-Trump, they frequently underestimate the effectiveness of his reliance on American economic might while avoiding military conflict. At the end of the day, the US Treasury is a more powerful instrument of foreign policy than the Pentagon for all its aircraft carriers and drones.

  Trump may not read briefing papers, but he often has a better instinct for the realities of power than the neo-conservative hawks in his administration who learned little from the Iraq war which they helped foment.

  So long as Trump sticks with sanctions he is in a strong position, but if the crisis with Iran becomes militarised then the prospects for the US become less predictable. Neither Tehran nor Washington want war, but that does not mean they will not get one. Conflicts in this part of the Middle East are particularly uncontrollable because there are so many different players with contrary interests.

  This divergence produces lots of wild cards: Trump is backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but these oil states have had a dismal record of operational incapacity in Syria and Yemen.

  The Iranians, for their part, have had their successes where their fellow Shia are the majority (Iraq), the largest community (Lebanon) or are in control of government (Syria). Given that they are a Shia clerical regime, it is always difficult for them to extend their influence beyond the Shia core areas.

  Benjamin Netanyahu has led the charge in demonising Iran and encouraging the US to see it as the source of all evil in the Middle East. But Netanyahu’s belligerent rhetoric against Iran has hitherto been accompanied with caution in shifting to military action, except against defenceless Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

  A danger is that a permanent cold or hot war between Washington and Tehran will become the vehicle for other conflicts that have little to do with it. These would include the escalating competition between Saudi Arabia and Turkey over the leadership of the Sunni world. Turkey’s independent role would be threatened by an enhancement of US power in the region. So too would Russia which has re-established its status as a global power since 2011 by its successful military support for Assad in Syria.

  Trump hopes to force Tehran to negotiate a Carthaginian peace – particularly useful if this happens before the next US presidential election – under which Iran ceases to be a regional power. Regime change would be the optimum achievement for Trump, but is probably unattainable.

  If Trump sticks to economic war it will be very difficult for Iran to counter him, but in any other scenario the US position becomes more vulnerable. There is an impressive casualty list of British and US leaders – three British prime ministers and three US presidents – over the last century who have suffered severe or fatal political damage in the Middle East. Trump will be lucky if he escapes the same fate.

  

• DARPA Is Training AI For Close-Range Air Combat Missions

  The Pentagon wants to increase its use of artificial intelligence, or AI, for war. So it asked it research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to automate air-to-air combat, teaching AI how to manuever an aircraft and use weapons on the modern battlefield, reported DARPA Public Affairs.

  The research agency says AI-controlled fighter aircraft could respond faster in combat situations, allowing the pilot to identify other threats. The software can also fly in a fully autonomous mode without a pilot.

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  The Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program was developed by DARPA to address the need for autonomous combat technology in the skies.

  “Being able to trust autonomy is critical as we move toward a future of warfare involving manned platforms fighting alongside unmanned systems,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Javorsek (Ph.D.), ACE program manager at DARPA.

  “We envision a future in which AI handles the split-second maneuvering during within-visual-range dogfights, keeping pilots safer and more effective as they orchestrate large numbers of unmanned systems into a web of overwhelming combat effects,” Javorsek said.

  ACE is designed to enable DARPA’s “mosaic warfare” vision. Mosaic warfare transfers warfighting away from human pilots to less-expensive drones that can be quickly manufactured, fielded, and upgraded with the latest technology to address changing threats on the modern battlefield.

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  The AI program is expected to be trained in aerial dogfighting rules in the near term. DARPA will train AI with basic fighter maneuvers first, then graduate onto more complex scenarios. Similar to a human pilot, AI performance will be closely watched by fighter instructors in the autonomous aircraft, which will help mature this technology.

  “Only after human pilots are confident that the AI algorithms are trustworthy in handling bounded, transparent and predictable behaviors will the aerial engagement scenarios increase in difficulty and realism,” Javorsek said. “Following virtual testing, we plan to demonstrate the dogfighting algorithms on sub-scale aircraft leading ultimately to live, full-scale manned-unmanned team dogfighting with operationally representative aircraft.”

  Several months ago, we reported that the Air Force Research Laboratory (ARL) published never before seen video of the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV), which completed its first flight on March 5, at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. The Valkyrie is programmed to fly alongside manned fourth and fifth-generation fighters, is another, but a separate example of how the Pentagon is rushing to deploy AI.

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  Zerohedge readers have already been briefed about the AI arms race between the US and China. Each superpower races to develop and commercialize AI technologies before the other, hoping to integrate these powerful technologies into weapons before the next major conflict breaks out.

  

• Russia-Gate's Monstrous Offspring – Mindless Bipartisan Bellicosity

  Authored by Daniel Lazare via ConsortiumNews.com,

  Russia-gate has shed any premise of being about Russian interference, but the idea that America may in anyway be responsible for its own fate is of course unthinkable…

  Americans used to think that Russia-gate was about a plot to hack the 2016 election.  They were wrong.  Russia-gate is really about an immense conspiracy to do four things:

  No. 1: Ratchet up tensions with Russia to ever more dangerous levels;

  No. 2: Show that Democrats are even more useless than people imagined;

  No. 3: Persecute Julian Assange;

  No. 4: Re-elect Donald Trump as president.

  This was the takeaway from Mitch McConnell’s devastating “case closed” speech last week in which the Senate majority leader jeered at President Barack Obama for mocking Mitt Romney’s claim (seven years ago now) that Russia was America’s “number one geopolitical foe.”  As Obama famously replied during that presidential debate: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

  But that was so 2012.  Now, says McConnell, it looks like Romney was right:

  “We’d have been better off if the administration hadn’t swept [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s invasion and occupation of Georgia under the rug or looked away as Russia forced out western NGO’s and cracked down on civil society.  If President Obama hadn’t let Assad trample his red line in Syria or embraced Putin’s fake deal on chemical weapons, if the Obama administration had responded firmly to Putin’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 2014, to the assassination of Boris Nemtsov in 2015, and to Russia intervention in Syria — maybe stronger leadership would have left the Kremlin less emboldened, maybe tampering with our democracy wouldn’t have seemed so very tempting. 

  “Instead,” McConnell went on, “the previous administration sent the Kremlin a signal they could get away with almost anything, almost anything.  So is it surprising that we got the brazen interference detailed in special counsel Mueller’s report?”

  Lies and Distortions

  Like so much out of Congress these days, this was a farrago of lies and distortions.  It wasn’t Moscow that started the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, but Tbilisi.  While Russia has indeed cracked down on U.S.-backed NGO’s, Washington has done the same by forcing Russia’s highly successful news agency RT to register as a foreign agent and by sentencing Maria Butina, a Russian national studying at American University, to 18 months in prison for the crime of hobnobbing with members of the National Rifle Association. The charge that Syrian President Bashar al Assad “trampled” Obama’s red line by using chemical weapons is hardly as clear-cut as imperial propagandists like to believe – to say the least – while the agreement between Putin and former Secretary of State John Kerry to rid Syria of chemical weapons was not fake at all, but an example, increasingly rare unfortunately, of diplomacy being used to prevent an international crisis from getting out of hand.

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  Looking into Moscow’s Red Square at night. (U.S. Air Force/ Karen Abeyasekere)

  And so on ad nauseum.  But what could Democrats say in response given that they’ve spent the last three years trying to out-hawk the GOP?  Answer: nothing.  All they could do was try to turn tables on McConnell by charging him with not being anti-Russian enough.  Thus, New York’s Sen. Chuck Schumer accused him of “aiding and abetting” Moscow while Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin accused him of running interference for Putin because he “feels the Russians were on the side of the Republicans in 2016 and just might be again in 2020.”

  Democrats Feed the Super Hawks 

  The result: a Democratic consensus that Russia can’t be trusted and that America must put itself on a war footing to prevent Putin from “toppl[ing] the mighty oak that has been our republic for two hundred years,” as Schumer put it. It’s an across-the-board agreement that the long-awaited Mueller report has only strengthened by regurgitating the intelligence-community line that “[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” and then cherry-picking the facts to fit its preconceived thesis.  (See “Top Ten Questions About the Mueller Report,” May 6.)

  Democrats claim to oppose National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, but the anti-Russian hysteria they promote strengthens the hand of such super-hawks.  It makes military conflict more likely, if not with Russia then with perceived Russian surrogates such as  Venezuela or Iran. 

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   Schiff increasingly unhinged. (Caricature/DonkeyHotey via Flickr)

  Simultaneously, it backfires on Democrats by making them look weak and foolish as they argue that even though the Mueller report says “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government,” somehow “significant evidence of collusion” still exists, as an increasingly unhinged Rep. Adam Schiff maintains.  In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of congressional Democrats, no evidence does not mean no evidence.  In fact, it means the opposite. 

  Voters are unmoved.  Ten times more Americans – 80 versus 8 percent – care about healthcare than about Russia according to a recent survey.  When CNN pollsters asked a thousand people in mid-March to name the issues that matter most, not one mentioned Russia or the Mueller probe. If they didn’t care when collusion was still an open question, they care even less now that the only issue is obstruction plus a phony constitutional crisis that desperate Democrats have conjured up out of thin air.

  Trump the Chief Beneficiary

  Besides Fox News – whose ratings have soared while Russia-obsessed CNN’s have plummeted – the chief beneficiary is Trump.  Post-Mueller, the man has the wind in his sails.  Come 2020, Sen. Bernie Sanders could cut through his phony populism with ease.  But if Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post succeeds in tarring him with Russia the same way it tried to tar Trump, then the Democratic nominee will be a bland centrist whom the incumbent will happily bludgeon.  Former Vice President Joe Biden – the John McCain-loving, speech-slurring, child-fondler who was for a wall along the Mexican border before he was against it – will end up as a bug splat on the Orange One’s windshield. 

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  Trump ready to take on challengers. (Caricature/DonkeyHotey via Flickr)

  Beto O’Rourke, the rich-kid airhead who declared shortly before the Mueller report was released that Trump, “beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to … collude with the Russian government,” will not fare much better.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren meanwhile seems to be tripping over her own two feet as she predicts one moment that Trump is heading to jail, declares the next that voters don’t care about the Mueller report because they’re too concerned with bread-and-butter issues, and then calls for dragging Congress into the impeachment morass regardless.

  Such “logic” is lost on voters, so it seems to be a safe bet that enough will stay home next Election Day to allow the rough beast to slouch towards Bethlehem yet again.

  Assange Convicted in Eyes of Press

  Then there’s Julian Assange, currently serving a 50-week sentence in a supermax prison outside of London after being ejected from the Ecuadorian Embassy.  By claiming that the WikiLeaks founder was “dissembling” by denying that Russia was the source of the mammoth Democratic National Committee leak in July 2016, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has effectively convicted him in the eyes of Congress and the press. 

  The New York Times thus reports that Mueller has “revealed” that Russian intelligence was the source while, in a venomous piece by Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger, The Washington Post declared that Assange “is neither whistleblower nor journalist,” but someone who helped Russian intelligence interfere in “the American electoral process.”

  Schumer thus greeted Assange’s April 11 arrest by tweeting his “hope [that] he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government,” while, in a truly chilling statement, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia declared that “[i]t will be really good to get him back on United States soil [so] we can get the facts and the truth from him.”

  Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.

  — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) April 11, 2019

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  Assange is guiltier than ever.  If Washington gets its hands on him, he’ll no doubt be hauled before some sort of Star Chamber and then clapped in a dungeon somewhere until he confesses that Russian intelligence made him do it, even though a careful reading of the Mueller report strongly suggests the opposite. (See “The ‘Guccifer 2.0’ Gaps in Mueller’s Full Report,” April 18.)

  Assange languishing behind bars, war breaking out in Latin America or the Persian Gulf, Trump in the Oval Office for four years more – it’s the worst of all possible worlds, and the Democratic Party’s bizarre fixation with Vladimir Putin is what’s pushing it.

  Ultimately, Russia-gate is yet a variation on the tired old theme of American innocence.  If something goes wrong, it can’t be the fault of decent Americans who, as we all know, are too good for our deeply flawed world.  Rather, it must be the fault of dastardly foreigners trying to hack our democracy.  It’s a deep-rooted form of xenophobia that has fueled everything from the criminalization of marijuana (smuggled in by evil Mexicans) to the 1950s Red Scare (a reaction to Communism smuggled in by evil Russians), and the war on terrorism (the work of evil Muslims).  The idea that America may in anyway be responsible for its own fate is of course unthinkable.

  But Russia-gate may be the greatest delusion of all.  After decades of celebrating Donald Trump as the essence of American flash and hustle, the corporate media have decided that the only way he could have gotten into the White House is if Putin put him there.  The upshot is a giant conspiracy to force Americans to turn their back on reality, an effort that can only end in disaster for all concerned, Democrats first and foremost.

  

• "No One Wants To Be In That Building": Trump Tower Shunned By NYC Luxury Buyers

  Trump Tower has now become one of the least desirable luxury properties in Manhattan, according to Bloomberg. Since Donald Trump won the presidency, the building has been turned into a “fortress” and has been blocked off with barriers at two of its main entrances.

  And the building that once attracted stars and celebrities is now famous only for the infamous Trump campaign meeting with the Russian lawyer documented in Robert Mueller’s report. The 36-year-old building that bears Trump’s name has simply become a “turn off” for tenants in the liberal city.

  The pain has been felt by those who own units in the tower. Most condo sales in the building have resulted in a loss after adjusting for inflation and several condos have been sold at a more than 20% loss. For comparison, according to PropertyShark, just 0.23% of homes across Manhattan have been sold at a loss over the last two years.

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  There’s also 42,000 square feet of office space that the tower is having trouble filling out, despite advertising rents below the area average. And it’s not just Trump Tower that’s feeling the pain: business is down at Trump’s public golf course in New York and plans to launch a new middle tier hotel chain across the country have been shelved.

  Trump will be providing an updated snapshot of his net worth this week, as his annual financial disclosures are due Wednesday. They won’t go into detail about the Trump Organization‘s revenue, but it’s clear that Trump Tower is suffering based on securities filings, property records and real estate listings.

  And on any given day, the number of Trump Organization and government security people in the building can easily outnumber everybody else in the building’s atrium. The building’s occupancy rate has fallen to 83% from 99% over the last seven years. This vacancy rate is about twice Manhattan’s average.

  Edward Son, until recently a market analyst for CoStar Group Inc said: “If I were looking for office space, that would be a building I’d want to avoid.”

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  Net income for the tower was up slightly last year, as a result of the tenancy of Trump’s 2020 campaign committee, which has spent more than $890,000 over the last two years to rent space in the tower. But the building’s net income is still about 26% lower than what bankers expected when they evaluated Trump’s finances for a $100 million loan in 2012.

  But even after taking into account the $4.3 million in interest owed on the loan, the building generated about $10 million in free cash last year. The few that have rented condos in hopes of bumping into the president have likely been disappointed, as Trump has only visited the building 13 times since his inauguration.

  Michael Sklar sold his parent’s 57th floor unit for $1.83 million in October after they spent $400,000 to remodel it. It was originally purchased for $1.4 million in 2004, which comes out to $1.84 million after adjusting for inflation.

  “No one wants in that building,” Sklar said.

  Living in the tower became a hassle after Trump won the presidency, Sklar said. His mother, who was battling cancer at the time, took cabs from the airport to the building and used to be dropped off at the front entrance. But after Trump’s election, she was forced to be dropped off “hundreds of feet” from the front door and was made to walk home.

  “The name on the building became a problem,” Sklar continued.

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  At least 13 condos have sold in the tower since Trump’s election. Eight out of nine transactions available from New York City records show that the seller sold at an inflation adjusted loss. For comparison, just 57 homes elsewhere in Manhattan sold at a loss over the past two years, out of 24,871 third-party sales.

  Matthew D. Hughes, a Manhattan-based broker at Brown Harris Stevens said: “The luxury market is softening. But it’s rare that someone owns an apartment here for 10 years and takes a loss.”

  One real estate agent said that clients have repeatedly told him not to show them units in Trump buildings, where gawkers often outnumber the customers of the building’s retail stores. Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization executive said: “It’s totally a tourist trap.”

  She remembers the building “fondly” and said that when it was built, Trump often recruited celebrities to purchase condos there in order to fill it out and add to its appeal.

  The tower is just two blocks from Central Park and is home to a 60 foot waterfall and tons of pink Italian marble. It’s advertised as having 68 stories, despite having only 58, and the building was ahead of its time when it was built. Trump’s lawyer, George Ross, wrote in 2005: “He single-handedly created the market for high-end luxury residences in New York City.”

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  The building was given a new prominence when Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice, launched in 2004 and filmed there, helping Trump revive his personal brand. In 2013, Trump put the value of his brand at $4 billion.

  And the tower’s location should have it doing well: it’s in the Plaza District, right off of Central Park, an area that many real estate experts consider to be the nation’s premier office area. Offices that have views of Central Park easily bring in more than $100 per square foot often, one New York Research director said. Trump Tower, however, is now advertising open space for $72-$85 per square foot annually. Late last year the Trump Organization said in a promotional video that the tower was “one of New York’s most iconic trophy buildings.”

  Prices are now listed as negotiable.

  Louis D’Avanzo, managing principal of Cushman & Wakefield Plc’s Midtown Manhattan office, said: “Any of the buildings that have been really successful in Midtown are either newer class or the landlords have spent considerable capital to make them more modern and have more amenities.”

  Trump has spent little on updating the tower in recent years.

  Res concluded: “I don’t think I would want an office in Trump Tower. Why would you go there? It’s a wonder he doesn’t have 50% vacancy.”

  

• The Disinformationists

  Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

  So, the election-meddling Putin-Nazi disinformationists are at it again! Oh yes, while Americans have been distracted by Russiagate, Obstructiongate, Redactiongate, or whatever it’s being called at this point, here in Europe, we are purportedly being bombarded with Russian “disinformation” aimed at fomenting confusion and chaos in advance of the upcoming EU elections, which are due to take place in less than two weeks.

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  The New York Times reports that an entire “constellation” of social media accounts “linked to Russia and far-right groups” is disseminating extremist “disinformation,” “encouraging discord,” and “amplifying distrust in the centrist parties that have governed for decades.” These accounts share some of the same “digital fingerprints,” and are engaging in “tactics” similar to the “tactics used in previous Russian attacks,” notably the Kremlin’s notorious mass-brainwashing of millions of defenseless African Americans with those deceptive anti-masturbation memes during the 2016 elections.

  Now, this is not just a bunch of nonsense dressed up with authoritative-sounding lingo. No, The Times spoke to “analysts” and “advocacy groups,” which informed them that certain websites in Italy “share the same signatures” as certain other websites sharing certain “pro-Kremlin views.” Moreover, two “political groups” in Germany used the same Internet service providers as those “Russian hackers” who attacked our democracy by stealing those Democratic Party emails that transformed Americans overnight into a nation of Trump-loving white supremacists!

  That hasn’t happened here in Europe yet, but I’m not sure how much longer we can hold out against this relentless onslaught. According to an “analysis” concocted by some cloud-based cybersecurity firm and authoritatively cited by Politico, at this point, “more than half of Europeans might have seen some form of disinformation” spread by “Russians” on social media. They might have been exposed to “extremist views” and “amplified content” possibly produced by the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and even (God help them!) supporters of Brexit.

  SafeGuard Cyber (the cybersecurity firm in question, which offers “digital risk protection and empowers businesses to embrace new technologies,” or whatever mumbo jumbo it says on their website) identified, and is now presumably surveilling on a more or less around the clock basis, “a vast network of automated social media accounts allegedly controlled by Russian actors” which is spreading this “amplified extremist content.”

  Although Politico “was unable to independently verify” whether the social media accounts the SafeGuard Cyber analysis “identified” (and used to generate a meaningless graph) were in any way actually linked to Russia, and although SafeGuard Cyber would not provide Politico with a list of the users it assured Politico were “linked to Russia,” SafeGuard Cyber’s CTO informed Politico that his team of experts had used “more than 50 identifiers,” among them, the location from which the messages were sent and “activity linked to Russian interests,” to identify these “Russian actors” who are exposing innocent Europeans and expatriate Americans like myself to Lord knows what kind of jargon-laden, dangerously amplified, extremist content in order to disinform and confuse us.

  And it’s not just the upcoming EU elections that the Putin-Nazi disinformationists are targeting. An outfit called Global Security Review, which “publishes objective, solutions-oriented insight into geopolitical issues” which can be authoritatively referenced by the corporate media to lend whatever story they are pushing an air of credibility, warn that Russia is conducting a campaign to “overwhelm democracies” with disinformation! According to the experts at GSR, Putin-Nazi disinformationists working for Russia Today and Sputnik brainwashed the citizens of Catalonia into voting for their independence from Spain with a network of bots (or “zombie accounts”). In France, they brainwashed the Gilets Jaunes protesters into attacking the windows of upscale stores and setting fire to luxury vehicles by “magnifying the brutality of the French police,” who have been doing their utmost to show restraint as they shoot people’s eyes out with rubber bullets and indiscriminately tear-gas the hell out of everyone.

  And then there’s the evil Russian spywhale, which the disinformationists want us to believe is just a harmless “therapy Beluga” for kids, but which has clearly been strapped with some sort of monstrous, mind-controlling apparatus that enables the Kremlin to remotely implant a host of dangerous “populist” ideas in the brains of defenseless Norwegian fishermen, weaponizing them into a horde of neo-Odinist Viking berserkers who will scream down out of Scandinavia and storm the EU Parliament in Brussels smelling of akvavit and fermented shark.

  These Putin-Nazi disinformationists are not to be confused with the corporate media, or other sources of real information, like SafeGuard Cyber, Global Security Review, Bellingcat, Integrity Initiative, The Atlantic Council, E.U. East StratCom Task Force, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and countless other companies, foundations, think tanks, and intelligence agency fronts. These are legitimate information providers, who would never try to disinform the public to serve any sort of corporatist agenda, or to generate any kind of mass hysteria over “terrorists,” “Russians,” “fascists,” or “populists.”

  OK, granted, these sources are not perfect, but it’s not like they intentionally lied about those non-existent WMDs in Iraq, or those babies that weren’t yanked out of their incubators, or those nerve gas canisters that Assad didn’t drop, or when Russia didn’t hack the Vermont power grid, or attack us with crickets, or hack into CSPAN, or “collude” with Trump via a secret server, or when Manafort didn’t meet with Assange, or when Corbyn didn’t lay a wreath for terrorists, and all the other things that didn’t happen … no, they just got their stories “wrong,” over and over, and over again.

  Plus, what motive would they possibly have, these enormous corporate media conglomerates, and the transnational corporations that own them, and these intelligence agencies, and their fronts and cutouts, and corporate lobbyists and PR firms, and councils, and think tanks, and research institutes, to disinform the Western masses, or to manufacture an official narrative that allows them to systematically stigmatize, marginalize, criminalize, deplatform, demonetize, and otherwise eliminate any type of speech they deem to be “Russian disinformation,” or “extremist content,” or a “conspiracy theory,” or simply too “dangerous,” “divisive,” or “confusing” to circulate among the general public?

  No … see? That makes no sense. That’s just an example of the type of fascist disinformation these Putin-Nazi disinformationists are trying to spread to confuse us to the point where we can’t even concentrate long enough to think anymore, or parse the meaningless jargon-laden nonsense they’re trying to deceive us with, and just devolve into these Pavlovian imbeciles conditioned to respond to specific trigger words, like “extremist,” “terrorist,” “fascist,” “populist,” “anti-Semitic,” “Russians,” “hackers,” and whatever other emotional stimuli we are being trained to instantly recognize and robotically react to like circus animals.

  Or … I don’t know, maybe it isn’t. I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. Probably they’ve already got to me. I’d better get back down into my anti-disinformation bunker, pull up The Guardian, or The Washington Post, or Der Spiegel on my child-proof computer, and immerse myself in some objective journalism, before the Putin-Nazi spywhale makes its way up the Landwehrkanal, takes control of what’s left of my mind, and forces me into going out and trying to vote for Hitler or something.

  I recommend you do the same, and I’ll see you when this nightmare over.

  *  *  *

  C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

  

• Ohio High School Protects Sensitive Children By Ditching Valedictorian And Salutatorian Honors

  Top of your class? Who cares! 

  A High School in Mason, Ohio has eliminated their valedictorian salutatorian honors in order to help the “mental wellness” of other students,” according to Fox19. 

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  Instead of the two honors bestowed on the two highest achievers, Mason High School located in a Cincinnati suburb will stick with the Latin honors system – awarding students with a 4.0 GPA summa cum laude, those with a 3.75 – 3.99 GPA magna cum laude, and those with a GPA between 3.51 and 3.74 as cum laude. 

  The school is also going to begin classes 30 minutes later next year, and are also considering reducing the amount of homework after school and during summer vacation.

  If only the real world were so accommodating! 

  “This will help reduce the overall competitive culture at MHS to allow students to focus on exploring learning opportunities that are of interest to them,” said Principal Bobby Dodd.

  “Currently, we’ve recognized one valedictorian and one salutatorian based upon the ranking of students according to their weighted GPA. Although Mason High School utilizes class rank to determine these graduation honors for each senior class, the ranking of students is not reported to colleges. The paradoxical nature of class rank within the culture of MHS does nothing to decrease the competition among students.”

  Whatever that means. 

  The new recognition system sans valedictorian and salutatorian awards will begin with students graduating in the class of 2020, so all those straight-A freshmen and sophomores who were dead set on being the best will have to settle for a group participation award. 

  

• House Overreach – Are Dems Weaponizing The Oversight Authority?

  Submitted by J. Theodore Schatt,

  The dispute between the White House and House Democrats ended up in the Courts this week for a determination of “appropriate oversight”.

  1. A review of the United States Constitution will be of no assistance in resolution of the matter.  Oversight is not an enumerated power of Congress.  Instead, it is understood that in order for Congress to carry out its own responsibilities under the Constitution, Congress must have the authority to gain necessary information from the Executive branch.  

  2. The Judicial branch has previously determined that so long as the request has a legitimate legislative purpose the request is proper. 

  It appears without question that the House demands from the Executive Branch will have a legitimate legislative purpose.  For example, Mr. Nadler has demanded all back-up documentation for the Mueller Report, including the information that by law may not be disclosed.  Clearly, a review of this information could permit Congress to determine that FISA laws must be amended to protect a constitutional right to privacy from overzealous, or biased, government agents.  That isn’t what Mr. Nadler has in mind, but it would be a “legitimate legislative purpose”.

  However, the more interesting issue the Courts may be called upon to determine is whether the current oversight efforts by the House, despite having a “legitimate legislative purpose” are so obviously aimed at weaponizing the oversight authority of the House for political gain that acquiescence to such use would be destructive to the balance of power between the three branches of government.  President Nixon faced articles of Impeachment for endeavoring “to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns…”  Should Mr. Nadler and his committee be given authority to act in a manner, through “oversight”, that cannot be exercised by the Executive?

  Recent history evidences a Democrat party that is perfectly willing to test the boundaries of their constitutional power for political benefit.  After demanding that Senator McConnell protect the filibuster of judges nominated by President Bush for fear of destroying the Senate, Senator Reid reversed course and eliminated the filibuster to permit judges nominated by President Obama to be confirmed with a simple majority.  Democrats feigned outrage when the filibuster was eliminated to permit Justice Gorsuch to avoid a purely politically motivated filibuster and ascend to the Supreme Court.  Prior to the election of 2016, the intelligence operations of the United States were weaponized based upon an opposition research operation paid for by the Clinton Campaign. 

  Subsequent to the election in 2016, the Department of Justice was weaponized based upon the same opposition research resulting in a nearly three year investigation that failed to substantiate the core allegations of that Clinton opposition research.  In September 2018, the entire country was witness to the shamelessly attempted character assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh masquerading as the “advise and consent” role of the Senate. 

  That spectacle was too much even for the mild mannered Sen. Lindsey Graham. 

  Senator Graham utilized a portion of his time to chastise Democrats for their actions,

  “Boy, you [Democrats] all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham. … To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”

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  Mr. Nadler’s attempted use of House oversight for nakedly political means should be no less odorous.  Even cloaked in a “legitimate legislative purpose”, the abuse of legitimate government authority for political gain should be decried by all.

  

• Huawei Responds To Tech Ban: In Concession To Trump Says "Willing To Engage To Ensure Product Safety"

  It appears that Trump’s aggressive trade war escalation is proving the doubters wrong and already bearing fruit.

  Earlier on Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order declaring a “national emergency” in permitting the US federal government to legally block American companies from purchasing foreign-made telecom equipment deemed a national security risk. The move is expected to restrict Huawei and fellow Chinese telecommunications company ZTE from selling their equipment in the U.S. Shortly afterward, the Department of Commerce said it had put Huawei on a blacklist that could forbid it from doing business with American companies.

  In the executive order, while Trump did not name any company specifically, it was the latest action in the ongoing security saga with Huawei. The order reads that “openness must be balanced by the need to protect our country against critical national security threats.”

  Separately, the Commerce Department’s move to put Huawei on its “Entity List” means U.S. companies will need a special license to sell products to the Chinese company. A similar move against ZTE last year nearly forced the company to shut down before Trump intervened and a deal was reached.

  As a result of allegations it works covertly with the Chinese government to facilitate industrial and other espionage, Huawei has been banned from building the 5G networks in the US, in Australia, and numerous other countries – if not in Europe, where the local liberal elite would rather be spied on by Beijing than appear to fold to the demands of the White House – after concerns were raised that the company’s products may be used by the Chinese government for surveillance.

  And just a few hours after Trump signed the executive order, the Chinese telco released a statement in response to the US ban, in which while it warned that the country will lag behind in 5G networks made by “inferior” or “more expensive alternatives.”

  Yet while Huawei leaders have long insisted their company operates independently of the Chinese government and that its products aren’t used for spying, it appeared to confirm just that when the company said that it is “ready and willing to engage with the U.S. government and come up with effective measures to ensure product security.”

  Why Huawei needs to ensure product safety if, as it claims, its products are safe is certainly worth a scratch on the head, and if anything it validates Trump’s suspicions about Huawei’s less then noble motives, which resulted in the US leveling 23 charges against Huawei and its CFO, and daughter of the CEO, Meng Wanzhou including charges of violating trade sanctions with Iran and attempted theft of trade secrets. Huawei has, of course,  maintained that it is all a “political” game with no credence.

  Huawei’s full statement is below.

  “Huawei is the unparalleled leader in 5G. We are ready and willing to engage with the US government and come up with effective measures to ensure product security. Restricting Huawei from doing business in the US will not make the US more secure or stronger; instead, this will only serve to limit the US to inferior yet more expensive alternatives, leaving the US lagging behind in 5G deployment, and eventually harming the interests of US companies and consumers. In addition, unreasonable restrictions will infringe upon Huawei’s rights and raise other serious legal issues.”

  Trump’s order is clearly meant to ratchet up pressure on Beijing to concede in the trade war; and just to make sure Xi Jinping has a few days to contemplate the latest US retaliation, the Commerce Department’s blacklisting of Huawei isn’t effective until it’s listed in the Federal Register. The department didn’t say when that would occur. The administration official said Wednesday that the Commerce Department was expected to take as long as six months to fashion an approach to the order, so there might not be an immediate effect. The government may eventually prohibit products from specific companies or countries as Commerce carries out Trump’s order.

  Last week, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission barred China Mobile Ltd. from the U.S. market over national security concerns and said it was opening a review of other Chinese companies.

  Finally, in addition to getting Tom Friedman and Steve Bannon to agree on something, Trump’s hard line stance against China appears to be earning him some very unexpected friends: democrats. “This is a needed step, and reflects the reality that Huawei and ZTE represent a threat to the security of U.S. and allied communications networks,” said Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

  

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• Spanish Frigate Peels Off From US Carrier Group Over Iran Conflict Fears

  With things fast heating up in the Persian Gulf, including a recent US military build-up and the hasty blaming of Iran for a mysterious “sabotage” attack on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, will international powers begin drawing a line in the sand? Famously, France condemned Bush’s rush to war in 2003, and along with Germany refused to send military support to the coalition invasion.

  And now Spain has ordered its military frigate, the Méndez Núñez, which has 215 sailors on board, out of a US coalition naval group en route to the Persian Gulf, citing “it will not enter into any other type of mission” in the Persian Gulf region, according to the Spanish Minister of Defense.

  Minister of Defense Margarita Robles ordered the “temporary measure of withdrawal of the frigate Méndez Núñez (F-104) from the combat group of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln while it is in the Middle East,” sources from her office told the digital edition of El País.

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  “The frigate is on a mission of circumnavigation and will not enter into any other type of mission,” sources revealed, cited by the El Mundo news website.

  The statements came in the context of the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group deployment to the area, along with a B-52 bomber group monitoring the air from Qatar, and new Patriot missile batteries. Washington and Tehran have recently exchanged threats of direct conflict while jostling to assert control over the vital Strait of Hormuz narrow oil shipping passage, which has further left global oil markets on edge and rattled. 

  Interestingly the decision to remove the frigate was made in Brussels during a meeting of European Union defense ministers on Monday, which could suggest other European powers may start divesting their military assets from US support roles in the Middle East.

  “The United States government has embarked on a mission that wasn’t scheduled when the agreement was signed,” Robles told reporters during her trip to Brussels. The move could trigger a diplomatic crisis with the US given the White House is likely to see Spain as backing out of its commitments. 

  According to El Pais:

  Spain wants to avoid being involuntarily dragged into any kind of conflict with Iran amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. The fleet has already crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which joins the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and is headed to the Strait of Hormuz where it will enter the Persian Gulf. It will be doing so, however, without the Spanish vessel.

  The defense minister further insisted that Spain is a “serious and reliable partner,” however, noted it is only bound by EU and NATO commitments.

  The question remains, should the White House begin beefing up troop presence posturing against Iran – and with plans for this already under review – could more US allies decide to pull their ships and embedded forces from US coalition operations? 

  

• Britain's Brexit Armageddon

  Authored by Matthew Jamison via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  It has been an appalling period in British politics and government. Unlike any period experienced in living memory. The British State, once high and mighty, lording it over other nations with typical English condescension and patronising arrogance, has well and truly come crashing down to Earth with a very heavy bump thanks to Brexit. It will never be the same again. The defenestration of the British Government and wider British State machine including its intelligence and security services has been a spectacular sight to behold. The credibility of the British State and its democracy has been ripped to shreds. For three years now the British ‘nation’, Parliament, Government, Civil Service, media and economy has been consumed by one issue and one issue alone, whether or not the UK will depart the European Union after the 2016 Referendum.

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  I say whether or not because after having almost three years to prepare for the UK exit from the EU as voted on by over 17 million British people in the largest and longest democratic exercise in the history of modern British democracy, the ‘fixed’ departure date of March 29th 2019 came and went, despite the British Prime Minister Theresa May stating over 108 times that the UK would definitely be leaving the EU on March 29th 2019. Who will ever be able to take seriously the word of a future British Prime Minister or a future British Government after this utter farce, but deadly serious debacle, on a major national and international scale. The behaviour in its half democratic Parliament has been deeply disturbing and has shown the world that the British are totally irrational and have gone absolutely bonkers.

  The debates in the House of Commons have illustrated to the international community that the British are an animalistic, stupid, pedantic and deranged people not fit to run their own affairs, let alone lecture far superior and greater nations on their internal sovereign matters. The Speaker of the House of Commons grows more and more mad by the day while its MPs grow more and more angry, childish, uncivilised and corrupt. The British are the most inefficient people in Europe, perhaps on the planet. They have a genetic disposition and cultural habit of wasting time, especially other peoples time, but this missed date and the ensuing delay is quite something, even for a people who are used to chronic delays in their train system for example, long waiting times in their Government funded and Government run National Health Service, or open ended State Inquiries. The classic English tactic of kicking the can further down the road and into the long grass has been utilised to the extreme regarding Brexit and it has done and is doing tremendous damage to Britain. Yet, the British have only themselves to blame for this mess. This is a British self induced crisis and not the fault of any other country.

  On top of the time wasted on a monumental scale there has also been the vast amount of money wasted by the British Government including taxpayer funds on preparing for a departure from the EU that never happened and private businesses which were told to engage in contingency planning in the event of a No Deal Brexit. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted both in the public and private sector. But again, this is nothing new. The British Government are incapable of sound fiscal management and discipline though find plenty of money for phantom work, privileged perks, stupid ideas and corrupt schemes. The British are not only diseased when it comes to wasting their own public and private money but also other countries money as well.

  The British Government itself is in complete collapse with the Cabinet in melt down unable to adhere to the principle of collective responsibility, the governing Conservative Party engaged in a ferocious civil war for the whole country and world to see and beholden to one of the most backwards and ridiculous of provincial fringe parties in the form of the Democratic Unionist Party. Corruption is endemic not just throughout the British Government and Parliament but British institutions as well. Meanwhile the ultimate body of British national security has been compromised in the form of the UK National Security Council and the disgusting behaviour of its pathetic former Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. While this Brexit saga rolls on, the UK as a whole grows more and more unequal. The domestic agenda of British Government policy has completely ground to a halt. There will not even be a further Queen’s Speech for sometime which had already not occurred since 2017. The quality of life and standard of living in the UK continues to plummet compared to other nations as does social mobility and social cohesion.

  One matter is very clear throughout this Brexit ordeal. This is a combined collective failure of the United Kingdom as a whole. The British Government and State have failed. British MPs have failed their constituents. British civil servants have failed. The British media have failed. There is no unity, no meaning, no purpose, no discipline and no sense of comradeship in the UK – if there ever truly was. Perhaps it is a society incapable of it and perhaps that is why it deserves to falter and fail with the United Kingdom disintegrating and disappearing for good. Ergo, perhaps it is high time, once and for all for the British State to quit its bad habit of interfering in other nations affairs, far greater nations, while it attempts to put its Brexit house in order.

  

• Huawei Offers To Sign 'No-Spy' Pacts With Governments As UK Embarks On 5G

  Chinese smartphone and telecommunications equipment giant Huawei is willing to sign ‘no-spy’ agreements with governments which adopt their technology, including Britain, according to chairman Liang Hua. 

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  The Trump administration has warned allies not to use Huawei’s technology to implement 5G networks over concerns that they would allow Chinese intelligence services to spy on whoever uses it. 

  Moreover, Huawei and its CFO, Meng Wanzhou, are facing criminal charges in the United States over the alleged theft of trade secrets and sanctions violations in Iran. 

  As Reuters reports, Britain is still deciding on how much they will rely on Huawei – the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment – for their 5G networks. 

  “The security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms networks is of paramount importance, and we have strict controls for how Huawei equipment is currently deployed in the UK,” said a spokesman for the British government on Tuesday, adding that the results of a supply chain review would be announced soon. 

  Prime Minister Theresa May sacked her defense minister, Gavin Williamson, this month over leaked claims that Huawei would have a role in the 5G network, putting Britain at odds with its biggest intelligence ally, the United States.

  Williamson has denied he leaked from the confidential talks.

  Liang, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with Huawei’s British technology partners, said the company never intended to be in the eye of a political storm. –Reuters

  “The cyber security issue is not exclusive to just one single supplier or one single company, it is a common challenge facing the entire industry and the entire world,” said Liang, adding that Huawei had long cooperated with the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre’s technology oversight efforts, while improving its software engineering capabilities. 

  Liang also said that Huawei does not take direction or act on behalf of the Chinese government in any international market. 

  “Despite the fact Huawei has its headquarters in China, we are actually a globally operating company,” he said, adding “Where we are operating globally we are committed to be compliant with the locally applicable laws and regulations in that country.”

  “There are no Chinese laws requiring companies to collect intelligence from a foreign government or implant back doors for the government.” 

  Last month, Ars Technica reported the discovery of a backdoor-like vulnerability in Huawei’s Matebook laptop series which could have allowed remote hackers to gain access to the system. Microsoft confirmed the security flaws were discovered by Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) kernel sensors, which traced the vulnerability back to a Huawei driver.

   

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  Huawei responded to Tom’s Hardware’s inquiry about the Matebook security flaw. They reiterated that the security flaw was not a backdoor attempt to spy on customers. Huawei also suggested it may take legal action against media over “misleading reports” about this issue. 

  UK minister Jeremy Wright will announce the findings of the government’s telco supply-chain review soon, and has said that the benefits of cheap Chinese equipment would not take precedence over security concerns. 

  Liang pushed back, suggesting that economic factors should be a top consideration, saying “I believe the decision should be based on risk assessment and supply-chain assessment, and should also reflect the requirements the UK has in terms of economic development when they choose suppliers,” and adding “Cyber security is indeed a very important factor to consider (…) but at the same time it should be a balanced decision between cyber security and economic prosperity.”

  Huawei has inked over 40 5G contracts; 25 in Europe, 10 in the Middle East and six in Asia.

  As Reuters notes, Germany says they’ve seen no indication that the company was offering a “no-spy” agreement. 

  

• Washington Heats Up Its Cold War In The Arctic

  Authored by Brian Cloughley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  US Secretary of State Pompeo continues to travel the world, creating alarm, resentment and irritation almost everywhere. He maintained his lamentable reputation for crass rudeness by cancelling a meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Merkel on May 8 in order to go to Iraq, apparently to try to justify Washington’s despatch of nuclear-capable B-52H bombers and an aircraft carrier battle group to menace Iran.

  As observed by Norbert Röttgen, head of Germany’s foreign affairs committee, “Even if there were unavoidable reasons for the cancellation, it unfortunately fits into the current climate in the relationship of the two governments.”

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  There were no “unavoidable reasons” for Pompeo’s boorish discourtesy, which was regarded internationally as yet another example of the arrogance that so critically influences US foreign policy. And before he insulted Mrs Merkel and the German people he managed to offend several other nations at the Arctic Council meeting in Finland on 6-7 May.

  The Arctic Council is “the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.” Up until now it has been a shining and all-too-rare example of international cooperation which has resulted in production of valuable environmental, ecological and social assessments.

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  The Arctic Institute describes the Council as “a model for global governance. It is inclusive of Indigenous perspectives, committed to evidence based decision-making, and a champion of regional peace and stability.” Of great importance is the fact that its mandate, as laid down in the Ottawa Declaration of 1996, explicitly excludes military matters.

  But Washington intends to change all that. Instead of contributing to the Council’s aims of championing peace and stability, it has adopted its only too familiar stance of confrontation and patronising criticism.

  A most pressing concern of most members of the Council is climate change, and as reported by Reuters the 2019 meeting of the eight Arctic nations “was supposed to frame a two-year agenda to balance the challenge of global warming with sustainable development of mineral wealth.” This was an eminently sensible approach, and not in the least controversial or divisive — unless you are an adherent of Trump, who denies there is any such thing as a climate crisis. In March 2019 he tweeted “Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: ‘The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.’ Wow!”

  Moore was not a co-founder of Greenpeace, and is, as Greenpeace states, a paid spokesman for a number of polluting industries who “often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental ‘expert’ or even an ‘environmentalist,’ while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance.”

  But very few people in the US are concerned about disproof of Trump’s bogus pronouncements, in spite of evidence supplied by the Washington Post that he “has made 9,014 false or misleading claims over 773 days.”

  So far as the US Military-Industrial complex is concerned, there is no climate crisis in the Arctic or anywhere else. Trump, Pompeo and the rest ignore their own government department, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which states that “Arctic sea ice reaches its minimum each September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 12.8 percent per decade, relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.”

  In spite of this, Pompeo refused to sign an Arctic Council Agreement that acknowledged climate change as a severe threat to the region. His other achievement was that this was the first time a declaration has been cancelled since the Council was formed in 1996. Americans must be proud.

  Finland’s foreign minister stated later that “A majority of us regard climate change as a fundamental challenge facing the Arctic and acknowledge the urgent need to take mitigation and adaptation actions and to strengthen resilience.” He told reporters “I don’t want to name and blame anyone,” which is polite — but regrettable because it’s about time Pompeo, Trump and Bolton were named and blamed for their campaigns of spiteful aggression.

  Pompeo tried to justify Washington’s moves to militarise the region by declaring “We’re concerned about Russia’s claim over the international waters of the Northern Sea Route, including its newly announced plans to connect it with China’s Maritime Silk Road.”

  He ignores the fact that Russia has not made any claim involving international waters. In accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which Russia ratified in 1997 (and is accepted by 157 signatories, but not the US which refuses ratification) it has submitted a request to extend its continental shelf.

  The application does not involve the slightest intrusion into the sectors of any other Arctic state. When it was put forward in 2016 the New York Times reported that “a nation may claim an exclusive economic zone over the continental shelf abutting its shores. If the geological shelf extends far out to sea, the nation can claim mineral resources in the seabed beyond that zone . . . If the United Nations committee accepts Russia’s claim, the seabed under the North Pole would be subject to Moscow’s oversight for activities like oil drilling, though Russia will not have sovereignty over the water or the ice.”

  The fact that Russia has submitted its Arctic case to the UN does not cut any ice with Pompeo, who is intent on painting the worst possible picture of the situation, and — inevitably — brought in China to illustrate what he considers to be the grave threat posed by development of the trade route, the Maritime Silk Road (MSR).

  As put succinctly by the US Center for Strategic & International Studies, the MSR is intended to “boost infrastructure connectivity throughout Southeast Asia, Oceania, the Indian Ocean, and East Africa. The MSR is the maritime complement to the Silk Road Economic Belt, which focuses on infrastructure development across Central Asia.”

  But Washington objects violently to any project that is likely to contribute to the economies of Russia and China.

  Associated Press reported that at the Plenary meeting of the Arctic Council on April 9 President Putin “said that Russia plans to expand the ports on both sides of the Arctic shipping route… and invited foreign companies to invest in the reconstruction project.” AP noted that the leaders of Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden “who spoke at the forum underlined the need for all countries in the Arctic region to focus on areas of mutual interest despite differences.”

  But enter Pompeo, and exit mutual interest, dialogue and cooperation. In his Council speech Pompeo poured scorn on China and accused Russia of “provocative actions”, including, absurdly, “leaving snow prints in the form of army boots”.

  The man would be a joke, were it not that he wields power in Washington and is intent on ramping up tension with Moscow and Beijing.

  Washington’s policy of truculence in the Arctic has resulted in alienation of badly-needed allies and the firming of resolve by Russia and China to continue development of the Northern Sea shipping route. Pompeo and the other war hawks appear determined to heat up their cold war in the North, but if they intensify their confrontation there could well be conflict.

  

• Mortality Algorithm Can Predict Heart Attack, Death With 90% Accuracy

  An algorithm which can predict whether a person will have a heart attack or die with 90% accuracy has been developed by researchers at Finland’s Turku PET Centre. 

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  Utilizing similar machine learning functions as those employed by Netflix and Spotify to personalize content, a team led by Dr. Luis Eduardo Juarez-Orozco programmed the LogitBoost algorithm to use 85 variables to calculate the risk to the health of 950 test subjects who were subject to a host of scans and tests prior to being treated via traditional methods. 

  After patients complained of chest pain, their data was collected and used to ‘train’ the algorithm, which ‘learned’ the risks over a six-year period, during which it achieved 90% success at predicting 24 heart attacks and 49 deaths from any cause. 

  “These advances are far beyond what has been done in medicine, where we need to be cautious about how we evaluate risk and outcomes,” said Juarez-Orozco, adding “We have the data but we are not using it to its full potential yet.”

  Doctors typically use risk scores to make treatment decisions, according to the Daily Mail, however these scores utilize just a ‘handful’ of variables in patients. 

  “Humans have a very hard time thinking further than three dimensions or four dimensions,” said Juarez-Orozco. “The moment we jump into the fifth dimension we’re lost.” 

  “Our study shows that very high dimensional patterns are more useful than single dimensional patterns to predict outcomes in individuals and for that we need machine learning.” 

  The study enrolled 950 patients with chest pain who underwent the centre’s usual protocol to look for coronary artery disease.

  A coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scan gathered 58 pieces of data on potential risks of a heart attack.

  These included the presence of coronary plaque, vessel narrowing, and calcification.

  Those with scans suggestive of disease underwent a positron emission tomography (PET) scan which produced 17 variables on blood flow.

  Ten clinical variables were obtained from medical records including sex, age, smoking and diabetes. 

  The 85 variables were entered into LogitBoost, which analysed them repeatedly until it found the best structure to predict who had a heart attack or died. –Daily Mail

  “The algorithm progressively learns from the data and after numerous rounds of analyses, it figures out the high dimensional patterns that should be used to efficiently identify patients who have the event – the result is a score of individual risk,” added Juarez-Orozco. “Doctors already collect a lot of information about patients – for example, those with chest pain.” 

  “We found that machine learning can integrate these data and accurately predict individual risk … This should allow us to personalise treatment and ultimately lead to better outcomes for patients.” 

