- Former Barclays' CEO: "We Have to Continue Raising Rates"
Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclay’s, went on record with Bloomberg this week and stated that the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates so that the central bank could have resources for use in the future, should they need it.
Of late, there has been a significant amount of discussion about whether or not the Fed’s monetary policy is doing more harm than good, potentially backing the Fed into a corner and leaving it without tools for recourse in the event of an upcoming recession. Diamond is the latest voice to chime in, and he knows a little about crises: he helped lead Barclays’ purchase of parts of Lehman brothers after its bankruptcy ten years ago.
“There is no question that we have to continue raising rates and get back to a more normalized level. The thing I worry about is, if there is a crisis or accident, and something has to be done, do we have the tools? Have we used all the ammunition in monetary policy?” Diamond asked on Bloomberg TV this week.
He also states the obvious in noting that the slashing of interest rates and the purchase of $1 trillion in mortgage related securities helped generate a “recovery” after the crisis in 2008. But now, here we are, a decade later and interest rates don’t yet sit above 3%, despite the stock market’s record run over the last decade. And Diamond is concerned by that.
He believes that quantitative easing has left central banks “ill-equipped” to act the next time a crash hits. He believes that it may be difficult for the Fed to raise rates now, especially given the fact that about $8 trillion dollars in US corporate debt comes due by 2020, but that raising them now would certainly be a better option than waiting until we are in the midst of a full blown (probably inflationary) crisis that would force such a move.
The economy can bear the brunt of rate hikes now, and so we should start to get more aggressive as a way to prepare for the future.
Diamond stressed the importance of having options. “We have a recipe for issues, and how we manage through that is the single biggest impact of the financial crisis today,” he told Bloomberg.
Yesterday, we wrote an article about former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard, who took the opposite view and didn’t seem to think the Fed was out of tools at all: he suggested that the Fed could start buying stocks, as well as goods and services, during the next recession.
We found it hilarious that economists are only now starting to realize that this lack of firepower could be a detriment to the Federal Reserve in the future. Blanchard stated over the weekend that the Fed could probably handle a small recession, but a more major recession, like the one we experienced in 2008, should prompt the Fed to resort to “previously unheard of policies”.
As we concluded yesterday, nobody seems to realize that the reason we are in a place where central banks had to buy $15 trillion in assets is because of this type of thinking to begin with.
We asked yesterday, “What will this discussion look like in another 10 years, after the next crisis?”
But the only certainty we could arrive at was that every problem we’ll be dealing in the future will be exactly what we deserve.
- US Efforts To Halt Eurasian Integration Are Failing Miserably
Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The operation of the Syrian Arab Army in the province of Idlib represents the last step of the central government of Damascus in the liberation of the country from the scourge of Islamist terrorism. With the defeat of Daesh and the removal of the remaining pockets of resistance, Assad’s soldiers have accomplished an extraordinary task. Meanwhile, the United States continues its illegal presence in Syria, through its support of the SDF in the north of the country for the purposes of sustaining the destabilizing potential of terrorist networks in the region and beyond. In light of this unfavorable situation for the Americans, it is easy to explain the transfer of commanders and high terrorist spheres from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan, as confirmed by several official Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi sources.
The logic behind such a move has everything to do with the ongoing process of Eurasian integration. Progress in this regard has been multifaceted in recent months and years. It ranges from the most important event, namely the entry of Pakistan and India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to other less known events, such as the signing of the Caspian Sea treaty by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. The United States is committed to stopping this integration. Staying true to Brzezinski’s grand strategy, based on the concepts of Heartland and Rimland, it has not been difficult for policy makers and advisors of the current US administration to understand the importance of Afghanistan in helping the process of Eurasian integration by fomenting terrorism. Afghanistan plays an important double role as a hinge between both Eurasia and the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
The central geographical position of the Afghan state gives it an important geopolitical role, especially from 2001, when it was illegally invaded under false pretenses and without justifying proof (as recently documented by The Corbett Report). The complicated relations between India, Pakistan and Afghanistan derive essentially from the destabilizing role played by Pakistan (especially its military and intelligence wings) in Afghanistan from the 1980s to today, courtesy of financial support received from Saudi Arabia and the political, and military and intelligence support from the US. Islamabad has for decades made itself available as a launching pad for more or less official operations since the times of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The Mujahideen, supported by Reagan and declared “Freedom Fighters”, are none other than the forebears of today’s Al Qaeda terrorists, which has mutated into other appellations in Syria like Al Nusra and Daesh. The formula has changed little over the last 30 years, the ingredients being Saudi money, Pakistani support, and American weaponry and intelligence.