  The study was showcased at The International Conference on Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT. 

  

• Drivers Beware: The Deadly Perils Of Traffic Stops In The American Police State

  Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.

  – Herman Schwartz, The Nation

  We’ve all been there before.

  You’re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.

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  You’ve read enough news stories, seen enough headlines, and lived in the American police state long enough to be anxious about any encounter with a cop that takes place on the side of the road.

  For better or worse, from the moment you’re pulled over, you’re at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

  This is what I call “blank check policing,” in which the police get to call all of the shots.

  So if you’re nervous about traffic stops, you have every reason to be.

  Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.

  Try to assert your right to merely ask a question during a traffic stop and see how far it gets you.

  Zachary Noel was tasered by police and charged with resisting arrest after he questioned why he was being ordered out of his truck during a traffic stop. “Because I’m telling you to,” the officer replied before repeating his order for Noel to get out of the vehicle and then, without warning, shooting him with a taser through the open window.

  Unfortunately, as Gregory Tucker learned the hard way, there are no longer any fail-safe rules of engagement for interacting with the police.

  It was in the early morning hours of Dec. 1, 2016, when Tucker, a young African-American man, was pulled over by Louisiana police for a broken taillight. Because he did not feel safe stopping immediately, Tucker drove calmly and slowly to a safe, well-lit area a few minutes away before stopping in front of his cousin’s house.

  That’s when what should have been a routine traffic stop became yet another example of police brutality in America and another reason why Americans are justified in their fear of cops.

  According to the lawsuit that was filed in federal court by The Rutherford Institute, police ordered Tucker out of his vehicle, and after he had stepped out, immediately placed him under arrest for “resisting” (in this case, not immediately stopping) and searched his person and his vehicle. Tucker was then ordered to move to the front of the police vehicle and place his hands on its hood.

  Two more police officers arrived on the scene, walked up behind Tucker, and grabbed his arms to restrain and handcuffed him.

  Then the fourth police officer arrived on the scene. According to police dash cam footage, Tucker was thrown to the ground and punched numerous times in the head and body. The police also yelled repeatedly at Tucker to “quit resisting.” Tucker, bleeding with injuries to his face, head and arm, was then placed into the back of a police vehicle and EMTs were called to treat him. He was eventually taken to the hospital for severe injuries to his face and arm.

  Mind you, this young man complied with police. He just didn’t do it fast enough to suit their purposes.

  This young man submitted to police. He didn’t challenge police authority when they frisked him, searched his car, handcuffed him, and beat him to a pulp.

  If this young man is “guilty” of anything, he’s guilty of ticking off the cops by being cautious, concerned for his safety, and all too aware of the dangers faced by young black men during encounters with the police.

  Frankly, you don’t even have to be young or black or a man to fear for your life during an encounter with the police.

  Just consider the growing numbers of unarmed people are who being shot and killed just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

  At a time when police can do no wrong—at least in the eyes of the courts, police unions and politicians dependent on their votes—and a “fear” for officer safety is used to justify all manner of police misconduct, “we the people” are at a severe disadvantage.

  Add a traffic stop to the mix, and that disadvantage increases dramatically.

  According to the Justice Department, the most common reason for a citizen to come into contact with the police is being a driver in a traffic stop.

  On average, one in 10 Americans gets pulled over by police.

  Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, or about 23 percent more likely than Hispanic drivers. As the Washington Post concludes, “‘Driving while black’ is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.”

  Indeed, police officers have been given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons.

  This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long.

  Motorists can also be stopped by police for driving near a bar or on a road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of car (Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles), having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners, handicap parking permits, troll transponders or rosaries), and displaying pro-police bumper stickers.

  Incredibly, a federal appeals court actually ruled unanimously in 2014 that acne scars and driving with a stiff upright posture are reasonable grounds for being pulled over. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that driving a vehicle that has a couple air fresheners, rosaries and pro-police bumper stickers at 2 MPH over the speed limit is suspicious, meriting a traffic stop.

  Equally appalling, in Heien v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court—which has largely paved the way for the police and other government agents to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance—allowed police officers to stop drivers who appear nervous, provided they provide a palatable pretext for doing so.

  Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone objector in the case. Dissenting in Heien, Sotomayor warned, “Giving officers license to effect seizures so long as they can attach to their reasonable view of the facts some reasonable legal interpretation (or misinterpretation) that suggests a law has been violated significantly expands this authority… One wonders how a citizen seeking to be law-abiding and to structure his or her behavior to avoid these invasive, frightening, and humiliating encounters could do so.”

  In other words, drivers beware.

  Traffic stops aren’t just dangerous. They can be downright deadly.

  Remember Walter L. Scott? Reportedly pulled over for a broken taillight, Scott—unarmed—ran away from the police officer, who pursued and shot him from behind, first with a Taser, then with a gun. Scott was struck five times, “three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.”

  Samuel Dubose, also unarmed, was pulled over for a missing front license plate. He was reportedly shot in the head after a brief struggle in which his car began rolling forward.

  Levar Jones was stopped for a seatbelt offense, just as he was getting out of his car to enter a convenience store. Directed to show his license, Jones leaned into his car to get his wallet, only to be shot four times by the “fearful” officer. Jones was also unarmed.

  Bobby Canipe was pulled over for having an expired registration. When the 70-year-old reached into the back of his truck for his walking cane, the officer fired several shots at him, hitting him once in the abdomen.

  Dontrell Stevens was stopped “for not bicycling properly.” The officer pursuing him “thought the way Stephens rode his bike was suspicious. He thought the way Stephens got off his bike was suspicious.” Four seconds later, sheriff’s deputy Adams Lin shot Stephens four times as he pulled out a black object from his waistband. The object was his cell phone. Stephens was unarmed.

  Sandra Bland, pulled over for allegedly failing to use her turn signal, was arrested after refusing to comply with the police officer’s order to extinguish her cigarette and exit her vehicle. The encounter escalated, with the officer threatening to “light” Bland up with his taser. Three days later, Bland was found dead in her jail cell. “You’re doing all of this for a failure to signal?” Bland asked as she got out of her car, after having been yelled at and threatened repeatedly.

  Keep in mind, from the moment those lights start flashing and that siren goes off, we’re all in the same boat. However, it’s what happens after you’ve been pulled over that’s critical.

  Survival is key.

  Technically, you have the right to remain silent (beyond the basic requirement to identify yourself and show your registration). You have the right to refuse to have your vehicle searched. You have the right to film your interaction with police. You have the right to ask to leave. You also have the right to resist an unlawful order such as a police officer directing you to extinguish your cigarette, put away your phone or stop recording them.

  However, there is a price for asserting one’s rights. That price grows more costly with every passing day.

  If you ask cops and their enablers what Americans should do to stay alive during encounters with police, they will tell you to comply, cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their person and belongings. 

  The problem, of course, is what to do when compliance is not enough.

  After all, every day we hear about situations in which unarmed Americans complied and still died during an encounter with police simply because they appeared to be standing in a “shooting stance” or held a cell phone or a garden hose or carried around a baseball bat or answered the front door or held a spoon in a threatening manner or ran in an aggressive manner holding a tree branch or wandered around naked or hunched over in a defensive posture or made the mistake of wearing the same clothes as a carjacking suspect (dark pants and a basketball jersey) or dared to leave an area at the same time that a police officer showed up or had a car break down by the side of the road or were deaf or homeless or old.

  Now you can make all kinds of excuses to justify these shootings, and in fact that’s exactly what you’ll hear from politicians, police unions, law enforcement officials and individuals who are more than happy to march in lockstep with the police.

  However, to suggest that a good citizen is a compliant citizen and that obedience will save us from the police state is not only recklessly irresponsible, but it is also deluded and out of touch with reality.

  To begin with, and most importantly, Americans need to know their rights when it comes to interactions with the police, bearing in mind that many law enforcement officials are largely ignorant of the law themselves.

  In a nutshell, the following are your basic rights when it comes to interactions with the police as outlined in the Bill of Rights:

  You have the right under the First Amendment to ask questions and express yourself. You have the right under the Fourth Amendment to not have your person or your property searched by police or any government agent unless they have a search warrant authorizing them to do so.  You have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, to not incriminate yourself and to request an attorney. Depending on which state you live in and whether your encounter with police is consensual as opposed to your being temporarily detained or arrested, you may have the right to refuse to identify yourself. Presently, 26 states do not require citizens to show their ID to an officer (drivers in all states must do so, however).

  Knowing your rights is only part of the battle, unfortunately.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the hard part comes in when you have to exercise those rights in order to hold government officials accountable to respecting those rights.

  As a rule of thumb, you should always be sure to clarify in any police encounter whether or not you are being detained, i.e., whether you have the right to walk away. That holds true whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re essentially under arrest from the moment a cop stops you. Still, it doesn’t hurt to clarify that distinction.

  While technology is always going to be a double-edged sword, with the gadgets that are the most useful to us in our daily lives—GPS devices, cell phones, the internet—being the very tools used by the government to track us, monitor our activities, and generally spy on us, cell phones are particularly useful for recording encounters with the police and have proven to be increasingly powerful reminders to police that they are not all powerful.

  A good resource is The Rutherford Institute’s “Constitutional Q&A: Rules of Engagement for Interacting with Police.”

  Clearly, in the American police state, compliance is no guarantee that you will survive an encounter with the police with your life and liberties intact.

  So if you’re starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed, intimidated and fearful for your life and the lives of your loved ones, you should be.

  

• 62% Of Millennials Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck, Says Study

  Almost two-thirds of Millennials are living paycheck to paycheck, and only 38% feel financially secure, according to Charles Schwab’s 2019 Modern Wealth Index Survey.

  According to the survey, Millennials (ages 23 to 38) seem troubled when it comes to their financial well being. The study examined the finances of 1,000 Americans from different generations, but for our sake, we’re only concentrating on approximately 380 Millennials surveyed by Schwab.

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  Millennials conveniently blamed social media platforms for their dire financial straits. The need to spend was a symptom of fear of missing out (FOMO) of their friend’s experiences seen on social media posts, stories, and or feeds.

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  “The burden to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ has been part of our culture for decades, but it appears that social media and the fear of missing out (FOMO) have increased the pressure to spend,” said Terri Kallsen, executive vice president and head of Schwab Investor Services.

  “Spending is not the enemy, but when we allow social pressure or other forces to lure us into spending beyond our means, it can impact long-term financial stability and become a larger problem.”

  Logica Research conducted the online study for Schwab during the first two weeks in Feburary.

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  Facebook and Instagram, recently made it effortless for users to shop on their platforms. Instagram announced last month it added a “checkout” feature on posts.

  “Instagram is a place for people to treat themselves with inspiration, not a place to tax themselves with errands. It’s a place to experience the pleasure of shopping versus the chore of buying. We build everything with this in mind,” Instagram said in a statement.

  While it’s not just a spending problem, Millennials have more debt than any other generation.

  In a recent article, we reported that these young adults’ debt loads have risen by 22% in the last five years.

  Many of these youngsters are drowning in debt, but the composition of that debt is not the usual mortgage debt. Most of the debt is tied to student loans, credit cards, and auto loans, keeping this generation in a perpetual state of debt servitude to government and corporations.

  Skyrocketing home prices and stagnating wages have unleashed the housing affordability crisis that has driven millennial homeownership levels to record lows, forcing many to continue adding debt through renting.

  Even though Millennials are on the cusp of surpassing baby boomers as the largest generational demographic in the US, and the next five years will be the majority of the workforce, they still don’t have $500 in savings ahead of the next recession.

  Schwab’s new study suggests Millennials will be devastated when the next recession strikes. Judging by the escalation in the trade war, a recession could arrive as early as 1H20.

  

• US Press Reaches All-Time Low On Venezuela Coverage

  Authored by Daniel Kovalik via Counterpunch.org,

  As famed Latin American author Eduardo Galeano once wrote, “every time the US ‘saves’ a country, it converts it into either an insane asylum or a cemetery.” Of course, as we look over the wreckage left by the US in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, we see that this statement is demonstrably true. And yet, now that the US is poised for another intervention, this time in Venezuela, the press is right there again to cheer it along.

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  Analyzing 76 total press articles of the “elite” press from January 15 to April 15, 2019, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) could find not one voice that opposed Trump’s regime plans in Venezuela. Meanwhile, 54 percent openly supported these plans.  Of course, this should not be all too surprising given the press’s usual complicity in past US war efforts — e.g., by pushing such war lies as the Gulf of Tonkin, the killing of babies in Kuwait, the WMDS of Iraq and the alleged Viagra-fueled rapes in Libya.  The current war lies are coming fast and furious from such outlets as CNN which lied about seeing Maduro forces lighting aid containers on fire at the Colombian border (it was in fact opposition forces which did so as the NYT admitted two weeks later), and which claimed that US puppet Juan Guaido actually won the presidential election against Nicolas Maduro when in fact Guaido never even ran for president.

  What is quite stunning, however, is the total unanimity of the press in uncritically covering and supporting the ongoing coup in Venezuela. This is baffling because the same press outlets which have been rightly critical of Trump for all of his stupidity, lying and meanness, have suddenly found him brilliant, true and benevolent when it comes to Venezuela. This is particularly remarkable given that his partners in this crime are Neo-Con John Bolton; former CIA Director Mike Pompeo who recently joked that the CIA’s true motto is “We lied, We Cheated, We Stole”; and convicted liar Elliott Abrams.  As for Abrams, he is infamous for his role in the illegal funding of the Nicaraguan Contras; his covering up of the El Mazote massacre in El Salvador in which around 1000 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by US-backed forces; and his aiding and abetting the US-backed genocide in Guatemala.

  And yet, somehow, we are to believe from our “free” press that this band of rogues is going to deliver democracy and human rights to Venezuela.  Never mind the fact that Trump himself is President after losing to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes, and that the US, in the words of former President Jimmy Carter, no longer has a functioning democracy.  As for Venezuela, on the other hand, Carter has said that its electoral system is “the best in the world.”

  Meanwhile, this same captive press incessantly tells of us of all the deprivations and travails in Venezuela while refusing to explain how, as UN Expert Dr. Alfred de Zayas has concluded, this state of affairs is largely the result of brutal US sanctions.   Recently, respected economist Jeffrey Sachs co-authored a report showing that, since August of 2017, over 40,000 Venezuelans have died due to the US sanctions which have deprived Venezuela of food and life-saving medicines.   But few would know any of this because the voices of de Zayas and Sachs are never heard in the mainstream press.

  Also unheard are any of the 6 million Venezuelans who voted for Nicolas Maduro in May of 2018, many of whom turn out for massive pro-government demonstrations.  Instead, the press gives ink and air time only to mostly white, well-off and English-speaking individuals who support the opposition, giving the false impression that Maduro has no support.

  Moreover, in Orwellian fashion, the press refuses to call the current push for a military uprising in Venezuela a “coup,” while the same time referring to Maduro invariably as “repressive” and as a “dictator,” and his government as a “regime.”

  In short, instead of giving two sides of the story, the press gives us one, ignores crucial facts and tells us how we should be viewing the situation in Venezuela.  This is not journalism at all, but naked propaganda, and it is shameful.

  The fact that, despite all of the US pressure and threats, and despite all of the lies, the Venezuelan people have not risen up en massein support of Juan Guaido – a man 80 percent of Venezuelans never heard of until he declared himself president with the US’s urging – should tell one that things are not as we are being led to believe.  What we are seeing in Venezuela is but another attempted coup made in the USA, and it is the same type as the ones that brought such scoundrels as General Pinochet to power in Chile.  But one would never know this from our trusted press which has decided that it is the mouthpiece for the State Department instead of a check on a President and a nation run amok.

  *  *  *

  Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the forthcoming, The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, How the US is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, with a Foreword by Oliver Stone.

  

• China 'Green Shoots' Are Dead – Retail Sales, Industrial Production, & FAI Slump

  And there goes another ‘narrative’…

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  On the back of one better than expected soft survey PMI print, the world became convinced that as green shoots emerged, China was about to be reborn into magnificent credit-fuelled expansion and would save the world.

  Tonight, that narrative died – everything missed expectations:

  • Retail sales rose just 7.2% (against +8.7% in March) – lowest since May 2003 (the 7.2% year-on-year rise in retail sales is actually weaker than all the estimates. The lowest was 7.5%, and the median was 8.6%)

  • Industrial Production growth slumped from a hope-filled +6.5% YTD YoY in March to 6.2%.

  • Fixed Asset Investment slowed to just 6.1% YoY.

  Not green shoot-y!

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  Bloomberg’s Wes Goodman sums things up:

  “The China data miss suggests the U.S. tariffs already in place are biting, putting the stocks gain Wednesday at risk. For now China shares are up strongly, even if gains have been pared, while the Aussie dollar is holding above earlier lows.”

  Don’t worry though – there’s more stimulus to come everyone:

  China’s NBS says it will implement counter-cyclical adjustments to maintain steady, healthy economic development.

  Raymond Yeung of ANZ Bank makes the point that China needs to maintain growth above 6.3% or above.

  “Today’s numbers are not supportive. We believe the State Council will launch more measures to shore up the market sentiment. More tax cuts and consumer subsidies are in the pipeline.”

  Because all the stimulus so far has been working so well until now!

  Blooomberg’s Enda Curran notes that numbers these bad will heighten scrutiny of the yuan’s moves. Will Beijing allow it to soften materially from here or will they keep a floor under it? It’s a double-edged sword for them.

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  The weaker the yuan, the greater the risk of financial market instability and the need for intervention. At the same time though, with exporters facing rising tariffs and slowing growth, the currency will remain center stage.

  Does this move the trade deal pendulum back in Trump’s favor, forcing China to make a deal? We suspect that will be the bullish spin by the morning and why you should by any dip…

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  Finally there is this Orwellian nonsense – China’s economy is increasingly resilient to risks, the stats bureau spokeswoman says despite the weaker-than-expected data.

  

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• Turkey Flexes In "Largest Ever" East-Med Naval Drills Amid Cypriot Oil & Gas Grab

  Turkey kicked off its “largest ever” military drills conducted in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas on Monday. Though the drills are pre-scheduled “annual” exercises, the massively beefed up Turkish naval presence comes as Cyprus is pressing the EU to address illegal Turkish oil and gas drilling inside Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone.

  Turkish state-run TRT World described the exercise known as “Sea Wolf 2019” as including a total of 131 warships, 57 warplanes and 33 helicopters — the largest force deployment in the exercise’s history. 

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  The games will extend to the Black Sea as well, and is set to run through May 25; it will further involve “submarines, frigates, naval artilleries, armed UAVs, as well as search and rescue units” engaging in “strategic and operational exercises with scenarios similar to crisis-tension situations and wartime,” according to Turkish sources.

  The west supported Greek Cypriot government and Turkey – the latter which occupies northern Cyprus – have overlapping claims of jurisdiction for offshore oil and gas research in the natural gas-rich eastern Mediterranean.

  Turkey has laid claim to a waters extending a whopping 200 miles from its coast, brazenly asserting ownership over a swathe of the Mediterranean that even cuts into Greece’s exclusive economic zone. Ankara has in the past demanded that Cyprus formally recognize the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (since 1974) and allow it to share revenues from Cypriot gas exploration. 

  As a sign of strength, #Turkey has launched new naval exercises as it has begun drilling for #gas near #Cyprus. Turkey signals to #Greece, the #EU and the #US that it is serious in defending its interests. 131 warships, 57 planes and 33 helicopters participate. pic.twitter.com/9VBfXlqB09

  — Ali Osman Özkök (@Ozkok_A) May 13, 2019

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  Last week the president of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades slammed Turkey for what he called the “unprecedented escalation of illegal action” which constitutes a “second invasion” in the eastern Mediterranean

  Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly been provocatively sending  warships in support of gas exploration and drilling vessels near Cypriot waters over the past months in order to ward off foreign competition to oil and gas research, according to Cypriot officials, also seeking to bar Cypriot ships and planes from freely traversing its own European recognized waters. 

  Turkish state media footage of the games as they kick off Monday.

  On Monday TRT World reported separately just as the war games were kicking off:

  Ankara plans to start drilling near the island of Cyprus, in a project that Turkey says is within the rights of his country.

  Elaborating on the issue, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “The legitimate rights of Turkey and the Northern Cypriot Turks over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean are not open for argument. Our country is determined to defend its rights and those of Turkish Cypriots. We expect NATO to respect Turkey’s rights in this process and support us in preventing tensions.”

  The extensive Turkish claims around Cyprus have been condemned by the US, European Union, and Egypt, with NATO officials recently signalling to Turkey that it was out of line.

  But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu confirmed early this month that “we are starting drilling” in the region, perceiving that EU and NATO leadership have merely long paid lip service to Cypriot and Greek complaints. 

  Should the Turkish military attempt to enforce its drilling claims and run up against Cypriot and Greek vessels, it could spark a deadly encounter which would force the EU and NATO to finally weigh in more forcefully. 

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  Turkey has been frequently flexing its military might amid the territorial showdown, conducting the “Blue Homeland” drills between Feb. 27 and March 8 earlier this year. 

  So this week’s massive naval exercise will be the second in only a few months, just as EU leaders are planning to consider Cyprus’ allegations during meetings at the end of May and in June.

  

• Europe's Three Concerns About Iran

  Authored by Amir Taheri via The Gatestone Institute,

  Talking to European think-tankers and policymakers in recent weeks, one gets the impression that, seen from Europe, Iran is a recurring nightmare that everyone wishes would go away. A couple of years ago, many in Europe believed that it had faded into oblivion. Now, however, the nightmare is back with a vengeance, with drums of war beating in the background.

  The truth is that, apart from wishing it would go away, the European Union has never had a coherent policy for dealing with the nightmare. Eight years of President Barack Obama’s dancing around the Iran issue enabled the Europeans to postpone serious analysis of the situation in the Islamic Republic.

  That, in turn, seems to have led the Europeans to gingerly rally to the hardline posture adopted by the Trump administration in Washington. Judging by the current discussions in European policy circles, the European powers may well throw their weight behind Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” during the forthcoming G7 summit in France in August.

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  If the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran collapses, who will take the reins and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another “ungoverned territory” in the heart of the Middle East? Pictured: Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and President Hassan Rouhani. (Image source: khamenei.ir)

  In informal talks, European policymakers and advisers express three concerns regarding the “maximum pressure” strategy.

  The first is that the policy, ostensibly aimed only at persuading the Khomeinist leadership to change its behavior on some foreign policy issues, may, in fact, lead to systemic collapse in Iran and produce regime change with unforeseeable consequences.

  The question is: who will take the reins in Iran and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another “ungoverned territory” in the heart of the Middle East?

  I think the question is designed to dodge the issue of confronting a rogue regime that has provoked the current crisis. Iran has an old and well-established bureaucracy, dating back to the 16th century, and capable of operating within a strong culture of governance. Despite the serious damage done to state structures by the mullahs and their acolytes, the reservoir of experience and talent available is vast enough to ensure governance even on autopilot.

  The second concern is that regime change in Iran may trigger an avalanche of refugees ultimately heading for Europe at a time EU nations are still grappling with problems created by the influx of Syrian refugees. Iran’s population is almost four times that of Syria, which means Europe may face four times as many refugees. However, that concern too may be unwarranted.

  To start with, Iran has been a source of refugees from the first days of the Khomeinist regime. Right now, over eight million Iranians, about 10 percent of the population, are in exile, mostly in Europe and the United States, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Replacing the present regime by something less obnoxious may, in fact, inspire a reverse flow by Iranian exiles returning home. Something like that happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. In the first five years after liberation, an estimated 3.2 million Iraqi exiles, half of them in Iran, returned home.

  History shows that nasty regimes produce refugees in the first decade of their existence. We saw that in Cuba after Fidel Castro seized power. Today, a change of regime in Havana will almost certainly lead to a return of some Cuban exiles, and not to a new outflow of refugees. The Syrian situation is exceptional. The popular uprising against the Assad regime was not allowed to succeed because Russia and the Islamic Republic intervened to crush it.

  In the case of Iran, it is unlikely that Russia would want, or be able, to repeat the Syrian scenario to save the mullahs. Also, there is no one to assume the sidekick role that the Islamic Republic played in Syria.

  The third concern that Europeans express is that Trump’s “proximity pressure” strategy may lead to war. In that context, some Europeans claim that it is fear of war that fans the fires of fanaticism in Tehran.

  One senior European official tells us that the Islamic Republic is behaving aggressively because it feels surrounded by “huge numbers of American troops”.

  That assumption is based on insufficient attention to facts. The US currently has around 170,000 military personnel, out of total active military personnel of 1,280,000, stationed in 66 countries, the lowest number since World War II. Of these, two-thirds are stationed in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. In areas that Iran might regard as its glacis, US military personnel number under 15,000.

  In contrast, in the same putative glacis, the Islamic Republic has over 100,000 troops, including Afghan, Lebanese, Iraqi and Pakistani mercenaries in Syria and Iraq, not counting Hezbollah and Houthi units in Lebanon and Yemen.

  Nevertheless, the possibility of war cannot be discounted.

  A Persian classic on statecraft and warfare, says “words are the first arrows shot in a war.” The mullahs and their henchmen have set unimaginable records in the number of anti-American “word-arrows” shot every day. On the American side, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook return the compliment with interest.

  However, a war of words could also lead to real war. In the “Melian Dialogue”, Thucydides shows how the war of words between Athens and Sparta and constant military preparation in the island of Melos, ended up igniting the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).

  In the 15th century, the kings of Portugal and Spain went to war over the ownership of an island that was later found out to have been put on the map by a map-maker’s mistake. Peace came when the Portuguese agreed to cede the non-existent island to the Spaniards.

  The mullahs are playing with fire and, “He who plays with fire risks being burned!”

  

• Crisis Begins: Cuba Begins Widespread Rationing Due To Shortages 

  Last month, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela, attempting to tighten the vice on Havana to end its support for Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro. As a result, Cuba launched widespread rationing of staple foods and hygiene products due to shortages triggered by US trade embargos, reported Al Jazeera.

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  After a month of shortages, Cuban authorities announced Friday the rationed sale of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap, and other essential items, “to avoid hoarding and ensure greater access.”

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  Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz told the Cuban News Agency that rationing would be used to deal with shortages of staple foods. Díaz condemned the Trump administration for triggering the latest crisis developing throughout the country.

  “Our mission is to fracture all the measures the US government imposes, and today we are setting priorities,” Diaz said on a state-run media broadcast.

  Cuba imports approximately two-thirds of its food and small shortages have been common throughout the years. In recent weeks, many products have been missing from store shelves for days, and long lines have sprung up with many waiting for scarce products like chicken and beans.

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  Amid the developing economic crisis on the Caribbean island, Cuban youth have flooded onto social media under the hashtag #lacolachallenge (queue challenge) to shed light on the shortage.

  #LaColaChallenge en la Casa Azul provincia de Las Tunas, cola perenne, inmortal, infinita…como el hambre y la desesperación de los cubanos. pic.twitter.com/Id93kMAhJG

  — MaCC (@MaCC60217774) May 10, 2019

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  #LaColaChallenge aunque esta es la mejor cola, la de irse de una vez 😁 pic.twitter.com/KEOIJwO4Y2

  — Chawy (@Chawy1348) May 10, 2019

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  #LaColaChallenge: El único reto 100% cubano ha nacido y el desafío es inundar las redes con las largas filas para comprar en la Isla. https://t.co/QAPTWS6hvt pic.twitter.com/9l3SgFApO6

  — Yoani Sánchez 🇨🇺 (@yoanisanchez) May 10, 2019

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  Many Cubans find themselves standing in line for hours, waiting for products to arrive, a problem the government has blamed on “hoarders.”

  “The country’s going through a tough moment. This is the right response. Without this, there’ll be hoarders. I just got out of work and I was able to buy hot dogs,” said Lazara Garcia, a 56-year-old tobacco-factory worker.

  Product rationing has already begun in many municipalities across the island, with government-run grocery stores currently limiting bottles of cooking oil.

  Cuban officials admitted that a liquidity crunch has hit the country after commercial debt hit $ 1.5 billion with suppliers late last year, as well as the renewed US sanctions, have complicated things for the centrally planned government.

  “We depend on imports that come from the United States, and this has meant that we have had to look for alternatives to be able to secure the product in the market,” Díaz told local media.

  It seems that an economic crisis is unfolding in Cuba and the dangers are beginning to emerge with food shortages across the country.

  

• NASA, Roscosmos Leadership Unite In Call For Asteroid Defense: A Game Changer In Global Politics

  Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  From April 29-May 3, a unique five-day conference took place bringing together leading scientists, engineers and policy makers to discuss the important matter of mankind’s long term survival in a very hostile part of the galaxy. The 5th Annual Planetary Defense Conference in Baltimore Maryland was opened by a powerful keynote address by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine who painted a picture not only of the very real threat which life on earth faces due to the highly volatile (and highly unknown) behaviour of asteroids (near Earth Objects) orbiting in our sector of the solar system, but also outlined an important pathway to world peace.

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  Unlike “international terrorism” or “man-made global warming” which are purely human-made concoctions driven by political agendas, the threat of asteroid collisions with the earth is very real, and provides a very serious basis for international cooperation on the common aims and in the interest of humankind.

  Bridenstine opened his speech by saying “We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood. It’s not about movies. This is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know right now to host life, and that is the planet Earth.” After announcing the launch of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), Bridenstine said “we know for a fact that the dinosaurs did not have a space program… but we do, and we need to use it.”

  As these words were being spoken NASA had announced that asteroid 99942 Apophis (named after the Egyptian god of chaos) would come within 19 000 miles of the earth on April 13, 2029- which is closer than some satellites. The head of NASA’s presence at this forum was especially important since the White House had recently created a “National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan” which commissioned a simulation of Apophis colliding with the Earth with devastating results.

  Currently only 8000 of the estimated local asteroids (which are 140 meters or larger) have been identified and nothing is even closely in place to change their trajectories any time soon. Even if a collision were to occur in several years’ time, humanity’s technologies and priorities are dismally far from preventing such a collision. Just to put things in perspective, Bridenstine reminded his audience that in February 2013, a meteor measuring only 20 meters in diameter and travelling at 40 000 mph exploded over Chelyabinsk Russia sending a shockwave that destroyed property and injured over 1600 civilians. The energy in that blast was the equivalent of 30 Hiroshimas. This incident caught the world off guard, since everyone’s eyes were pointed at the other side of the earth where a much larger asteroid came within 17 000 miles but missed that same day.

  The Potential Russian-USA Alliance for a New Paradigm

  Bridenstine, who has been a long-time advocate of US-Russia-China collaboration on science, described his experience in Russia at that time saying “when I was over in Russia, the head of Roscosmos Dimitri Rogozin said that was high on his agenda. As you can imagine with Chelyabinsk and Tunguska, Russia has been significantly impacted by these events, so they have keen awareness and intensity on this that I think is important.”

  In 2011 Rogozin made headlines by calling for a policy which he termed “The Strategic Defense of the Earth (SDE)”. As the name implies, the SDE was a revival of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which President Reagan had first made to the Russians in 1983 mediated by the fascinating figure of Lyndon LaRouche. Unlike George Bush Sr’s unilateral version of the SDI later, this first version was based upon joint US-Russia collaboration of a ground and space-based system of plasma-based advanced laser technologies which would have made nuclear war strategically impossible. While the Russians rejected the offer then, Rogozin’s reactivation of the idea three decades later was a stroke of poetic irony.

  Rogozin’s new design called not only for international collaboration around an anti-nuclear war policy, but additionally included asteroid defense. Rogozin was very clear in 2011 that this policy would re-channel the trillions of dollars of military hardware being built up by the anti-ballistic missile shield around Russia (and China) into a function which protects rather than destroys life. Little known in the west, Russia Today reported in October 2011 that the program focuses on “fighting threats coming from space rather than just missiles. … It would be an integration of anti-aircraft, missile, and space defenses. The system would be targeted against possible threats to Earth coming from space, including asteroids, comet fragments, and other alien bodies… The system should be capable of both monitoring space and destroying any dangerous objects as they approach our planet.”

  Today both Rogozin and Bridenstine are two leading figures behind Russian and American plans for lunar and mars colonization which alongside China’s pioneering commitment for space exploration offer one of the best gateways out of the “closed system” trap of British geopolitics. America currently has a commitment for a permanent lunar colony by 2024 as a platform for lunar mining and Mars development. Russia’s vision is nearly identical with plans for the first manned mission between 2025-2034 and a permanent colony established by 2040. The European Space Agency has plans for a manned moon colony by 2030 and China has announced its first manned mission by the same period. All four agencies have expressed a serious interest for asteroid defense.

  Already, through Bridenstine’s leadership NASA has managed to crack the federal ban on US-China space cooperation imposed under the Obama presidency when NASA shared data with China during the Chang’e-4 landing on the far side of the moon on January 3, 2019. Leadership among Russia, China and American space agencies have made it clear that the Lunar-Mars development programs are heavily driven by opportunities for space mining (including the abundance of Helium-3 deposits on the moon which are unavailable on earth). Anyone serious about fusion technology knows that this isotope which has accumulated for billions of years on the Moon due to its lack of a magnetic field is the best source of fuel for fusion as the next phase in human development.

  Of course this positive future can only occur on the condition that the NATO-driven paradigm of closed system geopolitics (aka: the management of diminishing returns by a technocratic elite) is overturned and replaced by a system of “win-win cooperation” more in harmony with the true nature of humanity. This fight between two paradigms must be kept in mind when reviewing such anomalies as the positive 1.5 hour conversation between President Putin and Trump on May 3rd or the latter’s call to transfer the billions of dollars of Russia-China-US military spending into spending on “things that are more productive towards long term peace.”

  Regardless of what we may wish to believe, humanity exists in a universe that demands we pay attention to its behavior. Galactically driven catastrophes have led to 5 mass extinctions since the Cambrian period and as Bridenstine noted above, we are the first species which has exhibited the potential capability to circumvent another one from occurring. The question remains: Shall we continue to tolerate being manipulated by an oligarchical system of geopolitics under sociopathic technocrats who demand depopulation under a fixed system of diminishing returns (entropy) or shall we recognize our higher destiny as a species of creative reason and unbounded powers of self-perfectibility?

  

• "Have Sex Marathons Every Day" Alibaba's Jack Ma Tells Newlyweds To Try '669' 

  China’s richest man, Jack Ma, has raised eyebrows after telling his newlywed employees to have sex six times in six days, according to the Daily Mail. 

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  The billionaire Alibaba founder was speaking at his company’s annual mass wedding, which takes place on “Ali Day” – May 10, at the company’s Hangzhou headquarters in east China. 

  “At work, we emphasize the spirit of 996. In life, we should follow 669,” said Ma, invoking the company’s highly controversial ‘996’ work schedule in which staff are required to work 12 hour shifts from 9am to 9pm six days per week. 

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  “What is 669?” asked Ma rhetorically. “Six days, six times, with duration being the key,” said Ma to the 102 couples in their wedding dresses and suits. As the Mail notes, “In Chinese, the word ‘nine’ is a homophone with the word for ‘long.’ 

  The quote was posted to Alibaba’s official page on Weibo with a winking emoji, which drew widespread criticism from net users.

  ‘Making a lewd joke in public and notoriously promoting it – are you being responsible to minors? Thumbs down this time,’ one highly rated comment read. 

  ‘This is just revolting,’ another comment said

  ‘Is this funny? Not one bit,’ one person said. 

  ‘Who on earth would have the energy to 669 at home after 996 during work?’ one user said. 

  As the officiant at the ceremony, the 54-year-old founder also urged the new couples to procreate, calling children a better investment that property.

  ‘The first KPI of marriage is to have results. There must be products. What is the product? Have children,’ Ma said.  

  ‘Marriage is not for the purpose of accumulating wealth, not for buying a house, not for buying a car, but for having a child together,’ he added. –Daily Mail

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  Perhaps Ma was trying to help out with China’s dwindling birth rate amid the country’s slowing economy. As the Mail notes, the number of babies born in 2018 fell by two million to 15.23 million – the lowest since 1961 despite Beijing relaxing the country’s one-child policy three years ago. 

  

• Don't 'Iraq' Iran

  How many people advocating for war against Iran actually know what it looks like from an on the ground perspective? How many neocon advocates for bombing Tehran have actually seen the ultra-modern downtown skyline of the capital city? How many know flesh and blood Iranians who whose world and families and whole existence will be shattered when the missiles are unleashed? 

  Once again, the armchair hawks are clamoring to bomb far-away places which for them contain abstract “villains” which in reality pose little to no direct threat to the United States — all based on anonymously sourced and vague “intelligence”. Like the disastrous Iraq war, Washington is now saying, just “trust us”. And like Iraq, the results of yet another war to “take out the regime” will no doubt be a worse nightmare than the current status quo and stability, however undesirable Iran’s current leaders might be. 

  The below is authored by Eric Margolis via The Ron Paul Institute

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  Is it just a coincidence that TV networks are re-running old “Dirty Harry” films just as a powerful US Naval armada and Air Force B-52 bombers are headed for what could be a clash with Iran? Here we go again with the “good guys” versus the “bad guys,” and “make my day.”

  Maybe it’s more bluffing? The current US military deployment was scheduled before the latest flare-up with Iran, but the bellicose threats of White House neocon crusaders like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo certainly create the impression that the US wants war.

  Adding to the warlike excitement, President Trump just ordered seizure of a large North Korean bulk cargo ship. This was clearly a brazen act of war and violation of international law. More dangerous brinkmanship by administration war-mongers who increasingly appear besotted by power and hubris.

  So much for the president who vowed to avoid foreign wars – and so much for the millions of anti-war voters who believed him.

  Why does Trump let his two horsemen of the apocalypse get away with this?

  Déjà vu: The same rhetoric used to justify going into Iraq is back, but this time it’s Iran that’s a “threat to the region.” pic.twitter.com/WuXubUybaf

  — In the NOW (@IntheNow_tweet) May 9, 2019

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  I’m following this latest gunboat diplomacy with particular interest because I had the privilege in 1994 of going to sea on the very same aircraft carrier, “CVN-72 USS Abraham Lincoln” that is now reportedly steaming towards Iran’s coast. With it are a nuclear submarine, a cruiser and a group of destroyers, all equipped with land-attack missiles.

  As a former soldier and war correspondent, I was deeply impressed by the “Lincoln” and her youthful crew. They were efficient, motivated and superbly well-organized. In our lifetime, no other navy will ever equal the skills of the US carrier fleet. The only real threat to America’s huge carriers is the growing power and accuracy of Russian, Chinese and Indian heavy anti-ship missiles.

  The Navy task force is backed up by B-52 nuclear-capable heavy bombers now stationed in Qatar, and US warplanes from other bases in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Jordan, and Pakistan that effectively surround Iran. The carriers are just for show and threat.

  Israel, which is eager to see the US attack Iran, has helpfully provided “intelligence” allegedly showing that Iran is planning to attack certain US installations in the Mideast. Interestingly, Israel and its American supporters did the same thing in 2001 and 2003, pushing the US to attack its foe Iraq. Washington largely relied on Israeli intelligence about Iraq since its own resources were so weak – and senior Bush administration neocons kept touting the claims from Israel.

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  President Trump sees himself as an emperor besieged by Washington Lilliputians. There’s nothing like a jolly little war to shut up all his critics and garner media support. Even better, the “bad guys” in this case are “Eye-ranian” Muslims. Trump’s religious base would thrill at the prospect of pounding the Islamic Republic. During the Bush administration years, over 80 percent of so-called “born again” Christians backed war against Iraq. What happened to “turn the other cheek?”

  This administration’s neocons have made it their life’s work to destroy Iran, which is considered Israel’s only serious enemy and a champion of the Palestinian cause.

  The Trump administration has largely fallen under the influence of Israel’s hard right in foreign and military affairs. So Bolton and Pompeo are clearly trying to engineer an incident that would spark war.

  Not full-scale war, but an excuse for the US and Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, key military sites and communications infrastructure as was done with Iraq. It won’t be back all the way to the Stone Age, but half way, so that Iran’s development is set back by a decade.

  Israel will then use its control over the US Congress to keep Iran under a very tight embargo. The Pentagon’s original plan to punish Iran called for some 2,300 air strikes on Day 1 alone.

  Washington’s hope, as usual, is that growing misery and hardship in Iran will provoke a revolt to oust the Islamic government, allowing the US to install the exiled Iranian royalists it has waiting in Southern California. This was the pattern in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Venezuela. It’s not diplomacy, just brute force.

  

• Trader Warns: Wall Street Has It All Wrong About 2H19 Growth Rebound 

  Patrick Ceresna (Big Picture Trading) and Kevin Muir (MacroTourist) every week discuss the week’s action in the markets — always keeping the other’s feet to the fire for bad calls – yet hopefully having some fun while learning a little something in the process.

  Last week, Patrick and Kevin welcomed Alastair Williamson (@stockboardasset) on ‘The Market Huddle’ to talk about debunking the 2H19 growth rebound narrative. Williamson provided a variety of charts, making his case that Wall Street is, in fact, utterly wrong about the second-half rebound.

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  Williamson said world trade volume is rolling over and global central banks’ toolkits are becoming less effective to stabilize global growth. He suggested that China’s latest record credit injection has failed to bottom Global PMIs (something we spoke about last week).

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  He also made the case that President Trump is deepening the trade war to achieve much lower equity prices so that the Federal Reserve would be more inclined to cut rates and implement QE-4.

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  Williamson showed an E-mini S&P 500 Futures analog of 2019 versus 2012. He said the index could fall until mid-summer if the tariff situation worsens, which would then force analysts to lower their price targets and EPS estimates, thus debunking 2H growth rebound narrative.

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  Without further ado, here is Market Huddle Episode 27: Debunking The 2H19 Growth Rebound Narrative.

  

• Barr Appoints US Attorney To Investigate FBI/DOJ Spying On Trump; Has Investigated FBI Before

  Attorney General William Barr has appointed US Attorney John H. Durham of Connecticut to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation to determine if the FBI’s spying on the Trump campaign was “lawful and appropriate,” according to Fox News. 

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  The move comes as the Trump administration has demanded answers over the use of “informants” on his 2016 campaign. 

  According to Fox, Barr is “serious” and has assembled a team from the DOJ to participate in the probe, adding that Durham is known as a “hard-charging, bulldog” prosecutor according to their source. 

  Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period — prior to Nov. 7, 2016 – – including the use and initiation of informants, as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.

  An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to “seduce” him as part of the “bizarre” episode.

  Durham previously has investigated law enforcement corruption, the destruction of CIA videotapes and the Boston FBI office’s relationship with mobsters. He is set to continue to serve as the chief federal prosecutor in Connecticut. –Fox News

  Of note – in January House Republicans Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows wrote to Durham, saying that they had “discovered” he was “investigating former FBI General Counsel James Baker” over unauthorized leaks to the media, adding “We know the DOJ and FBI departed from traditional investigative and prosecutorial practices, and insufficiently adhered to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). 

  Durham has a history of serving as a special prosecutor, investigating wrongdoing among national security officials – including the FBI’s ties to a Boston crime boss, as well as accusations of CIA detainee abuse. 

  According to the report, Durham’s review would run in parallel with the ongoing DOJ probe by Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, Republicans have been seeking answers from US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, who was appointed by former AG Jeff Sessions to review FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses, as well as authorities’ handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation. 

  Not much has come of Huber’s investigation, while Republicans have cautioned that he has spoken with few key witnesses and whistleblowers. 

  Durham’s appointment comes about a month after Barr told members of Congress he believed “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign in 2016. He later said he didn’t mean anything pejorative and was gathering a team to look into the origins of the special counsel’s investigation.

  Democrats have pummeled Barr in frustration following revelations in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russian actors, despite numerous offers by Russians to assist the campaign. Mueller’s final report has led to a bitter D.C. battle over the limited number of redactions in the report, which the DOJ says are legally necessary because they pertain to grand jury matters. –Fox News

  As part of the FBI’s FISA application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the FBI cut-and-pasted from a disputed Washington Post article which suggested that the Trump campaign may have been compromised. The agency also repeatedly told the FISA court that it “did not believe” UK ex-spy Christopher Steele was the source of a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff which implicated Page in Russian collusion. 

  London court records, however, reveal that contrary to the FBI’s statements, Steele had briefed Yahoo News and other media outlets in the fall of 2016 at the urging of his employer Fusion GPS – which the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had paid for anti-Trump opposition research. This information was withheld from FISA judges during the application to surveil Page. 

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  What’s more, the FBI could not verify the dodgy dossier Steele assembled. Speaking Fox on ‘Sunday Morning Futures,’ Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said “There’s a document that’s classified that I’m gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier — all the pages of it — and it has verification to one side,” adding “There really is no verification, other than media reports that were generated by reporters that received the dossier.” 

  Graham cited a recent report from The Hill‘s John Solomon which reveals that the FBI was specifically informed that Steele had admitted he was “keen” to influence the 2016 election with his document. 

  Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline. –The Hill

  Solomon also reported last week that a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media. 

  Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten notes of the encounter.

  Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a “technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election,” which recruited US emigres to “do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that “Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami.” 

  Except that’s a lie – as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: “It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.“

  What makes this particularly damning is that the FBI swore on October 21, 2016 to the FISA judges that Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,”and that the FBI deemed him to be “reliable” and was “unaware of any derogatory information pertaining” to the former British spy who was working for Fusion GPS – the firm paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to come up with dirt on Donald Trump. 

  And now U.S. Attorney John Durham will sort out exactly what happened, we can only hope. 

   

  

• Amazon Rolling Out Automated Packing Machines That Are 5X Faster Than Humans

  Amazon has been rolling out machines which automatically scans goods coming down a conveyer belt and boxes them for shipping, according to an exclusive report by Reuters, citing two people who worked on the project.  

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  The ‘latest and greatest’ in automation will replace thousands of workers. After installing the technology in a “handful of warehouses,” the company has considered installing the machines at dozens more – replacing at least 24 workers each at facilities which typically employ more than 2,000 people. 

  The new machines, known as the CartonWrap from Italian firm CMC Srl, pack much faster than humans. They crank out 600 to 700 boxes per hour, or four to five times the rate of a human packer, the sources said. The machines require one person to load customer orders, another to stock cardboard and glue and a technician to fix jams on occasion. –Reuters

  Deployed across 55 US fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory, this would mean more than 1,300 jobs gone, while Amazon would recover the cost of the program in less than two years at $1 million per machine plus operational expenses. 

  The plan, previously unreported, shows how Amazon is pushing to reduce labor and boost profits as automation of the most common warehouse task – picking up an item – is still beyond its reach. The changes are not finalized because vetting technology before a major deployment can take a long time. –Reuters

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  “We are piloting this new technology with the goal of increasing safety, speeding up delivery times and adding efficiency across our network,” said an Amazon spokeswoman in a statement to Reuters. “We expect the efficiency savings will be re-invested in new services for customers, where new jobs will continue to be created.” 

  Last month Amazon tried to downplay steps towards automation taken at its Baltimore fulfillment center, telling worried employees that a fully robotic future was far off. 

  A key to its goal of a leaner workforce is attrition, one of the sources said. Rather than lay off workers, the person said, the world’s largest online retailer will one day refrain from refilling packing roles. Those have high turnover because boxing multiple orders per minute over 10 hours is taxing work. At the same time, employees that stay with the company can be trained to take up more technical roles. –Reuters

  And while the new machines are 500% faster than a human, the latest round of automation is “truly about efficiency and savings,” according to one of Reuters‘ sources. 

  Between CartonWrap and another machine known as the “SmartPac,” which mails items in patented envelopes, Amazon’s technology suite will be able to replace most of its human packers, according to the report, which notes that “Five rows of workers at a facility can turn into two, supplemented by two CMC machines and one SmartPac.” 

  The CMC packing machines have also been used by companies such as Shutterfly Inc, Walmart and JD.com Inc, according to the report. Walmart began using them 3.5 years ago and has deployed the machines across several US locations. 

  The next challenge – ‘picking’ technology that doesn’t break items. 

  Interest in boxing technology sheds light on how the e-commerce behemoths are approaching one of the major problems in the logistics industry today: finding a robotic hand that can grasp diverse items without breaking them.

  Amazon employs countless workers at each fulfillment center who do variations of this same task. Some stow inventory, while others pick customer orders and still others grab those orders, placing them in the right size box and taping them up. –Reuters

  A slew of venture-backed companies and university researchers have been racing to find a solution for picking. While AI can help improve machines’ accuracy, “there is no guarantee that robotic hands can prevent a marmalade jar from slipping and breaking, or switch seamlessly from picking up an eraser to grabbing a vacuum cleaner,” writes Reuters. 

  Amazon has been testing technology from several vendors which it may someday use for picking, including one from Boston-based startup Soft Robotics, which draws inspiration from octopus tentacles which provide versatile grippers. 

  Soft Robotics would not comment on its work with Amazon, but says that it has handled a wide and ever-changing variety of products for several large retailers. 

  Believing that grasping technology is not ready for prime time, Amazon is automating around that problem when packing customer orders. Humans still place items on a conveyor, but machines then build boxes around them and take care of the sealing and labeling. This saves money not just by reducing labor but by reducing wasted packing materials as well.

  These machines are not without flaws. CMC can only produce so many per year. They need a technician on site who can fix problems as they arise, a requirement Amazon would rather do without, the two sources said. The super-hot glue closing the boxes can pile up and halt a machine. –Reuters

  Meanwhile, Amazon has already found the boxing machines to be extremely helpful – while Reuters notes that “the machines have the potential to automate far more than 24 jobs per facility.” The company is also establishing approximately 24 more US fulfillment centers for small and non-specialty inventory, according to logistics consultancy MWPVL International. 

  “A ‘lights out’ warehouse is ultimately the goal,” said one source. 

  

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• Kamikaze DroneBullet Knocks Enemy UAVs Out Of The Sky

  Just a few months back, we were one of the first to cover Kalashnikov’s high-precision suicide drone that delivers a small warhead to target coordinates.

  Then a month later in March, we discovered schematics for a drone with a shotgun embedded into its airframe on the Russian Federal Service’s website for Intellectual Property.

  The proliferation of small weaponized drone technology is inevitable, and from our past coverage, it seems that Russia is leading the charge.

  To be frank, there’s nothing that global governments can do to stop it. Armed drones operated by terrorist groups will be used for assassinations and terrorist attacks.

  Take, for example, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a weaponized drone back in August 2018.

  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro escaped a drone ‘attack’ unharmed. The leader is calling it an assassination attempt. pic.twitter.com/KI5zmQ3Rai

  — Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 5, 2018

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  At the begging of the year, Huthi rebels detonated a suicide drone over the Al Anad Air Base in Yemen during a military parade with Yemen’s top brass underneath.

  Les images de l’explosion d’un drone pendant une parade militaire dans une base loyaliste du sud du #Yémen. Six militaires ont été tués et 12 autres personnes, dont des officiers et des responsables locaux, blessées, selon un hôpital local #AFP pic.twitter.com/qn4kEcVYrD

  — Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) January 10, 2019

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  Now imagine a suicide drone operated by terrorists, packed with C-4 explosives flying towards the White House, a major airport, an Ivy League University, shopping district, and or a sports arena. As shown in the videos above, there are very little defenses to protect a high-value asset from a small drone attack.

  Until now. AerialX, a Canadian-based company, has developed a solution called the DroneBullet, reported Digital Trends.

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  CEO of AerialX Noam Kenig describes the DroneBullet as a “hybrid between a missile and a quadcopter.” It’s basically a kamikaze drone which looks like a missile but has flight characteristics of a quadcopter.

  The drone can reach speeds in excessive of 200 mph in a dive attack. It’s designed to lock onto enemy drones with its camera and various neural net-based components, which allows it to knock the target out of the sky.

  “We started out developing our own drones,” Kenig said. “At a certain point, we realized that the industry had become crowded. We then started working on counter-drone technologies. One solution we started working on was the drone forensic toolkit, which lets people retrieve crashed drones and analyze their flight information. We’ve also worked on detection systems for drones. Finally, we started work on the DroneBullet.”

  The drone is launched from a ground base. The operator uses a laptop with the drone’s cameras to identify the target, once the target is confirmed, the DroneBullet will handle the rest.

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  “It can track objects autonomously and will even work out exactly where to hit its target, depending on its speed and whether [its target is] a quadcopter or fixed wing drone,” Kenig continued. “That could be from above, below, or from the side. It works out where the weak spot is and goes after it. If it sees a small drone like a Phantom, it will hit it full-force from below. If it’s a bigger target, it can change the attack mode and attack from above. That’s usually the most sensitive part for drones, where the GPS module and multiple exposed propellers are housed.”

  Unlike Kalashnikov’s drone, the DroneBullet doesn’t use C-4 but rather uses its kinetic energy for maximum destruction of the target.

  “It can operate in two types of scenario,” Kenig said. “It can be both a standalone system and also work with third-party detection systems. That means that it could be linked to radar or vision-based systems, and then deployed autonomously.”

  Kenig acknowledged that the Pentagon and law enforcement agencies across the country have purchased the DroneBullet.

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  The proliferation of drones is so dangerous that Congress last June, top homeland security officials called weaponized drones a “serious, looming threat” that the government is “currently unprepared to confront.”

  “It doesn’t take much training and affixing some kind of explosive to a drone to fashion a crude weapon,” RAND Corporation senior political scientist Colin Clarke said.

  Clarke said these drones are becoming more frequently deployed with terrorist groups.

  “This is the new world we’re living in. And we’ve got to adjust and I think we’ve got to come up with counter measures,” Clarke said.

  Watch the DroneBullet in action – successfully taking down a DJI Phantom with mortar rounds strapped underneath its belly. 

  

• Ireland Declares Climate Emergency

  Authored by Irina Slav for Oilprice.com,

  Ireland has declared a climate emergency, with Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton calling climate change the greatest challenge mankind is facing.

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  ITV quoted the minister as saying,

  “We’re reaching a tipping point in respect of climate deterioration. Things will deteriorate very rapidly unless we move very swiftly and the window of opportunity to do that is fast closing.”

  The move, which followed cross-party support to amendments to a climate action report drafted by the country’s parliament, made Ireland the second country in the world to declare a climate emergency after the UK. In the latter, the declaration followed crippling environmentalist protests in London that paralyzed parts of the city.

  In its wake, an independent, government-appointed Committee on Climate Change recommended to the government such measures as reducing the consumption of meat and dairy products, changing the way farms do business, and making electric cars the only cars that people can buy starting in 2035. By 2050, according to the panel, the country should be greenhouse gas emission-free.

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  It looks like climate emergency declarations could become a trend: hours after media reported the Irish parliament’s vote for an emergency, the New Zealand Vegan Society issued a call for the government to declare a climate emergency.

  “New Zealand is woeful in its protection of the environment, with many rivers and waterways polluted, in part due to excess dairying in particular regions. It shows that we are simply not doing enough to protect our part of the world,” the call read.

  “It is the next biggest inconvenient truth… eating animals is causing habitat loss, driving climate change and the 6th mass extinction wave. What can we do? The answer is simple: go vegan and plant trees!” said a Vegan Society Aotearoa New Zealand representative, Claire Insley.

  It is likely that more activism will follow elsewhere, and if persistent enough it would lead to more climate emergency declarations. The question remains, however, whether declarations would spur enough effective-immediately legislation that could effect a comprehensive energy demand change in whole nations.

  Meanwhile, new renewable energy capacity additions have stalled, with growth in 2018 flat on the year, according to new figures from the International Energy Agency.

  

• Russiagate Zealotry Continues To Endanger Western National Security

  Authored by Stephen Cohen via The Nation,

  If Venezuela becomes a Cuban Missile–like Crisis, will Trump be free to resolve it peacefully?

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  Now in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an “attack on American democracy” during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin “attack.” As I have argued from the outset—see my regular commentaries posted at TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia?—and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.

  Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not “Putin’s Russia,” continue to inflict grave damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of journalistic malpractice in modern times.

  But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate zealots.

  On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report. (As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.) A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America’s neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington’s deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela’s sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.

  To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:

  • Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo rhetorically on May 3, “Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our democracy?” while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.

  • The same evening, CNN’s Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: “The president of the United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn’t tell him not to interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he is planning to do again in 2020…. You just don’t seem to want us to know exactly what was said…. Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an enemy nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again.” (Lemon did not say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against Trump or his allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won, or his foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded Russia an “enemy nation.”)

  • We might expect something more exalted from James Risen, once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that “Trump and Putin were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them,” even for the sake of needed diplomacy.

  • Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump “acts on their behalf,” that he “is putting the Russians’ interests ahead of the United States’ interests.” (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.)

  • Not surprisingly, a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant “Trump is counting on Russian help to get reelected.”

  None of these “opinion leaders” mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for its “attack on our democracy,” including “unprecedented measures” such as cyberattacks.

  Russiagate’s unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America’s politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate. If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.

  Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr’s declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to “spying” on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan’s CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump “has eaten your soul.”

  It would be more accurate to say—and certainly more important—that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America’s national security.

  

• FBI: More Cops Died On Duty In 2018

  According to the FBI’s annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2018 (LEOKA) report published Monday, more law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2018 than the previous year.

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  LEOKA shows 55 officers were “feloniously killed,” and 51 died accidentally, for a total of 106 killed in 2018, a 12% spike YoY. Of the 55, 23 died in tactical situations, traffic stops, investigating suspicious activities, attempting to arrest wanted persons, or trying to de-escalate a situation with a mentally unstable person.

  Eleven officers died in ambushes, and four died while investigating burglaries or a person with a firearm. The report said 93% of the (51/55) felonious deaths, the perpetrator used a handgun.

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  Twenty-six officers died in the southern states, that is twice as many than any other region in the country. Twelve officers died each in the Midwest and West, and four died in the Northeast. Twelve officers died in the Midwest, and 12 died in the West, and four died in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.

  Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed Region, Geographical Division, and State, 2009-2018 

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  Law Enforcement Officers Accidentally Killed Region, Geographical Division, and State, 2009-2018 

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  Over half of the perpetrators had criminal arrests, and 20% were under judicial supervision at the time of the feloniously killing of an officer.

  Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed Percent Distrubtion by Type of Weapon, 2009-2018

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  Motor vehicle deaths were the primary cause of accidental deaths with 34 officers dying in traffic accidents. Nine officers were struck by vehicles, three drowned, and two died of firearms-related charges.

  Of the officers who were feloniously killed in 2018:

  • The average age was 37.
  • The average tenure in law enforcement was 10 years.
  • Three were female and 52 were male.

  Of the officers who were accidentally killed last year:

  • The average age was 36.
  • The average tenure in law enforcement was 10 years.
  • Four were female and 47 were male.

  However, there is some improving news. LEOKA’ latest preliminary statistics (as of May 5) show that 15 officers were killed feloniously so far this year, down from 27 in 2018 in the same period.

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• How Lies Become 'Facts' In US 'News'

  Authored by Eric Zuesse via Off-Guardian.org,

  On Fox News Channel’s May 2nd edition of “The Story with Martha MacCallum” was alleged, by the program host (at 2:45 in this video), that one reason we must invade Venezuela (if we will) is that “People have lost 24 pounds” there.

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  So (her point was), if we invade, that’s not evil, it’s no coup, but instead it’s humanitarian (presumably like it was in Iraq in 2003, when we invaded that country, which likewise had never invaded nor threatened to invade the United States — it was raw international aggression, by our country, against Iraq).

  Individuals who fall for a liar once, will typically fall for that liar again and again, without limit, because they are (for whatever reason) prejudiced to trust him. But is this attempt, at “regime change” in Venezuela, yet another example of that, or might it instead really be the case (this time) that (as this Fox host implies) to invade Venezuela will help the people there (gain back that lost weight, etc.), not kill many of them and destroy their nation even worse than it already was?

  So, I checked online, to find what the source was, if any, for this stunning allegation by the Fox News host. After all, such a steep a weight-loss for an entire nation would be shocking.

  If, indeed, the allegation has a scientifically trustworthy source, then there exists, somewhere, a rigorously done, statistically sound, empirical study of thousands of Venezuelans’ body-weights, in which each one of those individuals has been weighed, not only once, but twice, separated in time by two specific years, so that there exists a credible “before” weight, and “after” weight, to compare, in each one of these many individual cases, such that the study found that the average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds during that before-after time-period.

  The sample-size has to be large enough, and the sampling-method has to be randomized enough, so that the result will meet the standards of statistical reliability in order to be able to represent the entirety of the Venezuelan population. Many thousands of such scientific studies are, in fact, published each and every year, and it might have been done regarding the body-weights of Venezuelans. However, otherwise (that is, if this was not done regarding Venezuelans’ body-weights), then that Fox News host was either lying, or else deceived by other people, in order for her to have made this remarkable statement. One, or else the other, is the case, here — either such a study was done, or else it wasn’t — so: which of those two options occurred, in this particular instance? Let’s see:

  She might have received this ‘fact’ which she had stated, from any of many sources that are online:

  Just a few days prior to that show, National Review had headlined, on 30 April 2019, “The Economics of Tyranny in Venezuela”, and reported “The real-life consequences of Chavismo’s misguided policies are telling: Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds in the year 2017.”

  That linked to the 24 January 2019 Council on Foreign Relations article “Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate”, which said that Venezuela has “a devastating humanitarian crisis, with severe shortages of basic goods, such as food and medical supplies. In 2017, Venezuelans lost an average of twenty-four pounds in body weight.”

  That, in turn, linked to a 21 February 2018 Reuters article, “Venezuelans report big weight losses in 2017 as hunger hits”, which opened:

  Venezuelans reported losing on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) in body weight last year and almost 90 percent now live in poverty, according to a new university study on the impact of a devastating economic crisis and food shortages.
  The annual survey, published on Wednesday by three universities, is one of the most closely-followed assessments of Venezuelans’ well being amid a government information vacuum and shows a steady rise in poverty and hunger in recent years.

  Over 60 percent of Venezuelans surveyed said that during the previous three months they had woken up hungry because they did not have enough money to buy food. About a quarter of the population was eating two or less meals a day, the study showed.

  Last year, the three universities found that Venezuelans said they had lost an average of 8 kilograms during 2016.

  This time, the study’s dozen investigators surveyed 6,168 Venezuelans between the ages of 20 and 65 across the country of 30 million people. …

  “Income is being pulverized,” Maria Ponce, one of the study’s investigators, told a news conference at the Andres Bello Catholic University. …

  She was the only cited source. So, on May 3rd, I googled “Maria Ponce” https://www.ucab.edu.ve/ “Universidad Católica Andrés Bello”, and found: https://ucab.academia.edu/MariaPonce

  That indicated she had done “11 papers” and the most promising to be the one was at the very top: https://www.academia.edu/38305342/Informe-PobrezaISBN-2017.pdf

  I did there a “Find” for the number alleged in the Reuters article to have been the sample-size, “6,168” because if this document does, in fact, report any such study, then that number would need to be shown somewhere in it. I got “0” finds. So, this paper can’t be the basis for the assertion.

  The only other promising prospect was this paper.

  That one too didn’t include “6,168”. However, it did give her full name: “María Gabriela Ponce Zubillaga” which I then googled. The only promising find I could see there was: this, and that too lacked “6,168”.

  Also, at the University itself, there is one paper shown from her, but it’s dated 2013.

  None of the works from her is actually dated after 2015, and so there is a mystery as to why the only “study” by her which contained such internationally influential ‘findings’ has not been included by her in what she has uploaded to the Web or has otherwise been made public (except as ‘summarized’ in that Reuters article).

  Also of interest is that a 2017 publication, which mentions her name, but which has no article from her, shows on its page 204, “Gráfica 14. Coeficiente de Gini. Venezuela. 2000-2015” or the year-by year economic-inequality coefficient (or “Gini”) for Venezuela, throughout the period 2000 to 2015, and this coefficient plunged during that period, to reach in 2015 “0.381” — which was one of the world’s lowest, which means that Venezuela had one of the world’s most equal distributions of incomes then — and this is an astounding performance, because in 2002 Venezuela’s was near the global average, 0.50.

  If that is true, then Venezuela’s Government has at least this important economic achievement to be proud of. (Hugo Chavez became President in 1999, and was replaced by Nicolas Maduro when Chavez died in 2013. The U.S. regime attempted many coups against both, but the present effort is the most serious one yet.)

  Furthermore, Ponce’s online-posted CV shows no publications from her after 2015.

  So, I contacted her at https://ucab.academia.edu/MariaPonce, and left her this message plus my email-address so that she could respond:

  Please email me the alleged February 2018 study

  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-food/venezuelans-report-big-weight-losses-in-2017-as-hunger-hits-idUSKCN1G52HA

  documenting that Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds due to the economic troubles.

  Eric Zuesse

  It has been six days now with no response. If I ever hear back from her, or from anyone who is associated with that alleged ‘study’, then I shall do a follow-up news-report on the matter.

  America’s media-watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) headlined on 30 April 2019 “Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela”, and reported (and documented) that,

  Over a three-month period (1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.”

  This lengthy study of hundreds of news-commentaries closed by saying:

  When it comes to advocating the overthrow of the US government’s foreign undesirables, you can always count on opinion pages to represent all sides of why it’s a good thing. And the millions of people who beg to differ? Well, they’re just out of the question.”

  So, though the present news-report is being distributed to all of America’s national news-media, for them to publish freely, they’ve already made clear that at least none of the ones that have large audiences will publish it. They know the truth, just as you do (now, at least), but they aren’t in the truth-business — they only pretend to be (just as they pretend to report ‘the news’, instead of the the carefully filtered propaganda).

  Polls show that Americans want bipartisan government. But both of the political parties are funded by billionaires, and all billionaires are neoconservatives — supporters of extending the U.S. empire — because it’s their empire, and because none of them is actually satisfied with how large it already is.

  So: they hire the writers for, and the candidates of, both political parties, to help them make it even bigger, ceaselessly. So, if you don’t see this article published in the pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., you know why: they’re working to keep ‘fake news’ out, and to report only the real propaganda, the authorized propaganda — the propaganda that those billionaires want to be spread.

  And this also explains that interview on Fox News Channel’s May 2nd edition of “The Story with Martha MacCallum”. It also explains why Trump could say there (at 0:19) — and be unchallenged for saying — “It is, from a constitutional standpoint, it’s the way it’s supposed to be. He [Guaido] was elected,” though everything in that statement is absurdly false; and this is also the reason why, later (at 3:05), the host, MacCallum, seconded that lie, by asserting that the actually merely self-proclaimed ‘interim President of Venezuela’, Guaido, is what “the people of Venezuela, what they democratically voted for,” though the only voters who ever actually voted for him were the majority of voters in merely Vargas, which is one of Venezuela’s 23 states.

  Guaido has never been in any national Venezuelan election (but only that local one) — not against Maduro, not against anyone else. Yet, the U.S. regime is trying to impose him upon the entire Venezuelan people, and Trump even claims that Guaido had won a national election.

  Mr. Guaido in 2016 was elected by the residents of Vargas to become its Representative in the nation’s unicameral legislature, the National Assembly, and never yet has faced any national Venezuelan election, on anything. His record in national public office is therefore almost non-existent; but, within the National Assembly itself, he nonetheless rose (due to his long-time backing by the U.S. regime) immediately to become elected by its members, as the President of that body, the National Assembly.

  In other words, he was appointed, by the national legislature, immediately after having been elected solely by, and solely to represent, the residents of the state of Vargas. If he were to become installed as ‘interim President’ of the nation, it would be with no clear record on national issues. And it would be with no vote by the national electorate.

  Vargas, one of Venezuela’s poorest states, was predominantly socialist, so Guaido had pretended to be socialist; and he won that local office on that fraudulent basis; but, once in office, he became immediately fascist.

  He was behaving in accord with his being a perfect CIA asset, to take over a democratic socialist country that the dictatorial capitalist U.S. regime wants to control. He is acting as a traitor to Venezuela, and certainly outside of and violating Venezuela’s Constitution.

  So, if he were to become Venezuela’s leader, that would be only by appointment on the part of the legislators, and not by any democratic election by the Venezuelan people, and it would also be in violation of Venezuela’s Supreme Judicial Tribunal, which is the only body that possesses the Constitutional authority to authorize the National Assembly to consider the possibility of appointing an interim President. (It didn’t do that; so, no one can possibly be “the interim President of Venezuela.”) All of what the U.S. regime and its supporters are demanding, stands in direct violation of Venezuela’s Constitution.

  The United States and its allies nonetheless demand it, and the U.S. regime says that “All options are on the table,” up to and including a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, in order to achieve their drastic and blatantly unConstitutional change-of-Government in Venezuela. Violating international law isn’t enough; they demand to shred Venezuela’s Constitution, too.

  And the lie about “People have lost 24 pounds” can be understood only in this broader context of lies, and only by means of exposing and understanding the lies for what they are, instead of only by what they claim (which is what the liars and their press want the public to be fooled to believe).

  

• Why One Bank Thinks That Much More Market Pain Will Be Needed To Close Any Trade Deal

  Futures are sharply lower again after the weekend failed to provide any substantive evidence that the “constructive” tone suggested by both Steven Mnuchin and Liu He on Friday was present, and in fact, soundbites from both president Trump and Chinese media indicated that the latest trade war escalation may last well into 2020 without a resolution, with China potentially waiting to see if Joe Biden is be elected president, helping to resolve the trade war.

  China is DREAMING that Sleepy Joe Biden, or any of the others, gets elected in 2020. They LOVE ripping off America!

  — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2019

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  Yet while we now know how and why the trade talks unraveled so fast thanks to a detailed expose by the WSJ, which reports that “U.S. and Chinese governments both sent signals ahead of their trade talks in Washington last week that a pact was so near they would discuss the logistics of a signing ceremony” but “in a matter of days, the dynamic shifted so markedly that the Chinese deliberated whether to even show up after President Trump ordered a last-minute increase in tariffs on Chinese imports because the U.S. viewed China as reneging on previous commitments”, the question remains what this means for markets.

  While there have been various “hot takes” on what the latest escalation means for risk assets, with many suggesting that a “no deal” outcome potentially triggering a plunge in the S&P below 2,600 and forcing the Fed to cut rates, one of the better assessments of the future state of capital markets as a function of the ongoing trade war, comes from Bank of America’s chief economist Ethan Harris, who in “Once more to the brink” writes that his “long-standing view on the trade war is that the Trump Administration wants deals and will compromise, but only after it extracts the maximum concessions.” To Harris, this is a pattern of big demands and moderate concessions that we have seen play out repeatedly. And this case is no different: both the US and China want a deal, “but motivating the inevitable compromise requires some combination of market, economic and political pain.“

  Specifically, we have seen this framework play out in the past year in two ways:

  • First, the trade war with China showed no sign of abating until the equity market correction in 4Q.
  • Second, tariffs on consumer products-including both the last tier of Chinese goods and autos-keeps getting postponed. It is much easier to impose indirect taxes on consumers by tariffing intermediate and producer goods than to directly tax consumer products.

  In this context, BofA claims that the Trump Administration’s recent decision to threaten and then deliver more tariffs should not come as a big surprise… although judging by last week’s S&P tumble, the worst weekly drop of the year, it did in fact come as a big surprise. Still, for those who were following the underlying facts instead of the sugar-coated narrative, last week’s events indeed should have been predictable, largely thanks to recent economic and market news which emboldened both sides to trying and get a better deal.

  Case in point: China’s equity market has improved dramatically and green shoots have appeared, greatly improving their perceived negotiating position. Meanwhile US markets have fully recovered from the trade war sell-off, the data point to a soft landing and the Fed has signaled that it will do what it takes to sustain a strong labor market and inflation pressure. Little wonder then, as Harris writes, that China is trying to back track and the Trump Administration is reacting strongly. Moreover, if Trump is looking for clues from the market, he is getting precisely what he would like to see: with the Shanghai Composite entering a correction from its April highs, and the S&P 500 down only 2.5% since the tariff tweet, “following through on the threat makes sense as well.”

  Yet while 20-20-hindsight is easy in a moment like this, what traders would like to know is what happens next, or as Bank of America puts it, pun not intended, “when put comes to shove.” It also explains why the US equity market has barely dropped from its recent all time highs:

  As Harris explains, a popular view is that markets won’t go down much because they believe there is a “Trump put.” And yet, this is only half correct. Yes, Harris admits, there is a put, but it is not zero: it only kicks in after the markets correct. Hence belief in the put tends to delay the correction, but ultimately continued brinkmanship will eventually cause the correction. There is another more pernicious side-effect of the market ignoring fundamental newsflow and trading on the assumption that Trump will eventually fold if stocks drop low enough: the longer it takes for that correction to happen the more likely some irreversible decisions that affect the efficiency of the global economy are taken on the corporate side.

  This then leaves both Bank of America, and investors, with three difficult and related questions.

  • First, how low is the put? Is it 5%, 10% or something worse? According to BofA’s estimates, trade war news accounted for about 4.1% of the S&P correction in 4Q and 1.4% of the recovery. The Fed also was an important factor in this down and up pattern.
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  • Second, how far apart are the two sides in the negotiations? It is hard to know as both sides were “spinning” that there was steady convergence and now both sides are “spinning” the opposite. This makes sense since they were at first trying to assure the markets and are now trying to play hard ball in getting a better final deal. We still assume the true divide is bridgeable.
  • Third, BofA contemplates the “World War I” scenario, namely could there be an accident where both sides miscalculate and stumble into a protracted war even though it is in neither side’s interest?” For now, BofA’s top economist still sees this as very much a tail risk as the market and political costs will escalate dramatically in a full-blown war that extends to all Chinese products, including many consumer products. Wars are popular during the departure parades, but not when the casualties mount. However, the longer both sides dig in without any material decline in the US stock market, the ultimate arbriter of any Trump decision, the harder it will be to prevent events to take on a deteriorating life of their own.

  For now, Harris assumes the escalation has a relatively small impact on the medium term outlook, because while it adds to the case for weak capital spending, it does not alter the bank’s global “soft landing” scenario. The risk, of course, is that markets take time to create enough pain and some persistent damage is made to the global economy. The subsequent upside would then be smaller.

  Meanwhile, as the bank concludes, “the next few weeks could be rocky.”

  Finally, for those looking for a more granular breakdown of how the S&P is affected by the three distinct scenarios of US-China trade negotiations, i.e., “benign”, “brinkmanship” and “no deal trade war“, BofA lists them out in the chart below.

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• Here Are The States With Most Student Debt

  As stocks soar to all-time highs (ignoring fundamentals and a weak US macro outlook for 2H19), it’s worth noting that millions of underemployed and over-indebted Americans (mostly millennials) are currently holding a total of $1.5+ trillion in federal student loan debt.

  A total of 43 million Americans have student debt. The average household with student debt owes approximately $48,000 and more than 5 million borrowers are in default in 2019.

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  Millennials with no credit history and no guaranteed employment borrow tens of thousands of dollars through scheming loan programs by the US Department of Education.

  Zerohedge has spent almost a decade covering the student debt crisis and has shared numerous reports that explain how the crisis has materially worsened.

  A new study by LendEDU, revealed where Americans on a geological basis have the highest levels of student loan debt. Researchers examined data from 922 colleges and universities, including data from the graduating classes of 2007 through 2017.

  The study found Pennsylvania, from 2007 to 2017, had the highest debt per borrower of $35,988, a 51.26% increase over the ten years. Rhode Island was number two, with debt per borrower at $35,371, a 44.48% increase over the ten years. Delaware ranked third on the list, had $34,144 of debt per borrower, a 98.51% increase over the decade. Utah, Nevada, and Alaska had the lowest debt per borrower, at an average of about $20,687 over the ten years.

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  The table below represents the percent change over the period of how the average percentage of grads with student loan debt changed in all states and Washington D.C. The most significant percentage increase over the decade was in Delaware, Hawaii, and Tennessee. 

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  The study illustrates how the average student loan debt per borrower changed in each state from 2007 to 2017 according to the percent value on a detailed map. It appears that most of the country has deadbeat millennials with insurmountable debt loads. 

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  Another map shows the difference in the percentage of graduates with student loan debt has changed from 2007 to 2017. It seems that the Mid-Alantic and East Coast saw the largest increases in debt load size per borrower. 

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  Overall student debt carried by Americans is not limited to one geopgrahic area. The report shows the problem is widespread and the country as a whole is a deadbeat nation. 

  

• Schiff: Biden Ukraine Scandal Should Be Off Limits

  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said on Sunday that Joe Biden’s Ukraine corruption scandal should be off limits as the 2020 US election approaches, and that President Trump shouldn’t be allowed to investigate – or encourage Ukraine to investigate. 

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  Biden has come under fire for a March, 2016 incident in Kiev in which he threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. As it so happens, Joe’s son Hunter Biden sat on Burisma’s board, and waas indirectly paid as much as $50,000 per month. 

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  ‘I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. 

  “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” Biden gloated. 

  Biden claims he didn’t know Hunter was on the Burisma board for an entire two years (Hunter reportedly joined in April 2014, two years before Biden’s threat), and that the effort to remove Shokin had nothing to do with the “

  “Shokin was fired because he attacked the reformers within the prosecutor general’s office,” 

  And this should be completely off limits to Trump, according to Adam Schiff 

  Schiff told ‘This Week’ that Congress should take up legislation banning political campaigns from working with foreign governments in an effort to influence US elections, responding to news that Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had planned to travel to Ukraine to encourage them to further investigate the Biden matter. Giuliani has since canceled the trip. 

  “Going after his son is just a method of going after someone the president believes is his most formidable opponent,” Schiff told ABC’s ‘This Week.’ “So let the president go after him, but don’t seek the help of a foreign government in your election.” 

  In March, The Hill‘s John Solomon revealed that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has launched an investigation into the head of the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly attempting to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump during the 2016 US election by releasing damaging information about a “black ledger” of illegal business dealings by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

  Trump made a comment that he should ask Barr to investigate Joe Biden’s foreign ties and suddenly like magic now the entire Left is saying presidential candidates shouldn’t be spied on

  — Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 12, 2019

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  Meanwhile, President Trump told Politico on Friday that it would be “appropriate” for him to ask Attorney General William Barr about launching an investigation into Biden, or his son Hunter. 

  “Certainly it would be an appropriate thing to speak to him about, but I have not done that as of yet. … It could be a very big situation,” said Trump during a 15-minute phone interview Friday afternoon. 

  The New York Times earlier this month reported on Giuliani’s efforts to investigate and publicize the issue.

  The president argued that the alleged conflict of interest, or appearance thereof, was not mushrooming into an all-out scandal because Biden is a Democrat.

  “Because he’s a Democrat,” Trump said, the report had about “one-hundredth” the impact as it would have if he “were a Republican.” Politico

  To recap; Biden didn’t know his son Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas firm for a full two years, before threatening to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees if the President of Ukraine didn’t fire the guy investigating the Biden-linked Burisma, and Adam Schiff thinks that should be off limits to investigate, or for voters to consider, going into the 2020 election.

  

• French Activists Successfully Block Saudi Ship From Loading Purchased Weapons 

  Authored by Andrea Germanos via Common Dreams

  A human rights organization called it a “victory for mobilized civil society” when a Saudi cargo ship left France on Friday without a planned batch of weapons.

  France, along with other Western countries including the U.S. and U.K., has been supplying arms to Saudi Arabia, which is leading the coalition bombing Yemen. In so doing, say human rights campaigners, they “risk complicity in committing grave violations of the laws of war.”

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  Leaked classified French military documents published last month showed that French weapons are being widely used in the coalition’s bombing campaign “including in civilian zones.” The conflict has already killed thousands of civilians. 

  Fearing that the new shipment of weapons could be used against the Yemeni civilian population, French rights group Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT-France) filed a legal challenge Thursday to block a new batch of French weapons from being loaded onto the Saudi vessel the Bahri Yanbu at the French port city of Le Havre. The ship had been anchored 15 miles offshore since late Wednesday.

  The weapons, said ACAT, would violate one article of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.

  “The article says that one country cannot authorize the transfer of weapons, if at the time of the authorization, the country knew that weapons could be used to commit war crimes,” said lawyer Joseph Brehem, speaking on behalf of ACAT.

  While ACAT didn’t win their case, the ship nonetheless did not dock to pick up the shipment, but instead moved on to Spain.

  From Reuters:

  A French judge threw out that legal challenge but the Bahri-Yanbu set course for Santander shortly after minus the weapons, officials said and ship-tracking data showed.

  The saga is an embarrassment for [French] President Emmanuel Macron, who on Thursday defended arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

  ACAT-France praised the development, saying that it happened not as a result from a judge but because of an activated citizenry who sounded alarm about the weapons.

  It’s clear, said Bernadette Forhan, president of the organization, “that French civil society can constitute a real opposition force to international interests that undermine the fundamental rights of millions of people.”

  

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• Is America Ready For John Bolton's War With Iran?

  Authored by Scott Ritter via The American Conservative,

  National Security Advisor John Bolton’s announcement this week that the U.S. is deploying a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region seemed perfectly framed to put America on a war footing with Iran. And it is.

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  Claiming that the decision was made in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” Bolton declared that “the United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime.” But, he added, “we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.”

  It took the Defense Department a full day to respond to Bolton’s statement, with acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan finally tweeting that the “announced deployment of the @CVN_72 and a @USAirForce bomber task force to the @CENTCOM area of responsibility…represents a prudent repositioning of assets in response to indications of a credible threat by Iranian regime forces.”

  Shanahan followed with another tweet:

  “We call on the Iranian regime to cease all provocation. We will hold the Iranian regime accountable for any attack on US forces or our interests.”

  The USS Abraham Lincoln battle group had deployed a month ago from its Norfolk, Virginia, home port and was recently engaged in maneuvers in the Mediterranean Sea. The Pentagon acknowledged that the Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to support CENTCOM during its deployment, but that its arrival was being “accelerated” due to intelligence indicating an imminent Iranian threat.

  The fact that Bolton chose to repurpose routine deployments of U.S. military forces into the Middle East as an emergency response to an unspecified threat from Iran is in and of itself a curiosity. Bolton is an advisor to the president, a non-statutory (i.e., not confirmed by the Senate) member of the White House staff who is not in the military chain of command and lacks any command authority.

  While Shanahan followed up indicating that the orders for the deployments had been authorized by him the day of Bolton’s announcement, this simply isn’t the case—they were authorized well prior to Bolton’s statement. The fact that the White House announced the deployment of U.S. military forces in response to allegations of an emerging threat in the Middle East, as opposed to by the Pentagon, reflects the political and operational roots of the current crisis.

  “U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM, the U.S. unified military command responsible for the Middle East] continues to track a number of credible threat streams emanating from the regime in Iran throughout the CENTCOM area of responsibility,” a CENTCOM spokesman noted after Shanahan’s tweet.

  This threat was deemed serious enough for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel a long-planned visit with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Pompeo instead made a secret trip to Baghdad, where, according to reports, he met with Iraq’s political and national security leadership to discuss the emerging threat from Iran.

  In a statement made to reporters on his way to Baghdad, Pompeo declared that “it is absolutely the case that we have seen escalatory actions from the Iranians, and it is equally the case that we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests.” He added, “If these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy—a militia group, Hezbollah—we will hold the Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.”

  But the reality is that the deployment of American military forces and the diversion of the secretary of state to Baghdad is little more than grand theater. This is being done in support of a policy dictated by Israeli intelligence and passed to Bolton during a meeting on April 16, 2019 at the White House, where, according to Bolton, they discussed “Iranian malign activity and other destabilizing actors in the Middle East and around the world.”

  The intelligence, derived from analysis conducted by the Mossad, consisted of “scenarios” regarding what Iran “might” be planning. According to an Israeli official, “It is still unclear to us what the Iranians are trying to do and how they are planning to do it, but it is clear to us that the Iranian temperature is on the rise as a result of the growing U.S. pressure campaign against them, and they are considering retaliating against U.S. interests in the Gulf.”

  Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has derided Bolton’s statements as directed by what he derisively termed the “B-team,” which includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Zarif accuses Bolton, in concert with the rest of the “B-team,” of trying to push President Trump “into a confrontation he doesn’t want.”

  The precise nature of the supposed Iranian threat hasn’t been officially articulated by either the White House or the Pentagon. CENTCOM had nebulously noted that “recent and clear indications that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were making preparations to possibly attack US forces in the region,” and added that the threats were both maritime and on land.

  However, CNN, citing unnamed Pentagon officials, has reported that specific intelligence that Iran was moving short-range ballistic missiles by boat into the Persian Gulf, combined with other indicators, is what triggered the military deployment, and that additional deployments of American forces, including Patriot PAC-3 surface-to-air missiles, was being considered.

  “It’s not clear if Iran could launch the missiles from the boats or if they are transporting them to be used by Iranian forces on land,” CNN reported.

  This statement is facially absurd. Iran possesses a well-known family of short-range ballistic missiles derived from an indigenously produced copy of the Frog-7, a Russian-made short-range artillery rocket. This weapon, known as the Zelzal-2, has been exported to Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, where it has been used against Syrian rebels, Saudi-backed opponents of the Houthis, and Israel. The Zelzal-2, lacking a guidance and control system, is not a short-range ballistic missile, but rather an unguided rocket projectile. Iran does, however, possess two derivatives of the Zelzal-2—the Fateh-110 and the Zulfiquar—which meet the technical definition of a short-range ballistic missile.

  The Fateh-110 has been exported to Hezbollah, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq. In September 2018, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired seven Fateh-110 missiles against Iranian Kurdish opposition forces based in northern Iraq. An even more advanced derivative of the Zelzal-2, known as the Zulfiqar, has recently entered service; in June 2017 and in October 2018, the IRGC fired Zulfiqar surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against ISIS targets located inside Syria.

  These missiles are real, and they do pose an active and ongoing threat to American forces deployed in the Middle East. But they are not designed to be operated aboard a ship. Iran has already been accused of supplying Houthi rebel forces with short- and medium-range ballistic missiles via maritime supply routes. A continuation of this activity should hardly trigger a crisis requiring the emergency deployment of U.S. forces. Likewise, Iran has provided short-range ballistic missiles to both Syria and Hezbollah using an existing air bridge between Tehran and Damascus.

  Finally, Iran has transferred short-range ballistic missiles to the Iraqi popular militias, Shiite groups affiliated with the IRGC. All this activity has taken place over the course of the past few years and, except for the Houthis, none have required missiles to be sent via sea.

  The threat being promulgated by Bolton, CENTCOM, Pompeo, and the media ignores the reality that Iran has been preparing to strike American military forces in the Middle East for years as part of its efforts towards self-defense. Iran’s short-range ballistic missile capability is part of a larger missile threat that could, at a moment’s notice, blanket U.S. bases in the region with high explosives. Dispatching the Abraham Lincoln battle group and a B-52 task force to the Middle East is an act of theatrical bravado that will do nothing to change that. Iran’s missile force is, for the most part, mobile.

  The American experience in the Gulf War, and Saudi Arabia’s experience in Yemen, should underscore the reality that mobile relocatable targets such as Iran’s missile arsenal are virtually impossible to interdict through airpower.

  By purposefully escalating tensions with Iran using manufactured intelligence about an all too real threat, Bolton is setting the country up for a war it is not prepared to fight and most likely cannot win. This point is driven home by the fact that Mike Pompeo has been recalled from his trip to participate in a National Security Council meeting where the Pentagon will lay out in stark detail the realities of a military conflict with Iran, including the high costs. (Hopefully, they’ll emphasize that Iran would win such a war simply by not losing—all they’d have to do is ride out any American attack.)

  That Israel is behind the scenes supplying the intelligence and motivation makes Bolton’s actions even more questionable. It shows that it is John Bolton, not Iran, who poses the greatest threat to American national security today.

  

• Model XXX: PornHub Traffic Explodes With "Tesla" Searches After Musk's Smut-Inspired Tweets

  We reported yesterday that a couple having sex inside of a Tesla Model X while it was on Autopilot inspired Elon Musk to make grade school-quality jokes on Twitter. But it’s not just Musk who’s reaping the benefits of the now-viral smut – it’s also proving to be beneficial to popular pornography website PornHub, which is seeing a massive surge in Tesla-related searches amid higher traffic, according to RT.

  Footage of a couple having sex in a Tesla Model X started circulating on the website at the end of April, which inspired users to seek out similar videos. The popularity also inspired PornHub to put up an Instagram post, writing “Reporting you to Elon for not having two hands on the wheel with autopilot enabled.”

   

   

   

   

  View this post on Instagram

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Reporting you to Elon for not having two hands on the wheel with autopilot enabled. #phworthy

  A post shared by Pornhub (@pornhub) on Apr 30, 2019 at 10:02am PDT

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  To which, Musk replied:

  Shoulda seen it coming …

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2019

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  Shortly after, search volume on PornHub skyrocketed to over 3 million people in the course of just 10 days, with the “huge spike” occurring just after Musk’s tweet. The video itself has racked up 7.8 million views.

  And despite Musk now facing a trial for his last sex-related tweet, he continues to joke about it.

  Basically begging for it

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2019

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  It’s useful to know that all those 80 to 100 hour work weeks that Musk continually complains about are helping him to be productive. In the meantime, we can’t help but wonder: how many of those 7.8 million views came from a Fremont IP address? 

  

• The World To America: "You're Fired!"

  Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

  Some ironies are just too precious to pass by.

  The 2016 US presidential elections gave us Donald Trump, a reality TV star whose famous tag line from his show “The Apprentice” was “You are fired!” Focus on this tag line; it is all that is important to this story. Some Trump Derangement Disorder sufferers might disagree. This is because they are laboring under certain misapprehensions: that the US is a democracy; or that it matters who is president. It isn’t and it doesn’t. By this point, the choice of president matters as much as the choice of conductor for the band that plays aboard a ship as it vanishes beneath the waves.

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  I have made these points continuously since before Trump got into office. Whether or not you think that Trump was actually elected, he did get in somehow, and there are reasons to believe that this had something to do with his wonderfully refreshing “You are fired!” tag line. It’s a fair guess that what motivated people to vote for him was their ardent wish that somebody would come along and fire all of the miscreants that infest Washington, DC and surrounding areas. Alas, that he couldn’t do. Figurehead leaders are never granted the authority to dismantle the political establishments that install them. But that is not to say that it can’t be done at all.

  What happened instead was that the political establishment spent two years thrashing about in search of a reason to say “You are fired!” to Trump but has been unable to find one, and so Trump remains in office, although to say that he “remains in power” would be to invite sardonic laughter from anyone who knows what real political power smells like. Trump is but a prisoner in the White House, just like his predecessor was. Ironically, the quest for Trump’s impeachment has been fruitless as far as firing him, but most fruitful in terms of enhancing his ability to not only fire lots of establishment figures but perhaps even send them to jail—with the help of the Justice Department—and his character traits of extreme rancor, spitefulness and vindictiveness should be most conducive toward that end, making for a fun spectacle. His numerous enemies and detractors may yet look back wistfully on the halcyon days when they could lambaste him with impunity.

  The quest to stop Trump started well before the election, with Obama and the Clintons collaborating on misusing federal resources to dig up dirt on Trump; specifically, evidence of “Russian collusion”… and they couldn’t find any. They did manage to find some “Russian meddling” (in the form of Facebook clickbait ads) but the evidence they dug up was too ridiculous to show in court. Too bad they didn’t look for Ukrainian collusion and meddling, or Israeli collusion and meddling, or Saudi collusion and meddling, because then they would have found plenty—enough to not only knock Hillary Clinton out of the running but also to lock her up. It would have been a constructive, useful exercise for them to go look for Ukrainian political meddling, but as I’ve explained before the American modus operandi is quite the opposite, and it compelled them to go after Russia instead.

  In any case, the complete failure of Mueller’s team to find anything actionable against Trump has left him grasping at straws, and the one straw he seized upon was the vague possibility of accusing Trump of obstructing justice, based on 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which specifies that someone is guilty of obstruction as follows: “…obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” Apparently, a neuron snapped inside poor Mueller’s head making him think that his own investigation was an “official proceeding,” although if you look up this term you’ll find that it relates to things happening inside courtrooms, with one or more judges presiding, and to launch such a proceeding requires evidence that a crime has been committed. If there is no crime, then there is no proceeding, and nothing to obstruct, influence or impede.

  There ensued a sort of bureaucratic danse macabre. Normally, the Attorney General has the authority to provide guidance on such questions, and AG Jeff Sessions could have told Mueller that 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) is only relevant to court proceedings and that would have been it. But Sessions had the unfortunate luck of having had a casual chat with the amiable and roly-poly Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. By virtue of this little chat Sessions contaminated his precious bodily fluids (just breathing the same air as a Russian can be politically fatal, you know) and was forced to recuse himself from Mueller’s investigation. Trump’s legal team then reached out to William Barr, a former AG, and asked him to chime in. Barr wrote a memo clarifying the issue and sent it to deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who remained as second-in-command at the Justice Department after Sessions’ recusal, and who should have read it, understood it and acted on it, terminating Mueller’s investigation, but somehow he didn’t.

  The denouement of this bureaucratic danse macabre played out as follows. After the midterm elections Trump said “You’re fired!” to Jeff Sessions and William Barr was confirmed as AG. Barr then said “You’re fired!” to both Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller for being unpardonably dense. Barr also made it clear that he plans to leave no stone unturned in investigating this fantastic instance of misuse of official resources and prosecutorial misconduct. This will be fun to watch, if you have nothing more important to pay attention to, but I suspect that the phrase “You’re fired!” will continue to bounce around the halls of Washington like a rubber grenade for a good long time. There are, however, things to pay attention to that are far more important.

  There is a lot happening in the world all at once right now. The entire planet is rapidly reconfiguring itself. The world is begging for a new, post-capitalist, post-industrial order to be born, but the overabundance of natural resources that have made previous such revolutions possible (coal for the age of steam, oil for the current oil age) simply no longer exist. All that remains is optimizations, enhancements and reconfigurations of the existing order of things, cutting out that which is most harmful and most dysfunctional. To this end, Western European nations are attempting to reclaim the sovereignty they ceded to the United States and the European Union while Eurasia is coming together to form a massive economic and security conglomerate centered on China and Russia.

  Both are playing for time, because redirecting trade and financial flows away from the US is quite a process.

  The world’s central banks are doing their best to get rid of their US dollar reserves and to buy gold, which, as of this April, they are allowed to consider a risk-free financial asset. Many people now expect gold to go up as a result, but that expectation is based on an illusion. Think of gold as a lighthouse and of fiat currencies as sinking ships: those aboard them may look around and decide that the lighthouse is going up, but that’s just an optical illusion. The purchasing power of fiat currencies is sure to fall (some more than others). The purchasing power of gold will seem to increase, but that will also be an illusion: it will appear to rise against the backdrop of crashing markets, in real estate and physical plant especially. But overall the purchasing power of gold will drop too, because the future purchasing power of any financial asset is determined by just one thing: energy, fossil fuel energy in particular, and energy from crude oil above all. Without energy, nothing within an economy moves, unless it is an agrarian economy based on fodder and animal muscle power.

  A particularly interesting piece to the gold story is that it may turn out that much of the gold supposedly stored in the US may in fact be missing. Since Nixon closed the “gold window” in 1971, ending the convertibility of US dollar for gold bullion, and until recently the US dollar has been able to retain its position as a global reserve currency by an act of sheer financial levitation, but that bit of magic may have actually been sleight of hand: behind-the-scenes gold sales to the largest US creditors. When various countries, Germany in particular, have attempted to repatriate their gold, which they had entrusted to the US, they were rebuffed, and when they did succeed, the gold that was returned wasn’t the same gold, and it took a long time. The US hunger for gold has forced it to conduct rather unseemly heists, stealing the gold reserves of Iraq, Libya and the Ukraine. Thus, when the time comes for the US to defend its currency by employing its hoard of gold, it may turn out that the cupboard is bare.

  Gold is becoming increasingly important, but energy is more important still, and always will be. After being pushed into the background for a few years, questions of energy supply and energy security are once again becoming front and center. Peak Oil turns out to not be dead after all; it was just postponed by a few years by virtue of the US burning through a huge pile of retirement savings while exploiting shale oil. But now most of the sweet spots have been tapped already and diminishing returns on continued frantic drilling are being added to the fracking industry’s permanently dismal financial returns. In the meantime, Russia has built several natural gas liquefaction plants, a new oil pipeline to China and two new gas pipelines to Turkey and Germany, and to Western Europe beyond, which will circumvent the Ukraine, reducing its value as a geopolitical asset to zero.

  A desperate ploy by the US to seize control of Venezuela’s oil fields has backfired in a most embarrassing fashion; there, recent developments have brought up an important question: What if the US threw a color revolution but nobody came? As I had predicted would happen six years ago in my book The Five Stages of Collapsethe Color Revolution Syndicate has steadily lost its mojo. In spite of all the bluster by various Washington foreign policy has-beens, a US military intervention in Venezuela is unthinkable: Venezuela’s Russian S-300 air defense systems effectively make it a no-fly zone for US planes. Meanwhile, the US, having cut itself off from Venezuela’s oil using its own sanctions, has been forced to resort to importing Russian oil. (For now, but not for much longer, the US has a glut of low-quality light crude from fracking, but it’s useless for making diesel and other distillates unless it is blended with heavier grades of crude, which have to be imported.)