Eurasian integration has accelerated considerably in recent years thanks to the influence of Russia and China in the region. Over a short time, Beijing has proposed the construction of various infrastructure projects (the most famous being the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC) in Pakistan to improve the transport network as well as the delivery of goods and trade. Pakistan was one of the first countries to adhere politically and economically to the Chinese initiative known as One Belt One Road (renamed the Belt Road Initiative, or BRI). Thanks to Moscow’s skilful diplomatic and political work, New Delhi’s pronounced distrust of the new alliance between China and Pakistan has decreased. Putin and Xi Jinping have literally accompanied over months, if not years, the process of rapprochement between Pakistan, India, Russia and China, with the aim of laying the foundations for an entry of the two countries into the SCO. The idea of Xi and Putin is based on a strategic parity between New Delhi and Islamabad, well balanced thanks to two friendly countries like Russia and China.
The entry into the SCO was already broached in 2015 as a revolutionary act for the region, with the clear objective of working together to pacify Afghanistan and to advance the commercial and social integration of the Eurasian continent. Terrorism is a monumental challenge in this context and one of the main threats to the Chinese BRI project. Both Moscow and Beijing need to protect their commercial and financial projects in the region by preventing the use of terrorism as a means of sabotaging future rail, road and energy-development projects. The intention to use the SCO as an international framework to bring the five key players of the region (Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, China and Russia) to the same table is a master stroke for which Xi Jinping and Putin will be remembered.
Putin and Xi Jinping have a lot to offer in almost all the proposals made, from military defense guaranteed by alliances or arms sales, to economic benefits stemming from Beijing’s financial power. Moscow and Beijing offer both military sovereignty and economic cover to countries that have always been easy targets for terrorism, corruption and malfeasance as a result of the attention they attract from Beijing and Moscow’s political opponents, mainly Washington. Afghanistan is an example, but the agreement signed concerning the Caspian Sea is also a clear example of Eurasian integration prevailing over every external attempt to influence events in Washington’s favor. The agreement signed in Aktau, between Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, forever seals any military expansionist aims of the United States or its allies. In the Caspian Sea, no foreign military presence will ever be allowed, not even temporarily.
The agreement on the Caspian Sea is a great victory for Moscow, together with the tripartite discussions between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, which allow for Russia to strengthen its southern borders, expand new trade alliances, and actively combat terrorism in all its forms (including the Taliban in Afghanistan). For Beijing, these tripartite talks advance two key factors influencing the development of the BRI.
Firstly, it mitigates, and if necessary combats, the danger of terrorism, often used as an instrument against the BRI’s infrastructure by China’s adversaries, typically the US.
Secondly, it deepens talks with the Indian counterpart and opens more channels of communication between Beijing and New Delhi as well as between Modi and Xi Jinping.
Although both countries are members of the BRICS, India has an intense relationship with Washington allies Australia and Japan. New Delhi tries to present itself as a balancing actor that offers an alternative to minor countries in Southeast Asia. Washington would like to use Indian influence to play these countries against China, but New Delhi and Beijing are working to prevent this in favor of broader Eurasian integration.
In spite of what Washington may hope for and encourage, New Delhi’s role does not necessarily come into conflict with Beijing’s policies in the region. To overcome existing tensions, especially after the clashes on their common border more than a year ago, it was crucial to create a framework suitable to eliminate distrust between the two countries and increase mutual confidence. In this sense, India’s entry into the SCO represents a great incentive for a constant improvement in relations between the two countries. It should be remembered that trade between Beijing and New Delhi is constantly increasing and personal relations between Modi and Xi Jinping have repeatedly shown themselves to be at important levels. The entry of Pakistan and Afghanistan into the equation makes the picture more complicated, but certainly not impossible. Such forums for negotiations as the SCO provides allows for the ironing out of differences.
Meanwhile, Washington is not standing idly by watching this Eurasian integration proceed unopposed, and has begun to create the ideal conditions for further chaos in Afghanistan. The Taliban, having remained undefeated over the last 18 years of war, have started new offensives in the country, even expanding into areas they have never controlled since the Americans arrived. They could end up controlling more territory than before the War on Terror began. Washington struggles to impose stable control over the territory. But it also has every interest in ensuring that Afghanistan remains a source of instability in the region, also involving Pakistan in this process, exacerbating the frictions between New Delhi and Islamabad and possibly involving Beijing as well.
Persistent and credible reports continue to indicate the relocation from Syria of a large number of local leaders and commanders of terrorist groups supported by Washington. In addition to saving them from sure defeat at the hands of the Syrian Arab Army, the United States has begun to relocate numerous extremist Salafists loyal to the ISIS to the Eurasian country for more than a year. It is therefore not surprising that the increasing presence of ISIS in Afghanistan has led to clashes with the Taliban, engaging in a power struggle over money and drug-trade routes.