  Meanwhile, Russia and Belarus have been staging a noisy lover’s quarrel over Russian oil exports to Europe, much of which go through a Belarussian pipeline. Russia and Belarus—or Byelorussia, or White Russia—are not exactly distinct entities in most ways, and when they fight the bystanders should discount the foul language and instead look out for flying pots and cutlery. The result of this family spat is that White Russia will no longer supply the Ukraine with products distilled from Russian oil. Another odd development is that the Russian oil being piped to White Russia, and from thence to the EU, has become mysteriously contaminated and the flow has been stopped until the situation is resolved, causing a bit of a panic in Europe. The US volunteered to unseal its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to compensate, but then, in another bizarre twist, some of that oil too has turned out to have gone foul. More foul yet, the US has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, threatening anyone who imports Iranian oil, bringing up another important question: What is the US imposes unilateral sanctions on the whole world, and everybody just yawns?

  Financially ruinous and generally nonsensical schemes such as tar sands, shale oil and industrial-scale photovoltaics, wind generation and electric cars will only accelerate the process of sorting nations into energy haves and energy have-nots, with the have-nots wiping themselves out sooner rather than later. Leaving aside various fictional and notional schemes (nuclear fusion, space mirrors, etc.) and focusing just on the technologies that already exist, there is only one way to maintain industrial civilization, and that is nuclear, based on Uranium 235 (which is scarce) and Plutonium 239 produced from Uranium 238 (of which there is enough to last for thousands of years) using fast neutron reactors. If you don’t like this choice, then your other choice is to go completely agrarian, with significantly reduced population densities and no urban centers of any size.

  And if you do like this choice, then you have few alternatives other than to go with the world’s main purveyor of nuclear technology (VVER-series light water reactors, BN-series fast neutron breeder reactors and closed nuclear fuel cycle technology) which happens to be Russia’s state-owned conglomerate Rosatom. It owns over a third of the world nuclear energy market and has a portfolio of international projects stretching far into the future that includes as much as 80% of the reactors that are going to be built. The US hasn’t been able to complete a nuclear reactor in decades, the Europeans managed to get just one new reactor on line (in China) while Japan’s nuclear program has been in disarray ever since Fukushima and Toshiba’s financially disastrous acquisition of Westinghouse. The only other contenders are South Korea and China. Again, if you don’t like nuclear—for whatever reason—then you can always just buy yourself some pasture and some hayfields and start breeding donkeys.

  This may seem like shocking news to someone who’s been exposed solely to mass media in the US and other Anglophone countries or in the EU. Well, it may be shocking, but it’s definitely not news: none of these developments is particularly new, and none of them is unforeseen. The high level of denial of all of the above issues in Washington, which has been ground zero in a powerful explosion of unreality, and in Western media generally, is also unsurprising; nor is it helpful. Upon finding these things out for yourself, you may be tempted to shout about them from rooftops. This, I dare say, would be inadvisable. The proper thing to do with people who insist on remaining in denial is to humor them, to run out the clock on any games they try to play with you, and then to politely bid them adieu. Indeed, this is what we are seeing: nobody particularly wants to negotiate with US officials but they do so anyway because, as every crisis negotiator knows, it is essential to keep talking, even if simply to stall for time. While they are talking the hostages—to Wall Street, to the Pentagon, to US Treasury and Federal Reserve—are quietly being evacuated. Time is running out for the US, and once it has run out, what we will hear, in a supreme twist of irony, is the whole world telling the US: “You’re fired!”

  

• MQ-25 Stealth Drone First Flight Could Be One Month Away

  Boeing is about to conduct the first test flight of a refueling stealth drone for the US Navy; it will provide the needed refueling capability thereby extending the combat range of Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Boeing EA-18G Growler, and Lockheed Martin F-35C fighters.

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  Boeing told FlightGlobal that the MQ-25 would take to the skies in 2H19, but declined to give specific dates. On April 26, the defense manufacture transported the drone 37 miles on a nondescript flatbed truck from the company’s manufacturing facility at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, a public use airport located adjacent to Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois.

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  The MQ-25 brings refueling capabilities, autonomy, and the ability to be launched from an aircraft carrier to deliver a solution that meets the Navy’s goals: put a low-cost aerial refueling drone on the flight deck by mid-2020s to extend the range of its 4th and 5th generation fighters.

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  Dave Bujold, Boeing MQ-25 program manager, told the online aviation and aerospace website that a series of ground tests on the MQ-25 has already had promising results, but with the transfer to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, the drone will be able to conduct its first flight test in less congested airspace.

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  The flight tests are expected to run over 1.5 years to evaluate several subsystems, including the refueling pod. Once the drone’s flight characteristics are examined and various subsystems evaluated, the company is expected to begin inflight refueling tests with Navy aircraft.

  “This was already a built airframe, so that’s really helping to accelerate what MQ-25 is going to do,” says Knappenberger. “It’s also going to be helping with some of the air worthiness and some of the initial testing that’s going to be happening on that platform.”

  The Navy expects the MQ-25 to have initial operational capability by mid-2020s if the test flights go as plan. The service is also equipping its carrier decks with ground control stations to support the new refueling drones.

   

  

• John Quincy Adams' Warning Ignored: Washington Has Become The World's Dictatress

  Authored by Jacob Nornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

  In his Fourth of July address to Congress in 1821, U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams stated that if America were ever to abandon its founding foreign policy of non-interventionism, she would inevitably become the world’s “dictatress” and begin behaving accordingly.

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  No can can deny that Adams’ prediction has come true. America has truly become the world’s dictatress — an arrogant, ruthless, brutal dictatress that brooks no dissent from anyone in the world.

  Now, I use the term “America” because that’s the term Adams used. In actuality, however, it’s not America that has become the world’s dictatress. It is the U.S. government that has become the world’s dictatress.

  A good example of this phenomenon involves Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese citizen who serves as chief financial officer of the giant Chinese technology firm Huawei. Having been arrested by Canadian authorities and placed under house arrest, Meng is suffering the wrath of the world’s dictatress.

  What is her purported crime? That she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran.

  What do U.S. sanctions on Iran have to do with her? Exactly! She’s a Chinese citizen, not an American citizen. So, why is she being prosecuted by the U.S. government?

  Sanctions have become a standard tool of U.S. foreign policy. With the exception of libertarians, hardly anyone raises an eyebrow over their imposition and enforcement. Their objective is to target foreign citizens with death, suffering, and economic privation as a way to bend their regime to the will of the U.S. dictratress and her brutal and ruthless agents.

  After all, what could be more brutal and ruthless than to target innocent people with death and impoverishment as a way to get to their government? Most foreign citizens have as little control over the actions of their government as individual American citizens have over the actions of their government. Where is the morality in targeting innocent people, especially as a way to achieve a political goal? Isn’t that why people condemn terrorism?

  It’s bad enough to target innocent foreign citizens with death and impoverishment to achieve a political goal. But it’s also important to keep in mind that sanctions are an attack on the economic liberty of the American people. Sanctions impose criminal penalties on U.S. citizens who trade with Iranians. If an American trades with Iranians, the dictatress goes after him with a vengeance, either with criminal prosecution or civil fines or both.

  A good example of this phenomenon took place when the dictatress was enforcing its system of sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s. The sanctions were killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. That’s didn’t bother the dictatress, at least not enough to bring an end to the sanctions. The idea was that if a sufficiently large number of children could be killed, Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein would abdicate in favor of a U.S.-approved dictator, or that there would be a coup or a violent revolution that would accomplish the same thing. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright expressed the official view of the dictatress when she announced that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it.”

  An American citizen named Bert Sacks, who was stricken by a crisis of conscience, traveled to Iraq with medicines to help out the Iraqi people. The dictatress went after him with a vengeance, hitting him with a fine and then pursuing its collection for around a decade. (See here and here.)

  That is bad enough. But here is where Adams’ point comes into play. The federal government is not satisfied with just requiring its own citizens to comply with its evil system. In its role as worldwide dictatress, the federal government requires everyone in the world to comply with its evil system. The dictatress claims worldwide jurisdiction for its evil system of sanctions.

  That’s why Meng Wanzhou was arrested and placed under house arrest in Canada. Yes, Canada! She wasn’t even in the United States when she was arrested. The dictatress announced that she had violated its Iran sanctions in some dealings that she supposedly had with some bank located thousands of miles away from American shores.The dictatress then prevailed on Canada to arrest her while she was in that country so that she could be extradited to the United States to stand trial for her purported violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

  Why are innocent foreign citizens be targeted for death and economic suffering simply because U.S. officials don’t like their government? Why are American citizens have their freedoms destroyed for the same reason? And why are foreign citizens around the world be targeted with criminal prosecution for violating the federal government’s evil system of sanctions?

  It’s all because of what John Quincy Adams observed almost 200 years ago: If the United States were ever to abandon its founding foreign policy of non-interventionism, the federal government would inevitably become the world’s dictatress, and a brutal, ruthless one at that.

  

• A "Cancer On Our Economy": Report Finds Over $7 Billion Laundered Through British Columbia In 2018

  It may have taken a while, but now that housing prices are starting to crash in Vancouver, BC legislators are finally starting to get wise to the fact that the province has been a hot bed for money laundering. It was an easy problem to ignore with prices on the way up, but on the way down – not so much.

  And so an independent report released on Thursday concluded that an astounding $7.4 billion was laundered in British Columbia in 2018, out of a total of $46.7 billion laundered across Canada throughout the same period. The report was published by an expert panel led by former B.C. deputy attorney general Maureen Maloney.

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  Attorney General David Eby told a news conference Thursday:

  “Wealthy criminals and those attempting to evade taxes have had the run of our province for too long, to the point that they are now distorting our economy, hurting families looking for housing, and impacting those who have lost loved ones due to the opioid overdose (crisis).” 

  The reports come after the government commissioned them to try and shed light on laundering by organized crime in BC’s real estate market. This follows last June’s report on dirty money in casinos, which we also wrote about just days ago. 

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  RCMP commissioner Peter German was commissioned to write the report on real estate, and he concluded that illicit money is what led to “a frenzy of buying” that caused housing prices to spike around Metro Vancouver. The report concludes that there are thousands of properties worth billions at high risk for money laundering. 

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  Eby, who has been a frequent critic of liberal legislators for allowing the laundering to happen, continued: “His findings are stark evidence of the consequences of an absence of oversight, the weakness of data collection, and the total indifference of governments until now to this malignant cancer on our economy and our society.”

  Michael Lee, Opposition Liberal critic for the attorney general said:

  “The BC Liberals are calling on John Horgan and the NDP to carefully consider the reports and move quickly to engage with the federal government and take action to ensure that those who break the law are prosecuted and ultimately convicted.”

  An international anti-money laundering agency said last year that organized criminals were laundering about $1 billion per year in the province.

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  Eby continued:

  “To me, this issue feels like a national-level crisis. I hope that is a message that Ottawa is receiving as well.” Federal Organized Crime Reduction Minister Bill Blair is working with Eby on a resolution. 

  Green Leader Andrew Weaver called for a public inquiry: “Namely, that it would improve public awareness, play a crucial role in fault finding, and would help to develop full recommendations.”

  In sum, the report makes 29 recommendations, including for the entire province to launch a financial investigations unit. 

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  Finance Minister Carole James said: “…all the recommendations look critical, but the government wants to ensure it’s prioritizing the most important ones, while also noting that action already underway in the legislature on some solutions.”

  BC has tabled legislation to try and stop laundering by shining sunlight on anonymous real estate owners behind shell companies. Eby has also noted that some criminals laundering money through the province’s luxury car sector are even getting provincial sales tax rebates.

  Already, regulators and agencies are starting to work together to respond to the report’s findings, according to CTV News:

  The B.C. Real Estate Council said it would be partnering with the federal Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, to identify and deter money laundering and terrorist financing in the industry.

  The B.C. Real Estate Association, the body that serves 23,000 realtors in B.C., said in April that it would join with four other agencies to keep the proceeds of crime out of real estate.

  The other participating organizations include the Appraisal Institute of Canada, BC Notaries Association, Canada Mortgage Brokers Association and the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Each organization has committed to sharing information, accepting only verified funds and making anti-money laundering education mandatory for its agents.

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  In late April, we highlighted  measures that Vancouver casinos were taking against money laundering, noting that they were resulting in casinos taking a brutal hit to their bottom lines. 

  Vancouver area casinos had, for years, been accepting millions of dollars in questionable cash from people that showed up with suitcases and hockey bags stuffed with dollar bills, according to Eby. But, just as what happened with Vancouver’s equally “questionable” housing market, reality eventually caught up and even the slowest of regulators started to realize that this behavior isn’t normal. And this reality is hitting casinos hard. 

  New rules implemented last year make it more important to identify the source of funds like these, which has caused a slow down for the casino business, who was complicit in laundering accepting this money in years prior.

  Andrew Hood, a Toronto-based equity analyst at M Capital Partners Inc. who covers Dundee Corp., one of Parq’s two owners said: “The anti-money laundering regulations in British Columbia have been a problem. The regulations were supposed to cut down on illicit gambling but, of course, that hurt volumes across casinos.”

  

• Carden: Read Hayek As If Your Children's Lives Depend On It

  Authored by Art Carden via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Had he not passed away (about a month and a half before his 93rd birthday in 1992), F.A. Hayek would have celebrated his 120th birthday a few days ago. Hayek carried the flag for what Peter J. Boettke calls “mainline” (as opposed to “mainstream”) economics in the 20th century. About a decade ago, I exhorted students at an Institute for Humane Studies seminar to read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom as if their children’s lives depend on it.

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  Boettke’s new book F.A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy, and Social Philosophy reinforces my assessment, and newfound public enthusiasm for socialism – democratic socialism, of course, like they practice in Norway, and not the top-down totalitarian variety of the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, which anyway was “not real socialism” – reinforces my sense of urgency. Boettke’s book will, I hope, induce more scholars to take Hayek seriously and to reexamine his contributions to economic science, political theory, and social philosophy.

  The knowledge problem, which Hayek explained most famously in his classic essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society” and his collection of essays Individualism and Economic Order — which includes “The Use of Knowledge in Society” — is at the heart of Hayek’s work from beginning to end. How, Hayek asks, do people possessing fragmentary knowledge dispersed over some 7.5 billion minds coordinate and reconcile their disparate and often-conflicting plans? As Boettke has written elsewhere with Zachary Caceres and Adam Martin, “error is obvious, coordination is the puzzle” (in a paper of that title). To Hayek (and Boettke), a lot of the economic modeling that explores the characteristics of and transitions between different equilibria obscures (or begs) the scientifically important and scientifically interesting questions about, for example, the institutional context governing political and commercial exchange.

  Boettke divides Hayek’s career into four periods. From 1920 through 1945 (though he never abandoned the project), Hayek focused on “economics as a coordination problem,” to borrow the title of a book by Gerald O’Driscoll. 1940-1960 was the “abuse of reason project,” in which Hayek took the social sciences to task for thinking of articulated reason and planning as “solutions” to social problems of calculation and coordination. From 1960 to 1980, Hayek worked on “the restatement of the liberal principles of justice,” and from 1980 through his death was a protracted emphasis on “philosophical anthropology and the study of man.”

  In his analysis of these phases of Hayek’s intellectual evolution, Boettke dispels a few myths and works (albeit implicitly) to rescue Hayek’s scientific program from the calumnies of his modern ideological critics. Keynes, Boettke argues, did not win the Hayek-Keynes debate, just as the socialists did not win the socialist calculation debate. Importantly, The Road to Serfdom was not a “slippery slope” argument in which any intervention whatsoever ultimately leads to totalitarianism.

  Take the Hayek-Keynes debate, for example. Boettke notes that “Keynes’s theory begins with an aggregate demand failure, and thus, with unemployment. Idle resources are postulated, not explained” (p. 43). Hayek, by contrast, builds on a tradition stretching back to Adam Smith and J.B. Say and reaching through luminaries of the Austrian school like Carl Menger, Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, and Ludwig von Mises in working to explain how, in light of what we know about how alternative institutional arrangements generate alternative outcomes, we end up with miscoordination and with idle resources to begin with. Hayek concludes, famously, that “Mr. Keynes’s aggregates conceal the most fundamental mechanisms of change.” Those most fundamental mechanisms of change, in turn, are informed by “the epistemic function of alternative institutional arrangements and its impact on productive specialization and peaceful cooperation” (pp. 29-30, Boettke’s words, emphasis in original).

  This informs all four phases of Hayek’s work. The socialist calculation debate has been misinterpreted as what we might call a “big enough computer” problem. According to this perspective, Hayek criticized socialist planning on the grounds that it is merely inefficient relative to market calculation. Advances in economic modeling combined with orders-of-magnitude increases in computational capacity in the late 20th and early 21st centuries mean Hayek’s criticism of the inefficiency of socialist planning no longer applies. Hayek, it seems, has been refuted by Moore’s law.

  But this is a straw man, and it is one Hayek addresses at the very beginning of “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” He notes that if we define the economic calculation problem as one of solving a massive system of known equations producing known outputs using known inputs, then “economic calculation” is simply a matter of math. It might be hard math, but it’s just math all the same.

  That, however, isn’t Hayek’s argument, and as Boettke explains in detail, Hayek is not answered completely or correctly by the mechanism-design studies for which Leonid Hurwicz was awarded the Nobel or the information-economics contributions that earned Joseph Stiglitz a Nobel. Hayek’s emphasis, Boettke points out (p. 82), is on “how actors within the process are going to learn what they need to learn and why they need to learn it so they can adjust their plans to those of others who are also continually learning and in such a manner that the coordination of economic activities through time is achieved.”

  Competition, then, becomes a way of discovering the nature of “things” and “implies the existence of sheer (or ‘radical’) ignorance and genuine uncertainty, which is a highly significant element of Hayek’s economic thought and marks an important departure from mainstream economics” (p. 86).

  Or, as Boettke puts it in summarizing the Hayekian position (p. 111):

  “The competitive market process embodies greater knowledge than any single mind could possess because its institutional structure enables individuals to utilize their own subjective knowledge in pursuing their goals, and contains endogenous mechanisms that encourage the entrepreneurial discovery and spontaneous correction of economic errors.”

  In this light, Boettke argues, we should read The Road to Serfdom not as a political tract but as a detailed examination of how a real-life socialist economy would have to solve economic and social problems. It raises a crucial point that builds on the questions pursued by Adam Smith, the father of mainline economics. Smith, Hayek, and others in the “mainline” differ largely in their assumptions about people’s moral and cognitive capacity, and the institutional problem for mainline economics is not, as Boettke quotes Hayek on Smith’s analysis of our capabilities, searching for a system that helps good people do the most good but “a system under which bad men can do least harm” (pp. 228-29).

  This informed Hayek’s turn toward political theory and “philosophical anthropology” in The Constitution of Liberty; Law, Legislation, and Liberty; and The Fatal Conceit. What, Hayek asked, are the “liberal principles of justice” and the underlying principles that encourage and govern social cooperation broadly construed? What, he asks, constitutes “the political order of a free people”? Boettke’s treatment shows us that Hayek is worth reading in a new light.

  Hayek worked in the context of the near death of civilization in the world wars, near-universal enthusiasm for socialism among the intellectuals, and repeated exhortations in the face of periodic economic troubles that this time really was the Final Crisis of Capitalism. In Boettke’s hands, Hayek’s work is a beginning, not an end: it is the jumping-off point into a vital and dynamic research program on how economic coordination happens in a world rife with fallibility and ignorance. F.A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy, and Social Philosophy is essential reading for any scholar interested in the Hayekian tradition.

  

• US Special Forces Command Issues New Guide For Overthrowing Foreign Governments

  No kidding – this is not our headline, but Newsweek’s: “US Special Forces School Publishes New Guide For Overthrowing Foreign Governments” – and as far as we can tell they are the only major mainstream outlet to have picked up on the fact that the US military is now essentially openly bragging on past and future capabilities to foster covert regime change operations. 

  The 250-page study entitled “Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness” was put out by the Joint Special Operations University under US Special Operations Command, which is the Army’s official unified command center which overseas all joint covert and clandestine missions out of MacDill AFB, Florida.

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  “This work will serve as a benchmark reference on resistance movements for the benefit of the special operations community and its civilian leadership,” the report introduces.

  The study examines 47 instances of US special forces trying to intervene in various countries from 1941-2003, thus special attention is given to the Cold War, but it doesn’t include coups which lacked “legitimate resistance movements” — such as the case of ‘Operation AJAX’ in 1953 which overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

  Though infamous disasters such the abortive CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba are highlighted, the US military report (perhaps predictably) finds that among those nearly fifty covert interventions surveyed, most interventions were “successful”. 

  “One thing common to all 47 cases reviewed in this study is the fact that the targeted state was ruled either by an unfriendly occupying force or by a repressive authoritarian regime,” the author, Army Special Forces veteran Will Irwin wrote. The study focuses on historical regime change operations but in parts hints at the future, saying, “Russia and China have boldly demonstrated expansionist tendencies.”

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  Success vs. Failure data from the new US military study published earlier this week entitled Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness

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  It also asserts that unrest across the Middle East since the fall of the Soviet Union should ultimately be blamed on the legacy of past Soviet policy and failures, rather than on the United States. 

  Newsweek summarizes of the study’s conclusions:

  Of the 47 cases analyzed, 23 were deemed “successful,” 20 were designated “failures,” two were classified as “partially successful” and two more—both during World War II—were called “inconclusive” as the broader conflict led to an Allied victory anyway. Coercion was the most successful method at a three-quarters rate of success or partial success, while disruption worked just over half the time and regime change only yielded the desired result in 29 percent of the cases reviewed.

  And further another interesting element involved the failure of operations which intervened in countries “under peacetime conditions”:

  Other major findings included observations that most operations “were carried out under wartime conditions, with those being nearly twice as successful as cases conducted under peacetime conditions” and “support to nonviolent civil resistance seems to be more likely to succeed than support to armed resistance.” At the same time, they were also “most effective when conducted in direct support of a military campaign rather than as an independent or main effort operation.”

  The report identifies about half a dozen governments from Indonesia to Afghanistan to Serbia to Iraq that were “successfully” overthrown by US operations, but in many more cases identifies covert “disrupt” operations for a desired outcome.

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  The study did not include within its scope current US involved proxy wars which have unfolded in the past decade, such in Syria or Libya or Ukraine, but only mentions these in passing.

  In concluding remarks the author acknowledges that the study could help “explore ways the timely application of SOF capabilities” can influence “resistance movements” which are becoming increasingly violent, “thereby possibly helping to prevent the next Syria”.

  Whether this means swifter action would have resulted in quick regime change in Syria or if the study author believes US support to the “rebels” was doomed from the beginning remains unexplored. 

  

• Here's A Lesson From The 108,000 Millionaires Who Left Their Home Countries Last Year

  Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

  According to a recent report from Bloomberg, more than 108,000 millionaires left their home countries last year in search of greener pastures.

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  Most emigrated from countries like China and Russia… no surprise there.

  India also saw a large outflow of millionaires as tax authorities tightened their grip. And Turkey continues to see an exodus, in the wake of strong-man President Erdogan.

  But Western countries like France and England also lost boat loads (or planes full) of millionaires. Excessive taxation is the most obvious reason.

  For instance France taxes the net wealth of households worth more than €1.3 million. As a result there are fewer and fewer households worth more than €1.3 million every year. What a surprise!

  And the United States was the second most popular destination for fleeing millionaires.

  There are plenty of great reasons to move to the US: safety, a strong economy, certain personal freedoms. It still has a reputation worldwide as a good home for the wealthy.

  But if these wealthy immigrants stick around the US for a few more years, they’ll find that the country is rapidly turning into what they left behind:

  a country that is deeply suspicious and resentful of wealthy people.

  That is especially true of New York City, which is still a top destination for global millionaires.

  NYC’s mayor, Comrade Bill de Blasio, came right out and told his “brothers and sisters” that the private wealth in New York City is in the ‘wrong hands’. He thinks your money should be in his hands.

  Then, of course, the Queen Bolshevik herself, Comrade Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, led the charge to chase away Amazon’s new headquarters.

  Amazon would have brought billions of dollars and 25,000 jobs to the city. But the Bolsheviks had to torpedo that idea, because some rich people would have also benefited.

  Then NYC demonized hedge fund manager Ken Griffin for spending $240 million on an apartment in Manhattan. The government introduced new taxes– in addition to property taxes– specifically targeting him, and others who invest tons of money to live in the city.

  Not surprisingly, this all made Ken Griffin back off his plans to move his $29 billion hedge fund from Chicago to NYC.

  These wealthy immigrants who fled Europe’s insane taxes might soon realize they’ve jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire…

  Sure, New York City is not as Communist as China. Come to think of it, perhaps that should be Comrade de Blasio’s new slogan– “New York: Not as communist as China…”

  Not quite.

  And yet, nearly all of the 2020 Presidential candidates are crawling over each other to out-Bolshevik one another.

  Despite the fact that Sweden abandoned it’s wealth tax when it didn’t work, and France eviscerated it’s wealthy population, Elizabeth Warren proposes the same plan.

  Bernie Sanders does his part by proposing shockingly high estate taxes, much like the inheritance taxes many of these wealthy immigrants are leaving behind.

  We’ve heard calls for 70% income taxes, nationalization of entire industries, and free EVERYTHING.

  Again, this is precisely why many of these people left their home countries in the first place.

  But that’s the funny thing about wealth: it’s incredibly mobile.

  Centuries ago in the Middle Ages, wealth was tied to the land. If you were rich, it’s because you had huuuuge tracts of land, and legions of medieval serfs working for you.

  That was all fine and good. But it was virtually impossible to pick up and move… and bring your welath with you. The King could always confiscate your lands. And you’d instantly become poor (or dead).

  Today, wealth is portable. We can shift funds across the world with a mouse click, and spread our assets across multiple jurisdictions and territories with hardly any effort.

  The world is a big place, and there are a lot of jurisdictions where wealth, talent, and productivity are still highly regarded.

  Just a three hour flight from New York City, Puerto Rico rolls out the red carpet for people who want to contribute to the economy.

  As we’ve discussed before, Puerto Rico offers a 4% corporate tax rate, along with ZERO dividend tax when you take the money out of your company and put it in your pocket.

  If you live in the US (on the mainland, that is– since Puerto Rico is part of the US), you’ll pay 10x that amount in federal tax alone, not including state tax.

  Regardless of whether or not this is a good option for you, the lesson remains: the ability to remain MOBILE and AGILE is a large part of any Plan B.

  [A very important part of this is having a SECOND PASSPORT– which you could obtain in a number of ways: ancestry, residency, or even ‘economic citizenship’.]

  Whether you are from China, Bangladesh, France or the USA, there may come a time you decide it’s time to hit the eject button and get out of Dodge.

  This can happen suddenly. And it’s best to have a plan in place before you need it.

  Think about it like you would an insurance policy: you don’t call the insurance company after your roof catches fire. You have it in place as soon as you buy your home… and sleep well knowing that you’re covered.

  That’s all a Plan B really is. It’s a perfectly sensible thing to think about.

  And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

  

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• The Origins Of The Deep State In North America, Part 2

  Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Duran,

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  “As between the three possibilities of the future: 1. Closer Imperial Union, 2. Union with the U.S. and 3. Independence, I believe definitely that No. 2 is the real danger. I do not think the Canadians themselves are aware of it… they are wonderfully immature in political reflection on the big issues, and hardly realize how powerful the influences are… On the other hand, I see little danger to ultimate imperial unity in Canadian ‘nationalism’. On the contrary I think the very same sentiment makes a great many especially of the younger Canadians vigorously, and even bumptuously , assertive of their independence, proud and boastful of the greatness and future of their country, and so forth, would lend themselves, tactfully handled, to an enthusiastic acceptance of Imperial unity on the basis of ‘partner-states’. This tendency is, therefore, in my opinion rather to be encouraged, not only as safeguard against ‘Americanization’, but as actually making, in the long run, for a Union of ‘all the Britains’.”

  -Lord Alfred Milner, 1909

  CLICK HERE FOR Part one:  The Rise of the Round Table Movement and the Sad Case of Canada (1864-1945)

  Prologue

  Canada’s history has remained clouded in misinformation and outright lies for over 200 years, while basic truths which were once well understood by leading statesmen a century past are now treated as little more than myth or “conspiracy theory”. Yet as the above quote written by the pen of Lord Alfred Milner indicates, the crafting of the Canadian identity has been bought for the price of a national soul. The greatest obstacle to Canadian sovereignty today is found in the fact that Canada’s synthetic identity has been constructed over the past decades with the intention of obstructing the establishment upon this earth of a world of sovereign republics, which was and still is the outgrowth of the success of the American Revolution in 1783. To do so, we must investigate how the Anglo Dutch oligarchy has played through such institutions as the Rhodes Trust, Fabian Society, and Round Table Movement. These structures have played a key role in mis-shaping every key standard of economic, political, cultural and scientific behaviour which has perverted western institutions to this very day and have come to be identified since the election of Donald Trump as “the Deep State”.

  Part one of our story focused upon the creation of these institutions and their methods of penetrating their networks throughout influential institutions of Canada from 1865 to 1943, and the evolution of the Round Table into the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) in 1919. American branches were created in 1920 with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Institute of Pacific Relations, while a Canadian branch was established in 1928 with the Canadian Institute for International Affairs (CIIA). Key Canadian patriots resistant to the RIIA’s plans were also introduced in the form of “Laurier Liberals” O.D. Skelton and Ernest Lapointe, both of whom aided in influencing the highly malleable Prime Minister William Mackenzie King towards the Canadian nationalist cause, greater cooperation with American Patriots such as Franklin Roosevelt and away from the RIIA’s plans for world government under the League of Nations. With the mysterious deaths of Skelton and Lapointe in 1941, all such resistance melted away and Canadian foreign policy become fully infected by Rhodes Trust/ Fabian agents of the CIIA.

  This second segment will address the important 1943-1972 destruction of humanist potential leading up to the reforms implemented by CIIA-assets Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliot Trudeau in their role in advancing Milner’s program for a new synthetic nationalism.

  The Attack on Post-War Potential Begins 1945-1951

  By the end of the war, Canada’s productive capacity had risen to unimaginable heights and the vision of unbounded progress free of imperial monetarism was not far off from realization. The relationship between Canada and the United States was at an all-time high, with exploding trade, and purchasing power that had multiplied threefold from 1939 to 1956. The authority and power won by C.D. Howe was continued into the following 12 years of Canadian progress first, as Minister of Reconstruction (1944-1948) then as Minister of Trade and Commerce (1948-1957). When Howe realized that his resistance to Canada’s participation in the unjust Korean war of 1950 would not work, he changed gears, and took advantage of the situation by renewing his broad war powers, once again allowing himself to lead Canada’s economy top down, resulting in the great projects with America such as the St Lawrence Seaway, the Avro Arrow CF-105 supersonic interceptor, the TransCanada-U.S. natural gas pipeline and especially the civilian use of nuclear power shaped by Canada’s unique CANDU technology.

  The secret to Canada’s progress during and after the war continued to be the National Research Council (NRC), re-organized and rehabilitated after years of incompetence under its former President General Andrew McNaughton. The NRC was a flexible top down organization run by one of Howe’s brightest engineering students C.J. Mackenzie who went on to become the first President of Atomic Energy Canada Ltd (AECL).

  With similar mission-oriented organizational structures having organically formed in the USA during war, the NRC was celebrated and studied as a model for countries the world over. The leaders of this institution fought not only to advance nuclear power in Canada in order to escape the limits of fossil fuels and accelerate the next breakthrough to thermonuclear fusion, but also led the fight to provide their technology to underdeveloped countries such as India and Pakistan which were yearning to break free of their British colonial masters. The NRC also successfully led breakthroughs in radio astronomy, oceanography and industry. Its basic objective can be summarized in the following model:

  (1)  Maximize the density of discoveries within a cross country system of self-financed and self-organized intramural NRC laboratories.

  (2)  Translate those discoveries into new technological applications and machine tools.

  (3)  Apply these technologies as efficiently as possible into the industrial productive system to increase the productive powers of labour.

  (4)  Force university curricula and behaviour to adapt by such creative upshifts as quickly as possible ensuring that no fixed/formulaic patterns of thought could encrust themselves upon the minds of students or professors.

  Dexter White and Wallace

  The Cultural/Economic/Scientific factors of Canada’s post-war dynamic were on a new trajectory of true independence, founded on a commitment to progress which the British Empire now mobilized all of its energy to destroy. The great fear of Lord Milner laid out in 1909 of “union with the United States” guided by unbounded scientific and technological progress was now underway, peaking with a 1948 call for a North American customs union advocated by Howe and leading FDR statesmen in the United States that had not yet been purged by the Cold War witch hunt led by Senator McCarthy. Sadly, now under the vast influence of the British Empire’s mind control, one of Mackenzie King’s last acts in office was the destruction of this proposition. After King’s 1950 death, C.D. Howe continued on as Minister of Trade and Commerce under King’s successor Louis St. Laurent (1948-1957) [4].

  Having ensured that FDR’s postwar vision for a world of sovereign nation states would not come to fruition after his untimely death in April 1945, the first of a series of ideological barrages was hammered into Canadian and U.S. policy beginning with the installation of Wall Street tool Harry Truman as President, and with him the advent of the “Truman Doctrine” centering on the Rhodes-Milner agenda of Anglo-American Empire guided by Churchill’s design of “British brains and American brawn”. While FDR was still alive, his allies led by Harry Dexter White and Henry Wallace were capable of fending off John Maynard Keynes’ attempts to structure the Bretton Woods agreements according to his own twisted logic of a one world currency steered by the Nazi affiliated Bank for International Settlements and Bank of England (of which Keynes was a Director). However, after FDR’s death, the last major beachhead of resistance to British recolonization melted.

  The Anglo-American “special relationship” was quickly established by Truman bringing American foreign policy quickly under the control of the RIIA networks beginning with Truman’s unnecessary utilization of two of America’s only three nuclear bombs on the already defeated Japan which set the foundations for the Korean War [5]. This policy was ushered in by Sir Winston Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri which officially opened the age of the Cold War, setting a fear based dynamic of tension that resulted in a purging of FDR allies from positions of influence, and an influx of British operatives into high prominence the world over.

  The Chicago Tribune’s Cassandra Sounds the Alarm

  In 1951, the enormously influential Massey-Lévesque Royal Commission attempted to first launch an attack upon the “American invasion” of media (print, radio, television and cinema) which was taking over the Canadian psyche. One of the primary demands of the 1951 report called for an emergency ban on U.S. media to keep “dangerous” American cultural influences from contaminating Canada’s British traditions with the following words:

  “Few Canadians realize the extent of this dependence… our lazy, even abject imitation of them [American institutions] has caused an uncritical acceptance of ideas and assumptions which are alien to our tradition”.

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  What were these types of alien ideas which concerned the British Empire so much at this important period of historical change? To get a sense of the fear which Massey and his British masters felt regarding the “low brow” American journalism being read by Canadians, it is useful to take a sample of a 1951 article written by journalist Eugene Griffin “Canada Offers Fine Field to Rhodes’ Wards” published as one of a series of 16 explosive articles between July 15-31 in the Chicago Tribune:

  “Scholars and other British educated Canadians are in a unique position to serve Britain through Canada’s influence on Washington as a next door neighbour of the United States. Canada acts as a connecting link between England and the United States, helping to hold the neighbouring republic in line with the dominion’s mother country… When Gen. MacArthur displeased Britain and Canada by his efforts to win the Korean war, Canada’s Oxford educated minister for external affairs, Lester B. Pearson, complained that American-Canadian relations had become “difficult and delicate”. MacArthur was fired the next day… Pearson’s foreign office staff is packed with Rhodes scholars. There are 23 among 183 staff officers, or one out of every eight, who were educated at Oxford university, England, on the scholarships created by Cecil Rhodes, empire builder and diamond mogul who wanted the United States taken back into Britain’s fold [see Box]… Other Canadian foreign office members also were educated in England, although not as Rhodes scholars. Pearson went to Oxford (St. John’s, 1922) on a Massey scholarship, endowed by a Canadian millionaire… Norman A. Robertson, a Rhodes Scholar (Balliol, 1923) sometimes called the most brilliant member of the British trained inner circle in the government’s East Block, headquarters of the prime minister and the foreign office, is another important figure in Canada’s relations with Britain and the United States. He is clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the cabinet, and has been undersecretary of state and High Commissioner to Britain.”

  Little could the writers of the Chicago Tribune then know that during the very summer of their writing, a young Fabian, having just returned home from his conditioning under Harold Laski’s mentorship at the London School of Economics was working at his first job in the Privy Council Office (PCO) under the watch of Rhodes Scholar and Privy Council Clerk Norman Robertson. That young Fabian went by the name Pierre Elliot Trudeau [7]. Working alongside Trudeau at the time in the PCO included his supervisor Gordon Robertson, a young Oxford man named Marc Lalonde and his friend Gerard Pelletier, all three of whom went on to play prominent roles in Trudeau’s powerful inner cabal 20 years later.

  Upon returning to Montreal in 1951, Trudeau came under the control of F.R. Scott, Rhodes Scholar and co-founder of the League of Social Reconstruction (LSR) 20 years earlier. Trudeau’s celebrity as an enemy of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis was cultivated by these Rhodes networks through his publication Cité Libre which served to 1) brainwash young intellectuals according to the journal’s existential Catholic “personalist” philosophy of French philosophers Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier on the one side and 2) rally a populist attack on the Vatican-influenced Union Nationale (UN) government of Duplessis, Daniel Johnson Sr. and Paul Sauvé on the other [8]. This provincial government had made its renown not only for resisting British control over its destiny, but had also been a beachhead of resistance against eugenics laws then being implemented across the continent [9]. Trudeau worked in tandem with the creepy network of social engineers run from Laval University by Father George Henri Lévesque (co-chair of the Massey Commission), which exploded onto the scene in 1960 as the “Quiet Revolution” overthrow of the Union Nationale after two untimely heart attacks of UN leaders beginning with Duplessis in 1959, then followed by Paul Sauvé a mere nine months later.

  Another personality whose celebrity was being created in tandem with Trudeau’s during the 1950s included Trudeau`s schoolboy chum, and British Intelligence asset René Lévesque, whose popular CBC radio show Point de Mire served to rally public opinion against the Duplessis regime and prepare the culture for the radically liberalizing reforms of the Quiet Revolution [10].

  Huxley’s UNESCO Doctrine and Eugenics 

  The guidelines for the post-1945 path to a New World Order were laid out clearly by Sir Julian Huxley in his 1946 UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy:

   “The moral for UNESCO [United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization] is clear. The task laid upon it of promoting peace and security can never be wholly realised through the means assigned to it- education, science and culture. It must envisage some form of world political unity, whether through a single world government or otherwise, as the only certain means of avoiding war… in its educational programme it can stress the ultimate need for a world political unity and familiarize all peoples with the implications of the transfer of full sovereignty from separate nations to a world organization.” [11]

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  To what end would this “world political unity” be aimed? Several pages later, Huxley’s vision is laid out in all of its twisted detail:

  “At the moment, it is probable that the indirect effect of civilization is dysgenic instead of eugenic, and in any case it seems likely that the dead weight of genetic stupidity, physical weakness, mental instability and disease proneness, which already exist in the human species will prove too great a burden for real progress to be achieved. Thus even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable.”

  How could “the unthinkable” application of a practice which Hitler had made repulsive to humanity, become adopted by a society which had a faith in progress and unbounded creativity so incompatible with social Darwinism? Huxley’s own life’s decision to become a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961 alongside Bilderberg Group founder Prince Bernhard and Prince Philip provides us a clue. It is no coincidence that Huxley’s role as President of the British Eugenics Society (1959-1962) also overlapped his co-creation of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

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  The only way such a genocidal policy as eugenics, masquerading as “objective” science, could be readopted by humanity was through the dissociation of mind from matter, via the breaking of “subjective values” from “objective facts”. The method chosen was a worshipping of the ugly and irrational in the aesthetics such that judgement could no longer be governed by a sense of truth and beauty, while the “cold and logical” was separated from the artistic and kept in its own cold dark mechanical universe accessible only through statistical methods of thought. This is how the modern school system has been divided into two different synthetic worlds of Arts and Sciences. The operatives chosen to carry out this policy were Massey’s ally Sir Kenneth Clark and Sir John Maynard Keynes who led the scientific management of culture in Britain. The mental cage chosen to schism “values” from “facts” in managing human affairs was named “systems analysis”.

  A major goal of the Massey Commission and its UNESCO design, was to create structures that would elevate the Humanities and Social Sciences to the highest pedestal of knowledge (and financing), paving the road for the later acceptance of systems  8-a-Club of Rome King Peccei analysis to be used in the management of society. The person assigned to impose “systems” planning into political practice was the Lord President of the British Empire’s Scientific Secretariat Alexander King working through the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), (later to become the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1961). Under the OECD, King became Director General of Scientific Affairs and went on to co-found the Malthusian Club of Rome alongside Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei in 1968.

  The CIIA’s Royal Commissions Deconstruct and Reconstruct the Synthetic Soul of Canada

  The RIIA directed its various branches, and Rhodes Trust networks around the world to implement the New Eugenics project outlined by Julian Huxley in 1946. In Canada, the implementation process occurred between an intervals of 24 years and took the form of four CIIA-directed operations whose immense influence cannot be overstated. They were:

  1) The Royal Commission into the Arts and Letters (1949-1951),

  2) The Royal Commission on Economic Prospects for Canada (1955-1957),

  3) The Royal Commission on Government Organization (1960-1963), and

  4) The Senate Committee on Science Policy (1968-1972).

  Each commission was designed with the effect of establishing new structures of thought upon policy makers in the domain of culture, economic and science policy which induced the blind acceptance of satanic policies of Malthusian eugenics masquerading as “environmentalism”, or the “science” of saving nature from civilization. A society imbued with a moral sense of Judeo-Christian ethic and love of progress, and strengthened by the Roosevelt-led fight against Hitler, would never accept Eugenics. A fact well known to the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy.

  A Royal Commission, as the name implies is an invention of the British Empire which has been used for centuries in order to create the perception that top down structural changes in all aspects of government were “scientifically” and objectively achieved. The truth is that conclusions of such Commissions have always been pre-decided by the ruling oligarchy long before the Royal Commission’s experts were even formed. Usually spanning 2-3 years of studies by a clique of pre-selected “experts” in a given field, Royal Commissions produce voluminous data sets, hundreds of thousands of pages of information, and then summarize their findings and prescriptions in the form of several summary reports consisting of a 1-2 thousand pages. The sheer quantity of data associated with such reports is supposed to dissuade anyone from giving any respect to other countervailing opinion which challenge the Commission’s findings, with the assumption that unless everyone commits two years of their lives to a specialized study funded by millions of dollars and thousands of man hours, then their opinion could not be worth anything.

  The Massey-Lévesque Commission: The First Wave of Attack 1949-1951

  In Canada, Milner-protégé Vincent Massey was assigned the unique responsibility of leading the implementation of this multifaceted program which struck in a series of Royal Commissions organized entirely by agents of the CIIA. Massey’s role was carried out as the chairman of the already mentioned Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (1949-1951) alongside his co-chairman Father George Henri Lévesque, a social scientist and Dominican priest who is rightly credited as the intellectual godfather of the 1960-1966 “Quiet Revolution” which secularized the province of Quebec and brought in OECD educational reforms. All proposals sought by the end of this two year study were directed by the UNESCO agenda which Sir Julian Huxley laid out publicly in 1946 [15].

  As Massey’s former assistant Karen Finlay wrote in The Force of Culture: Vincent Massey and Canadian Sovereignty, Massey’s lifelong governing principle was “principle of disinterest” whereby Massey argued that it is “intellectual detachment” which empowers someone to truly judge the aesthetic value of art [16]. Under the logic of UNESCO and Massey’s satanic formula, it is assumed that since personal “subjective” values pollute one’s judgements on “the beautiful and good’, it is only by disassociating oneself from pre-existing values, that we gain the ability to judge “good” and “bad” art in an “objective” and thus “true” fashion.

  The severing of the subjective from the objective thusly also forces the denial of any pre-existing standards by which anything could be judged as intrinsically good or bad, and thus a ripe field of moral relativism can be harvested.  Evil may then run wild without any fear of being challenged. In other words, this is a complete denial of the existence of universal physical principles

  The structures against universal physical principles which were proscribed in the Massey-Lévesque Commission involved the creation of a more powerful Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a National Film Board, a National Library, a National Art Gallery, a National Art Bank, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Federal financing of the education system in the humanities and social sciences, and Canada Council for the Arts modelled on Keynes’ semi-autonomous, government financed British template .

  The Federal financing of the education system was vital for the Commission since it was the only way which OECD and UNESCO reforms could be ushered in without provincial resistance.  Pre-existing teaching practices emphasizing the Greek Classics, which treated students as if they had a soul, could only be dismantled efficiently under this top down restructuring, applied during the 1960s in which moral relativism, Darwinism, and “new math” increasingly replaced anything of substance. The horrendous explosion of modernist, abstract and banal art generously sponsored under the structures of Massey’s Canada Council (f.1957) gives one a sick sense of the spiritual disease with which the imperialists (and sadly their victims) are infected. Both federal control of education and the arts were necessary to pervert the principles guiding both, and establish the mental/spiritual infrastructure supportive of satanic programs of Malthusian population reduction as the new environmentalist eugenics was designed to be.

  To amplify this spiritual disease, the Massey-Levesque Commission even proscribed the creation of a Canadian honours system such that oligarchical habits could more easily be cultivated in Canada [18]. The creation of the Canada Council took much longer than Massey would have liked, and its postponement was due largely to the resistance of the l’Union Nationale government of Quebec and its Vatican-steered Catholic Church. The powerful elements within the Quebec Catholic Church were among the only organized forces on the continent that had competently identified the satanic intentions underlying the OECD-UNESCO reforms being infiltrated into global educational and political systems.

  It were for such reasons that Father Lévesque and his ideological offspring of social engineers and technocrats at the University Laval had become the bitter enemies of the Union Nationale government. The implementation of OECD educational reforms as prescribed by the Massey-Lévesque Commission were a primary focus of the Quiet Revolution. The task of applying the reforms was given in large part to two Rhodes Scholars: Jean Beetz and the creator of the Quebec Ministry of Education, Paul Gérin-Lajoie. Soon-to-become Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau played a key institutional role in this process as well in the Law Faculty at University Laval alongside Lalonde and Beetz.

  With the creation of the Canada Council, the “scientific management” of culture, so necessary to elevate the ugly and banal into a position of respectable authority was ensured and the ground was thus laid for the next steps of the fascist takeover of Canada.

  The Gordon Commission: The Second Wave of Attack 1955-1957

  “Many Canadians are worried about such a large degree of economic decision-making being in the hands of non-residents [because it] might lead to economic domination by the United States and eventually to the loss of our political independence.” 

  -1957 Gordon Commission Report [19]

  The Massey-Lévesque Commission was followed systematically, by the Royal Commission on the Economic Prospects of Canada (1955-1957) chaired by Walter Lockhart Gordon, chairman of the National Executive Committee of the CIIA and head of the largest accounting firm in Canada Clarkson-Gordon Management. The Commission claimed that Canada’s sovereignty was threatened by American ownership of Canadian enterprise, and that drastic action to cut America off from the Canadian economy were absolutely necessary.

  As historian Stephen Azzi demonstrated in his 2007 study Foreign Investment and the Paradox of Economic Nationalism [20], the claims made by the report were entirely fraudulent. The massive upshift in quality of life, electricity and social services due to American capital in Canada was not even addressed in the voluminous Gordon Commission reports. Thus the only relevant purpose of the report was to cultivate a culture of anti-Americanism, and establish political structures limiting foreign ownership of Canadian markets, and lower the potential living conditions of Canadians [21]. The biggest farce embedded in the Gordon Commission quote above, of course, which Azzi misses, is that there never was any political independence for Canada to lose to Americans in the first place, since it had never freed itself from the political and economic clutches of its British Mother.

  Gordon went onto implement his own proposals after leading the cleansing of the Liberal Party of all C.D. Howe Liberals between 1957-1963 [22], becoming Finance Minister (1963-65) under his long-time puppet-on-loan from Vincent Massey, Lester Pearson, whom he himself selected as early as 1955 to run for leadership of the Liberal Party [23]. After his policies as Finance Minister failed, Gordon took over the post of President of the powerful Privy Council Office (1966-68) from his predecessor Maurice Lamontagne.

  These two commissions were designed to “sound the alarm bells” against Canadian vulnerability to an imminent American imperial takeover of Canada’s culture and economic resources. Although no evidence was ever presented that American imperialism had any intention to take over Canada, the prescriptions to save Canada from economic and cultural Americanization involved both a negative and positive component: Negatively, each proposed the rapid implementation of quota systems/ tariff systems to limit foreign input of capital and media, while positively, proposing centralized structures to coordinate culture and economic management by a vast London-steered bureaucracy.  The already long controlled mass media outlets of Canada glamorized their findings and created a mass fear in the popular culture.

  The effect of these two reports also amplified anti-Americanism to such a feverish pitch that a Canadian identity could be established on a fear-based negation, whereby Massey, Lévesque and Gordon following the prescription laid out by Lord Milner in 1909 crafted a blueprint for a “New Nationalism”. This counterfeit nationalism was wrapped up with a brand new national anthem and Canadian flag upon Lester B. Pearson’s Liberals becoming the government in 1963.

  The Delphic perception of Canada’s sovereign status outside of the actual control of the British Empire had to be established for the next wave of Canada’s post-1963 role in trapping nations into the imperial spider’s web of International Monetary Fund conditionalities.

  Unlike the flags of most countries, the noble Maple Leaf, as many Canadians have still yet to realize, has neither now nor ever signified anything whatsoever.

  The Glassco Commission: The Third Wave of Attack 1960-1963

  Once the Canadian cultural inferiority complex was amplified sufficiently by fear of American imperialism, the collective neurotic mindset was now ready for the next wave of the CIIA’s onslaught unleashed with the Royal Commission on Government Organization (1960-1963) chaired by Walter Gordon’s partner at Clarkson-Gordon, John Grant Glassco. Glassco was the son of William Grant, and nephew of Vincent Massey. This commission brought in a monetarist/accounting framework for managing a bureaucratic structure under the logic of “letting managers manage”. As its mission statement laid out: “This report examines the adequacy of existing arrangements for making economic and statistical services available for the formulation of policy, for administrative decisions, and for the service and enlightenment of the public.” [24]

  A little later, the report laid out the belief that all problems with inefficiency in achieving policy objectives was due to the fact that there are too few economists and social scientists in controlling administrative positions of government: “..Very little can be done, or ought to be done, to discourage the movement of economists into higher administrative posts. Talented administrators are just as scarce as economists, and it would be a mistake for the public service to deny itself any fruitful source of good administrators.” [25]

  In preparation for Finance Minister Walter Gordon’s 1963-65 implementation of his 1957 Royal Commission financial proposals, Glassco laid out the new necessary controlling structures to allow Gordon to cut off Canada from American investments, and choke off as much of America from Canada as possible when he wrote:  “The immediate concern is the development of a competent central economic staff within the Department of Finance, not to take over work done elsewhere but rather, under the direction of the Minister of Finance, to attend to the development of general economic policy for the government as a whole .” [26]

  Finally, Glassco pushed for the UNESCO policy of amplifying the social sciences while attacking the “hard” sciences like physics and biology with the following: “The relatively slow development of economic research in Canadian universities, due to shortage of funds, bears on both the quantity and quality of the future supply of trained economists. While the government is spending scores of millions annually to support research in physics and biology, little financial assistance is given to research in the social sciences” [27]

  The edict of “letting managers manage” was necessary if the appearance of democracy were to be maintained while the absolute control of society by an accounting priesthood was to be preserved. The commission’s reports called for the adoption of “horizontal” (aka: bottom up) planning which was to replace the archaic belief in “vertical” (aka: top down) intentions from elected officials to the process they were elected to preside over, as was the common practice of the NRC and its administrators.

  Ironically, while bottom up planning according to accounting standards was pushed, central control through the Treasury Board was also promoted by Glassco. This prescription would ensure that only a small coterie would ever fully have their minds on the whole, while every other department were too busy focusing on hyper-specialized compartmentalized parts to think about the whole.

  While the NRC and its leadership such as C.J. Mackenzie, the student of the late C.D. Howe and the late Dr. E.W.R. Steacy were vigorously attacked by the Glassco Commission, the overhaul which Glassco prescribed involved the centralized planning of science policy according to budgetary constraints under the Treasury and a Science Secretariat. These positions were to become completely subservient to the control of bureaucrats specialized in accounting and monetary economics degrees advanced through the “social sciences and humanities” programs outlined by UNESCO. With this new system of management and its anal adherence to Planning-Programming-Budgeting (PPB), the problems associated with the governments such as those of C.D. Howe and later John Diefenbaker (1957-1963) which intended to actually get something done for the improvement of the nation, could not occur [28]. This systemic reform was not an end in and of itself however, and was merely a necessary stepping stone towards actualizing a system of thinking which would accept the linear language of “Systems Analysis” as a guide for conceptualizing the management of humanity under laws of entropy, constrained by the limits of fixed resources.

  The Glassco Report’s prescriptions for policy overhaul were to be implemented fully by Trudeau several years later.

  As a reward for a job well done, Glassco was promoted from Executive Vice-President of Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Co. to President in 1963.Under this position, the overthrow of the nationalist Brazilian President João Goulart  was effected via a military coup d’état [29]. The free market pillaging of Brazil created a model applied even more aggressively a decade later with Henry Kissinger’s orchestration of the Pinochet regime’s coup in Chile.

  The Lamontagne Commission’s 1967-1973 Program for Genocide

  The last wave of this CIIA-run Milner Project for a new nationalism (at least insofar as major structural reforms were concerned), took the form of the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy (1967-1972), more popularly known as the Lamontagne Commission after its chairman Senator Maurice Lamontagne [30]. This commission had the distinction of being the most transparent in its satanic intention to ban creativity and impose Malthusian constraints un-naturally upon the management of human affairs. The report is especially relevant as it begins with the acknowledgement of the American System of Political Economy, which it then attempts to destroy by lies and ridicule:

  “During the early part of the 19th century, Great Britain and to a lesser extent France were fast developing industrial technology and finding ways of fruitfully exploiting science. Later on the United States moved from technical backwardness to such a level that it could begin exporting to the “advanced” European countries manufacturing techniques and machine tools so different that the whole approach became known as the “American System”. An English productivity team that visited the United States in 1853 to study this ‘system’ concluded that “men served God in America, in all seriousness and sincerity, through striving for economic efficiency.” [31]

  By identifying the fact of creativity’s relationship to technological advance, and technological advance’s relationship to increased growth and productivity, embedded self-consciously in the American System founded by U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and his mentor Benjamin Franklin, Lamontagne, a student of George Henri Lévesque and key member of the Gordon Commission twelve years earlier, established his commitment to defend the principle of empire. The most active defender of the American System during the 20th and 21st century, Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019) has subsequently described contrast between the forces active today the following terms:

  “The most readily accessed example of the contrast of good to evil in modern times, has been typified not only by the goodness of the anti-monetarist principle on which the original Constitution of the United States of America was premised; it was also the same principle which had been adopted earlier by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That principle, which modern society should trace back to such Renaissance geniuses as Nicholas of Cusa, has been demonstrated through the crucial quality of a leading contributing role specific to the included role of U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.”  [32]

  Lamontagne’s allegiance to the monetarist forces opposing the American System, can be clearly seen when Lamontagne let his true intention shine forth when he wrote in vol. 2 of his 3 volume report:

  “It is becoming apparent, however, that nature is not as passive as we thought, that it has its own laws and can revenge itself, once its own equilibrium has been disrupted… Nature imposes definite constraints on technology itself and if man persists in ignoring them the net effect of his action in the long run can be to reduce rather than to increase nature’ potential as a provider of resources and habitable space… But then, an obvious question arises: How can we stop man’s creativeness?” [33]

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  Thus, Lamontagne has established that it is man’s creativity itself that must be stopped if the supposed “fixed” equilibrium of nature will remain unchanged by technology! This is the root morality of the current global environmentalist religion which Lamontagne was at the forefront of unleashing.  Since Lamontagne admits that his “ideal” solution of destroying man’s creative impulse is itself an impossibility, like the Zeus of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, he never the less finds a resolution to this problem by introducing a perverse alternative when he wrote

  “How can we proclaim a moratorium on technology? It is impossible to destroy existing knowledge; impossible to paralyze man’s inborn desire to learn, to invent and to innovate… In the final analysis we find that technology is merely a tool created by man in pursuit of his infinite aspirations and is not the significant element invading the natural environment. It is material growth itself that is the source of conflict between man and nature” [32]

  Thus creativity and its fruits of technological progress are acceptable only IF they reduce the assumed conflict between man and nature posited by Lamontagne!  “Bad” technology in Lamontagne’s formulation, has the effect of increasing humanity’s powers of productivity and thus increase the entropy in his fixed ecosystem-based economy. If, on the other hand, we promote technologies of a low energy flux density form, such as windmills, solar panels and biodiesel, which lead to the reduction of man’s powers to exist, then technology can be defined as a “good” thing.

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  This is the genocidal intention of the British Empire expressed in all its nakedness, which has been the primary target of American statesman and founder of the science of Physical Economy, Lyndon LaRouche. By the time of the Lamontagne Commission, LaRouche had already risen to world prominence as the only effective challenger to the British monarchy`s genocidal agenda of lowering the energy flux density underlying society`s material and intellectual existence. LaRouche has subsequently fought for 50 years to defend the truth of mankind`s scientifically verifiable relationship to the universe, as being governed by everything which Lamontagne and his Anglo-Dutch masters hate: mankind`s necessity for unbounded scientific and technological progress expressed as the unending obligation to increase the productive powers of labour.

  The concept which LaRouche has used to guide mankind`s mandate for progress, is the increase of energy flux density of cycling of atoms through the biosphere and human economy, shaped by upgrades of new platforms of technologies. Compare LaRouche`s view on energy-flux density with the cynical rubbish promoted expressed by Lamontagne above:

  “The rates of increase of energy-flux density in the concentrations of increasing rates of intensity of power per capita, must be now be restarted, and also accelerated; otherwise, the death-rates throughout the world are now already accelerating at rates which must be identified as a global trend in planetary human genocide… The nominal trend in rising rates of genocide is not the only aspect of this threatening trend. The inability to maintain a correlated set of rates of increase of the energy-flux density of the human persons per capita, must be correlated with the falling rate of intellectual development of the typical U.S.A. or European citizen. The so-called “green doctrine” is a doctrine of practice which results in not only human genocide, but a decadence in the mental powers, and also the relative sanity, of the individual human being.” [34]

  What LaRouche is describing is the simple fact that without a constant increase of energy-flux density of the system and each individual within that system, then the domination by a green doctrine which sets “value” upon forms of energy and behaviour which reduce mankind’s power to accomplish work is destined to exterminate the population trapped within that system. The effect of destroying the means to increase the energy flux density of the system (ie: Creativity) means that a policy of genocide is the only alternative for a ruling oligarchy!

  How would such a logic of genocide be accepted by citizens and administrators who are animated by the inspired faith in scientific and technological progress as was still largely the case during the late 1960s? For this task, Lamontagne had already let the cat out of the bag when he wrote in vol. 1:

  “If general science policy is to accomplish its crucial role effectively, it must also develop a system of control, to make sure that the strategy will be respected in the detailed decision-making process and review mechanisms… Perhaps more than any other sector of policy, science policy requires the careful application of systems analysis.” [35]

  With the linear language of systems analysis, the minds of those trying to manage any intrinsically non-linear process became sufficiently crippled with statistics and compartmentalization that their ability to see either 1) a whole top down process, or 2) the tragic consequences of their own foolish beliefs, was destroyed. Similar to the logic adopted ten years earlier with the state-run Canada Council which provided top down grants to “certain types” of art, music and social theories compatible to an oligarchy, though abhorrent to natural human sentiment, the Lamontagne Commission called passionately for a centralized financing and planning body in order to fund those “types” of applied technologies and pure research which were compatible with the genocidal aims of an oligarchy, but would never be accepted by a society imbued with even a little common sense and human compassion. In this spirit Lamontagne exclaimed that:

  “The creation of a dynamic and balanced science organization is an urgent necessity. A main centre of coordination and financing of science policy is extremely desirable. The time has come to create a federal department of scientific affairs”. [36]

  Lamontagne is referring of course to the creation of the Canadian Ministry of State for Science and Technology (MOSST) which was modelled on the British system, and kept under the full control of the Treasury Board and its balanced accounting system. MOSST and the Treasury Board redirected Canadian science into the dark ages and its new emphasis on “ecosystems management” and “conservation” instead of nation building. The “new wisdom” advocated by Lamontagne demanded that science now be shackled to “market demand” instead of future orientation.

  Enter Trudeau’s Club of Rome

  After the Rhodes Trust-directed ouster of the well intentioned, but incredibly naïve Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1963 [37], all of the measures proposed by these four Commissions were enforced vigorously by Lester B. Pearson and the Rhodes Trust/CIIA networks that had risen to prominence under him, and then fully by Pearson’s replacement… the former Justice Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau in 1968. Along with Trudeau came fellow CIIA-assets from the Privy Council Office Gerard Pelletier, and another disciple of Father Lévesque named Jean Marchand, both of whom were active with Trudeau’s Cité Libre. The `new reformers` of Quebec became the `new reformers` of Canada.

  Under Trudeau, the application of “systems analysis” as a cover for population reduction and fascism were fully carried into the top down management of government on all levels, and the Club of Rome of Alexander King, and his Canadian collaborators such as Maurice Strong, Maurice Lamontagne, Roland Mitchener (former Governor General) [38], Michael Pitfield (Personal Aid to Trudeau and head of Privy Council Office), Alastair Gillespie (Rhodes Scholar, and 1st MOSST), C.R. Nixon (Privy Council Office), Marc Lalonde (Rhodes Scholar, Trudeau advisor and head of Prime Ministers Office), Ronald Ritchie (National Advisor), Rennie Whitehead (Asst. Sec. to MOSST), and Ivan Head (head of Prime Minister`s Office) had set its putrid roots firmly into Canadian soil officially when the Canadian Branch was established informally in 1970 [39].

  This nest was directly responsible for the creation of Environment Canada, which had applied systems analysis in order to transform what was once a policy of water and energy development, centred on a national mission, towards “ecosystems management”. A strict dualism between civilized humanity characterized by change and the “unchanging pure equilibrium” of nature was assumed as law, and with this assumption, a new green religion arose masking its fascist intentions behind a “new Canadian nationalism” centred not around a love of freedom or development, but around a fear of both American and Russian aggressors and unfortunate admiration for Britain. 

  How the Present Comes from the Future: The Free Choice of the Will is a Matter of Mind 

  The lies of the past are looking pretty ugly. Shall we find the strength within ourselves as Canadians to look upon this disfigured ugliness which we are told is our heritage, in order to recapture the vision of Canada’s sovereign potential as a great pioneering nation which held the imaginations of men such as Wilfrid Laurier, O.D. Skelton, C.D. Howe and John Diefenbaker? Shall we pick up upon the organic creative evolution that was so scarred and disfigured when Franklin Roosevelt died, and build such long overdue projects as the North American Water and Power Alliance, championed by the Kennedy brothers in the 1960s and Lyndon LaRouche today? Shall we rebuild our destroyed infrastructure along upgraded magnetic levitation train technology powered by advanced fourth generation nuclear thorium reactors and begin to taste the breakthrough of fusion? Shall we let go of the false genocidal notion of unchanging ecosystems and allow ourselves to see human beings as a species above and beyond everything else known in the biosphere, in that we are unique in our power to comprehend, and wilfully transform those processes of nature in a way that improves and speeds up their evolutionary progress towards ever higher states of energy-flux density?

  That really depends on you.

  Tune in next week for the Origins of the Deep State part three: What is the Fabian Society and to What End was it Created?

  

• Visualizing The Unicorn Landscape In 2019

  Following today’s Uber debacle, it seemed only appropriate to scan the current landscape of unicorns waiting in the wings.

  It was only six years ago that venture capitalist Aileen Lee coined the term “unicorn” to describe any privately-held startup worth $1 billion or more.

  At the time, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins explains, such valuations were so rare that they deserved a special name – but since then, it’s fair to say that the landscape has shifted dramatically. The startup boom intensified, and capital flowed into private companies at an unprecedented pace.

  In recent times, unicorns have multiplied more like rabbits, and investors have propped up the combined value of the world’s 326 unicorns to the tune of $1.1 trillion.

  Breaking down the World’s 326 Unicorns

  Today’s chart uses data from the Unicorn Tracker created by CB Insights, and it breaks down the unicorn landscape by sector, valuation, and country.

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  Let’s start by looking at the biggest unicorns currently in existence:

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  Note: data is current as of May 3, 2019

  ByteDance is the world’s largest unicorn at a $75 billion valuation. The company owns Toutiao, a popular machine-learning enabled content platform in China that customizes feeds based on a user’s reading preferences. It also owns video sharing platform Tik Tok.

  Experts are estimating that over 100 unicorns could IPO in 2019, including Uber and Airbnb from the above list.

  So far this year, Lyft and Pinterest have already hit the public market – and another recent unicorn to IPO was conferencing platform Zoom Video, which has seen shares increase 120% in price since its impressive mid-April debut.

  Unicorns by Sector

  The two most common sectors for unicorns are Internet Software Services and E-commerce.

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  Note: data is current as of March 2019

  However, as you can see, the segment most valued by investors is On-Demand, which includes companies like Uber, Didi Chuxing, and DoorDash.

  Unicorns by Geography

  Nearly half of the world’s unicorns come from the U.S., but China also has an impressive roster of highly valued startups.

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  Note: data is current as of March 2019

  Strangely, outside of the six major countries listed above, the rest of the world only combines for a measly 32 unicorns – less than 10% of the global total.

  Unicorns by Valuation

  Seven unicorns – including Uber, WeWork, Airbnb, and ByteDance – account for almost 30% of all of the value of the entire landscape.

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  Note: data is current as of March 2019

  The bottom of the pyramid ($1-5 billion in valuation) holds 280 companies. Added together, they are worth $461 billion, which is equal to 42.5% of the unicorn total.

  

• "Then It Really Hit The Fan" – Vancouver, Casinos, & Grandmas

  Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

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  “Do you mind if I have a pull?” the well dressed gentleman asked.

  The grandmother had been sitting at the dollar slot machine for over an hour. The tokens disappearing faster than when you drop a burger on the floor in front of your labrador retriever. Why not? She thought to herself, let him feed the bottomless pit for a bit.

  “Sure. Be my guest. But I warn you, it hasn’t been nice.”

  “Thanks. Awfully kind of you. I don’t know why, but I feel lucky tonight. All the machines are in use, so I appreciate you letting me play my hunch.”

  She watched the man remove a Bellagio one-dollar-token from his expensive suit and slip it in the slot. Then he pressed the button. The machine whirled and spit out the bad news.

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  With a big smile, he took out another token and tried again. No luck.

  “One last time” he laughed as he pushed his final token into the slot machine.

  Then it happened. Instead of greeting him with bad news, the machine blazed WINNER! WINNER! WINNER!

  The man flashed a mischievous grin and said to the grandmother, “You have been playing this machine for a while. That’s your money. You take it.”

  “Oh no” she responded, “you were the lucky one. It wouldn’t have happened for me. I insist you keep your winnings.”

  “I tell you what. How about we take this money over to the craps table and try to turn it into some real dough? If we lose, so be it. If we win, we split it.”

  What the heck she thought to herself. I don’t get over to that side of the casino often. It might be fun.

  “Let’s do it” she said packing up her belongings.

  As the night progressed, she realized this man was indeed lucky. Somehow they kept winning at the craps table. And it was so much fun.

  He kept asking if she wanted to take her half and cash out. But she didn’t feel right taking his money. Besides, she didn’t want the evening to end. Why not let the fun continue until he inevitably loses it all? It will make a great story to tell the ladies in the bridge club.

  Another hour and a half later, she suddenly realized how long they had been playing. Sobering up, she had a good long hard look the big pile of chips in front of the gentleman and said, “What are those orange chips?”

  “Oh, you mean the pumpkins? Those are worth a $1,000” he told her.

  “And the red ones?”

  “Ahh… the cranberries? They’re 5k. And these little gems – they’re $25k”

  Holy smokes she thought to herself as she stared at the pile of chips.

  “Uhhhhhhh….” she stammered as she tried to estimate the value, “I think I’ll take my half now.”

  It turns out they had won well over half a million dollars. After counting it out, the man handed her stack of chips worth a little less than $300k and thanked her.

  As she was walking away, she said, “Peter, I never got your last name.”

  “Brown. Peter Brown. Nice to meet you.”

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  Little did that grandmother realize, but she had been playing craps with one of Vancouver’s most legendary financiers. From that chance encounter, that nice old grandmother took her winnings and put all of her grandkids through university. For the rest of her life, she never missed sending Peter a Christmas card.

  Vancouver real estate

  Some people are lucky enough to be born smart, while others are smart enough to be born lucky. Peter most likely falls into the latter camp but I suspect he got a healthy dose of both traits.

  Although I love telling that story about Peter and the grandmother, it’s not his casino exploits I admire most, but his ability to ride bull markets and most importantly, get off without being left holding the bag. Now some of my Vancouver pals will tell me that Peter was notorious for selling their “promote” too early, but I don’t view that as a bad thing.

  Which brings me to the topic of today’s discussion.

  Peter owned a sprawling house in Vancouver’s tony Point Grey district. Of course he did. Peter didn’t do much at less than full speed. The house was almost 15,000 square feet with a little less than 2 acres of land.

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  But most importantly, it was in the city, yet boasted an incredible view of the harbour.

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  I am using the past tense when describing Peter’s house because he sold it. For $31 million. To a…(wait for it, this is the best part)… to a… student.

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  As usual Peter was a little early, but when you are trading size, you feed the ducks when they are quacking. And no doubt about it, in May of 2016 it was like a Ducks Unlimited convention in the Vancouver real estate market.

  It’s starting to sink

  Peter probably came as close to top-ticking the Vancouver real estate market as humanly possible. Although many charts will show you how prices continued to go up, these are the same indexes currently indicating only a modest downtick over the past half a year.

  Talking to my buddies from Vancouver, it is obvious the market is soft. Really soft. There is way more going on than the charts indicate. Rich people often sit on their hands in real estate downturns, so it’s still unclear where the real bids are, but suffice it to say we have already had a decent correction in Vancouver housing prices. Especially at the top end. Like the kind of top end Peter used to own.

  Why is that?

  Well, there is tons of blame to go around so I don’t want to take sides, but let’s review the facts without judgment.

  Canada, and Vancouver especially, opened its doors to Chinese immigrants. Rich Chinese citizens looking for a way to take some capital out of China found Canada an especially convenient route. And what better place to park it than real estate?

  I have heard multiple stories of people selling their stately old homes in Shaughnessy or Point Grey only to rent them back from the Chinese numbered company that bought the house. The crazy part of their stories? The post-dated rent cheques were not being cashed. That’s the sort of stuff you see in bubbles. No doubt about it.

  Housing prices kept rising. And rising. And rising. Stupid stuff like $31 million mansions being bought by Chinese students.

  From a recent Bloomberg article:

  Vancouver penthouses, ski chalets at Whistler, and holiday retreats in the Gulf Islands are among the thousands of properties identified in a dirty money probe that estimates more than C$7 billion ($5 billion) was laundered through the western Canadian province of British Columbia last year.

  The startling findings from two reports released by the provincial government Thursday illustrate how a torrent of suspicious cash has fueled casinos, luxury car sales and real estate in the Pacific Coast region.

  “The amount of money being laundered in B.C. is more than anyone predicted,” Finance Minister Carole James told reporters Thursday. In real estate alone, an estimated C$5 billion may have been laundered last year in the province – equivalent to 4.6% of all transactions by value in that period, according to one of the reports. In the Vancouver region, where housing prices rose more than 70% in five years, “I certainly believe that money laundering played a part,” James said. Such a share of transactions is “sufficiently large to have an observable impact on real estate prices,” the report said.

  Finally the British Columbian government decided they had enough, and slapped down a foreign buyer tax. The shitty part of their stunt? They did not grandfather contracts that had been executed but not settled. So a Chinese buyer who had just plopped down $5 bucks on a Vancouver house suddenly found an extra three quarters of a million due on closing.

  This occurred just as the Chinese economy was slowing down.

  So when you combine the two developments, that iceberg bid that seemed unfillable disappeared almost overnight.

  Then it really hit the fan

  Last December, at the behest of American officials, a Chinese national was arrested in Vancouver. From the CBC:

  The chief financial officer for Chinese telecom giant Huawei was detained at Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018 at the behest of U.S. officials. The U.S. has accused Meng and Huawei of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction in relation to violating U.S. sanctions in Iran.

  On Wednesday, Meng’s team argued her arrest and detention were unlawful and that there is no basis for her extradition. Lawyer Scott Fenton said comments by U.S. President Donald Trump suggested the case against Meng was politically motivated.

  The U.S. and China have tried to keep Meng’s case separate from their trade dispute, although Trump has said he would consider intervening in the case if it would help forge a trade deal with Beijing.

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  Canada was simply complying with the extradition agreement we have in place with America, but for doing so, China has chosen to make an example out of us. They have scuttled merger deals (I believe the MEG Energy deal was ordered abandoned by Chinese authorities), refused to buy our commodities (check out the developments in the canola dispute) and in general, used every lever at their disposal to punish Canada.

  What’s that line about acrimonious divorces? It’s always the children who suffer.

  Well, Canada is definitely suffering in the feud between China and the U.S.

  To think that it isn’t also affecting our real estate market is simply naive. Vancouver is the epicenter of Chinese capital-flight and that money is no longer coming to Canada.

  And yes, the real estate correction that everyone has feared for so long in Canada is finally upon us.

  Chinese students buying mega-mansions from Vancouver’s elite yet shrewd market-types peeling off their real estate holdings they have held for decades. What side of that trade do you want to be on?

  The only question has been timing

  I am by no means predicting the end of the world for Canada. We are after all a people who get by every year without a Canadian hockey team ever coming close to winning the Stanley Cup. We will soldier on.

  Yet it would be naive to deny the long awaited real estate correction has started.

  You don’t need to see more graphs about Canadian consumer indebtedness. We all know what they look like. The story is so well told it’s pointless to repeat any part of it.

  A correction was coming, the only question left unanswered was timing.

  Well, I think it’s now obvious that we are in the midst of that adjustment.

  The only help I can offer is to point out that real estate cycles are long. Really long. The mistake will be assuming it will be over quickly. It won’t.

  And my favourite trade?

  I love buying the short end of the yield curve in Canada against selling the US equivalent tenor.

  Probably the easiest way to play it is a long BAX DEC 2019 vs ED DEC 2019 spread:

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  Yeah, Canadian rates are already lower than in the United States. But the trend between the two countries is drifting nicely in the “right” direction. Again, no need to overthink it.

  Sure, we have declined 50 basis points over the past year, but if we look at this spread over time, it’s far from unheard of for Canadian rates to be well below American rates.

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  Even more importantly, let’s examine what the market is pricing in for future Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada policy.

  Up north, there is a minuscule 15 basis points of easing priced into the next two years.

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  This contrasts the US dollar denominated eurodollar futures market where there is 42 basis points of cutting in the curve.

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  As for the spread between 3-month US and Canadian short term rates, I am targeting 100 basis points discount in Canada over the next year. The forward futures for December 2019 are trading with a 48 basis point difference. It’s tough for me to devise a scenario where these two rates would trade back to even over the short to medium run, so on a risk-adjusted basis, I think it’s an attractive proposition. The market is overly worried about the American economy and much too sanguine about Canada’s prospects.

  Yet as I write this Canada released the employment numbers for April. And they were stunningly strong.

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  I view this as a terrific opportunity to initiate my long BAX / short ED position. Maybe I am selling my home country short, but I just don’t see the Canadian economy outperforming the US in the coming year. Like our home based hockey teams, I expect it to disappoint.

  Just remember, we knew eventually all those Canadian real estate owners would be like the grandmother playing with Peter Brown. At a certain point you look down at the stack of chips in front of you and decide, it’s time to cash out.

  

• New CIA "Flying Ginsu" Missile Shreds Individual Targets With 6 Long Blades

  The CIA’s latest high tech assassination precision strike missile appears something straight out of Mortal Kombat. “To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky,” the WSJ wrote, revealing the weapon publicly for the first time based on interviews with over a dozen current and former defense officials.

  The R9X is the newest “secret” missile in the CIA arsenal and is nicknamed the “flying Ginsu” — given its six blades used to kill targets on impact as the missile lands at high speed, without carrying an explosive payload.

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  It’s a modified version of the Hellfire missile which can shred anything in its path on impact, but designed to prevent or minimize civilian deaths. 

  It’s also sometimes called “the Ninja Bomb” for its ability to rip through cars and buildings after being fired from a UAV as a kind of 100-pound giant flying switchblade, but since it doesn’t create a blast radius, is optimal for individual targeting. 

  According to the WSJ, the CIA began development of the missile in 2011 for close proximity “war on terror” targeted assassinations — also as a way to protect non-combatants who might be used as human shields, as terrorists tend to embed themselves within urban civilian populations.

  NEW – @WSJ confirms the @CIA & @DeptofDefense have a new “secret” missile – the R9X, or “flying Ginsu” – which kills a selected target with 6 blades, but no explosive payload.

  — “To the targeted person, it’s as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky.”https://t.co/DIQfnfJYDq pic.twitter.com/iM87WUFLhg

  — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) May 9, 2019

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  The WSJ described the newly revealed weapon further as follows:   

  To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky, the officials said. But this variant of the Hellfire missile, designated as the R9X, also comes equipped with a different kind of payload: a halo of six long blades that are stowed inside and then deploy through the skin of the missile seconds before impact, shredding anything in its tracks.

  One official noted in the report the R9X is “for the express purpose of reducing civilian casualties” — which has apparently worked the handful of times it’s been used on the battlefield.

  Defense and intelligence officials cited by the WSJ revealed successful deployments in counter-terror operations in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen.

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  One of the confirmed uses of the R9X was in Syria on Feb 26, 2017 in Idlib, during the reported CIA assassination of al-Qaeda deputy leader Abu Al-Khayr al-Masri.

  Analysts had been perplexed at the time as to the precision hole in the car’s roof yet without any clear trace of an explosive blast impact, and Masri was confirmed dead inside. 

  I remember puzzling over these cuts for ages trying to work out what had hit the car of Abu Khayr al-Masri, deputy leader of Al-Qaeda.

  Turns out it was a Hellfire missle with fucking swords attached to it. pic.twitter.com/aJW524c1Ph

  — Nick Waters (@N_Waters89) May 9, 2019

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  Now it’s mystery solved: that’s right, the CIA took out a jihadist via a giant 6-bladed flying knife, apparently.

  If US officials are now going public with this high tech yet somewhat medieval sounding slice-and-dice device, in an apparent attempt to assure the public it cares about civilian casualties, we only wonder what kind of “creative” killing machines still remain classified. 

  

• A Week In The Life Of The Empire

  Authored by The Saker via The Unz Review,

  Introduction

  It is sometimes helpful not to look at any one specific issue in detail, but rather make a survey of ongoing processes instead. The resulting picture is neither better nor worse, it is simply different. This is what I want to do today: to take a bird’s eye view of our suffering planet.

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  Putin trolls the Empire

  It is all really simple: if the Ukrainians will give passports to Russian citizens, and we in Russia will be handing out passports to the Ukrainians, then sooner or later will will reach the expected result: everybody will have the same citizenship. This is something which we have to welcome.

  Vladimir Putin

  It appears that the Kremlin is very slowly changing its approach to the Ukrainian issue and is now relying more on unilateral actions. The first two measures taken by the Russians are maybe not “too little too late”, but certainly “just the bare minimum and at that, rather late”. Still, I can only salute the Kremlin’s newly found determination. Specifically, the Kremlin has banned the export of energy products to the Ukraine (special exemptions can still be granted on a case by case basis) and the Russians have decided to distribute Russian passports to the people of Novorussia. Good.

  Zelenskii’s reaction to this decision came as the first clear sign that the poor man has no idea what he is doing and no plan as to how to deal with the Russians. He decided to crack a joke, (which he is reportedly good at), and declare that the Ukrainian passport was much better than the Russian one and that the Ukraine will start delivering Ukrainian passports to Russian citizens. Putin immediately replied with one of his typical comebacks declaring that he supports Zelenskii and that he looks forward to the day when Russians and Ukrainians will have the same citizenship again. Zelenskii had nothing to say to that 

  Zelenskii finally finds something common to Russia and the Ukraine

  I have been thinking long about this “a lot in common” between Ukraine and Russia. The reality is that today, after the annexation of the Crimea and the aggression in the Donbas, of the “common” things we have only one thing left – this is the state border. And control of every inch on the Ukrainian side, must be returned by Russia. Only then will we be able to continue the search for [things in] “common”

  Vladimir Zelenskii

  Well, almost. He did eventually make a Facebook post in which he declared that all that Russia and the Ukraine had in common was a border. This instantly made him the object of jokes and memes, since all Russians or Ukrainians know that Russia and the Ukraine have many old bonds which even 5 years of a vicious civil war and 5 years of hysterically anti-Russian propaganda could not sever. They range from having close relatives in the other country, to numerous trade and commercial transactions, to a common language. The closest thing to a real Ukrainian language would be the Surzhik which is roughly 50/50 in terms of vocabulary and whose pronunciation is closer to the south Russian one than to the Zapadenskii regional dialect spoken in the western Ukraine and which is used (and currently imposed) by the Ukronazi junta in Kiev.

  The malignant manatee threatens the planet with fire and brimstone

  We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity. Bolton, a mean sonofabitch who belongs in a strait jacket, at least doesn’t pose as someone having a soul. And the Golden Tufted Cockatoo, too weak to control those around him, preening and tweeting. God save us.

  Fred Reed

  The term “malignant manatee” is not from me, the brilliant Fred Reed came up with this one, but I can only fully endorse it because it fits. Perfectly. And our malignant manatee sure is on a roll! Just this week he managed to threaten Venezuela, Iran, and even Russia and China together. I think that it is high time to declare that Pompeo is a bona fide nutcase, a dangerous, arrogant and ignorant psychopath whose crazy statements represent a direct threat to the entire planet. Not to say that his pal Bolton is any less crazy. Now combine these two rabid thugs with the spineless “Golden Tufted Cockatoo” (to use Fred Reed’s equally hilarious but accurate characterization) and you see that the planet is in big, big trouble.

  Turns out that Putin is a crypto-Zionist and an Israeli puppet.

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  Here I won’t even bother with any quotes. The alternative Internet/blogosphere has, again, been hit by a wave of articles declaring that Putin is Netanyahu’s puppet and a crypto-Zionist. I have debunked that nonsense in the past (see here and here) and I won’t repeat it all here. Besides, what this surge in “Putin the Zionist” propaganda is, is not so much the result of a gradual realization about the true agenda or Putin himself as much as it is, yet again, a desperate scramble for clicks. I already discussed that recently too (see here). I will just reiterate my conclusion here: clickbaiters are never experts and experts are never clickbaiters.

  Frankly, to all those who email me and ask “Is it really true? Putin is an Israeli puppet? He helps Netanyahu in Syria, does he not?!” I would suggest simply looking at what the Israelis and Zionists write about Putin (for starters, you can click here, here or here). Even better, ask the defenders of Putin the crytpo-Zionist to explain the hysterically anti-Putin campaign the US legacy Ziomedia has been engaged in for the past years! But don’t hold your breath for an answer – since Russia has comprehensively foiled all Israel’s many plans for Syria, it takes a remarkable determination not to see that Putin is hated by Neocons and Zionists alike, and for good cause, I would add.

  Oh, and Putin is a crypto-Muslim too!

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  Yes, besides being a crypto-Zionist, Putin is also a crypto-Muslim. This latest nonsense usually comes from Alt-Right circles who can forgive Putin his friendliness to Israel, but not to Islam. These are the folks who believe that Putin is not a real defender of the “White Race”. They are opposed by those who believe that Putin and the Moscow Patriarchate will somehow jump-start the “Christian West”. We are talking about some hardcore “single-issue” folks here whose main disagreement is whether Jews or Muslims are to be hated (and feared!) most.

  [Having had to deal with both groups myself – I have been accused of being a Jew, a Jew lover and a Muslim and a Muslim lover many times! – I know that reasoning with these folks is a total waste of time. Their paranoid hatred is completely incompatible with any fact-based and logical discussion. Besides, by arguing with them you threaten their income and livelihood – which due to their lack of expertise depends entirely on their ability to generate clickbait revenue. If you do engage with them, they will call you a Jew-lover or an Islam-lover and that’s it. Not worth your time IMHO].

  The quasi-comical truth is that the Alt-Righters don’t get Russia *at all*. They keep transposing their narrow horizons on a nation with which they have absolutely nothing in common, not even religiously or racially (even if they think otherwise). Hence their love-hate relationship with Putin: on one hand, they would love to have a champion like Putin (Ann Coulter or Milo Yiannopoulos do not qualify), but on the other, they hate Putin for not endorsing their racist and fascist agenda. Truth be told: Russia has no use for these intellectual midgets.

  Russia is “selling out” to the Taliban?

  Well, since we are making a (tongue-in-cheek) “inventory” of all of Putin’s (and even Russia’s) sins, let’s include cozying up to the Taliban (who even agreed to put on Saint George’s Ribbons!) and… … and what exactly is happening here?

  How about trying to bring peace back to Afghanistan? You know – the same thing Russia is doing in Venezuela, in Syria and elsewhere. This implies talking to the other side, and even striking smiling poses when asked by the press.

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  Needless to say, the thugs running the AngloZionst Empire have accused Russia or aiding and even arming the Taliban. And why not? This is no more ridiculous than saying that Saddam and Iran are helping al-Qaeda, or than saying that Russia “hacked” DNC computers, or told Maduro not to run for his life. Hey! We are living in “Skripal times” and the rules of evidence have changed to “highly likely” – so why not claim that Russia is also selling out to the Taliban (maybe even on Netanyahu’s orders?).

  In the meantime, Russian soldiers are busy ducking missiles…

  Yep, apparently unaware that their Commander-in-Chief is a puppet of both Israel and the worldwide Islamic Ummah, Russian servicemen are ducking missiles in Syria. The latest attack saw them shoot 36 missiles (and one targeting drone) out of the sky. This is good news, of course, but this just goes to show that these (US and Israel backed) Islamists shooting these missiles have not been informed that the Russian military in Syria is here to help Netanyahu and Trump. Somebody should probably tell them 

  Conclusion: just one more crazy and terrifying week, with many more to come

  I tried to be a little tongue-in-cheek here, but the reality is that what is taking place before our eyes is both absolutely insane and most terrifying. Why? Because the world is now ruled by a most dangerous gang of ignorant thugs who are very rapidly losing their grip on our planet and who is simply neither intellectually equipped to understand, nor deal with this very complex and rapidly changing situation.

  What we are seeing is a full-spectrum collapse of the unipolar world and its gradual, but also inexorable, replacement with a multi-polar world in which things like “speaking with your adversaries or even enemies” becomes the norm rather than the exception. Even more importantly, this is a world in which US threats always fall on deaf ears simply because nobody takes the US seriously anymore. While the US military probably has the capability to re-invade Grenada or “bring democracy” to the inhabitants of the North Sentinel Island – no adults in the room will be impressed (least of all the Iranians!).

  It is this quiet indifference which enrages the likes of Pompeo, Bolton or Trump – for all their narcissistic chest-thumping – they are, and will forever remain, the ultimate losers – folks who simply couldn’t get *anything* done. Even more terrifying is their sense of total impunity. If Obama was “democracy with a human face” then Trump is “democracy with a simian face” – not much better.

  When I think that a “Golden Tufted Cockatoo” (to use Fred Reeds wonderful image) has the authority to press the nuclear button I feel terrified. I also realize that the survival of the human species will depend on Putin and Xi and their ability to gradually disarm or neutralize the US threat without triggering a nuclear war.

  These are truly terrifying times. If you are not terrified, then you are delusional.

  But if being terrified is a natural and absolutely normal reaction, we need to overcome it and fearlessly resist. Like Maduro does, surrounded by his men.

  This refusal to be afraid, even while being terrified, is how we will eventually defeat the Empire!

  Venezuela is, by far, the weakest link in the chain of resistance to the Empire. But look at these faces!

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  All I can say is this: may the courage of the kids protecting not only Maduro, but also the sovereignty of their country, be an inspiration to us all, no matter how terrified we are.

  

• China Car Sales Tank 16.6% In April, Falling For A Record 11 Months In A Row

  No country has better exemplified the global automobile recession than China. Sales for the world’s largest auto market continue to deteriorate, with the latest report confirming that passenger vehicle sales in China tanked yet again – this time dropping 16.6% year-over-year to 1.54 million units, following a 12% decline in March and an 18.5% slide in February. In addition, April SUV sales fell 14.7% to 642,220 units.

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  The last time retail auto sales were up in China was all the way back in May 2018, meaning sales have declined for a record 11 months in a row.

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  The country’s slowing economy and continued trade tensions with the United States are weighing on consumer sentiment among its 1.4 billion people. Additionally, changes in tax policies and import tariffs have also acted as a headwind for car demand. Cars were the only consumer product category in China that shrank the first two months of 2019.

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  “There’s little hope for us to see positive signs for the auto market in the first half,” Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the industry group, said. As regular readers may recall, this is the same, once optimistic Cui who suggested in March that car sales “may recover in April”. He predicted poorly.

  Despite the market contracting, names like Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota all gained ground. Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.’s Wuling and Baojun brands both fell in April, according to LMC Automotive. Ford reported a 54% sales plunge in China last year and said last week that it’s introducing more than 30 vehicles targeted specifically for Chinese consumers over the next three years to help it hone its focus on the market. 

  Some additional data, according to Bloomberg:

  • Nissan Motor Co. reported a 2.9% sales decline 
  • Jaguar Land Rover posted a 46% drop
  • China’s Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. had a 19% decrease
  • Great Wall Motor Co. reported a 2.5% gain

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  The industry continues to hope for catalysts from the Chinese government, betting on consumer incentives like tax cuts. Last month, we noted that retail sales of sedans, SUVs, minivans and multipurpose vehicles dropped 12% to 1.78 million units, according to the China Passenger Car Association. This was after an 18.5% drop in February and a 4% drop in January.

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  Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, China’s biggest automaker, had said last month: “2019 will bring severe challenges.” Trying to rally his employees in an internal worker memo, he called for his company to “accelerate innovation and strive toward higher quality”. SAIC’s sales fell 17% in the first two months of 2019.

  Not only have we recently commented about collapses in other countries, noting auto registrations in Germany falling 1.1% in April, but we have also written about how the slowdown in the world of auto manufacturing is taking its toll on other industries, like the steel industry.

  Days ago, we wrote about European steelmakers offering lower profit guidance on the back of softness in the automobile industry. ArcelorMittal, for instance, expects demand in Europe to contract by 1% this year, compared to their earlier forecast of 1% growth. Regional lobby group Eurofer predicted earlier this year that demand would fall by 0.4%.

  The company said Thursday: “Market conditions in the first quarter of 2019 have been challenging. Demand has generally been lackluster, reflecting softness in manufacturing activity and continued weakness in automotive.”

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  The global auto recession has wreaked havoc, especially because products for cars are usually the most profitable for steelmakers. This is especially true for Germany’s premium brands that demand high-quality metal. The auto industry accounts for about 20% of total steel demand. Car sales in Europe have declined for seven straight months through March. 

  There was one small sliver of good news, as ArcelorMittal has projected demand will rise in China this year… but if April sales numbers are any indication, expect an adjusted downward revision in the coming days.

  

• The Latest Tariffs Come At A Time Of Weakening Economic Growth

  Authored by Bryce Coward via Knowledge Leaders Capital blog,

  The announced tariffs have come at a rather inopportune time, economically speaking.

  Back in 2018 when the US was slapping tariffs on washer machines and solar panels (January ’18), steel and aluminum (March ’18) and Chinese goods broadly (July ’18) the economy looked to be strong and was getting an added boost from tax cuts and the deregulation push.

  This time around, economic growth is weakening and the US faces added headwinds from monetary policy tightening and actual fiscal drag in 2020.

  As we can see in the charts below, whether we look at manufacturing trends, indicators of employment or small business conditions, previous tariff rounds occurred when the economy was significantly stronger than it is today.

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  This helped cushion the blow at the time, a luxury the economy does not have today.

  

• US Army Colonel: Pentagon's Latest China Report A "Budget Ploy" To Bleed The Taxpayer

  A former US Army Colonel has blasted Department of Defense’s (DOD) latest report on China’s military capabilities as a “budget ploy”. 

  “You’re looking at a situation where the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in terms of fixing any of this, is money — more and more money” retired Colonel Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson said of the DoD’s annual report prepared for Congress entitled, “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019”.

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  Wilkerson, who served as former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, described in an interview with The Real News that hyping the China threat taps into a well-trodden American pastime of fear-mongering in order to squeeze more precious taxpayer dollars towards inflated budgets. 

  The Pentagon report focused heavily on President Xi’s plans for rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), especially China’s ambitious plans for the region’s “largest navy” — which has lately included ongoing construction of the country’s third aircraft carrier (the first full-sized one), with plans for seven total by 2025.

  Watch the interview with Army Col. (ret.) Larry Wilkerson below.

  Col. Wilkerson dismissed the idea that China’s aircraft carrier or latest much reported naval modernization initiatives were real causes for concern:

  We’ve got a dozen [aircraft carriers]. They’ve got one at sea, one… about to come out, and another one perhaps, and ours are so far ahead of theirs that it’s 10, 15, 20 years before they even achieve the kind of capacity we have.

  He explained that “aircraft carriers are extraordinarily vulnerable and we’re going to find that out when one of them with 5,000 hands and $14bn worth of taxpayer money is sunk in less than 30 minutes, whenever we get engaged in something real.”

  Now a military analyst who teaches at The College of William & Mary in Virginia, Wilkerson addressed the familiar Pentagon cycle of threat inflation in the interview:

  The [US] army could not expand; it could not take on a real enemy today without massive conscription and full mobilization. And I wonder if the nation could even stand that today. And so, you’re looking at a situation where the only thing [the DOD] can ask for, in terms of fixing any of this, is money— more and more money.

  However, he did warn that the heightened rhetoric and blustering amidst a trade war could serve to paint both sides into a corner, resulting in a scenario of blindly bumbling toward war, as other analysts have described of the so-called “Thucydides Trap”.

  Wilkerson said an increasingly aggressive US posture toward Beijing could create a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” wherein each minor escalation based on inflating threats begins “demarcating the highway to war with China,” – according to the interview. 

  

• Can The US And China Ever Come To A Trade Agreement? It's Time For Some Behavioral Theory

  Submitted by Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

  Can the US and China come to a trade agreement? For Story Time Thursday we address that question with 2 behavioral finance studies. The first shows professional negotiators expect “fairness” during talks even more than laypeople. The second reveals significant cultural (US-China) differences on what constitutes a “fair” deal. Bottom line: markets like the predictability implicit in a model where companies/governments are profit/utility-maximizing agents. Behavioral finance reminds us that “fairness” can matter more.

  Aside from our reminiscences of working for Steve Cohen, behavioral finance is the most popular theme for Story Time Thursday. Today we have two studies from that field that both relate to the market’s topic du jour: the ongoing trade talks between the US and China.

  At the center of both analyses is the Ultimatum Game (UG), the most replicated study in the field. As a review of how it is structured and what it says about human nature here:

  • Two strangers walk into a room and a researcher has them call a coin toss. The winner of the toss gets a sum of money (we’ll use $100 in this example).

  • The winner must then offer some part of the $100 to the loser. If the loser accepts the split, both parties get to keep their shares. If the loser rejects the offer, then neither gets anything. Either way, the game is over.

  • In theory, the winner should offer $1 of the $100 and the loser should accept it because something is better than nothing.

  • In practice, countless UG studies have shown that losers almost always reject offers below $25 even though they “should” be happy to walk out with $1 – $10. The lesson of the Ultimatum Game: spite trumps classical marginal utility theory.

  That’s how “normal” people play the game, but do skilled negotiators follow the same playbook? In theory, they shouldn’t since they know even a sub-25% offer is better than walking away empty-handed. But then again, since they are facing off against another professional perhaps they would expect a fairer offer from a one-shot game and reject even 30%. So which is it?

  In 2014 researchers from several University of California schools published the results of a study that gave the answer. Over the course of 2 years they had 102 senior level US government officials and business leaders play an online version of the UG. Here were their results:

  • Elite negotiators make higher offers (average $43) than laypeople ($39).

  • But they also require higher offers to accept a deal: $31 versus $25 for the typical non-elite player.

  • The more experienced the elite bargainer, the more they offered and the higher their threshold was to make a deal.