As the contrasting examples of Syria and Libya showed, alliances between countries is what make a genuine struggle against international terrorism effective. In Afghanistan the situation is complicated by the presence and interference of the United States. But after 18 years, the White House’s excuse of being there to fight terrorism is wearing thin. Not coincidentally, Afghanistan is an observer member of the SCO, holding increasingly frequent talks with all the parties involved, specifically with China, Russia, India and Pakistan. The direction is decidedly towards an alliance that has as its ultimate objective the elimination of Daesh in the country and a political dialogue with the Taliban, even if this second objective is only currently a vague possibility.
The United States is committing the same mistake in Afghanistan that it committed in Iraq following the war in 2003 and and in Libya following the killing of Gaddafi in 2011. These countries, which were not openly hostile to the United States (especially Saddam Hussein, who was strongly anti-Iranian), today find themselves in chaos (Libya), with Washington and Italy playing a weak hand in supporting the Fayez al-Sarraj government while that of General Haftar controls more than half of the country with Russian and French support. In Iraq, the government is openly pro-Shia, maintaining privileged, direct relations with Iran and allowing Russia to use its airspace to target US-backed terrorists.
Washington, using tactics of destruction and chaos, has forced several countries to seek protection from the likes of Russia and Iran. Afghanistan is moving in the same direction, even though the country currently has tens of thousands of foreign troops who will eventually have to end their war mission under the the NATO banner, finally freeing the region from the negative influence of Washington and her allies.
Washington’s recent choices certainly do not help advance American interests in the region. Trump has blocked some funding for the Pakistani armed forces as well as several joint training courses between the Pakistani and American intelligence services. Washington is also blocking 300 million dollars of aid on the basis of Islamabad not acting sufficiently to combat militants.
Russia in the north, China in the east and Iran in the South are ready to integrate the strategic triangle between their borders (the Caspian Sea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India), into the Eurasian plan of development and progress. Despite Washington’s attempts at sabotage, whether economically or militarily, covertly or overtly, the path towards a new Eurasian century seems linked to events like the treaty on the Caspian Sea, the ending of the war in Syria, and the deterioration of security conditions in Afghanistan. These are all events that mark the end of American hegemony in the region.
Piece by piece, China, Russia and Iran are snatching historic allies such as Turkey and Pakistan away from Washington, with the ultimate goal of pushing American influence out of the region. Without these key allies, Washington’s capacity to destabilize the region is reduced considerably. The agreement on the Caspian Sea, like the SCO in Central Asia, therefore serves the purpose of preventing external interference, especially by the United States.
In the name of effectively fighting terrorism and stabilizing key countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria, China and Russia are advancing the project of Eurasian integration for the benefit of the whole region and beyond. Washington will have little capacity to throw a spanner in the works and attempt to sabotage the whole project as it finds itself progressively pushed out of the region.
- There Is No Patriot Or Spartacus Here – Just Politics
Authored by Peter van Buren via The American Conservative,
There are ways for officials to honorably dissent, like blowing a whistle, resigning, or penning a protest with your actual name on it.
The anonymous New York Times op-ed writer inside government thwarting Trump’s plans does not understand how government works. Amplified by worn accusations in Bob Woodward’s new book, the op-ed is nonetheless driving calls for Trump’s removal under the 25th Amendment to save America. But look closer: there are no patriots here, and little new; it’s all nasty politics.
You don’t join government to do whatever partisan thing you think is right; you serve the United States, and take an oath to a Constitution which spells out a system and chain of command. There is no Article 8 saying “but if you really disagree with the president it’s OK to just do what you want.”
I served 24 years in such a system, joining the State Department under Ronald Reagan and leaving during the Obama era. That splay of political ideologies had plenty of things in it my colleagues and I disagreed with or even believed dangerous. Same for people in the military, who were told who to kill on America’s behalf, a more significant moral issue than a wonky disagreement over a trade deal or a boorish tweet.
But the only way for America to function credibly was for us to work on her behalf, and that meant following the boss, the system created by the Constitution, and remembering you weren’t the one elected, and that you ultimately worked for those who did the electing. There were ways to honorably dissent, such as resigning, or writing a book with your name on the cover (my choice), and otherwise taking your lumps.
But acting as a wrench inside the gears of government to disaffect policy (the Washington Post warned “sleeper cells have awoken”) is what foreign intelligence officers recruit American officials to do, and that doesn’t make you a hero acting on conscience, just a traitor.
It seems odd someone labeled a senior official by the New York Times would not understand the difference before defining themselves forever by writing such an article. (Then again, Sen. Cory Booker didn’t seem to know the documents he was so bravely disclosing were already declassified before he called the gesture his “I am Spartacus moment.”)