  How this relates to US-China trade talks:

  • Now you know why President Trump and his team were so unhappy with China’s recent attempt to walk back previously agreed terms. Mr. Trump’s Sunday tweet that sparked recent market volatility is a textbook response when seen through the lens of this study.

  • Unfortunately, the behavior described in the study means both sides have to cede more ground than they want. Elite negotiators expect to see better-than-average offers, not worse. And their thresholds for taking a deal are higher.

  • The upshot may be that a successful deal is one where both sides give up more than they have publicly portrayed. Therefore, whether US investors see a deal as a positive to the US economy will come down to what China unexpectedly agrees to as much or more than what the American side gives up.

  The second Ultimatum Game study today goes to the question of cultural differences between the US and China. The work here comes from Chinese/German researchers and looked at whether older Chinese citizens who had lived under Mao played the UG differently from younger demographic cohorts. The short answer is yes, but the data in the study also highlights the cultural difference between Chinese UG players and those in the West:

  • All Chinese age cohorts require higher offers than the 25% (US layperson) – 31% (US elite) we noted in the prior study to accept a deal. They range from a low of 34.7% (oldest) to 42.4% (those born between 1951 and 1975). Worth noting: lead Chinese negotiator Liu He was born in 1952.

  • On the other side of the table, the mean offer for a Chinese UG player was also higher than average: 46 – 54% versus the 40% – 43% noted above.

  • The bottom line here is that while this is just one study the numbers show a marked cultural difference between Chinese and American participants.

  Where this leaves us: the Ultimatum Game is a good reminder that human decision-making during negotiations follows emotional guideposts, not financial/economic ones. Professional negotiators are no different than anyone else on that point and have even loftier expectations than laypeople. Culture also plays an underappreciated role.

  That is why capital markets are so completely captured by US-China negotiations: they simply do not follow the cut-and-dried rules of profit maximization. Even if both sides truly want to cut a “fair” deal, how they reach one and what even fits that term will be deeply clouded by human emotion and judgment.

  The bottom line: markets may seem volatile just now, but given the unpredictability of human nature when engaged in high stakes negotiations we think we’ve gotten off pretty cheaply so far… We doubt we’re out of the woods just yet.

  Sources:

  Elite negotiators: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/52/18536
  Chinese Ultimatum Game: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070769

  

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• "Second Invasion": Cyprus Slams Turkish Oil & Gas Drilling, Urges EU Action

  The president of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades has slammed Turkey for its “unprecedented escalation of illegal action” which constitutes a “second invasion” in the eastern Mediterranean, blaming Ankara of illegally drilling inside its exclusive economic zone. 

  Cyprus has this week raised the issue in an informal European Council meeting in Sibiu, Romania, with European Council President Donald Tusk planning to make official comments on the matter. EU leaders are also set to consider Cyprus’ allegations during meetings at the end of May and in June, which Cypriots fear could merely be more European lip service on the matter. 

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  Also on Thursday UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt also expressed Britain is “concerned by Turkey’s announcement to begin drilling in Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone,” according to Reuters. “This situation must be deescalated and all parties show restraint,” he said. “Hydrocarbons development should benefit all Cypriots and support a settlement,” the foreign secretary added. 

  Both the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government and Turkey – which occupies northern Cyprus – have overlapping claims of jurisdiction for offshore oil and gas research in the natural gas-rich eastern Mediterranean.

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  Turkey says it’s adhering to international law, to which Cypriot government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou responded by calling out “Turkey’s blatant and unprecedented violations” of Cyprus’ exclusive zone.

  Prodromou said that both Anastasiades’ and European People’s Party leadership “condemn the Turkish intervention (and) call on Turkey to abandon these illegal activities.” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras added that the crisis was “a European issue and not just a Cypriot one,” adding that “international law cannot be violated.”

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently been provocatively sending  warships near Cypriot waters in order to ward off foreign competition to oil and gas research, according to Cypriot officials, also seeking to bar Cypriot ships and planes from freely traversing its own European recognized waters. 

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  But Erdogan is also bumping up against other Mediterranean countries’ plans in the region — at a moment he’s engaged in multiple crises both domestic and related to the West — even as Turkey has long sought EU membership, per Haaretz:

  [Turkey] threatens to upset all the plans Israel, Egypt and Cyprus have for exploiting the vast natural gas resources of the Eastern Mediterranean.

  The latest installment of the gas crisis started last Friday when Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said the Turkish seismic research vessel Barbaros Hayrettin Pasa would be drilling for oil and gas “in areas of Turkey’s continental shelf.”

  Turkey has in the past demanded that Cyprus formally recognize the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (since 1974) and allow it to share revenues from Cypriot gas exploration. 

  Furthermore Turkey has laid claim to a waters extending a whopping 200 miles from its coast, brazenly asserting ownership over a swathe of the Mediterranean that even cuts into Greece’s exclusive economic zone. 

  Cyprus has also tried to drill exploratory wells in what it and the rest of the world, except Turkey, says is its own maritime zone, but Turkish warships scared off its vessels the last time it tried to do so in February last year. — EU Observer

  🇨🇾🇹🇷If true, this is an unacceptable violation of any international rule.
  According to the Cyrpus Times, the TDK (the Turkish Navy sends warships with license to fire, to “protect” TPAO drillship executing illegal exploration activity in CY EEZ.
  https://t.co/C2qpDlsVkY

  — Marco Florian Balkans & EastMed 🇮🇹🇺🇸🇪🇺 (@MarcoFlorianMED) May 8, 2019

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

  Such claims have been condemned by the US, European Union, and Egypt, with NATO officials recently signalling to Turkey that it was out of line. This as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu confirmed last week that “we are starting drilling” in the region.

  Should the Turkish military attempt to enforce its drilling claims and run up against Cypriot and Greek vessels, it could spark a deadly encounter which would force the EU and NATO to finally weigh in more forcefully. 

  

• Craig Murray: The Real Muellergate Scandal

  Authored by Craig Murray,

  Robert Mueller is either a fool, or deeply corrupt. I do not think he is a fool.

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  I did not comment instantly on the Mueller Report as I was so shocked by it, I have been waiting to see if any other facts come to light in justification. Nothing has. I limit myself here to that area of which I have personal knowledge – the leak of DNC and Podesta emails to Wikileaks. On the wider question of the corrupt Russian 1% having business dealings with the corrupt Western 1%, all I have to say is that if you believe that is limited in the USA by party political boundaries, you are a fool.

  On the DNC leak, Mueller started with the prejudice that it was “the Russians” and he deliberately and systematically excluded from evidence anything that contradicted that view.

  Mueller, as a matter of determined policy, omitted key steps which any honest investigator would undertake. He did not commission any forensic examination of the DNC servers. He did not interview Bill Binney. He did not interview Julian Assange. His failure to do any of those obvious things renders his report worthless.

  There has never been, by any US law enforcement or security service body, a forensic examination of the DNC servers, despite the fact that the claim those servers were hacked is the very heart of the entire investigation. Instead, the security services simply accepted the “evidence” provided by the DNC’s own IT security consultants, Crowdstrike, a company which is politically aligned to the Clintons.

  That is precisely the equivalent of the police receiving a phone call saying:

  “Hello? My husband has just been murdered. He had a knife in his back with the initials of the Russian man who lives next door engraved on it in Cyrillic script. I have employed a private detective who will send you photos of the body and the knife. No, you don’t need to see either of them.”

  There is no honest policeman in the world who would agree to that proposition, and neither would Mueller were he remotely an honest man.

  Two facts compound this failure.

  The first is the absolutely key word of Bill Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA, the USA’s $14 billion a year surveillance organisation. Bill Binney is an acknowledged world leader in cyber surveillance, and is infinitely more qualified than Crowdstrike. Bill states that the download rates for the “hack” given by Crowdstrike are at a speed – 41 Megabytes per second – that could not even nearly be attained remotely at the location: thus the information must have been downloaded to a local device, eg a memory stick. Binney has further evidence regarding formatting which supports this.

  Mueller’s identification of “DC Leaks” and “Guccifer 2.0” as Russian security services is something Mueller attempts to carry off by simple assertion. Mueller shows DNC Leaks to have been the source of other, unclassified emails sent to Wikileaks that had been obtained under a Freedom of Information request and then Mueller simply assumes, with no proof, the same route was used again for the leaked DNC material. His identification of the Guccifer 2.0 persona with Russian agents is so flimsy as to be laughable. Nor is there any evidence of the specific transfer of the leaked DNC emails from Guccifer 2.0 to Wikileaks. Binney asserts that had this happened, the packets would have been instantly identifiable to the NSA.

  Bill Binney is not a “deplorable”. He is the former Technical Director of the NSA. Mike Pompeo met him to hear his expertise on precisely this matter. Binney offered to give evidence to Mueller. Yet did Mueller call him as a witness? No. Binney’s voice is entirely unheard in the report.

  Mueller’s refusal to call Binney and consider his evidence was not the action of an honest man.

  The second vital piece of evidence we have is from Wikileaks Vault 7 release of CIA material, in which the CIA themselves outline their capacity to “false flag” hacks, leaving behind misdirecting clues including scraps of foreign script and language. This is precisely what Crowdstrike claim to have found in the “Russian hacking” operation.

  So here we have Mueller omitting the key steps of independent forensic examination of the DNC servers and hearing Bill Binney’s evidence. Yet this was not for lack of time. While deliberately omitting to take any steps to obtain evidence that might disprove the “Russian hacking” story, Mueller had boundless time and energy to waste in wild goose chases after totally non-existent links between Wikileaks and the Trump campaign, including the fiasco of interviewing Roger Stone and Randy Credico.

  It is worth remembering that none of the charges against Americans arising from the Mueller inquiry have anything to do with Russian collusion or Trump-Wikileaks collusion, which simply do not exist. The charges all relate to entirely extraneous matters dug up, under the extraordinary US system of “Justice”, to try to blackmail those charged with unrelated crimes turned up by the investigation, into fabricating evidence of Russian collusion. The official term for this process of blackmail is of course “plea-bargaining.”

  Mueller has indicted 12 Russians he alleges are the GRU agents responsible for the “hack”. The majority of these turn out to be real people who, ostensibly, have jobs and lives which are nothing to do with the GRU. Mueller was taken aback when, rather than simply being in absentia, a number of them had representation in court to fight the charges. Mueller had to back down and ask for an immediate adjournment as soon as the case opened, while he fought to limit disclosure. His entire energies since on this case have been absorbed in submitting motions to limit disclosure, individual by individual, with the object of ensuring that the accused Russians can be convicted without ever seeing, or being able to reply to, the evidence against them. Which is precisely the same as his attitude to contrary evidence in his Report.

  Mueller’s failure to examine the servers or take Binney’s evidence pales into insignificance compared to his attack on Julian Assange. Based on no conclusive evidence, Mueller accuses Assange of receiving the emails from Russia. Most crucially, he did not give Assange any opportunity to answer his accusations. For somebody with Mueller’s background in law enforcement, declaring somebody in effect guilty, without giving them any opportunity to tell their side of the story, is plain evidence of malice.

  Inexplicably, for example, the Mueller Report quotes a media report of Assange stating he had “physical proof” the material did not come from Russia, but Mueller simply dismisses this without having made any attempt at all to ask Assange himself.

  It is also particularly cowardly as Julian was and is held incommunicado with no opportunity to defend himself. Assange has repeatedly declared the material did not come from the Russian state or from any other state. He was very willing to give evidence to Mueller, which could have been done by video-link, by interview in the Embassy or by written communication. But as with Binney and as with the DNC servers, the entirely corrupt Mueller was unwilling to accept any evidence which might contradict his predetermined narrative.

  Mueller’s section headed “The GRU’s Transfer of Stolen Material to Wikileaks” is a ludicrous farrago of internet contacts between Wikileaks and persons not proven to be Russian, transferring material not proven to be the DNC leaks. It too is destroyed by Binney and so pathetic that, having pretended he had proven the case of internet transfer, Mueller then gives the game away by adding “The office cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred by intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016”. He names Mr Andrew Muller-Maguhn as a possible courier. Yet again, he did not ask Mr Muller-Maguhn to give evidence. Nor did he ask me, and I might have been able to help him on a few of these points.

  To run an “investigation” with a pre-determined idea as to who are the guilty parties, and then to name and condemn those parties in a report, without hearing the testimony of those you are accusing, is a method of proceeding that puts the cowardly and corrupt Mr Mueller beneath contempt.

  Mueller gives no evidence whatsoever to back up his simple statement that Seth Rich was not the source of the DNC leak. He accuses Julian Assange of “dissembling” by referring to Seth Rich’s murder. It is an interesting fact that the US security services have shown precisely the same level of interest in examining Seth Rich’s computers that they have shown in examining the DNC servers. It is also interesting that this murder features in a report of historic consequences like that of Mueller, yet has had virtually no serious resource put into finding the killer.

  Mueller’s condemnation of Julian Assange for allegedly exploiting the death of Seth Rich, would be infinitely more convincing if the official answer to the question “who murdered Seth Rich?” was not “who cares?”.

  *  *  *

  Subscriptions to keep Craig’s blog going are gratefully received.

  

• Rio's Cops Are The Most Violent In The World

  Last week, news emerged that police killings in the state of Rio de Janeiro hit a record high, rising 18 percent in the first three months of 2019.

  According to data analyzed by the Associated Press, police officers in Rio killed 434 people over the course of those three months compared to 368 people during the same period in 2018.

  As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the rise in killings can be attributed to a zero tolerance policy towards criminals by state leaders, particularly Gov. Wilson Witzel, a former marine and political ally of President Bolsonaro.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Rio’s authorities are known to be the most violent in the world.

  Last month, the city made headlines when an army patrol fired more than 80 shots at a car, killing the driver and injuring a passer-by. No weapons were found inside the vehicle and it turned out the driver was on his way to a baby shower.

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  Even though the police criticized the army for shooting up the car, they themselves killed 1,534 people last year.

  Putting that figure into perspective, 992 people were killed by the police across the entire United States in 2018, according to the Washington Post.

  

• US Hikes China Tariffs After Talks Result In No Progress; China Vows To Retaliate

  After much theatrics and 11th hour negotiations, the US more than doubled tariffs to 25% on more than $200 billion in good imports from China just after midnight on Friday in what has been dubbed the “most dramatic step yet” in Donald Trump’s crusade to extract trade concessions from Beijing, deepening a nearly two-year old conflict that has roiled global markets and impacted the world economy.

  While the White House said in a statement that talks are set to resume Friday, setting the stage for a tense final day of negotiations between Liu He, China’s vice premier and Robert Lighthizer, the US trade rep, Bloomberg reports that according to “close observers” there is little hope for any meaningful breakthroughs, especially since Liu does not have the authority to make any meaningful commitments, while an alleged phone call between Trump and president Xi yielded no positive results. It was also unclear, Bloomberg adds, whether China had resolved the internal debates that had led to last week’s rescinding of prior commitments to enshrine reforms agreed in Chinese law.

  News that the US would hike tariffs, and set off a sequence of events that would most likely result in further escalation pushed US equity futures, treasury yields and the USDJPY lower around midnight.

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  In response to the tariff hike, China immediately said in a statement it “deeply regrets the latest tariff hike” and that it will be forced to take countermeasures against the US actions, but didn’t specify how, even as it said that it sill hopes the two sides can resolve issues via ongoing consultations.

  #China’s full statement on U.S. tariff hikes. Note: no word on what the countermeasures will be. pic.twitter.com/R3oauTVx8T

  — Eunice Yoon (@onlyyoontv) May 10, 2019

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  The tariff hike came after brief discussions between Liu He and his U.S. counterparts in Washington made little progress on Thursday, with the mood around them downbeat, according to people familiar with the talks. The negotiations were due to resume on Friday morning Washington time.

  Before the late Thursday talks, Liu told Chinese state media he was coming to Washington “under pressure but with sincerity” and warned that a move to raise tariffs by the U.S. starting Friday was not a solution and would be painful for both China and the U.S.

  It was also not exactly clear how China could retaliate, as Beijing can no longer match the U.S. tariffs dollar-for-dollar because they simply don’t buy enough American goods. According to analysts, among Beijing options include:

  • Placing tariffs on the remainder of U.S. goods that haven’t been affected yet, or raising existing tariffs (25% is not a ceiling).
  • Devaluing the Yuan, either gradually or in one sharp move, similar to what China did in August 2015
  • China could also invoke the nuclear option and dump US securities, but that’s been called the mutual assured destruction option for good reason, as it would hurt China’s economy as much as it would impair US asset prices.
  • China could also escalate non-tariff barriers, making it difficult for US inspection processes and more painful investment approvals.

  Making matters worse, ahead of Thursday’s talks, Trump said the U.S. would go ahead with preparations to impose 25% tariffs on a further $325 billion in goods from China, raising the prospect that all of China’s goods exports to the U.S. – roughly $540 billion last year – would be subject to new import duties.

  Curiously, at roughly the same time, Trump sought to clam financial markets after he said it was still possible to reach a deal this week, and noted that he may hold a phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi. However, by late Thursday, no call between the two leaders had taken place nor had one been scheduled, according to a senior Trump administration official quoted by Bloomberg.

  The market reaction to the new tariffs has been modest because, as previewed earlier by Goldman, there is still a grace period before the sanctions truly impact Chinese goods – they will only affect goods that are shipped after the midnight deadline, and any other goods already in transit will be exempt. This, as Goldman’s Alec Phillips explained, gives the two sides a few more weeks of back and forth discussion to reach some compromise.

  The problem, of course, is that it is now that much more difficult for either side to backtrack without losing face, making an amicable resolution over the next fortnight virtually impossible.

  Meanwhile, the latest escalation in trade tensions between the U.S. and China, which emerged out of the blue this past Sunday in two Trump tweets, roiled financial markets around the world with investors who had been expecting a deal as recently as a week ago forced to confront a sharp turnaround in expectations. The S&P 500 retreated for a fourth day Thursday, falling into its worst stretch of losses this year.

  Paradoxically, to some the escalation in trade war could be positive for asset prices as it would force central banks to become even more dovish: “A U.S. tariff hike on Chinese imports, should it materialize Friday, would hasten and broaden the policy easing cycle in Asia. Those central banks considering a shift to an easing bias would likely be a lot less hesitant in the event of higher tariff barriers” said Chang Shu, Chief Asia Economist at Bloomberg Economics. Earlier today, Peter Schiff suggested that the latest trade war incident is just the excuse Trump needs to force the Fed to either cut rates, or launch QE4, or both.

  Responding to the latest developments, Credit Suisse South Asia CIO, Ray Farris, said “Our core view is that a deal is still more likely than not, but that following this tariff rate increase it may take some more time” adding that the “resulting market volatility is likely to provide buying opportunities in U.S. and Chinese equities and credit, but it is probably too early in this process to be confident.” He warned that the “clear risk is that the current U.S.-China talks in Washington end without any resolution and Trump is not able to announce any plans for a conversation with Xi.”

  While China has denied the collapse in talks was its fault as the White House has charged, Trump seized on recent strong economic data as a sign that his trade wars are working and may even be boosting growth. Indeed, trade data released Thursday showed the U.S. trade deficit with China decreased to the narrowest in almost three years as imports slowed and exports advanced. Strong GDP and jobs numbers in recent weeks, but most importantly an all time high in the S&P, have also emboldened Trump.

  “When people looked at the economic numbers, they were shocked. When they look at the import-export numbers they were shocked,” Trump said Thursday. “Try looking at all of the tariffs that China’s been paying us for the last eight months. Billions and billions of dollars.”

  Yet while Trump insists that incremental tariffs will paid for by China most, economists counter that the rising costs will be absorbed by American companies and consumers, resulting in a burst of inflation just as the global economy is slowing rapidly, resulting in what may be the first episode of global stagflation in decades, the worst possible outcome for investors, as central banks will be prevented from intervening in capital markets if inflation is overly hot.

  Finally, while it is anyone’s guess what happens next, rating agency Moody’s said that while it believes that a trade deal will eventually be reached between the U.S. and China, “the risk of a complete breakdown in trade talks has certainly increased.”

  Higher tariffs by U.S. exacerbates the uncertainty in the global trading environment, further raises tensions between the US and China, negatively affects global sentiment and adds to risk aversion globally, according to Moody’s, which also warned that that the rise in tariffs “ccould also lead globally to the repricing of risk assets, tighter financing conditions, and slower growth.”

  And now we await as CNBC pundits will explain how this outcome is the best possible one for stocks.

  

• Paul Craig Roberts: Are You Ready For A Worse Dystopia Than 1984?

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  I have been lonely in my concern with the dire economic implications of robotics, but now Clarity Press has provided me with some company by publishing The Artificial Intelligence Contagion by David Barnhizer and Daniel Barnhizer.  It is telling as to the irrelevance of the economics profession that the coauthors are lawyers. 

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  The concerns about robots and artificial intelligence have come from scientists who express worries about killer robots with super intelligence taking over from dumber humans with less capabilities.  Possibly, but it is more likely that these kind of concerns stem from an incorrect model or understanding of mind, consciousness, and creativity.  I do wish that Michael Polanyi were still with us to give us his take on our proclivity to attribute intelligence to machines.

  The coauthors briefly mention these threats as well as the very real and already present  threats from governments armed with the intrusive surveillance and control that the digital revolution and artificial intelligence make possible.  Warnings from Stephen Hawking, Nick Bostrom, and Elon Musk of an immortal godlike superintelligence, amoral at best and immoral at worse, that will determine our fate are speculative, but the adverse economic impact of robotics are already upon us. Thus, the main focus  of the coauthors is on the massive economic dislocation that will result from making people superfluous. 

  Recently, I read about a smart machine that displaces warehouse workers and also the workers at the plants that make the mechanical forklift machines that warehouse workers use to move and stack the crates and boxes. As the smart machines themselves are made by robots, the forklift production workers are also displaced.

  According to the latest job report, there are 1,192,000 people employed in warehouses. Unlike the forklift, the new smart machine does not contribute to increasing the productivity of labor. Instead the smart machine displaces labor by eliminating the need for people to do the work.  Every dollar that would have been paid in wages goes instead into the profits of the warehouse owners. This is the great difference between earlier innovations that increased human productivity and living standards and the AI robotic innovation that eliminates the need for humans and makes them redundant. 

  Robotics will not be implemented everywhere all at once. it will come upon us in stages. The 1.2 million displaced warehouse workers will look for other jobs. The lucky few will find one. The rest will join the unemployment ranks until they become discouraged and are dropped out of the unemployment measure.  State, local, and federal tax revenues will decline as a result of the lost jobs. But unemployment compensation and other social welfare benefits will rise. With constrained or nonexistent incomes, 1.2 million people will have less participation in the retail market. Car sales, home sales, restaurant, clothing, and entertainment sales all decline. The Social Security and Medicare payroll tax revenues decline by the earnings of 1.2 million Americans as do pension contributions. Social Security and Medicare are funded by the current work force paying for the retired work force.  As robotics eliminates the current work force, payroll tax revenues collapse.  

  For an unknown period of time, as the US dollar is the world reserve currency, the federal government can print money to fill in the gap in the difference between Social Security and Medicare benefits and payroll revenues.  But large parts of the world (Russia and China) have already been driven away by sanctions from using the US dollar, and this means that the dollar will lose its reserve currency role.  Then what do we do when there are untold millions of Americans expecting Social Security pensions and medical care and there is no work force to pay the payroll tax?

  These kind of questions, and there are many more, should be the primary focus of every economist, not that it would do much good as neoliberal economists are indoctrinated beings incapable of thought.  Nevertheless, that there is no concern among economists shows their irrelevance and uselessness.

  Many years ago I pointed out that under present law and practice, the entirety of the GDP would flow to the handful of owners of the robotic and AI patents.  There would be no income for anyone else.  Such a situation is not possible, because it would mean that the patents would produce no income for the owners as no one would have jobs and incomes with which to purchase the products of robots and artificial intelligence.  The obvious dilemma I described received no response.

  One way of looking at our dilemma is that we need artificial intelligence because those bringing us the AI revolution have no intelligence themselves.  How intelligent is it to make humans useless?  How intelligent is it to have robotic production lines when no humans have incomes from jobs with which to purchase the output of robots?  

  Well, you might say, we will make the owners of the robots pay the payroll taxes from their sales revenues. We will guarantee sales by socializing the patents and sending everyone a check for their share of the GDP.  And so on.  

  But why?  Why eliminate the need for human labor when no gain can accrue to the elite as there would be no consumer market for their products? The cost savings from robotics and artificial intelligence are meaningless when there are no consumers at the other end. When the patents have to be socialized in order to support a population displaced by robotics, what is the point of the robotics?

  The coauthors of Contagion, and that is what artificial intelligence is, understand that humans with their limited awareness and intelligence have found intellectual interests in developing the means for their own self destruction.  Nuclear weapons, for example, are an insane accomplishment of mindless idiots, because they can not enter general use without destroying all life on the planet.  A doomsday weapon is a pointless weapon.

  The same for robotics and artificial intelligence.  What is the purpose of producing threats to humans from police states and by taking away all purposes for human  existence?  This is a mindless act.  Those responsible for it are the worst criminals the world has ever known.  Yet these destroyers of humanity bask in public approval for all the benefits they are bringing to mankind.

  Read The Artificial Intelligence Contagion and then tell me about the benefits.

  

• Australia Prints Embarrassing Typo On 46 Million $50 Banknotes

  Australia has become mired in a currency crisis of its own making.

  The RBA confirmed Thursday that 46 million new A$50 bank notes have been printed with an embarrassing typo. The “new and improved” notes, which incorporated new technologies to prevent counterfeiting, were rolled out in October.

  But the notes also include an unanticipated defect: The word “responsibility” is misspelled in the yellow note’s “micro-text.” The copy editors apparently missed the fact that the second “i” was missing.

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  The note features the indigenous writer and inventor David Unaipon on one side, and Edith Cowan, the country’s first female member of Parliament, on the other.

  The error occurred on Cowan’s side, which included an excerpt from one of her most famous speeches (sexist).

  “It is a great responsibilty [sic] to be the only woman here, and I want to emphasise the necessity which exists for other women being here,” the note reads.

  A spokeswoman for the RBA has confirmed that the central bank is “aware” of the error, and that it would be corrected in the next run, which means these notes will almost certainly become collector’s items some day.

  So “no ragrets,” right?

  

• The Ultimate Goal Of Globalists Is To Make You Into A Monster Just Like Them

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

  In recent months I have been writing extensively about the psychology of globalists as well as the strange cult-like beliefs that drive their philosophies. In my article ‘Global Elitists Are Not Human’ I outlined evidence that globalist motives and behavior are directly comparable to the ideals and behavior of narcissistic sociopaths (or what some people might refer to as psychopaths). I theorized that globalists are in fact a highly organized cult of narcissistic sociopaths, that they look for the inborn character trait of sociopathy in the people that they recruit, and that these people are like a separate species from normal human beings, as they lack most traits that we would associate with normal human behavior such as empathy and self examination.

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  In my article ‘Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A Destructive Globalist Belief System’, I showcased evidence that globalists and their institutions (like the United Nations) were tied to the luciferian philosophical cult. I also explored my epiphany that luciferianism was actually a religion designed by narcissistic sociopaths for narcissistic sociopaths; a belief system that exonerates and applauds their destructive behaviors.

  To reiterate, the only way to understand the methods and madness of globalists is to research and understand the thinking of narcissistic sociopaths. This is, I believe, the big secret that we are not supposed to know about. The root factor that could change the world is if humanity finally realized that these people are not like us – they are a parasitic species which feeds off of us, and they are identifiable if you know what to look for.

  Here are a few ground rules to understanding how such predators think and operate:

  1) Narcissistic sociopaths make up around 1% to 5% of the total population, and are present in every culture and ethnicity. The vast majority of them carry the traits from birth. Many of them remain latent, meaning, they function within society and avoid destructive behavior because the environment makes this behavior unacceptable. However, at least 1% are full-blown psychopaths.  During times of crisis and uncertainty people with latent traits tend to revert to destructive psychopathic behaviors because there are no social consequences to restrict them.

  2) A psychopath is not insane in the manner many people might assume. Psychopaths are highly cognizant of their surroundings, and are adept at manipulating the people around them for their own gain. They know how to blend in, though, even the most skilled chameleons make mistakes and show their true colors  They are also very aware when they are committing an evil act; they simply don’t care and feel no regret or remorse.

  3) Psychopaths organize with each other constantly as long as there is a promise of personal gain involved. I’m not sure why, but there is a misconception among many people that all psychopaths are “loners” that do not work with anyone. I can only attribute this belief to mainstream propaganda. The most effective psychopaths hunt in packs. This can easily be seen in criminal enterprises such as cartels, the mob, certain corporate entities that have been exposed, and very often in governments.

  I have personally witnessed multiple narc/sociopaths operate together in the same space. These people barely knew each other in some cases, but somehow picked up on instinctual cues and started working together to take over the room and dominate everyone’s attention and time. I have also witnessed narc/sociopaths help each other at random by manipulating a victim or mark back into position so that another narc/sociopath can continue feeding off of them.

  Those people who claim that psychopaths could never organize into a conspiracy or cabal because they would sabotage each other have no understanding whatsoever as to how these criminals actually function.

  4) Psychopathic people account for the vast majority of violent crime and fraud in the US and consume astonishing resources in terms of taxpayer dollars. There is also NO KNOWN METHOD of rehabilitation for these people. Why? Because narcissism and sociopathy are generally inherent at birth, and they make up the bulk of a psychopath’s personality. Take these two traits away, and the psychopath no longer has a personality. I repeat – these people cannot be fixed. They are what they are and will never change because they have no capacity for self examination and no other personality to fall back on.

  5) Psychopaths often have very short attention spans, except when they are engaged in a predatory agenda. This might seem like a contradiction. How could they be so observant of the people around them to the point that they are expert manipulators, while also being oblivious? It is primarily a matter of predatory instinct.

  They do not care about normal human associations and interactions if they are not getting fuel for their narcissism from the exchange. They may go through the motions of pretending that they are human, or, they may not. But, if they see an opportunity for gain at the expense of others, they suddenly become hyperfocused and highly industrious.

  This is another behavior I have also witnessed personally. I have met narc/sociopaths that were lazy beyond all belief in their daily lives and who had no capacity to listen to other people even when the information might be useful. At the same time, when they saw a target or victim that they could exploit, they would suddenly plan elaborate schemes, spending months of energy building a web of lies and creating a chain of machinations to obtain what they coveted. If you are not familiar with narc/sociopaths, this kind of conduct will come off as extremely bizarre and befuddling.

  6) Their lack of attention span in daily circumstances can be partly attributed to their addiction to dopamine. When they do focus, it is only to satisfy a dopamine rush, and the actions that give them the most dopamine rush are usually destructive or aberrant. Of course, over time the actions which gave them dopamine in the past become inadequate, and so they seek out even more aberrant and depraved activities to get the same high. Most narc/sociopaths will willingly engage in the most disturbed and twisted victimization imaginable just to feel a sharper flood of dopamine, as long as they think there will be no consequences.

  7) Narc/sociopaths are not necessarily more intelligent or impressive, though they do tend to score higher than average in terms of IQ. They usually do not excel in anything, because they have no patience for mastery of a particular subject or skill. That said, they have a highly developed survival sense, in that they are very good at exploiting the skills of others. Meaning, they are good at manipulating other people who are intelligent and skilled and feeding off of their efforts.

  This does not always last, though, as the people they exploit start to realize what is happening and cut the narc/sociopath loose. Most narc/sociopaths will cycle through non-narc associates quickly, and have no real “friends”. In an organized psychopathic group, everything is based on mutual gain and the targeting of victims. They are not friends or compatriots.

  8) Narc/sociopaths are invariably cowards, and will rarely fight on a level playing field. They will either run, stab you in the back if they can, or use other people to do their dirty work.

  Finally, narc/sociopaths have one particular quirk or obsession which I rarely see discussed, but it is a behavior which I think is central to explaining the methodology of globalists. Narc/sociopaths see themselves as far superior (or godlike) compared to normal people, and they view empathy and the capacity for joy in everyday things as weakness and foolishness. Therefore, they feel justified in their pursuit of dominance and exploitation of others. However, they also understand that they would be considered monstrous by society and face punishment if they are ever exposed.

  They know to some extent that they are not human, that they are vampires that need to remain hidden in order to leech off of humans. In their pursuit of dopamine, they have probably engaged in some extremely evil activities, including fraud, corruption, rape, pedophilia or even murder. They don’t personally have any guilt over such actions, but, they know they would be burned at the stake for them.

  Being that they see themselves as superior to the rest of us, they find it reprehensible that they should have to hide their true nature. They are “gods” among men, and it is demeaning to them to have to skulk about in the dark, or play act as if they are like us. The final behavior of narc/sociopaths that I want to mention here is their need to either prove that everyone else is just like them, or their need to make everyone else just as monstrous as they are.

  I see this in particular with globalists; almost every agenda they engage in has an element of propaganda which encourages people to embrace a morally relativistic philosophy. They want us to engage in atrocities and view them as perfectly acceptable.

  This is perhaps the primary rationale behind globalist engineered crisis events. In each instance of crisis, we are told that moral ambiguity is necessary in order to survive, and that empathy and principles are for suckers, or for times of peace only. We are also told that the natural states of human behavior and society are wrong and that we must accept the exact opposite, otherwise we are “bigoted” and are holding society back from progress.

  Sure, there is also the elitist goal of convincing the masses to go along with less freedom and more centralization, and this cannot be discounted. But, there is also an underlying and more sought after goal of erasing our humanity altogether. From moral relativism, to digital distraction and our ever shortening attention spans, to the masses being encouraged to chase ever more dopamine, to the demonization of natural masculinity and femininity, to gender dysphoria, to the overt obsession with sexual gratification, to our growing acceptance of government subjugation as long as it is against our political opponents, to the use of war as a means to expand political influence – the globalists are attempting to turn human psychological reality on its head and make us just like them.

  The problem for them is, we are not like them. Conscience and empathy are inherent and inborn qualities for us, just as narcissism and sociopathy are inborn qualities for them. We are undeniably different at a fundamental level.  This is why they are forced to construct narratives of reason around the insanity they want us to approve of.  They are forced to present evil actions as if they are for the greater good, because very few people would go along with them otherwise. They have spent the better part of centuries (maybe longer) trying to find ways to undermine our humanity, and have met with constant interference.

  I sometimes take comfort in the fact that while the conspiracies of evil are always present and on the attack, they still fail to get what they truly want above all else. While the powers of good are not as visible at times, they are subtle and intricate, and cannot be easily undone.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  

• Chicago Cubs Ban Fan Who Flashed 4chan-Memed "OK" Hand Gesture Behind Black Reporter

  A Chicago Cubs fan who flashed the “OK” hand gesture behind a black reporter has been “indefinitely” banned from Wrigley Field, according to a Wednesday statement from the team. 

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  “If he attempts to enter Wrigley Field or other ticketed areas he may be subject to prosecution for criminal trespass to property,” reads the statement. 

  Kenney said earlier Wednesday that the club was investigating the incident “because no one should be subjected to this type of offensive behavior.”

  “Such ignorant and repulsive behavior is not tolerated at Wrigley Field,” Kenney said.

  …

  Kevin Cross, the senior vice president of NBC Sports Chicago said the network was “disappointed by the incident that took place on our air … one that was at the expense of our colleague Doug Glanville.”

  “We find the behavior of this fan reprehensible and clearly does not represent the great Cubs fans of our city and those around the country,” Cross said. –NBC News

  The reporter, Doug Glanville, thanked NBC Sports and the Chicago Cubs for launching an investigation. “They have displayed sensitivity as to how the implications of this would affect me as a person of color,” he said. 

  Am I seeing things or is this jack wagon behind Glanville flashing the white supremacy sign? @SarahSpain @BleacherNation pic.twitter.com/6p7d79vIVR

  — Chad Rehan (@ChadRehan) May 8, 2019

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  The extremely common hand gesture was used to troll liberals after anonymous users of the message board 4chan ‘memed’ it into a faux symbol of white power. 

  A February, 2017 post to the message board titled “Operation O-KKK” reads “We must flood twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy,” and recommended using the hashtag “#PowerHandPrivelege” to promote the joke. “Bonus points if your profile pic is something related to supporting feminism,” the post continues.

  “Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy. We must force to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that shit.” 

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  Unsurprisingly, the Anti-Defamation League took the bait hook, line and sinker – after attorney and supporter of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Zina Bash, was accused of displaying a “white power gesture” during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. 

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  The ADL acknowledges that that symbol’s relation to ‘white power’ is a hoax campaign, however they claim that white supremacists have adopted it – thus making it super racist. 

  But “by 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy,” said the ADL. 

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  Will Apple, Google and Samsung do something about their racist emojis?

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  Hacker 4chan strikes again… 

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• America In Denial: Dr. Gabor Maté On The Psychology Of Russiagate

  Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

  The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté has done an interview with his father titled “America in denial: Gabor Maté on the psychology of Russiagate”, and it is the single best and most insightful political video I’ve ever seen. In 27 minutes it essentially describes the fundamental problems of our times, not just with Russiagate but with world politics as a whole, from the overarching behaviors of globe-dominating forces all the way down to the ways our own inner reluctance to face reality objectively helps to prop up those forces. So it deserves its own article.

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  Back when I learned that Gabor was Aaron’s father my first thought was, “That makes so much sense.” Aaron had exploded onto the Russiagate debate scene seemingly out of nowhere and quickly became the most thorough and lucid voice on the subject, holding to strict principles of valuing facts and evidence over the aggressive pressure to conform from his media peers and the authoritative assertions of government agencies. Gabor I’d known of for years because of how widely respected he is in other circles I’ve moved in for his penetrating insights into the human psyche. It makes perfect sense that someone with the moral fortitude to swim against the groupthink current and speak the truth no matter what would have someone like that as part of his personal formation.

  I highly recommend watching the full interview, but since I know many of my readers aren’t big on watching videos I’ll sum up what I consider the highlights here with excerpts from the Grayzone transcript, because I really do think it’s that good and that important.

  The elder Maté talked about the public support for the Russiagate narrative, and the inevitable disappointment which followed after Robert Mueller failed to turn up any evidence of collusion between the Russian government and the 2016 Trump campaign, as the result of emotional investment.

  “Now, disappointment means that you’re expecting something and you wanted something to happen, and it didn’t happen,” Maté said.

  “So that means that some people wanted Mueller to find evidence of collusion, which means that emotionally they were invested in it. It wasn’t just that they wanted to know the truth. They actually wanted the truth to look a certain way. And wherever we want the truth to look a certain way, there’s some reason that has to do with their own emotional needs and not just with the concern for reality.”

  Gabor explained that the reason for this emotional investment ensued from the trauma of seeing Trump elected. They had the choice between consciously feeling through the pain and fear of that trauma and then doing some serious examinations of the factors that led to Trump’s election, or blaming the whole thing on a foreign boogeyman and avoiding that self-confrontation altogether.

  “You can look at that,” Maté explained. “Or you can say there must be a devil somewhere behind all this, and that devil is a foreign power, and his name is Putin, and his country is Russia. Now you’ve got a simple explanation that doesn’t invite you or necessitate that you explore your own pain and your own fear and your own trauma.”

  “So I really believe that really this Russiagate narrative was, on the part of a lot of people, a sign of genuine upset at something genuinely upsetting,” Maté continued. “But rather than dealing with the upset, it was an easier way to in a sense draw off the energy of it in to some kind of a believable and comforting narrative. It’s much more comforting to believe that some enemy is doing this to us than to look at what does it say about us as a society.”

  Maté went on to discuss Trump himself as not just traumatizing, but traumatized. Someone acting out his own inner issues in the world in a deeply unconscious way:

  Donald Trump is the clearest example of a traumatized politician one could ever see. He’s in denial of reality all the time. He is self aggrandizing. His fundamental self concept is that of a nobody. So he has to make himself huge and big all the time and keep proving to the world how powerful and smart, what kind of degrees he’s got and how smart he is. It’s a compensation for terrible self image. He can’t pay attention to anything, which means that his brain is too scattered because it was too painful for him to pay attention.

  What does this all come down to? The childhood that we know that he had in the home of a dictatorial child disparaging father… who demeaned his children mercilessly. One of Trump’s brothers drank himself to death. And Trump compensates for all that by trying to make himself as big and powerful and successful as possible. And, of course, he makes up for his anger towards his mother for not protecting him by attacking women and exploiting women and boasting about it publicly. I mean, it’s a clear trauma example. I’m not saying this to invite sympathy for Trump’s politics. I’m just describing that that’s who the man is.

  Maté tied his observations about the refusal of Russiagaters to confront their inner trauma and Trump’s refusal to confront his to the refusal of Americans as a whole to confront the horrors that their own country has inflicted upon the world which dwarf even the most severe things the Russian government has been accused of doing to America.

  “No serious student of history can possibly deny how the United States has interfered in the internal politics of just about every nation on earth,” Maté said, adding that this interference often consists of mass murder. “For example, in Chile, there’s an elected government that America cheerfully overthrows, even boasts about it. Not to mention the current interference in Venezuela, the internal politics. Not to mention, how as you’ve pointed out, many others have pointed out, and [Time] boasts about it on its cover, about how United States helped Boris Yeltsin get elected… Even if the worst thing that’s alleged about the Russians is true, it’s not even on miniscule proportion of what America has publicly acknowledged it has done all around the world.”

  Maté talked about how “it’s always easier to see ourselves as the victims than as the perpetrators,” adding that “whether it’s Great Britain, or whether it’s France with their vast colonial empires, they’re always the victims of everybody else. The United States is always the victim of everybody else. All these enemies that are threatening us. It’s the most powerful nation on earth, a nation that could single handedly destroy the earth a billion times over with the weapons that are at its disposal, and it’s always the victim.”

  “So this victimhood, there is something comforting about it because, again, it allows us not to look at ourselves,” Maté said.

  “And I think there was this huge element of victimhood in this Russiagate process.”

  Maté talked about how Mueller, despite his horrible track record of supporting the WMD lie in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, has been made into a hero, because Hollywood has trained the public psyche to seek out “good guys” and “bad guys” in every intense situation. This is what led Putin to be depicted as an omnipotent supervillain capable of infiltrating the highest levels of the US government, and Mueller as a knight in shining armor who was going to rescue us all.

  “Rather than saying, okay, there’s a big problem here. We’ve elected a highly traumatized grandiose, intellectually unstable, emotionally unstable, misogynist, self aggrandizer to power. Something in our society made that happen. And let’s look at what that was. And let’s clear up those issues if we can. And let’s look at the people on the liberal side who, instead of challenging all those issues, put all their energies into this foreign conspiracy explanation. Because to have challenged those issues would have meant looking at their own policies, which tended in the same direction.

  “Rather than looking at how under Clinton, they’ve jailed hundreds of thousands of people who should never have been in jail. Looking at how under the Bushes and under Obama, there was this massive transfer of wealth upwards. Instead of asking why Barack Obama gets $400,000 for an hour speech to Wall Street, which means that maybe our faith in how our system operates needs to be shaken a bit so we can actually look at what’s really going on, let’s just put our attention on some foreign devil again.”

  Maté talked about how Obama, despite being a warmonger like the other US presidents, represented a nice ideal in people’s minds, so the contrast between that ideal and Trump’s election made it especially traumatic. This made people unwilling to look at the actual root causes of Hillary Clinton’s loss, which taken together are far more threatening to democracy than anything Russia is accused of doing, even if those accusations are all 100 percent true.

  In conclusion the younger Maté asked his father for his advice on what people can do going forward to avoid the mistakes that led to Trump’s election, and to the years of Russia hysteria that followed, or at least to deal with similar challenges in a more mature way.

  “Well, first of all, I advise people to do something that I find hard to do myself, but I think it’s essential,” replied the elder Maté.

  “Which is that when there’s hard emotions there, just own them. Just own that you’re hurt. Own that you’re confused. Just own it. Say I’m hurt, I’m confused, I’m terrified. And rather than try and find an explanation right away, just own the feeling. And then when you’re ready, then actually ask, what happened here? What actually happened here? What are the facts? What behaviors or beliefs on my part maybe contributed to the situation? So be curious. Be really curious.”

  With regard to the press, Gabor advised to be objective and skeptical of the government agencies which have so consistently deceived America into wars:

  “At least be objective. Don’t be so quick to jump on board. Don’t be so quick to assume that because almost the whole media is broadcasting, trumpeting a certain line, that that line represents reality. Learn from history. Learn from this one. Learn from this Russiagate thing that they were all saying for years that this is a given fact. All of a sudden it turns out not to be a given fact. Well, next time, don’t be so quick to believe them.”

  Gabor pointed out that for all people’s efforts at avoiding the internal confrontations which necessarily come along with disillusionment, it is much better to be disillusioned than illusioned.

  “Would you rather believe in something that’s false, which means to have an illusion? Or would you rather be disillusioned?” Maté asked. “In other words, to see the truth. And I’m saying that we should be glad to be disillusioned. So this Russiagate and this ignoble end to the Russiagate narrative, it’s a disillusionment for a lot of people, but that’s a good thing. If they say, okay, I had this illusion, this illusion I no longer have, which means I’ve been disillusioned, now I can actually look at the truth. So it’s good to be disillusioned.”

  “So this could be a positive beginning for a lot of people if they take the right attitude,” Maté concluded.

  Man, I really hope so.

  *  *  *

  Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

  Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  

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• Quantifying The Economic Effect Of Royal Babies

  The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, welcomed their first child to the world this week.

  While you may have little to no interest in this, there are at least some substantial benefits to the UK economy when a royal baby is born.

  Prince George’s birth, for example, is estimated to have brought in £240 million from spending related to celebrations, souvenirs and books etc. Take a look at our infogaphic to learn more about the economic effect of royal babies.

  This infographic was researched and designed by Statista Content and Information Design.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  

• Ideals That Won 'Victory' Are Still The Greatest Of Ideals

  As Russians celebrate Victory Day, George Galloway argues for a return to the spirit that won the war.

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  On May 9, 1945, Hitler’s fascism was finally crushed amongst the rubble of Berlin and the “thousand-year Reich” came to a mercifully premature end.

  The death blows were struck, overwhelmingly by the Red Army and the ghosts of 27 million Soviet citizens who it carried on their shoulders. In the words of Winston Churchill, the Red Army “tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht,” and he was indeed unstinting in his praise of the sacrifices made by the Soviet peoples in the victory we shall celebrate this week.

  It should be acknowledged too that, but for Mr Churchill, the British ruling class would have surrendered to Hitler and the city of London queued up to sell him financial services. Elements of the British royal family itself would have thrown open the gates of Buckingham Palace.

  The same ruling class which had appeased Hitler at every turn wished nothing more than that he would turn his monstrous war machine east instead of west, and destroy the USSR. The ruling class which refused Soviet efforts to form an anti-Nazi pact to stop fascism in its tracks before it got going. And which delayed the opening of the second front in the west until they could see the way the wind was blowing, and became more worried about how far the Red Army could go in their ultimately victorious onslaught against the beast of Hitlerism.

  No Russian family, indeed no Soviet family, did not lose at least one relative in the inferno. But victory was won and the Soviet peoples’ army wrote their names in the stars and achieved immortality.

  This week, the secretary of state of the United States, one part of the great victorious alliance, canceled a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He did so because he had failed in advance to bully and browbeat her into acquiescence over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will bind together the Russian and German peoples in a joint and mutually beneficial economic relationship and help guarantee that no such slaughter can ever again occur between them. While Pompeo is no Ribbentrop and Trump is no Hitler, the politics of diktat did not die in the bunker in Berlin in 1945.

  The endless demands of the US government for economic warfare against Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Uncle Tom Cobley and all are leading the great people of the US into ever-deeper division with their allies. Angela Merkel, whose own personal telephone was tapped by the oozingly liberal Barack Obama and who has been denied access to her own illicitly gathered NSA file, has clearly reached the end of her tether with Donald Trump.

  The countries of the European Union which followed President Trump into the now patently obviously ludicrous schoolboy politics of diplomatic recognition of the fraudster Juan Guaido are both embarrassed and angry as his US-inspired coup d’etat has collapsed like a spoiled souffle.

  His trade war with China, conducted with the now-usual bluff and bluster threats and hints and sanctions, is leading to a poisoning of the international investment climate.

  Dispatching gunboats to the Persian Gulf, which if it was closed by hostilities would bring Western economies to their knees, is adding to a dystopian horror in the chanceries of Europe which fear that if the lights go out across Europe, they may not be lit again in our lifetime. The world is now a very dangerous place.

  Only the abandonment of diktat, a return to the negotiating table, can bring equilibrium to the world situation. As Mr Churchill said: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

  Donald Trump’s appearance at the Victory Parade this week may alas be out of the question.

  However, he should watch it on TV, he likes TV, and ponder this. The allied defeat of Hitlerism was the greatest achievement of human history. The sundering of the forces which won the victory, the calumnizing of the leading force which secured the victory, the frantic efforts to achieve hegemony are futile, doomed as utterly as the idea of a “thousand-year Reich.” The world has turned.

  

• D Is For A Dictatorship Disguised As A Democracy

  Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.”

  – Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business

  What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing.

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  Played out on the national stage and eagerly broadcast to a captive audience by media sponsors, this farcical exercise in political theater can, at times, seem riveting, life-changing and suspenseful, even for those who know better.

  Week after week, the script changes (Donald Trump’s Tweets, Congress’ hearings on Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, the military’s endless war drums, the ever-widening field of candidates for the 2020 presidential race, etc.) with each new script following on the heels of the last, never any let-up, never any relief from the constant melodrama.

  The players come and go, the protagonists and antagonists trade places, and the audience members are quick to forget past mistakes and move on to the next spectacle.

  All the while, a different kind of drama is unfolding in the dark backstage, hidden from view by the heavy curtain, the elaborate stage sets, colored lights and parading actors.

  Such that it is, the realm of political theater with all of its drama, vitriol and scripted theatrics is what passes for “transparent” government today, with elected officials, entrusted to act in the best interests of their constituents, routinely performing for their audiences and playing up to the cameras, while doing very little to move the country forward.

  Yet behind the footlights, those who really run the show are putting into place policies which erode our freedoms and undermine our attempts at contributing to the workings of our government, leaving us none the wiser and bereft of any opportunity to voice our discontent or engage in any kind of discourse until it’s too late.

  It’s the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

  Indeed, while mainstream America has been fixated on the drama-filled reality show being televised from the White House, the American Police State has moved steadily forward.

  Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

  Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

  Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people.

  The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

  None of these dangers have dissipated.

  They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

  The new boss has proven to be the same as the old boss, and the American people, the permanent underclass in America, has allowed itself to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.

  Frankly, it really doesn’t matter what you call the old/new boss—the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter who occupies the White House, it is a profit-driven, an unelected bureaucracy that is actually calling the shots.

  In the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer to spell out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one is talking about anymore.

  A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

  B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the cop culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.

  C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. This governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice wherein government agents (usually the police) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property.

  D is for DRONES. It is estimated that at least 30,000 drones will be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an $80 billion industry. Although some drones will be used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”

  E is for ELECTRONIC CONCENTRATION CAMP. In the electronic concentration camp, as I have dubbed the surveillance state, all aspects of a person’s life are policed by government agents and all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so.

  F is for FASCISM. A study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere economic units.

  G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.

  H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.

  I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.

  J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for inane crimes.

  K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between us and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.

  L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.

  M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. As of 2008, there were some 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.

  N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.

  O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION and OVERREGULATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.

  P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.

  Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.

  R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.

  S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of this new age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

  T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button.

  U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.

  V is for VIPR SQUADS. So-called “soft target” security inspections, carried out by roving VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams, are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.

  W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.

  X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”

  Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you can now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.

  Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane “crimes” as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

  We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age.

  You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.

  Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.

  

• Raytheon Shoots Down Multiple Drones With Directed Laser Weapon

  Raytheon Company has successfully shot down multiple drones using its advanced high powered microwave (HPM) and mobile high energy laser (HEL) weapon systems, stated the company press release Tuesday.

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  The directed-energy weapon system was paired with Raytheon’s Multi-spectral Targeting System, using sensors that directed microwaves and lasers to blast enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) out of the sky during a field training exercise. Mounted on a Polaris MRZR 4 all-terrain vehicle, the system was extremely portable and could traverse almost any terrain.

  “Countering the drone threat requires diverse solutions,” said Stefan Baur, Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems vice president. “HEL and HPM give frontline operators options for protecting critical infrastructure, convoys and personnel.”

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  During the exercise, Raytheon’s targeting system directed HPM’s microwave energy at incoming enemy UAVs to disorient its guidance system. The system then fired the HEL which effectively blasted the drones out the sky. With a diesel power supply, the tracking system, HPM, and HEL can operate for several hours.

  “After decades of research and investment, we believe these advanced directed energy applications will soon be ready for the battlefield to help protect people, assets and infrastructure,” said Dr. Thomas Bussing, Raytheon Advanced Missile Systems vice president.

  Raytheon’s HEL and HPM were tested at an undisclosed location. The exercise expanded on previously directed energy weapon demonstrations such as the Army’s directed energy exercise in 2017.

  Military officials have warned about the proliferation of small to medium-sized armed drones are accelerating at an alarming rate. Small drones offer new levels of stealth and utility for military and terror organization on the modern battlefield. These drones can be purchased on the internet, are relatively inexpensive to build, and the operator can learn to fly it in minutes.

  Take, for example, a small drone packed with explosives flown by Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit a military parade at the Al Anad Air Base outside Aden, a port city in eastern Yemen, early this year, wounding a dozen troops from a Saudi-led coalition. The small drone was able to penetrate the base’s missile defense system and exploded over military leaders and troops. The use of small drones on the modern battlefield has revolutionized warfare in the 21st century, made conventional forces vulnerable.

  A drone attack on Yemen’s largest air base has killed several people and left a dozen more injured. pic.twitter.com/qcvu7I5rG4

  — Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) January 10, 2019

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

  Last week, the Air Force said it was nearing operational use of its Tactical High-power Microwave Operational Responder (THOR), a high-powered microwave energy weapon that can shield a base from drone swarm attacks.

  Inexpensive drone technology has given terror organizations around the world new operational capabilities that can conduct surveillance and carry munitions for a direct-attack role. A trend that has forced the Pentagon to spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, on new technology to combat this ever so expanding threat.

  

• Chaos Is The Order Of The Day

  Submitted by J. Theodore Schatt,

  Democrats have voted to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for failing to hand over documents that he is precluded by law from disclosing.  Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining of unprecedented White House obstruction creating a constitutional crisis.  President Trump is described by these same individuals as a: “racist”; “traitor”; “authoritative dictator” and worse.  If you, like me, have wondered why the tradition of civil public discourse evaporated, I think I have the answer. 

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  The Democrats sole intention over the next year and a half is to create such a chaotic national political landscape that the 2020 electoral pitch to the American people will be that the only way to end the chaos is to vote President Trump out of office. 

  It would appear that Democrats have made the cold and calculated decision that they cannot effectively engage the President on policy.  Understandably so.  How do you argue against an economic policy that results in higher wages and the lowest unemployment numbers in a half decade after previously telling the public to get used to the new normal?   How do you engage in a discussion of health care policy when the last plan you sold to the American public was based upon lower cost and an ability to keep both your plan and your doctor and all three turned out to be false?  How do you effectively engage the President on immigration when the President has been on the issue for three and a half years while you have insisted there is not a problem?  It would require an admission that doing nothing was in error and a capitulation that most of what Trump has wanted is in fact necessary.

  The calculation appears to be that if the political scene becomes chaotic enough, a majority of likely voters will tune it all out and come to the conclusion that the only way to end the chaos is to change Presidents in much the same way that parents of screaming infants tend to give the infant what it wants.  That impulse will be fostered by the continuous mantra that Trump’s personality is poisonous to our national unity.  “He’s the cause of divisiveness.”  “He’s a racist.”  “He’s an authoritative dictator.”  The added bonus for Democrats will be that the criminal charges soon to come over the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election will be explained away as simply “trumped” up political charges by an “authoritative dictator”.

  There would appear to be two potential outcomes:

  1. The American electorate sees through the smoke and punishes the Democrats at the ballot box for their conduct; or

  2. The scheme works and Democrats get a pass on their complicity in the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election.

  The true beauty of democracy is in either scenario, we the American people get exactly what we deserve.

  

• Over 1% Of Guatemala, Honduras Have Crossed US Border In Last Eight Months: DHS

  Over 1% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras have entered the United States since September, according acting Homeland Security chief Kevin K. McAleenan, who added that the figure includes 3% of one Guatemalan county alone. 

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  Speaking at the 49th Washington Conference of the Americas, McAleenan said “The current migration flows, especially of vulnerable families and children, from Central America through Mexico, to remote areas all along the U.S. border, represent both a security and humanitarian crisis,” adding “The situation is not sustainable.” 

  McAleenan predicted that April figures for illegal immigration will be even worse than March’s shocking figures – which saw over 100,000 migrants enter the country and led to the White House shaking up its immigration team, according to the Washington Examiner. 

  “In March, we had over 103,000 irregular arrivals of undocumented migrants — 90% crossing the U.S. border unlawfully and unsafely in the hands of human smugglers. We will see similar numbers in April,” said the DHS chief – adding that a there has been a shift in illegal immigrants coming from Central America, from predominantly Mexico-based to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. 

  “These trends are deepening and accelerating. According to a recent USAID funded study conducted by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project in Guatemala earlier this year, 1 in 4 Guatemalans have an intention to migrate from Guatemala, with 85% of them expressing the United States as their preferred destination,” said McAleenan. 

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  “That’s over 4 million Guatemalans who intend to migrate to the United States. Imagine if almost the entire population of the state of Western United States left the country. What kind of impact would that have on the economy, culture, and identity? What does that mean for future generations?”

  He explained that the U.S. economy is a lure for illegal immigrants, and poor economic conditions at home are a “push.”

  But, he added, Washington shares the blame. “The main cause of the current increases is the weakness in the U.S. immigration system, the vulnerabilities of our legal framework, which allow migrants, especially families and unaccompanied children, to stay in the U.S. for months or years, even though the vast majority will not ultimately receive legal status,” he said.

  To the Central American insiders, he said that one solution will be to work better with those nations to deal with immigration and the economy. –Washington Examiner

  “We want to work closely with all three countries’ customs administrations to help increase the efficiency of cross-border trade by reducing supply chain barriers and support exports and job creation. From an infrastructure, technology, automation, and legal perspective, DHS’s Customs and Border Protection is pursuing broad support for the region’s customs administrations to modernize practices in all of these areas,” he said, adding “DHS also intends to support the Department of State in highlighting those targeted aid programs where accountable partnerships have made an impact at addressing root causes of migration. The president has made clear that we need to operate from a shared understanding and invest only in efforts that produce results.” 

  

• How The American Culture Of Convenience Is Killing Us

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  In the United States, we are lucky to have massive convenience at our fingertips. I was talking to one of the instructors for the urban survival course, who is from Sweden, on a car ride. He was blown away by some of the things I told him about the levels of convenience and comfort in the United States. Things I completely took for granted don’t even exist there. I thought some of you might be interested in hearing about some of the insights we discussed.

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  Before I left for the course, I was walking my dogs a mile or two every day with my dogs, but that was about it. I thought it was enough but I learned during the field exercises that it wasn’t even close to the physicality required during an SHTF situation. But I digress. Let’s get back to convenience.

  A caveat before people respond indignantly and tell me about all the inconvenience with which they deal every day: this is an opinion piece. Obviously many people in America still work out hard and have manual jobs. But when two-thirds of American adults and 30% of American children are overweight or obese, you have to see that you are not in the majority.

  And it’s the majority here that I’m discussing. Between a combination of low-quality food and extremely sedentary lifestyles, the majority are killing themselves with convenience.

  The American Culture of Convenience

  The first thing that struck me when I landed in the Balkans was how different their lifestyle is from ours in the United States. But the longer I’ve been here, the more obvious it has become.

  In the United States, depending on where you live, everything is dropped in your lap.

  Food can be quickly acquired by shouting your order into a microphone and driving around a building, all without you having to leave your car. And if you live in a larger town or city, with the advent of services like GrubHub and DoorDash, the food delivered to your home is no longer the domain of pizza chains. You can have your choice of practically any restaurant in town brought right to your door within 45 minutes.

  But it isn’t just about food. Instacart offers pick-up services from a wide variety of stores, including places like chain grocers, Wal-Mart, and Target. All you have to do is drive up, let them know by phone that you’ve arrived, and pop your trunk. Poof. Your shopping is done. In some cities, you can even use services like Instacart to have these things brought to your door.

  Amazon has brought us practically anything else we could want with two-day shipping, regardless of where you live in the country. Gone are the days of scouring half a dozen stores to locate the whatchamacallit you needed. A quick search on Amazon and One-Click ordering and it’s yours within 48 hours and you never moved off your comfy chair.

  If you need to go somewhere you don’t even have to drive yourself or take public transit. Uber or Lyft will happily send somebody to pick you up and drive you anywhere you need to go for a reasonable price, and you can watch the approach of your driver from the convenience of your phone.

  Entire billion dollar industries are evolving to make our lives more convenient and easy every single day. Imagine how stunned our hunter-gatherer ancestors would be to discover we don’t even have to leave the house to be clothed and fed in epic abundance.

  We don’t walk much, either.

  And speaking of drive-thrus and driving to the store to get your Instacart packages, we drive everywhere. Part of this is because of the way suburbia is developed. It’s rare to live in a neighborhood where you can walk to the market, the bakery, and the wine store. So instead of walking to get our goods, we drive there, dash in, and get back in our cars. Those in big cities probably walk far more than those in suburbia, and for those in the country, it depends if they actually have a place to walk and whether they’re taking care of a large property.

  And if we’re not walking to run our errands, we’re not carrying stuff. We get as close as possible with our cars if heavy groceries need to be lugged in and we carry as little as we can if we’re heading somewhere. When you walk the dogs, you might take your phone and some poop bags but you’re generally not taking it as a training opportunity and strapping on a pack.

  Then there are the stairs.

  Even two-story buildings in the United States have elevators much of the time because everything, by law, has to be easily accessible to every person. (And no, I’m not saying that people in wheelchairs need to try to haul themselves up the stairs. I’m discussing a trend.) But it goes even further than that. Adding elevators to your home is a growing trend in both the United States and Canada. New home builders are including elevators in the original design of some homes.

  On the other hand, in Europe, they don’t have elevators in many buildings with fewer than five floors. I walked up and down more stairs in the past month than I have in the past year at home combined, and I live in a three-story house.

  And the list of conveniences that would blow the minds of people I met in the Balkans goes on.

  It’s an agoraphobic’s paradise in the United States.

  You can get all sorts of mobile services that come to your door – everything from hairstyling to dog grooming. Other people mow our lawns, clean our homes, service our vehicles, and take care of us in general. There are even people who hire others to walk their dogs. Some people definitely need help with physical tasks but able-bodied people should be able to do a little yard work, shouldn’t we? Especially if we’re preparing for some kind of apocalypse.

  In many areas, things are perfectly level, the sidewalks are carefully maintained (because who wants to ask for trouble in our litigious society), and a slight incline is considered a “hill” that people avoid to make their dog walk a little easier.

  You can get meal kits brought to your door with every single ingredient you need to make a gourmet meal, right down to the seasonings accurately doled out in little packages. You can have fresh fruits and vegetables dropped off at your door by your local CSA. You can get subscription services of all types with the delivery of things like cosmetics, fitness gear, food from exotic locales, wine, candy, home decor items, socks, and dog paraphernalia.

  Looking at it from the perspective of the area where I’ve been spending time, it’s simply mind-boggling that all of these riches are brought to you at the click of a button.

  And it’s killing us.

  As I mentioned earlier in this article, the obesity rate in the United States is staggering. A lot of it is our food. Thanks to subsidization by the USDA, many of the foods that are cheap are highly processed with low-quality ingredients. The NY Times reports:

  At a time when almost three-quarters of the country is overweight or obese, it comes as no surprise that junk foods are the largest source of calories in the American diet. Topping the list are grain-based desserts like cookies, doughnuts and granola bars. (Yes, granola bars are dessert.)

  That’s according to data from the federal government, which says that breads, sugary drinks, pizza, pasta dishes and “dairy desserts” like ice cream are also among Americans’ top 10 sources of calories.

  What do these foods have in common? They are largely the products of seven crops and farm foods — corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, milk and meat — that are heavily subsidized by the federal government, ensuring that junk foods are cheap and plentiful, experts say.

  Between 1995 and 2010, the government doled out $170 billion in agricultural subsidies to finance the production of these foods, the latter two in part through subsidies on feed grains. While many of these foods are not inherently unhealthy, only a small percentage of them are eaten as is. Most are used as feed for livestock, turned into biofuels or converted to cheap products and additives like corn sweeteners, industrial oils, processed meats and refined carbohydrates. (source)

  And even when we try to clean up our diets, foods are genetically modified, produce is doused in pesticides, and it’s packaged in all sorts of hormone-disrupting material that leaches in when you heat it up.

  But it’s not just the crappy food. A lot of folks in the United States just do not get off their butts. And – I hate to say it – but I’m talking to a lot of people in the survival and preparedness world. Sitting at a keyboard or phone typing all day while Netflix plays in the background is sedentary to a deadly degree. On average Americans sit for 8.2 hours per day and this does not include the average 7-ish hours a day we’re sleeping. And when we’re not sitting, it doesn’t mean we’re doing things that are good for us. We spend a great deal of time standing in line and driving in our cars. And the trend toward inactivity is only increasing.

  Meanwhile, obesity contributes to many diseases such as:

  • High blood glucose (sugar) or diabetes.

  • High blood pressure (hypertension).

  • High blood cholesterol and triglycerides (dyslipidemia, or high blood fats).

  • Heart attacks due to coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke.

  • Bone and joint problems, more weight puts pressure on the bones and joints. This can lead to osteoarthritis, a disease that causes joint pain and stiffness.

  • Stopping breathing during sleep (sleep apnea). This can cause daytime fatigue or sleepiness, poor attention, and problems at work.

  • Gallstones and liver problems.

  • Some cancers.

  The National Institute of Health is incredibly concerned about the future of overweight, sedentary Americans.

  More recent evidence points to differential roles for body fat distribution patterns, in addition to excess overall adiposity, in elevating risk of many major chronic diseases. The large numbers of children entering adulthood overweight, together with increased weight gain in adulthood, portend an enormous burden in terms of human suffering, lost productivity, and health care expenditure in the coming decades. (source)

  And – since it’s the purview of this website – imagine if the SHTF and you were too overweight and sedentary to go out and acquire the supplies you need to survive. Imagine what will happen when your medication runs out and you have a preventable disease brought on by your sedentary lifestyle. Imagine how your family will feel watching you suffer.

  You need to add more movement to your life.

  Unless you are among the 23% of Americans who meet the national exercise guidelines, you need to add more movement to your life. I suspect that there are a lot of people who believe they are disabled because getting started on a movement program is hard. It really does hurt, I know. But there’s a very good chance as you begin to move more it will become far easier. Don’t give in to it if your doctor says, “Oh, you’re disabled” and hands you a sticker for your car unless you really, truly are. If there’s even a glimmer of doubt in your mind, try to move just a few more steps each day. Instead of using the scooter to shop, push a cart to give yourself something to lean on. You aren’t training for a marathon – 10 extra steps a day will add up if you keep on pushing. But, MOVE.

  The best way to increase movement is to decrease convenience. I don’t mean that you need to suddenly become a hunter-gatherer but you need to get off your duff. (To get started, check out this article or Bug Out Boot Camp and of course, always contact your doctor before beginning an exercise program. Blah, blah, blah.)

  You need to carry heavy things instead of getting them delivered. You need to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator or escalator. You need to actually go inside the store to do your shopping instead of sitting in your car, waiting for stuff to get loaded into your trunk. Park at the back of the parking lot, or better yet, at a store further away. Quit ordering from Amazon and buy things locally so you can walk around the store. Look for the hills and walk up and down them instead of avoiding them. If you want to eat restaurant food, go to the dad-gum restaurant. Find a place to walk to every day – maybe the post office, a coffee shop, or the dog park – and make it part of your routine.

  It’s not unusual in other parts of the world to walk 8, 10, or even more miles, every single day. You don’t need to start there but maybe you should strive to get there. Once you’re in your groove, it should only take an hour or so to walk a mile. Using your feet as transportation is one of the healthiest things you can do.

  Don’t be a casualty of the culture of convenience.

  

• Mapping PFAS Crisis: New Data Reveals 19 Million Americans In 43 States Exposed To Toxic Chemicals 

  Tens of millions of Americans in 43 states may have been exposed to toxic fluorinated compounds known as PFAS in their drinking water, according to the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, at Northeastern University.

  The report shows PFAS chemicals have exposed upwards of 19 million through contaminated groundwater. Researchers found 610 contaminated locations ranging from public water systems, military bases, military and civilian airports, industrial plants, dumps, and firefighter training sites.

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  PFAS chemicals were used in thousands of industrial applications and consumer products such as apparels, carpeting, food packaging, firefighting foams, and metal plating. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that the toxic chemicals are present in the blood samples of the general population. Prior studies have shown the dangerous chemicals have been linked to weakened childhood immunity, thyroid disease, cancer, and other major health issues.

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  “The Environmental Protection Agency has utterly failed to address PFAS with the seriousness this crisis demands, leaving local communities and states to grapple with a complex problem rooted in the failure of the federal chemical regulatory system,” said Ken Cook, president of EWG. “EPA must move swiftly to set a truly health-protective legal limit for all PFAS chemicals, requiring utilities to clean up contaminated water supplies.”

  The map below locates 610 places in 43 states that have dangerously high levels of PFAS chemicals in groundwater. Data from the US Department of Defense and public water utility reports were also included in the map. This additional data shows 117 military sites, including 77 military airports, which have high levels of PFAS firefighting foam.

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  “The updated map shows that PFAS contamination is truly a nationwide problem, impacting millions of Americans in hundreds of communities,” said Phil Brown, a professor of sociology and health sciences at Northeastern University and director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute.

  Michigan is the epicenter of PFAS contamination, has 192 sites on the map. California has 47 contamination sites, and New Jersey has 43.

  “Leaders in many communities and states are doing great work to raise awareness about PFAS and push for cleanup, but this is a national crisis demanding national action. The EPA should act more quickly to evaluate all PFAS chemicals and restrict their use, and polluting industries should be held responsible,” said Brown.

  There are currently no laws enforcing limits PFAS chemicals under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA said back in 2016, 70 parts per trillion of PFAS or below, is safe drinking water.

  “This is a national crisis and it requires a national response,” EWG Vice President Bill Walker told the McClatchy Company news service.

  Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced by 4Q19, the agency will “propose a regulatory determination” for PFAS, which would then allow amendments to be filed for establishing safe limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Associated Press reported.

  Last month, Congress introduced new legislation that would require the EPA to set new limits for PFAS by 2021-22.

  EWG’s report shows that America’s drinking water crisis goes way beyond Flint.

  

• A Civil War In Sports: Identity Politics Vs Science?

  Authored by Onar Am via Liberty Nation,

  A decade ago, declaring that a man is a man and a woman is a woman would have been self-evident and uncontroversial. In recent years, however, the debate over transgender rights and identity politics has changed that. In sports, we have seen the rise of biologically male athletes who have been allowed to compete in women’s sports because they self-identify as female.

  But not everyone is on board with this postmodern progressive agenda. Some people in sports are fighting back, albeit carefully. In April 2018, the International Association of Athletes Foundation created rules that regulate the maximum amount of testosterone people competing in women’s sports can have, and this would affect among others South African Olympic gold medal winner Caster Semenya.

  She challenged the new rule, but on May 1, 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected her appeal. If she wants to compete in sports, she now must take testosterone-suppressing drugs.

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  A critical fact that has been left out of the story as reported in most mainstream media outlets is that the new rule applies only to intersex individuals who have male chromosomes (XY). The press release by CAS makes this clear:

  “The DSD [Differences of Sex Development] covered by the Regulations are limited to athletes with ‘46 XY DSD’ – i.e., conditions where the affected individual has XY chromosomes. Accordingly, individuals with XX chromosomes are not subject to any restrictions or eligibility conditions under the DSD Regulations.”

  Since Semenya is covered by these regulations in the ruling by CAS, it implies that she was born a biological male but with some female traits. As early as 2009, media outlets reported that she did not have a womb and that she had internal testicles.

  This crucial fact means that the new testosterone rule is only a partial victory for biological females. Although the new regulation requires intersex people to suppress their testosterone production, it indirectly acknowledges the right of people who are born as biological males to compete in a category of sport that is specially created to allow women to compete.

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  Caster Semenya

  Women’s physiology is optimized to make them superior at giving birth. They are highly specialized baby factories. That comes at a cost. Men are typically better athletes. Even the fastest woman to have ever lived, Florence Griffith Joyner, is regularly beaten by junior male runners in colleges all over the country.

  Women’s sport was created in recognition of that fact. Just as you need different weight classes in boxing or wrestling to make the competition fair, you also need a separate category for women so that they have a chance to compete on equal biological terms.

  That had been considered fair by all – until the progressives came along and demanded that people who self-identify as women should be allowed to compete in a category created explicitly for humans with XX chromosomes.

  So far, the progressive left has been allowed to colonize sports and other fields without much opposition by using a designated victim group as a moral spearhead. The CAS ruling shows that resistance is slowly mounting.

  

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• A Synchronized Global Downturn Intensifies As JPM Global Manufacturing PMI Plunges

  Last month, we reported that CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis’ world trade volume fell 1.8% in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as a synchronized global downturn gained momentum.

  Four months later, and the performance of the global manufacturing sector remained depressed in April. This is the month where global trade data should trough, in preparation for a 2H rebound. However, that is not the case – as a synchronized global downturn intensifies.

  IHS Markit reported that rates of global expansion in output, new orders and employment were fragile, and below their long-term trend lines, while new export data dropped.

  The J.P.Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI, a composite index produced by J.P.Morgan and IHS Markit in partnership with ISM and IFPSM, posted 50.3 in April, down from 50.5 in March, teetering on the edge of contraction, to record its lowest level since June 2016.

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  “The weakness in the global manufacturing sector was most evident in the intermediate and investment goods sectors, both of which saw production and new orders contract during April. The consumer goods industry fared better, with growth of both output and new business accelerating during the latest survey month. Consumer goods was also the only category to see new export work increase, albeit only moderately,” said IHSMarkit.

  The decrease in export business was widespread for the eighth consecutive month. Softness was observed in Greater China, the Eurozone, Brazil, the UK, South Korea, Turkey, the Philippines, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

  “The global manufacturing sector remained subdued at the start of the second quarter, with the PMI barely above the 50.0 mark and rates of expansion in output and new orders still lackluster and well below long-run trend levels. In particular, the capital goods sector PMI underscores that business capex remains stalled. International trade flows remain a significant drag on the manufacturing sector. New export business has now decreased for eighth successive months,” David Hensley, Director of Global Economic Coordination at J.P.Morgan said.

  The International Monetary Fund warned last month: this is a “delicate moment” for the global economy as many countries are experiencing a severe slowdown.

  The global economy has “lost further momentum” in the last six months, said IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

  Lagarde pinned the deceleration of global growth on “the impact of increased trade tensions.”

  Not surprisingly, the stock market’s 2019 uptrend has ignored the deterioration in global growth, as investors focus on trade optimism and a dovish Federal Reserve that has expanded the market’s P/E multiple. However, with President Trump’s surprise threat to raise the 10% tariff on $200BN of Chinese goods to 25% on May 10 in what BofA has called a “major escalation” – the whole narrative of expanding multiples in preparation for a 2H rebound could all but be fantasy at this point.

  

• Brexit: Looking Beyond Ideological Battle Lines

  Authored by Steven Guinness,

  A few months after Britain voted to leave the European Union I posted an articlethat questioned whether the decision could prove beneficial to globalist institutions. At the time the general consensus amongst writers and broadcasters within the independent media was that the result came as a unwelcome surprise to the elites. The expectation was that political and financial interests would attempt to overturn the will of the electorate, thus ensuring the UK would never be allowed to fully depart the EU.

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  Up until the latter end of 2016 this had also been my position. As a ‘leaver‘ I held next to no belief that the result would be fulfilled. But having looked into the events leading up to the referendum, as well as the changing stance on monetary policy by central banks, it became apparent to me that the economic consequences following the vote (and subsequent warnings of the dangers of a no deal outcome) had the capacity to work in favour of internationalists.

  Over the past two and half years I have published over a dozen articles and numerous economic updates that present evidence as to why I believe institutions like the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements would capitalise from what the central banking community have coined a ‘disorderly Brexit‘. It is due to this that I have become increasingly cautious in supporting the UK’s exit from the EU.

  Which brings me to one of my latest articles (Warnings of an Under Resourced IMF Point to Imminent Economic Downturn). One reader was motivated to ask whether my analysis on Brexit might subconsciously be suggesting that to remain in the EU would now be the best option. Here is an extract of the comment in question:

  The fact that you approach this from something of an outside position, as per observer status, removes most of my doubt that you might actually be suggesting remaining in EU is a better option . To do so would obviously be very dubious, as full sovereign control of national law, closer political accountability , and so on, are something of an anti-thesis to globalist intent.

  I would like to be assured that the warnings on Brexit are an attempt by yourself to focus on one facet that deserves attention and scrutiny should a no deal Brexit be the eventual outcome, as opposed to having some other unstated aim in terms of how this political circumstance should be resolved.

  After reading this comment I felt that my perspective on how globalists could exploit a no deal Brexit outcome was in danger of being perceived as support for the European Union. To be clear, this is not the case. If the UK electorate is asked to participate in a second referendum on Brexit, I would not offer support for remaining in the EU. But equally, I would not endorse the options of either leaving with a withdrawal agreement or under World Trade Organisation terms.

  To explain, the problem with Brexit (and with the political system in general) is the dogma of ideology. Prior to the original referendum, political allegiance was defined as being of the ‘right‘ or of the ‘left‘. Once this was ascertained, it then came down to how far on the right or on the left you stood. If your views were subsequently deemed as moderate you would likely be classified as frequenting the ‘centre ground‘. Here you had a choice of being right of center or left of center. Either way, the majority of people continued to rally behind the Conservative party or Labour.

  Whether of the right or the left, both ideologies contain within them factions who support differing ideals. But the one ideal that stands above all others in 2019 is Brexit. Lines of division have been fashioned on this single subject alone.

  Post referendum, the traditional political landscape has been in a process of realignment. Allegiance is now predicated on support for either leaving the European Union or remaining part of the bloc. Whereas previously you were judged on how far in one particular direction your politics travelled, now it is a question of the extent to which your loyalty lies over the EU. Soft Brexit? Hard Brexit? No Brexit? It is within these boundaries that the establishment is controlling public discourse.

  We are encouraged to pick a side and dedicate our efforts to fighting for that particular cause. This has led to it becoming a vitriolic contest between those who advocate internationalism and deeper integration, and those who champion national sovereignty and Britain controlling its own laws and borders. Out of this environment has come new political manifestations in the shape of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and Change UK.

  But my most pressing concern is that nowhere in the discourse – not in the mainstream or independent media – is there any concerted effort to question Brexit from a position of impartiality. Were more people prepared to relinquish their bias, the idea that leaving the EU could be part of an agenda to embolden financial institutions might not appear so outlandish.

  On the surface it may appear contradictory that institutions that promote internationalism could in fact favour the rise of Brexit for their own ends. But whilst figureheads like Bank of England governor Mark Carney and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde speak out against the UK’s exit, a greater level of scrutiny over their actions and communications points to an undercurrent of malevolence in their intent.

  As has long been established, the fall in the value of sterling after the first referendum, followed by a spike in inflation above the mandated target of 2%, allowed for the BOE to begin raising interest rates. This came amidst central banks cultivating a narrative of ‘normalising‘ monetary policy. Without Brexit, the BOE had no immediate rationale for their actions.

  Since they began raising rates, the bank’s commentary has shifted to what they perceive would be the likely fallout from a ‘no deal‘ Brexit. They anticipate the pound falling perhaps to below parity with the dollar, inflation to reach beyond 6% and the UK falling into recession. Out of all possible ramifications, it is the effect on sterling that worries me the most. As discussed in previous posts, a currency crisis is an entirely different phenomenen to a financial crash. And if the language emanating from central banks is an indication, a crisis of this nature – combined with other global events – would likely be exploited as part of the growing narrative of ‘money in the digital age‘.

  With that said, neither I nor any other observer can stipulate for certain that Britain leaving the EU is the desired outcome for globalists. But from an individual standpoint, the reason I cannot countenance the UK leaving the EU under a ‘hard‘ Brexit is because I believe such an outcome would present an opening for financiers to attempt to gain further control over the economic system. The primary tools for them achieving this would be a combination of currency manipulation, heightened inflation and the ensuing monetary policy response. Based on the underreported commentary of the Bank of England, an inflationary Brexit would result in the bank tightening interest rates rather than cutting them.

  It was five years ago that Christine Lagarde laid the blueprint for the ‘reset‘ of the global economic system. As history dictates, significant economic change is routinely orchestrated through the manufacturing of conflict. This is why when people insist that Brexit will never be allowed to happen, I do not think they are fully factoring in the globalist model of creating crisis scenarios in order to manipulate themselves into a position of providing a pre-determined solution.

  Unless people step away from their predilection for ideology, then they are not going to register the fact that globalists are using Brexit as a tool to segregate the population, a ploy that is successfully managing to direct attention away from central banks and their stated goals and intentions.

  

• Russia Arrests 4 In Dirty Oil Sabotage Case Which Blocked Major Siberia-Europe Pipeline

  For more than two weeks contaminated oil from Russia has clogged the giant Druzhba pipeline, the main delivery line for multiple EU countries, especially impacting Belarus, Poland and Germany. Russia is Germany’s largest energy supplier — and with no word on just how long the blockage will last — it is likely to prove financially disastrous as there’s an estimated 37 million barrels of contaminated crude accumulating in pipelines spanning from Belarus to Ukraine to Hungary. 

  Far from being a mere technical disaster, Russian authorities had previously revealed the developing “dirty oil” crisis to be intentional — the result of organized crime and an attempt to cover up mass theft on the part of oil executives. 

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  Russia’s Investigative Committee announced Tuesday in a statement that four private oil firm executives have been arrested with two more being sought.

  They are alleged to have pumped low quality contaminated oil near the Volga River city of Samara “to conceal thefts,” according to the statement. Interfax reported the suspects names as Svetlana Balabay, Rustam Khusnutdinov, Vladimir Zhogolev and Sergei Balandin, all of which will remain in pre-trial detention through June. 

  The charges range from damaging crude oil pipelines and theft, to engaging in organized crime. Russia’s Investigative Committee further said the group was attempting to hide oil theft worth over 1 million rubles (or $15,300). The suspects are associated with the little-known Nefteperevalka, Petroneft Aktiv and Magistral oil firms.

  It is Nefteperevalka firm which reportedly owns the section of the Druzhba pipeline where investigators think the contamination originated in April. The criminal nature of the crisis was first revealed when a high concentration of organic chloride – which is destructive to refining equipment and typically used by small producers – was discovered in the Russian crude transit, causing engineers to halt service. 

  The Russian investigators’ statement indicated that “In March-April 2019, to hide the theft, several suspects supplied non-compliant oil” to a supply point near Nikolaevka settlement in the Samara region of Russia.

  Gigantic Druzhba pipeline route across eastern into central Europe.

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  The Druzhba pipeline is one of the longest in world, connecting Western Siberia to Europe. The fact that it’s been paralyzed for the past two weeks has caused embarrassment concerning Russia’s dependability as a key energy source for Europe. 

  However in some places “clean oil” has begun to transit the pipeline again, Belarus’s state-run oil-transport firm Belneftekhim confirmed days ago.

  And on Tuesday Ukraine also said it was ready to resume shipments of Russian crude oil to the EU. Earlier reports noted that the major East European cities of Warsaw, Budapest and Prague were forced to tap into their emergency reserves.

  

• Nuclear War Vs. Belt And Road Initiative: Why China Will Prevail

  Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The global trend in international relations is often difficult to discern. But one can be helped in this task by looking at two events, organized in Washington and Beijing, comparing the different themes, participants, objectives, and broached for discussion. After all, we are talking about the two largest economies in the world, two colossi directing and shaping global culture, behavior and world opinion.

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  The last few weeks have offered the international community an opportunity to reflect. Two events took place in Washington and Beijing that, in terms of impact, depth, participation and issues discussed, are striking contrasts.

  In Beijing at the Belt and Road Forum over 40 world leaders discussed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project that will transform the entire Eurasian continent, improving free trade between dozens of countries by investing in transport infrastructure as well as in energy and technological cooperation. The leader of this silent industrial revolution is China’s Xi Jinping, casting ancient ambitions and perspectives into the new millennium, anxious to once again acquire the leading role in global civilization.

  The BRI is a gigantic project that will continue to expand in the years to come and at the rate the current technology allows, while of course remaining cognizant of the needs of the countries involved in the Chinese project. The numbers of participants at Beijing’s BRI event are astonishing, with more than 5,000 delegates, 37 heads of state (including that of G7 member Italy), and 10 of the most important members of ASEAN. A hundred and twenty-five countries have signed intentions to cooperate grand project, and 30 organizations have ratified 170 agreements that total a projected investment by the People’s Bank of China of over 1.3 trillion dollars from 2013 to 2027. This is what Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley’s Chief China Economist said:

  “China’s investment in B&R countries will increase by 14% annually over the next two years, and the total investment amount could double to $1.2-1.3 trillion by 2027.”

  It is a revolutionary project that will characterize the next few decades if not centuries. It will offer a stark contrast to the American drive for hegemonic domination by demonstrating the capacity of humanity to overcome conflicts and wars through cooperation and shared prosperity.

  Washington is left demanding loyalty in exchange for nothing (but with Donald Trump, even this little is uncertain). Unable to inflict damage on Russia and China, the US focuses on pressuring her European allies through a trade war of duties, tariffs, technological bans ( Huawei’s 5G) and sanctions (against Iran and European banks) in order to favor US companies.

  Reflecting the moral of Aesop’s fable “The North Wind and the Sun”, Beijing behaves in the opposite manner, offering in the BRI project win-win cooperation and the benefits that accrue from this. The project tends to improve people’s living standards through the huge loans extended to improve such basic infrastructure as railways, schools, roads, aqueducts, bridges, ports, internet connectivity and hospitals. Beijing aims to create a sustainable system whereby dozens of countries cooperate with each other for the collective benefit of their people.

  The Eurasian continent has struggled over the last few decades to attain the same level of wealth as the West as a result of wars of aggression and economic terrorism committed by countries in search of a utopian global hegemony.

  The Chinese initiative aims to offer to all the countries involved equal opportunities for development based not on military and/or economic power but on a real capacity to improve the well-being of all parties involved.

  As Asia Times explained in an excellent article on Beijing’s most recent BRI forum:

  “BRI is now supported by no less than 126 states and territories, plus a host of international organizations. This is the new, truthful, realistic face of the “international community” – bigger, more diversified and more representative than the G20.”

  This Chinese initiative could have only taken place in a post-unipolar world with multiple centers of power. Washington is perfectly aware of the changes that have occurred over the last 10 years, and the accompanying change in attitude of policy makers can be seen in the drafting of two documents that are fundamental for every US administration, namely, the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS).

  These two documents explain how the United States sees the world and what it intends to do to fight the emerging multipolar world order. Compared to Obama and his administration, Trump, Bolton and Pompeo are more anchored to the current reality, understanding well that Russia and China are their equal militarily. Obama, of course, infamously dismissed Russia as a regional power no more than five years ago.

  Trump cannot afford a conflict with Venezuela, Iran or North Korea, whether militarily or politically. In the case of Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil do not seem too keen on sacrificing themselves on behalf of Washington; and there are no jihadists to arm and launch against defenseless civilians as happened in the Middle East, so there is no force in the field capable of defeating a strongly patriotic nation dedicated to resisting US imperialism. Attacking Iran would result in a devastating Iranian response targeting US troops deployed in dozens of bases scattered throughout the Middle East and inflicting losses that would be too costly for Washington, making any gains made pyrrhic. As for North Korea, Kim cannot be touched thanks to nuclear deterrence.

  What remains for Trump and his neocons are empty threats of war, documents declaring Russia and China as opponents to be defeated, and a great deal of war propaganda for the purposes of filling up the coffers of US arms manufacturers.

  And now we come to the event organized in Washington as Beijing was busy discussing how to revolutionize three-quarters of the globe. The Brookings Institute, a think tank, organized a meeting that lasted several hours to discuss “The future of US extended deterrence“, focussing on the tools needed to deal with an attack from America’s opponents.

  Anyone who has any experience with such conferences knows that it is often companies linked to the arms industry that fund such events, thereby encouraging speakers, guests and politicians to take a very hawkish line for the purposes of scaring the population into justifying an increase in arms spending.

  This is exactly what happened at the event organized by Brookings, where the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense from the Trump administration, David Trachtenberg, explained to the audience how the US nuclear deterrent is now coming to the end of its life cycle after a period of 30, 40 or 50 years. The Undersecretary did not mention the overall figure that would be needed to modernize Washington’s entire nuclear triad (estimates put the figure at around a trillion dollars) and preferred instead to speak about a general increase in the defense budget of $60-70 billion dollars to begin to address the problems.

  Often the numbers do not prove everything but are nevertheless useful in helping us better understand certain events. Former US President Jimmy Carter provided a useful explanation for how the Chinese came to surpass the United States:

  “The US is the most warlike nation in the world, forcing other countries to adopt our American principles. How many miles of high-speed railroads do we have in this country? China has around 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has wasted, I think, $3 trillion on military spending; it’s more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us. I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you’d probably have $2 trillion leftover; we’d have high-speed railroads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of, say, South Korea or Hong Kong.”

  Washington pressures its allies to join in seeking to damage Washington’s adversaries but ends up pushing allies and opponents closer together, as occurred when it walked away from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) agreement with Iran while the Europeans remained committed to it. Washington may be able to lean on European allies for the time being, but with the vast BRI project increasingly attracting the attention of Europeans, these days may be numbered, especially with the BRI project bringing the prospect of doing away with the US dollar as a reserve currency necessary for trade between countries.

  Trump and his administration are acting in a multipolar context as if they are still in a unipolar one, behaving like a hegemonic superpower that does not care about the consequences of its actions, even against allies. This arrogant attitude will come back to bite the United States, not only undermining its economy but also the viability of the US dollar remaining as the global reserve currency.

  By Trump behaving like a bull in a china shop, friends and enemies alike are forced to seek ways to counterbalance the United States economically and militarily. Of course Europe still remains subservient to the US, but other countries not in Washington’s good books seem to have understood the historical period we are going through, preferring dialogue and balancing between powers (a typical example being Erdogan’s Turkey, which is in neither camp but uses both for its own purposes) rather than an absolute declaration of loyalty to one side or the other.

  China and Russia are perfectly comfortable operating in today’s fluid geopolitical environment, as this gives them the opportunity to offer countries resisting Washington’s hegemony the military and economic means to persevere and eventually prevail. It is an extremely effective strategy as it places before Washington red lines that cannot be crossed, reducing or eliminating the possibility of a new conflict (something that perhaps even Trump basically appreciates, given that this remains the last election promise that he has not yet broken).

  Observing these two conferences held in Beijing and Washington within a week of each other, with their contrasting emphases, only highlights the differences between these two countries.

  On one side, China seeks integration, cooperation and development for the collective benefit of almost three billion people.

  On the other side, we see the US discussing the modernization of its nuclear triad, whose only contribution to humanity is its ability to wipe it out, only there to bully and intimidate those not prepared to kowtow to Washington’s diktats.

  

• Classified Air Force Laser Weapon For Stealth Jets Shoots Down Missiles 

  The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) Program, has completed a series of tests last month that successfully shot down “several” missiles with a ground-based laser.

  The field training exercise occurred on April 23 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, reported the 88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs.

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  The SHiELD program has developed a directed energy weapon that will eventually be molded into an aircraft pod. Fifth-generation fighter jets and drones will soon have the ability to destroy surface-to-air (SAM) and air-to-air (AAM) missiles with laser beams.

  “This critical demonstration shows that our directed energy systems are on track to be a game changer for our warfighters,” said Dr. Kelly Hammett, director of AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate.

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  During the tests, the laser weapon was mounted onto the end of a trailer with a gas turbine power plant. The laser weapon shot down several air-launched missiles in flight, but AFRL officials wouldn’t tell Defense One how many were destroyed for national security reasons. It was also reported, that the final weapon system will be constructed in a smaller and lighter design, as well as ruggedized for supersonic speeds.

  “The successful test is a big step ahead for directed energy systems and protection against adversarial threats,” said Maj. Gen. William Cooley, AFRL commander. “The ability to shoot down missiles with speed of light technology will enable air operation in denied environments. I am proud of the AFRL team advancing our Air Force’s directed energy capability.”

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  We have reported over for the last half decade that the Pentagon has experimented with ground-based and ship-based lasers against air, land, and sea vehicles; at less than $1 per shot, the weapon is set to become one of the most cost-effective defense systems on the modern battlefield.

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  Defense One said the significant technical challenge that the Air Force has, is the miniaturization of the laser weapon to fit into a pod underneath a plane, nevertheless, developing a power supply that can generate 100s kilowatts while airborne.

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  Directed energy weapons have made monumental leaps in performance and maturity due to the AFRL. This game-changing technology will bring new capabilities to fifth-generation stealth fighters on the modern battlefield in the next 3-5 years.

  

• Scientist: The Food Crisis Will Have Humans Eating Maggots For Protein

  Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

  As an alternative to meat, one scientist has suggested that humans will acquire the habit of eating maggots in order to reach their protein intake requirements. “Maggot sausages” will be the “meat” of the future according to an Australian scientist, Dr. Louwrens Hoffman.

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  Food scientists at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia are incorporating insects such as maggots and locusts into a range of specialty foods, including sausage, as well as formulating sustainable insect-based feeds for the livestock themselves.

  “Would you eat a commercial sausage made from maggots? What about other insect larvae and even whole insects like locusts? The biggest potential for sustainable protein production lies with insects and new plant sources,” said Dr. Hoffman.

  Hoffman says that the meat industry is not sustainable, but people can start eating insects instead.

  “An overpopulated world is going to struggle to find enough protein unless people are willing to open their minds, and stomachs, to a much broader notion of food,” said Hoffman.

  The scientist says that conventional livestock production will soon be unable to meet global demand for meat.  That means that other “fillers” and alternatives will be needed to supplement the food supply with sufficient protein sources, according to The New York Post.

  “In other words, insect protein needs to be incorporated into existing food products as an ingredient,” he says. “One of my students has created a very tasty insect ice cream.”

  The Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) team is focusing on disguising insects in pre-prepared foods, says Hoffman, as studies have shown Westerners shy away from eating whole insects.

  A Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations report, which came out in 2013, urged global citizens to eat more insects. Apparently, compared to conventional meats, bugs are nutritious, cheaper to produce, and more sustainable. Inspired by the report and other studies, several snack makers have marketed insect-based products in the US, including Chirps chips and Chapul protein bars.

  Hoffman admitted that eating bugs might seem unpalatable to Westerners, “for many millions of people around the world they are a familiar part of the diet.” He also calls for a “global reappraisal of what can constitute healthy, nutritional and safe food for all.”

  

• "Stop The TV Whore Takeover": Drone Drops Nazi Flyers On Sacramento State Bridge Dinner

  Hundreds gathered at an outdoor college fundraiser in downtown Sacramento Friday evening; residents were abruptly interrupted when a drone buzzed overhead and dropped Nazi propaganda flyers, reported The State Hornet.

  Flyers landed on Sacramento State’s annual “Bites on the Bridge” Farm-to-Fork dinner held on Guy West Bridge, a suspension bridge for students linking the school with campus dorms.

  @sacstate Third annual Farm to Fork festival is underway and still growing, here at the Guy West Bridge. @TheStateHornet pic.twitter.com/w5Zrqf0Z9H

  — Dom_V. (@Dom_Vitiello) May 4, 2019

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  Additional reports said flyers were also dropped around the Golden 1 Center, where thousands were waiting to enter the stadium for an Ariana Grande concert.

  The flyers, marked with swastikas and statements like “stop the TV whore takeover” and “the press is the enemy,” went viral on social media.

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  CSUS President Robert S. Nelsen issued a statement condemning the flyers shortly after The State Hornet reported the incident.

  “Sacramento State condemns in the strongest terms the dissemination of hate speech and propaganda Friday evening at our annual fundraising dinner on the Guy West Bridge. The anonymous act of spreading such vile material is offensive and runs counter to the principles of inclusion and diversity practiced at Sac State. It did not stop the event, nor will it slow our march toward greater understanding and commitment to the rights and safety of our campus community.”

  Dominic Vitiello, a reporter for the student paper, posted pictures on Twitter of the flyers recovered from Friday’s drone drops.

  Nazi propaganda was flown over and dropped on @sacstate Third annual Farm to Fork festival. @TheStateHornet pic.twitter.com/OSiZw1GyAv

  — Dom_V. (@Dom_Vitiello) May 4, 2019

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  University spokesman Brian Blomster told The State Hornet that the Sacramento State Police Department was informed about the incident and has since launched an investigation into who was operating the drone.

  The flyers had a web address to “The Red ‘X’ Society” and various social media accounts, which shows a video last month of a drone releasing flyers over the California State Capitol.

  The State Hornet noted Twitter user @TracyMapes tweeted drone images of the State Capitol and the surrounding area one day before the incident. They said the American River College student and Sacramento resident Tracy Mapes had a run-in with the law on suspicion of dropping flyers on two NFL games in Santa Clara and Oakland.

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  It certainly seems that whoever was operating the drone felt more compelled to spread propganda by drone and leaflets than social media due to the recent Facebook banning of far-right figures.

  

• China's Big Brother Social Control Arrives In Australia

  Authored by Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times,

  Australia is preparing to debut its version of the Chinese regime’s high-tech system for monitoring and controlling its citizens. The launch, to take place in the northern city of Darwin, will include systems to monitor people’s activity via their cell phones.

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  The new system is based on monitoring programs in Shenzhen, China, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is testing its Social Credit System. Officials on the Darwin council traveled to Shenzhen, according to NT News, to “have a chance to see exactly how their Smart Technology works prior to being fully rolled out.”

  In Darwin, they’ve already constructed “poles, fitted with speakers, cameras and Wi-Fi,” according to NT News, to monitor people, their movements around the city, the websites they visit, and what apps they use. The monitoring will be done mainly by artificial intelligence, but will alert authorities based on set triggers.

  Just as in China, the surveillance system is being branded as a “smart city” program, and while Australian officials claim its operations are benign, they’ve announced it functions to monitor cell phone activity and “virtual fences” that will trigger alerts if people cross them.

  “We’ll be getting sent an alarm saying, ‘There’s a person in this area that you’ve put a virtual fence around.’ … Boom, an alert goes out to whatever authority, whether it’s us or police to say ‘look at camera five,’” said Josh Sattler, the Darwin council’s general manager for innovation, growth, and development services, according to NT News.

  The nature of the “virtual fences” and what type of activity will sound an alarm still isn’t being made clear.

  The system is being promoted as mostly benign. Sattler said it will tell the government “where people are using Wi-Fi, what they’re using Wi-Fi for, are they watching YouTube, etc. All these bits of information we can share with businesses. … We can let businesses know, ‘Hey, 80 percent of people actually use Instagram within this area of the city, between these hours.’”

  The CCP’s smart city Social Credit System is able to monitor each person in the society, tracking every element of their lives—including their friends, online purchases, daily behavior, and other information—and assigns each person a citizen score that determines their level of freedom in society.

  The tool is a core piece of the CCP’s programs to monitor and persecute dissidents, including religious believers and people who oppose the ruling communist system.

  Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao, a visiting scholar at New York University, described the Social Credit System as a new form of tyranny, meant to reactivate the CCP’s totalitarian hold on society.

  “In the past, there was the Nazi totalitarianism and Mao Zedong’s totalitarian system, but a totalitarian system powered by the internet and contemporary technology has not existed before,” Teng said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

  “The CCP is now taking the first step to build such a high-tech totalitarian system, by using credit ratings and monitoring and recording every detail in people’s daily life, which is very frightening.”

  The regime also isn’t interested in keeping the technology within its own borders.

  It’s exporting the system, and its “China model” of totalitarian government, as a service of its “One Belt, One Road” program. When the CCP builds its infrastructure abroad, its surveillance and social control programs are part of the package.

  In Darwin, there has been a push to jump aboard the CCP’s program. The local officials made a “friendship” deal with Yuexiu District, in Guangzhou, China, in 2018. According to John Garrick, a senior lecturer at Charles Darwin University, the deal was branded by Chinese media as “part of President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative.”

  That followed a previous deal between Darwin and the CCP, in which the city signed a 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company and the CCP. The Chinese owner, Ye Cheng, had referred to the deal as being part of One Belt, One Road.

  The deals also should raise concern for U.S. Marines stationed in Darwin,under the Obama-era pivot to the Pacific, about whether the CCP is able to monitor data collected on cell phones from its systems in the area. Under a 2011 deal between the United States and Australia, the U.S. troops will be there until 2040.

  And of similar concern, the decision of Australia to begin implementing the CCP’s programs for totalitarian social control represents a major development in the CCP’s China model push.

  As The Epoch Times has reported, the CCP views Australia as a testing ground for programs it wants to spread to the West. After Australia comes Canada, then the United States—in an apparent imitation of Mao Zedong’s strategy to “surround the cities with the countryside.”

  

• Study Reveals Madison, Wisconsin, Is The New Mecca For Millennials 

  The National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) 2019 report examined employment increases, population trends, income growth, and housing market conditions in the top 100 metropolitan areas across the country to identify millennial migration trends. The top ten cities NAR labeled were selected for their high concentration of millennial residents, expanding employment opportunities and affordable housing.

  NAR determined that Madison, Wisconsin, is the mecca for millennials. The report showed 75% of recent moves in 2017 had been by millennials.

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  Regions of the San Diego metropolitan area had 67.1% of them move to the area in the same timeframe, making it the No. 13 destination for millennials out of 100 cities analyzed.

  Despite being No. 13 destination for millennials, San Diego had the most significant population (27% above the national average) of millennials in the country.

  The 2017 data showed millennials were flocking to, in addition to, Madison (74.98% of new moves), New Haven-Milford, Connecticut (74.70% of new moves); Syracuse, New York (73.30% of new moves); Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Michigan (72.70% of new moves); Richmond, Virginia (70.50% of new moves), Urban Honolulu, Hawaii (70.20% of new moves); Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washinton (69.60% of new moves); Etc.

  “We see that millennials are moving to areas with strong employment and wage growth,” NAR economist Nadia Evangelou told the Chicago Tribune.

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  NAR said only 2% of millennials who moved to San Diego could afford the median home price ($528k to $ $572k in 2017 prices). Making this super popular West Coast city one of the worst places for millennials to live in terms of affordability.

  The most affordable metro for millennials was Dayton, Ohio, located in the Rust Belt, where decades of deindustrialization have kept home prices relatively depressed. In 2017, 56% of new moves were millennials, and 54% of those youngsters could comfortably afford a home.

  The cities millennials avoided the most were all located in Florida: Fort Myers, Lakeland, Palm Bay-Melbourne, North Port-Sarasota, and Tampa.

  The report noted that business leaders frequently warn about a loss of jobs to Texas from California, but it appears millennials aren’t moving to the Lone Star State. Dallas placed No. 39 destination for millennials in 2017, due to only 10% of millennials could afford a home. Austin was the No. 48 destination with less than 3% of millennials able to purchase a new home.

  Evangelou told the Tribune that the study’s purpose was to identify millennial migration trends and understand if they stay in one place. If youngsters can’t afford to purchase a home and income growth wanes, this heavily indebted generation will migrate to the next city where affordability and wages are much better. And the report concludes by saying Madison, Wisconsin, is becoming the most popular city for millennials, due to decent wage growth and an affordability factor of 29% can buy homes.

  “They don’t stay in some places because they can’t afford to buy (a home) and raise a family,” she said. “We’re looking for those people that want to raise a family in those places.”

  Top Metro Areas Millennials Are moving To (Based on 2017 Census American Community Survey):

  Madison, Wisc. – 74.98%
  New Haven-Milford, Conn. – 74.70%
  Syracuse, N.Y. – 73.30%
  Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich. – 72.70%
  Richmond, Va. – 70.50%
  Urban Honolulu, Hawaii – 70.20%
  Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash. – 69.60%
  Toledo, Ohio – 69.40%
  Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif. – 68.50%
  Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. – 67.90%
  Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.-Iowa – 67.50%
  Provo-Orem, Utah – 67.30%
  San Diego-Carlsbad, Calif. – 67.10%
  San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. – 67.10%
  Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Maine-N.H. – 66.80%

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  With millennials deeper in debt than any other generation, a job environment that is stalling, and a home affordability crisis in major coastal cities, it certainly seems that this deadbeat generation is giving up on their West Coast dreams and moving to affordable regions inland.

  

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• Iran Expected To "Go Nuclear" By Breaching Parts Of JCPOA, Europe Warns

  Iran is expected to go nuclear, by backing out of some of the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), at a sensitive time when Washington appears to be ramping up military readiness in response to what the White House says are credible threats against US assets in the Middle East by the Iranian regime. 

  Simply put, the European Union is not capable of facing US sanctions, and despite some meager past efforts, such as the attempt to establish a ‘SWIFT alternative,’ EU initiatives to salvage the deal have been too little too late, as Iran has already hinted to some European officials. 

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  According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal Monday:

  European diplomats warned Monday that Iran is preparing to abandon parts of a landmark nuclear deal in response to new U.S. sanctions, a step that risks inflaming tensions after the Trump administration dispatched warships to the Persian Gulf to deter potential Iranian attacks.

  The WSJ likens it to a “partial withdrawal” after other international signatories such as France and China tried to keep the deal alive following Trump’s ordered US withdrawal last May. 

  Middle East based war reporter Elijah Magnier reports that Iran’s leaders “seem convinced that the only way to stand against the US sanctions is to go nuclear, gradually, pulling out from the Nuclear deal as the US unilaterally did.” He said “President Hassan Rouhani is expected to announce an important step this week.”

  It appears the thinking in Tehran is that any future negotiation with the Trump administration are useless and pointless so long as White House rhetoric remains so aggressive, including the weeks ago formal terror designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), widely seen as a potential precursor to war.  

  Specifically, the WSJ cited European diplomats who say they were informed by the Iranians of Tehran’s intent to ramp up research efforts into centrifuges that could produce highly enriched uranium faster.

  No doubt, national security advisor John Bolton’s Sunday night statements wherein he declared the US is sending an aircraft carrier and a bomber task force to the region in response to a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran helped Iran’s leaders reach this conclusion. 

  

• Volodymyr Zelensky, The Donald Trump Of Ukrainian Politics

  Submitted by SouthFront

  Introduction

  The parallels between the successor to Poroshenko and the current occupant of the White House are striking. Neither has had significant prior experience with national politics prior to launching a bid for the supreme executive office of their respective countries. Giving credit for Trump, he has had extensive experience in managing large businesses, Zelenskiy has none.

  Both evaded compulsory military service citing health issues. Each owes his political success to their country’s population being worn down by a costly, endless war, and many-sided economic problems compounded by growing corruption and crony capitalism.

  Both received support from major Jewish economic players with close ties to Israel (Igor Kolomoysky in Ukraine, Sheldon Adelson in the United States), with Trump subsequently repaying that debt of gratitude by transferring the US embassy to Jerusalem, designating it as the capital of Israel, and recognizing the annexation of the Golan Heights.

  Both follow presidents who came into office as presumptive saviors of their countries, namely “Hope and Change” Barack Obama who delivered 8 years of a gradual deterioration in living standards, and “Revolution of Dignity” Petro Poroshenko who promised to transform Ukraine into a country comparable to the advanced capitalist states of Western Europe. And, last but not least, each represents a pile of political “mystery meat”. Not having a career in politics also means not having a pool of loyal and capable cadres who can descend on the government and govern in the name of their boss. This problem was clearly evident in Trump’s case. Lacking political cadres of his own, he was unable to staff the large number of positions vacated by Obama’s political appointees and instead had to rely on the suggestions of his vice president who was a consummate party insider. Worse, when Trump attempted to staff his foreign policy team with individuals advocating a less confrontational approach to Russia, such as Rex Tillerson and Mike Flynn, he found himself faced with extreme opposition from entrenched “deep state” bureaucrats. As we know, that resistance culminated in the Mueller investigation the ostensible goal of which was to investigate Russian “meddling” and Trump’s “collusion” therewith, but whose actual goal appears to have been to steer Trump’s foreign policy into greater confrontation with Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and even North Korea. Now that US foreign policy is run by the likes of John Bolton (National Security Council), Mike Pompeo (State), and “Bloody Gina” Haspel (CIA)  valiantly assisted by Military Industrial Complex friend Patrick Shanahan (Defense), Robert Mueller can confidently announce “mission accomplished” and shut down his investigation. Is this what the future has in store for Zelenskiy?

  Between a Rock and a Hard Place

  One key difference between US and Ukrainian “deep states” is that the Ukrainian one does not lead an independent existence. Rather, it is a creature of the US and Western European political establishments who provide it with direction and guidance. While US and EU political and economic objectives concerning Ukraine may differ on a few points (the EU is mainly interested in exploiting Ukraine’s agricultural and natural resources, whereas the US sees it as a military battering ram against Russia), for all intents and purposes they are united enough to treat them as a single entity.

  If the Ukrainian “deep state” is the rock,  the Ukrainian people who are plainly tired of the war, desire better relations with Russia, and a return to something resembling the normalcy of the late Yanukovych era when Ukraine was considerably more free and prosperous than it is after 5 years of post-Maidan reforms, are surely a hard place to be reckoned with. The stunning rejection of Poroshenko in the polls indicates the moral bankruptcy of the entire Maidan revolution camp, including the aforementioned Ukrainian “deep state”.

  At the same time, the removal of Poroshenko will weaken the positions of the “deep state” and enhance those of the Ukrainian oligarchs who, while not exactly friends of the Ukrainian people, are nevertheless interested for their own reasons in less confrontational relations with Russia. Poroshenko, being a political veteran with a respectable power base of his own, was able to curb their ambitions and impose his will on them. Under Zelensky, the oligarchs will almost inevitably become considerably more assertive in defending their economic interests, which is liable to lead to political pressure on Zelensky to moderate Ukraine’s policies toward Russia. The early sign of this was the decision by a court in Kiev that the nationalization of Igor Kolomoysky’s Privat-Bank was unlawful, though so far the Ukraine Central Bank shows no signs of abiding by that decision.

  Will Zelensky be able to deliver policies that are genuinely different from Poroshenko’s? It remains to be seen whether he feels himself powerful enough politically to replace the entire national security team, including the likes of Avakov, Turchinov, Poltorak, Klimkin, and other national security and foreign policy players who are utterly compromised by their anti-Russian policies and the crimes committed by Ukrainian military and security services in the Donbass. If they remain in office, there is little reason to believe Zelensky is anything other than a figurehead.

  An Offer Ukraine Can’t Refuse

  Further complicating matters is the fact that Ukraine today is far weaker and more dependent on the West than it was 5 years ago. Successive IMF loan tranches and the vastly higher indebtedness of the Ukrainian state mean that Western powers have many levers of influence on Zelensky. The United States is showing no sign of losing interest in Ukraine, likewise the EU’s policies have shown no sign of moderation. Ukraine’s continued need of loans and loan restructuring alone give Western powers a de-facto veto on Ukraine’s foreign policies. While not wholly pleased with Poroshenko’s tenure in office, where he proved to be more interested in promoting his own interests rather than the interests of his Western sponsors (a key reason why the West now appears ready to sacrifice Poroshenko), he did deliver a confrontation with Russia which validated his support by the West. Should Zelensky attempt to pick up where Yanukovych left off, there is little reason to doubt that he would be quickly faced with yet another Maidan, which would once again receive both vocal and tacit support from Western powers. Also for that reason, we should not expect any progress on the question of the recognition of Crimea. This and many other issues are no longer Ukraine’s to decide. They are part and parcel of the West-Russia political and military stand-off, and can be only resolved as part of a general “peace treaty” between the two areas. In other words, Ukraine’s future is no longer in its own hands.

  Conclusion

  Given all of the above, while there are a few reason for optimism, one should also curb one’s expectations. Granted, the very fact of Zelensky embarrassing Poroshenko and the rest of the Ukrainian establishment is a cause for celebration. Ukrainian politicians have been shown to be out of touch with the Ukrainian people who do not share their political priorities and do not approve of their ineptitude and corruption. But since when does the will of the people affect Kiev’s policies, given the very direct influence Western governments have on shaping Ukrainian policies, both in the domestic and international realms? Moscow’s rather belated decision to impose a ban on petroleum exports to Ukraine, which is to enter force on June 1, 2019, suggests it is not expecting anything but a tough transition period to the new regime in Ukraine.

  

• 'Bunker Buster' Rocket Launchers Used In Army War Drill In Poland

  The 358th Public Affairs Detachment said in a news release that soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, conducted a field training exercise with anti-tank weapons amid deteriorating Russia–US relations.

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  On May 2, American forces gathered at the Johana Range, Poland, to fire the M136 AT4 Light Anti-Armor Weapon, an 84-mm unguided, portable, single-shot recoilless rocket launcher, which is one of the most common light anti-tank weapons in the world.

  “Today’s training gives the Soldier a familiarization with the weapon system,” said US Army Staff Sgt. Larry W. Kirby, a squad leader assigned to Charlie Company, 3rd BN, 66th AR, 1ABCT, 1ID.

  The AT4 is intended to give soldiers a means to destroy armored assault vehicles, tanks, landing crafts, helicopters, and other aircraft, although it’s generally ineffective against modern main battle tanks.

  “This is the first time I fired, we call them ‘bunker busters,’ since basic training,” said US Army Pvt. Luke T. Powers from Kailua Kona, Hawaii, rifleman assigned to 2nd Squad, 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd BN, 66th AR, 1ABCT, 1ID.

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  The 3rd BN, 66th AR, 1 ABCT, 1 ID is from Fort Riley, Kansas, and is deployed to Europe in support of Atlantic Resolve.

  “I was excited when I heard we were coming to Europe,” said Powers. “It’s cool that we get to do our job out here and also get to interact with the locals.”

  Atlantic Resolve builds readiness, increases interoperability and enhances relations with military partners in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. These deployments of ready, combat-credible soldiers are used as deterrents against Russia.

  “Soldiers get first-hand experience with using this weapon system, so that they can quickly employ and destroy any armored threat that we may encounter,” said Kirby. Adding that “this type of training is important because these AT teams are paramount to (the) success of the armored fight.”

  The purpose of the exercise is to prepare for future conflict along the Poland–Russia border, a 144-mile stretch that features the Russian Federation exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast. The exclave hosts over 15,000 Russian troops, heavy artillery, long-range ballistic and anti-aircraft, assault armored vehicle, and the next-generation Russian main battle tank.

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  In the unlikely scenario of a future conflict in the next few years, maybe by the mid to late 2020s, a shooting war in the vicinity of Kaliningrad could be the epicenter of World War III.

  Kaliningrad and Moscow would be defended with long-range artillery and Iskander ballistic missiles that would target NATO bases. In the event of a bombardment, NATO forces would launch retaliatory missiles strikes at Kaliningrad, Moscow, and along the European Russia border.

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  A ground war would be fierce, and that’s precisely why American forces are training with AT4s in Poland. Last year, we reported how the Pentagon sold 210 Javelin anti-tank missile and 37 launchers to Ukraine.

  If a conflict did break out, if it’s in Poland or somewhere on the border with Russia, NATO leaders are banking that anti-tank rocket launchers will be some of the best weapons an infantry unit can utilize on the front lines.

  

• At The Frontiers Of Surveillance Capitalism

  Authored by Katie Fitzpatrick via TheNation.com,

  Before they started their successful wildcat strike last year, West Virginia teachers railed against the introduction of a workplace wellness program called Go365. The program coerced employees into downloading an app that would monitor their health, rewarding points for exercise and good behavior. Employees who failed to accrue 3,000 points by the end of the year would be penalized with a $25 monthly fee and increased deductibles. Although the program was made voluntary before the strike began (and has since been eliminated), the outrage over Go365 helped ignite the strike. As one teacher told The New York Times, “People felt that was very invasive, to have to download that app and to be forced into turning over sensitive information.”

  By resisting Go365, the West Virginia teachers waged two battles at once: They fought in the trenches of state austerity and on the front lines of private digital surveillance. The app presaged many of the worrying trends that Shoshana Zuboff describes in her new book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. She explains that Silicon Valley firms are looking to wearable technologies and other smart devices to gain an increasingly detailed view of our physical and emotional health. Go365 measured teachers’ daily steps with the help of a Fitbit; Sleep Number beds measure the hours we keep and the quality of our rest; a new company called Realeyes plans to surveil our facial expressions as we watch advertisements, interpreting our emotions in real time.

  Silicon Valley firms don’t want to simply monitor our behavior, however; they plan to shape it, too. Their influence over our actions might be indirect for now, effected through the prizes and penalties that Go365 weaponized against teachers. But by integrating these devices into our daily lives, these companies also set the stage for a future of more direct intervention. Zuboff quotes one software developer fantasizing aloud about the tech industry’s ability to push and prod us remotely: “We can know if you shouldn’t be driving, and we can just shut your car down…we tell the TV to shut off and make you get some sleep, or the chair to start shaking because you shouldn’t be sitting so long.”

  Drawing on thorough research as well as alarming interviews like that one, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism offers an urgent warning about our possible future. Zuboff discusses the technological innovations and market mechanisms that make ubiquitous surveillance increasingly likely. Although her diagnosis is chilling, her solutions are few. Throughout the book, she decries the abuses perpetrated by Silicon Valley companies and argues that they represent a radical break from an earlier, kinder form of capitalism. But by refusing to acknowledge the continuities between past modes of exploitation and the latest horrors of surveillance capitalism, she ultimately leads readers away from the most promising paths of resistance.

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  Zuboff has been hailed as a “maverick management guru” and a “prophet of the information age.” A former columnist at Fast Company and Businessweek and one of the first women tenured at Harvard Business School, she has been a leading voice on information technology, business, and the workplace for over 30 years. She first gained wide attention for her 1988 book, In the Age of the Smart Machine, an early and influential study of how computer technology would affect the American workforce. This project was notable in its ambition, and Zuboff set an even larger goal for herself in a 2015 article that sketched the fundamentals of surveillance capitalism: “Just a moment ago,” she writes, “it still seemed reasonable to focus our concerns on the challenges of an information workplace or an information society. Now, the enduring questions of authority and power must be addressed to the widest possible frame…information civilization.” In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which runs over 700 pages, she sets out to describe the dawn of a civilization—one that she argues will be dominated by Silicon Valley and its surveillance apparatus.

  In the first section of her sprawling book, Zuboff traces the birth of surveillance capitalism to the moment in 2003 when Google filed a patent titled “Generating User Information for Use in Targeted Advertising.” In Google’s early days, she explains, the company linked advertising only to search queries. Meanwhile, the vast quantities of data that it gathered about particular users (including “the number and pattern of search terms…dwell times, click patterns, and location”) were used only to improve users’ experience. The 2003 patent, however, promised to convert that “data exhaust” into “behavioral surplus” that could be used to increase the precision of targeted advertising, a much more lucrative venture. This approach to data collection became so successful, she argues, that it led to a new logic of accumulation: From 2003 on, Google was on a quest to gather and monetize as much user data as possible.

  The “extraction imperative,” as Zuboff calls it, eventually migrated beyond Google. In 2008, Google executive Sheryl Sandberg (whom Zuboff dubs the “Typhoid Mary” of surveillance capitalism) left the search giant for a position at Facebook. Her aim was to monetize the intimate information that Mark Zuckerberg’s company has gathered from users, transforming Facebook from “a social networking site to an advertising behemoth.” From there, word spread fast, with giants like Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast joining the behavioral-surplus extraction business.

  Today, companies of all kinds are trying to get into the game. Samsung’s smart TV records private conversations in living rooms across the country; the latest Roomba vacuum maps its users’ floor plans; the CEO of Allstate Insurance hopes, in his own words, to “sell this information we get from people driving around to various people and capture some additional profit source.” These companies belong to industries outside Silicon Valley’s traditional purview of high-tech devices and Internet platforms, but what they share with Google and Facebook is a desire to generate profit from their intimate knowledge of our behavior and experience.

  Zuboff shows that these increasingly frequent invasions of our privacy are neither accidental nor optional; instead, they’re a key source of profit for many of the 21st century’s most successful companies. Thus, these companies have a direct financial stake in the broadening, deepening, and perfecting of the surveillance they already profit from—and in making sure that it remains legal.

  As a result of this boom in data extraction, new technologies are emerging as well: Engineers are intent on developing tools that will mine all sorts of dark data—the Silicon Valley term for those dimensions of human experience currently inaccessible to algorithmic analysis. To mine dark data, Google, Facebook, and others are developing smart homes and wearable devices, self-driving cars, drones, and augmented reality. They’re even striving to monitor the body’s inner workings through digestible sensors and to map a person’s inner life through so-called emotion analytics.

  The primary purpose of these disturbing new technologies is not to influence consumer behavior but to generate accurate predictions about it. Yet that “prediction imperative,” as Zuboff calls it, naturally leads back to a desire for influence. For example, Facebook boasts a “loyalty prediction” service that identifies “individuals who are ‘at risk’ of shifting their brand allegiance” and prompts advertisers to intervene swiftly. The goal, Zuboff explains, is not just to get to know us better but also to find ways to manipulate and control our actions in the service of advertisers. As one chief data scientist told her, “Conditioning at scale is essential to the new science of massively engineered human behavior.” The most persuasive (and terrifying) sections of her book chart this rapid growth of Silicon Valley’s ambitions, from mass data extraction to ubiquitous monitoring to widespread behavior modification.

  The third section of Zuboff’s book is dedicated to describing a new ideology—instrumentarianism—that she says will dominate the 21st century. To explain this new species of power, she returns first to the midcentury work of the psychologist B.F. Skinner, who argued that free will was an illusion and that any action that seemed freely chosen or spontaneous was just a behavior that had yet to be predicted, explained, and conditioned by behavioral psychology. Eventually, Skinner posited, such analysis could be used to replace the chaos of individual “freedom” with large-scale social engineering. This idea, Zuboff argues, has now been taken up by leading researchers like MIT’s Alex “Sandy” Pentland, whose 2014 article “The Death of Individuality” suggests that we ought to do away with the individual as the governing unit of rationality and focus on how our society is governed by a “collective intelligence.” Although most Silicon Valley developers seem to lack Skinner’s and Pentland’s utopian (or, rather, dystopian) ambitions, Zuboff warns that their quest to profit from behavior modification will eventually merge with instrumentarianism’s project of social control.

  The book presents instrumentarianism as a “decisive break” from an earlier, apparently more beneficent form of capitalism. Zuboff praises market capitalism at length near the end of the book, arguing that it “awakened the unstoppable march toward liberty” in the United States and the United Kingdom and helped “lift much of humankind from millennia of ignorance, poverty, and pain.” But she worries that today’s surveillance capitalism violates some of the core tenets of this earlier model, including liberal individualism, the bourgeois home, the invisible hand, and what she terms the “organic reciprocities” between capital and labor. Drawing on Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, she complains that the vast amounts of data available to technology companies will make once-unknowable markets predictable, thus granting those companies an unprecedented power over our economic lives. She notes that Silicon Valley has relatively few employees and an unusual relationship to its customer base (depending on users whose data is extracted, as opposed to traditional consumers). For this reason, she argues, Mark Zuckerberg does not exist in the same mutually beneficial relationship to the public that Henry Ford once did.

  It is in her discussion of market democracy that the limitations of Zuboff’s analysis come to the fore. For her, the market—before the rise of platform monopolies (and, to a lesser degree, neoliberalism)—was characterized by individual liberty and free choice. Accordingly, she is uninterested in how surveillance might deepen the forms of exploitation and coercion that always structured market capitalism, particularly for marginalized and racialized communities. Her commitment to the free market also explains why she spends very little time considering the role that the state might play in countering Silicon Valley’s power. In the recent essay collection Economics for the Many, Nick Srnicek advocates for the socialization of platform monopolies like Facebook. Though his proposal is flawed (Srnicek concedes that the state could put our private data to different dystopian ends), it rises to the scale of ambition necessary to address this threat. Zuboff, by contrast, spends a lot of time encouraging us to act but gives us very little sense of how.

  The Age of Surveillance Capitalism succeeds in painting a dark portrait of Silicon Valley’s growing power, but it ultimately fails in its political analysis. In whose service and at whose expense is the control of surveillance capitalism effected? Zuboff reaches for the grandest possible explanation: She argues that Silicon Valley is in the thrall of a radical instrumentarian ideology that aims to supplant liberal individualism with large-scale social engineering. But we don’t need a spooky new political theory to explain what’s going on; it’s already perfectly legible in the context of liberal capitalism. Companies do not pursue control in a quest for Skinner’s or Pentland’s engineered utopias. Their goals are much simpler: first, to accrue profits through targeted advertising and, second, to promote their direct economic and political interests. The problem with surveillance capitalism is as much the capitalism as it is the surveillance.

  At the close of her book, Zuboff seeks to stir her readers to collective action against the behemoths of Silicon Valley. She argues that we cannot treat the invasion of our privacy as a personal problem to be managed with new forms of encryption or evasion. Instead, we must treat it as a social problem to be tackled through widespread democratic contestation. “The individual alone cannot shoulder the burden of justice,” she writes, “any more than an individual worker in the first years of the twentieth century could bear the burden of fighting for fair wages and working conditions…. A century ago, workers organized for collective action and ultimately tipped the scales of power…today’s ‘users’ will have to mobilize in new ways.” For an example of such inspiring collective action, she looks to an activist group called None of Your Business, which aims to impose significant fines on companies that fail to uphold existing privacy regulations.

  While her desire to fight back is, of course, noble, Zuboff’s subtle rhetorical slide from “workers” to “users” is troubling. For her, the battle for “fair wages and working conditions” is apparently a thing of the past, resolved a century ago when workers finally “tipped the scales of power.” Of course, we know that these fights are far from over—and surveillance capitalism is poised to make them much more difficult. Silicon Valley doesn’t just harm workers in Amazon fulfillment centers or Chinese iPhone factories, although these violations are horrific enough. It also makes all workers more vulnerable to the spying and prying of their bosses. Zuboff describes a new service for employers (and landlords) that scrapes and analyzes applicants’ social-media activity, including private messages, to assess their character. Meanwhile, Pentland proposes the use of “unobtrusive wearable sensors” called sociometers that would help managers “infer the relationships between colleagues.”

  Although Zuboff notes these examples, she spends very little time discussing them, instead focusing on how surveillance capitalism can affect us during our leisure hours, when we approach technology primarily as users. She emphasizes surveillance in the home over surveillance in the office; she is more worried about how we’re manipulated while shopping than working. Once again, her nostalgia for an earlier form of market capitalism limits the power of her critique: Zuboff is so intent on protecting an idealized image of the liberal individual (someone who exchanges freely on the market and then returns to the privacy of home) that she gives little attention to the corners of our society that capitalism has always subjected to surveillance: prisons, hospitals, borders, workplaces.

  The good news, though: While Zuboff may ignore it, labor also offers a site of resistance that is much more promising than the regulations and fines advocated by None of Your Business. If those at the margins of our society are the most likely to be directly affected by surveillance, then building power at those margins—among tenants, debtors, immigrants, prisoners, and, of course, workers—will allow us to resist the worst abuses of surveillance capitalism at the point of their application. The teachers in West Virginia knew that Go365 threatened their dignity and their livelihood. They used the power of their union to fight back and win. In resisting the rise of surveillance capitalism, we should look to examples like theirs.

  

• "Final Showdown" On Horizon In Idlib As Russia Ramps Up Airstrikes After Rocket Attacks

  Though Syria has largely been out of the headlines for over the past half-year, there’s multiple indicators to suggest we could soon be headed for a major escalation over Idlib. 

  The last time a large Syrian-Russian joint force mustered to retake the al-Qaeda held province in the country’s northwest, the United States threatened major military response (in Sept. 2018), also citing that even should so much as an accusation of chemical weapons usage surface, US strikes would ensue. 

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  Over the past weeks both Syrian and Russian jets have conducted airstrikes over parts of Idlib in retaliation for stepped up HTS operations (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham/Syrian AQ/formerly Nusra) against government areas in a pattern of escalation that looks to continue. And now Russia’s Khmeimim airbase is facing more severe attacks via HTS rockets, mortars, and terror drones. 

  Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed two targeted attacks against its key air base in Syria on Monday, near Latakia, which reportedly involved 36 rockets. Russian officials said Khmeimim’s air defense systems repelled the attacks, which they said also involved the coordination of drones. 

  RT News cited officials to describe “the militants used a drone to direct the fire from multiple launch rocket systems, but the attacks were repelled by Khmeimim’s air defense systems.” Insurgents have long used drones to attempt to penetrate the air base’s defenses. In response, Russia launched a series of air strikes across the Idlib ‘de-escalation’ zone, which is administered based on a joint agreement with Turkey.

  Later in the day Beirut-based Al Masdar News confirmed citing Syrian military sources major Russian airstrikes in and around Idlib: 

  The Russian Air Force has unleashed a massive assault across northwestern Syria this morning, targeting several areas under the control of the militants in Hama, Aleppo, and Idlib.

  According to a military source in the government stronghold of Mhardeh, the Russian Air Force began their aerial bombardment of northwestern Syria just minutes before the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) made their push in northern Hama.

  Following a series of terror attacks and insurgent shelling on civilian areas of Hama and Aleppo, Syrian and Russian forces have cited the breach of ceasefire terms as justifying the new waves of air strikes. 

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  Meanwhile, international media reports have again begun spotlighting the potential for mass humanitarian disaster and refugee displacement as Idlib again finds itself increasingly targeted by warplanes above — also given the mainstay of al-Qaeda’s force in Syria is now lodged among some three million civilians in the area. 

  The Washington Post on Monday said that “a final showdown” is looming over Idlib, which could bring Syria straight back into the international spotlight once again, also as both the US and Israel ramp up efforts against “Iranian expansion” in the region, and as John Bolton announced the deployment of a US carrier strike group and bomber task force to the Middle East. 

  

• Escobar: The Eagle, The Bear, & The Dragon

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

  The eagle has conveniently forgotten that the original, Ancient Silk Road linked the dragon with the Roman empire for centuries – with no interlopers outside of Eurasia…

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  Once upon a time, deep into the night in selected campfires across the deserts of Southwest Asia, I used to tell a fable about the eagle, the bear and the dragon – much to the amusement of my Arab and Persian interlocutors.

  It was about how, in the young 21stcentury, the eagle, the bear and the dragon had taken their (furry) gloves off and engaged in what turned out to be Cold War 2.0.

  As we approach the end of the second decade of this already incandescent century, perhaps it’s fruitful to upgrade the fable. With all due respect to Jean de la Fontaine, excuse me while I kiss the (desert) sky again.

  Long gone are the days when a frustrated bear repeatedly offered to cooperate with the eagle and its minions on a burning question: nuclear missiles.

  The bear repeatedly argued that the deployment of interceptor missiles and radars in that land of the blind leading the blind – Europe – was a threat. The eagle repeatedly argued that this is to protect us from those rogue Persians.

  Now the eagle – claiming the dragon is getting an easy ride – has torn down every treaty in sight and is bent on deploying nuclear missiles in selected eastern parts of the land of the blind leading the blind, essentially targeting the bear.

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  Dragon bridge, Ljubljana. (Ali Eminov/Creative Commons)

  All That Glitters is Silk

  Roughly two decades after what top bear Putin defined as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20thcentury”, he proposed a form of USSR light; a political/economic body called the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

  The idea was to have the EAEU interact with the EU – the top institution of the motley crew congregated as the blind leading the blind.

  The eagle not only rejected the possible integration; it came up with a modified color revolution scenario to unplug Ukraine from the EAEU.

  Even earlier than that, the eagle had wanted to set up a New Silk Road under its total control. The eagle had conveniently forgotten that the original, Ancient Silk Road linked the dragon with the Roman empire for centuries – with no interlopers outside of Eurasia.

  So one can imagine the eagle’s stupor when the dragon irrupted on the global stage with its own super-charged New Silk Roads – upgrading the bear original idea of a free trade area “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” to a multi-connectivity corridor, terrestrial and maritime, from eastern China to western Europe and everything in between, spanning the whole of Eurasia.

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  Facing this new paradigm the blind, well, remained blind for as long as anyone could remember; they simply could not get their act together.

  The eagle, meanwhile, was incrementally raising the stakes. It launched what amounted for all practical purposes to a progressively weaponized encirclement of the dragon.

  The eagle made a series of moves that amount to inciting nations bordering the South China Sea to antagonize the dragon, while repositioning an array of toys – nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets – closer and closer to the dragon’s territory.

  All the time, what the dragon saw – and continues to see – is a battered eagle trying to muscle its way out of an irreversible decline by trying to intimidate, isolate and sabotage the dragon’s irreversible ascent back to where it has been for 18 of the past 20 centuries; enthroned as the king of the jungle.

  A key vector is that Eurasia-wide players know that under the new laws of the jungle the dragon simply can’t – and won’t – be reduced to the status of a supporting actor. And Eurasia-wide players are too smart to embark on a Cold War 2.0 that will undermine Eurasia itself.

  The eagle’s reaction to the dragon’s New Silk strategy took some time to swing from inaction to outright demonization – complementing the joint description of both the dragon and the bear as existential threats.

  And yet, for all the spinning crossfire, Eurasia-wide players are not exactly impressed anymore with an eagle empire armed to its teeth. Especially after the eagle’s crest was severely damaged by failure upon hunting failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Eagle aircraft carriers patrolling the eastern part of Mare Nostrum are not exactly scaring the bear, the Persians and the Syrians.

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  James Audubon and His Journal, published in 1899 in the Public Domain. (Wikimedia Commons)

  A “reset” between the eagle and the bear was always a myth. It took some time – and much financial distress – for the bear to realize there won’t be any reset, while the dragon only saw a reset towards open confrontation.

  After establishing itself, slowly but surely, as the most advanced military power on the planet, with hypersonic know-how, the bear came to a startling conclusion: we don’t care anymore about what the eagle says – or does.

  Under the Raging Volcano

  Meanwhile, the dragon kept expanding, inexorably, across all Asian latitudes as well as Africa, Latin America and even across the unemployment-infested pastures of the austerity-hit blind leading the blind.

  The dragon is firmly assured that, if cornered to the point of resorting to a nuclear option, it holds the power to make the eagle’s staggering deficit explode, degrade its credit rating to junk, and wreak havoc in the global financial system.

  No wonder the eagle, under an all-enveloping paranoid cloud of cognitive dissonance, feeding state propaganda 24/7 to its subjects and minions, keeps spewing out lava like a raging volcano – dispensing sanctions to a great deal of the planet, entertaining regime change wet dreams, launching a total energy embargo against the Persians, resurrecting the “war on terra”, and aiming to punishlike a Bat Out Of Intel Hell any journalist, publisher or whistleblower revealing its inner machinations.

  It hurts, so bad, to admit that the political/economic center of a new multipolar world will be Asia – actually Eurasia.

  As the eagle got more and more threatening, the bear and the dragon got closer and closer in their strategic partnership. Now both bear and dragon have too many strategic links across the planet to be intimidated by the eagle’s massive Empire of Bases or those periodic coalitions of the (somewhat reluctant) willing.

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  Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch, the mythical creature dragon, 1806. (Wikimedia Commons)

  To match comprehensive, in-progress Eurasia integration, of which the New Silk Roads are the graphic symbol, the eagle’s fury, unleashed, has nothing to offer – except rehashing a war against Islam coupled with the weaponized cornering of both bear and dragon.

  Then there’s Persia – those master chess players. The eagle has been gunning for the Persians ever since they got rid of the eagle’s proconsul, the Shah, in 1979 – and this after the eagle and perfidious Albion had already smashed democracy to place the Shah, who made Saddam look like Gandhi, in power in 1953.

  The eagle wants all that oil and natural gas back – not to mention a new Shah as the new gendarme of the Persian Gulf. The difference is now the bear and the dragon are saying No Way. What is the eagle to do? Set up the false flag to end all false flags?

  This is where we stand now. And once again, we reach the end – though not the endgame. There’s still no moral to this revamped fable. We continue to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Our only, slim hope is that a bunch of Hollow Men obsessed by the Second Coming won’t turn Cold War 2.0 into Armageddon.

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  Please Make a Donation to Honor Bob Parry’s Legacy During Our Spring Fundraising Drive

  

• Beijing Puts Army On "Heightened Alert" Over US Warships In South China Sea As Tensions Soar

  While investors from around the globe are desperately looking for clues if the simmering trade war between the US and China is about to get rather hot at midnight on Friday, when as the US Trade Rep warned after the close, the US will hike tariffs to 25% on Chinese imports, the not so veiled geopolitical conflict between the two superpowers which has a far greater chance of mutating into a “kinetic” exchange after China expressed its “strong opposition” on Monday after two US warships sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea.

  It was the third time this year that Washington has challenged Beijing’s maritime claims in the region which China has expressly claimed as its national interest, amid escalating rivalry between the two powers.

  As we reported this morning, guided-missile destroyers USS Preble and USS Chung-Hoon passed within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson reefs in the Spratly Islands on Monday, Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said according to Reuters. The territory is also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

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  Quoted by the SCMP, Commander Doss said the move aimed to assert international rights to “innocent passage” and “challenge excessive maritime claims” in accordance with international law, although Beijing hardly saw the latest US intervention in Chinese backwaters as “innocent.” The incident was the third time this year that the US has conducted so-called freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, compared to five publicly reported passages last year and four in 2017.

  Predictably, with Trump set to pull the plug on a trade deal between Washington and Beijing, the move drew criticism from Beijing, with the foreign ministry calling for the US to end the provocation.

  “The US warships’ actions have violated China’s sovereignty and disturbed the peace, security and order of the region,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. “The Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to that.”

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  Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesman for the Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, said in a message on the PLA Daily’s social media account that the PLA Navy “identified” and “warned off” the US vessels.

  The command was on “heightened alert” and would “take all necessary measures” to safeguard China’s sovereignty over the South China Sea, he said.

  In a clear escalation compared to recent previous diplomatic retorts, on Monday, Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesman for the Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army, said in a message on the PLA Daily’s social media account that the PLA Navy “identified” and “warned off” the US vessels.

  Confirming just how infuriated Beijing was with the latest “innocent passage” by US warships, the Colonel said that the Chinese army was on “heightened alert” and would “take all necessary measures” to safeguard China’s sovereignty over the South China Sea.

  Meanwhile, signaling that such provocations will not stop any time soon, US Commander Doss said the freedom of navigation operations “are not about any one country, nor are they about making political statements,” which of course, is only half a lie: it is indeed about two countries, the US and China, however such operations are all about making a political statement.

  Luckily, so far these statements have not resulted in any major provocative escalations, but if and when the Chinese feel they have nothing more to gain by remaining cordial with the Trump administrations, expect something to break, especially since as Admiral Phil Davidson, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, suggested in February, naval operations by the US and its allies like Britain would become more frequent.

  A similar patrol in September, also near Gavin and Johnson reefs, resulted in a near collision when a US destroyer was forced to make a last-minute manoeuvre to avoid hitting a Chinese warship. Next time when a US and Chinese warship go head to head, it is almost certain that there will be no last-minute evasive manoeuvers.

  

• Gundlach Reveals His Top Trade For 2019

  Never one to shy away from voicing his often radical, contrarian view (he was the first to correctly predict Trump would become the next US president back in mid-2015), DoubleLine’s Jeff Gundlach was the last to take the mic at today’s Ira Sohn conference, where like most other high caliber hedge fund managers, he revealed his top trade.

  Starting off in typical whimsical fashion, he prompted a gasp of surprise from the audience when he urged those present to short the 12 low-polling democrats – perhaps on PredictIt – calling them the 1%-ers, in reference to their 1% polling rating.

  “No Joe, I don’t want you grabbing my shoulders or giving me an Eskimo kiss,” Gundlach said of Joe Biden while showing a slide with several pictures of Joe Biden being very close to women, titled “Space Invaders”, suggesting that he probably does not see the former vice president emerging as the next leader of the “free world.” He continued the political theme, saying “at least Trump can’t go right at him with a nickname Groping Joe.” Think about how that would sound coming from Trump, the DoubleLine CEO said.

  Gundlach also had some choice words for the “1/1024th” candidate, Elizabeth Warren, saying “it’s like being trapped with a mother-in-law from hell. Who wants four years of this? Who wants even four hours of this?”

  Gundlach then turned to his favorite topic, the soaring US public debt, and took yet another victory lap, saying that four years ago at this very podium he predicted Trump would win, and that the debt level would explode, and with over $22 trillion in Federal debt today, he was also correct in this particular forecast, although one hardly needs to be a rocket surgeon to figure out the trajectory of US public debt.

  Of course, there was a trade off, because if national debt did not explode higher, Gundlach said US GDP would be negative the last three years.

  Gundlach also touched on a familiar topic from his latest DoubleLine presentation, namely the surging US debt interest, and echoed what we said last week, warning that he is “concerned” about the future direction of interest rates (as were we back in March).

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  As a reminder, last week we showed a chart from the latest Presentation to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which showed the OMB’s forecast for annual US debt issuance, broken down between its three component uses of funds: Primary Deficit, Net Interest Expense, and “Other.” We said that chart was “troubling” because while in 2019 and 2020 surging US interest expense is roughly matched by the other deficit components in the US budget, these gradually taper off by 2024, and in fact in 2025 become a source of budget surplus (we won’t be holding our breath). But the real red flag was that starting in 2024, when the primary deficit drops to zero according to the latest projections, all US debt issuance would be used to fund the US net interest expense, which depending on the prevailing interest rate between now and then will be anywhere between $700 billion and $1.2 trillion or more.

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  Of course, both the current national debt and interest expense are tiny compared to what they would look like should MMT eventually become the monetary ideology du jour, and it is no secret that Gundlach does not harbor too many warm feelings for the “Magic Money Tree”, saying that MMT “It’s not modern, it’s not monetary and it’s not much of a theory,” which he may have borrowed from a recent GaveKal blog post.

  Countless political and macro tangents aside, Gundlach – who at last year’s Ira Sohn said to buy oil producers and short Facebook – did in fact have a top trade reco for 2019: arguing that since interest rates cannot maintain the low volatility they’ve experienced in the past eight years for an extended period of time, his investment thesis was simple: buy interest-rate volatility on long-maturity U.S. Treasuries via a put-call straddle on TLT.

  Quoted by Bloomberg, Gundlach said that “all one needs is a 50 basis-point change in the long-bond in the next year to make money on this trade. Six months from now, if volatility has doubled, investors would have a 40 percent gain even if interest rates haven’t moved”, he said.

  “Just the volatility doubling sometime in the next year is very likely to make you money,” he said.

  Of course, if rate vol doubles, central banks will be scrambling to mute it as the cascading effect would promptly lead to tremors across all other asset classes, from equities to FX, so in effect Gundlach is urging investors to fight the Fed (and other central banks, who are now all in on vol suppression).

  Gundlach’s final words were also familiar to those who follow his public statements: “Respect everyone. Know life is unfair. Take risk. Step-up in the tough times. Face down bullies. Lift the downtrodden. And never, ever give up”…. which of course was not only pulled from his own April 6 tweet, but was also apparently borrowed from the UTexas 2014 commencement speech delivered by Naval Admiral William McRaven.

  

• Children At Philadelphia Muslim Society Say They Will "Chop Off Heads" For Allah

  Footage has surfaced of Muslim children at an Islamic center in Philadelphia saying that they would sacrifice themselves, “chop off heads” and even kill for the “army of Allah”.

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  The Muslim American Society (MAS) Islamic center in Philadelphia posted the video to its Facebook page in celebration of “Ummah Day”. Young children are seen in the video wearing Palestinian scarves and reading poetry about killing for Allah.

  The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) told Fox News: 

  “These are not isolated incidents; they are happening in major centers of the country – including in Pennsylvania.”

  MEMRI translated the video, where children can be heard singing: “The land of the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey is calling us. Our Palestine must return to us.”

  One girl even talks about martyrs sacrificing their lives to conquer Jerusalem. In the video, she says:

   “We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation. We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture.”

  MAS Philly belongs to the Muslim American Society, which has 42 chapters in the U.S.

  The MAS put out the following statement on Friday: “While we celebrate the coming together of different cultures and languages, not all songs were properly vetted. This was an unintended mistake and an oversight in which the center and the students are remorseful. MAS will conduct an internal investigation to ensure this does not occur again. As a faith-based organization dedicated to moving people to strive for God-consciousness and a just and virtuous society, we affirm our long-standing position on our shared values of humanity. We stand resolutely in our condemnation of hate, bigotry, Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and all the illnesses of hate that plague our society.”

  And, as you may have guessed, CNN was right on the case, reporting its “most trusted name in news” take. Or not. 

  CNN wrote 23 articles on Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann

  CNN has *not* reported on the kids in Philadelphia who were allegedly singing about chopping people’s heads off. pic.twitter.com/Jdeuz1ImKh

  — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 5, 2019

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