So don’t be too surprised if the op-ed author turns out to be a junior official not in a position to know what they claim to know, a political appointee in a first government job reporting second- or third-hand rumors—maybe an ex-Bushie in over their head. That will raise important questions about whether the NYTexaggerated the official’s importance, and thus credibility, and whether anonymity was being used to buff up the narrative by encouraging speculation.
Next up: sorting out the “new” facts forming the underbelly of calls to end the Trump presidency. The op-ed’s release was set by the Times to perfectly dovetail with Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear (It would be interesting to know how much of this was created by the Times — did the paper encourage the heretofore unidentified ‘patriot’ to write? Did they have to be persuaded? How much editing was done? How far from the role of journalism into political activism did the Timesstray?)
Neither the book nor the op-ed breaks any new ground. Both are chock full of gossip, rumors, and half-truths present from Trump day one and already ladled out by Michael Wolff’s own nearly-forgotten book and Omarosa’s unheard recordings: the man is clinically insane, has the mind of a child, acts impulsively, and is thus dangerous. Same stuff but now 18 months shinier and sexier—Woodward! Watergate! Anonymous! Deep Throat! It’s clever recycling, a way to appear controversial without inviting skepticism by telling people what they already believe because they’ve already heard it. What seems like confirmation is just repetition.
There are plenty of accusations in Woodward’s book (“Trump is not smart“) that were quickly denied by those quoted (Jim Mattis and JohnKelly, for example.) But one new item, the claim that Gary Cohn, Trump’s former economic adviser, walked into the Oval Office and snatched a letter off Trump’s desk, suggests how sloppy the reporting is. Cohn supposedly stopped Trump from pulling out of a trade agreement with South Korea by stealing an implementing letter, preventing Trump from signing it. Woodard writes Cohn did the same thing on another occasion to stop Trump pulling out of NAFTA.
“Paper” inside government, especially for the president’s signature, does not simply disappear. Any document reaching a senior official’s desk has been tasked out to other people to work on. The process usually begins when questions are asked at higher levels and then sent down to the bureaucracy; no president is expected to know it’s Article 24.5 of an agreement that allows withdrawal. That request creates a paper trail and establishes stakeholders in the decision, for example, people standing by to implement a decision or needing to know ahead of negotiations with Seoul POTUS changed his mind.
So paper isn’t forgotten. I know, I had a job working as the Ambassador’s staff assistant in London where most of my day was spent tracking letters and memos on his behalf. Inside the State Department an entire office known as The Line does little else but keep track of paper flowing in and out of the Secretary of State’s actual In/Out boxes. This isn’t just bureaucratic banality at work; this is how things get done in government, as documents with the president’s signature instantly turn into orders.
So even if, playing to the public image of a dotard-in-chief, Trump didn’t remember calling for that letter on South Korea, and thus never missed it after Cohn allegedly stole it to change history, a lot of other people would have gone looking for it. Stealing a letter off the president’s desk is not the equivalent of hiding the remote to keep grandpa from changing channels. And that’s to call the claim absurd even before noting how few individuals the Secret Service allows into the Oval Office on their own to grab stuff. While the example of the stolen letter is a bit down in the bureaucratic weeds, it is important because what is being widely reported, and accepted, is not always true.
The final part of all this which doesn’t pass a sniff test is according to the op-ed, 25th Amendment procedures to remove the president from office were discussed at the Cabinet level. The 25th, passed after the Kennedy assassination, created a set of presidential succession rules, historically used for short handovers of power when a president has gone under anesthesia. Most relevant is the never-used full incapacitation clause.
An 2018 interpretation of that clause made popular by TV pundits is now the driver behind demands that Trump is so stupid, impulsive, and insane he cannot carry out his duties, and so power must be transferred away from him today. While the op-ed writer says the idea was shelved only to avoid a Constitutional crisis, in fact it makes no sense. The 25th’s legally specific term “unable” does not mean the same thing as the vernacular “unfit.” An unconscious man is unable (the word used in the Amendment) to drive. A man who forgot his glasses is unfit (not the word used in the Amendment), but still able, to drive, albeit poorly.
The use of the 25th to get Trump out of office is the kind of thing people with too much Google time, not senior officials with access to legal advice, convince themselves is true. The intent of the amendment was to create an administrativeprocedure, not a political thunderbolt.
But intent aside, the main reason senior officials would know the 25th is not intended to be used adversarially is the Constitution already specifies impeachment as the way to force an unfit president out. The 25th was not written to be a new flavor of impeachment or a do-over for an election. It has to be so; the Constitution at its core grants ultimate power to the people to decide, deliberately, not in panic, every four years, who is president. Anything otherwise would mean the drafters of the 25th wrote a backdoor into the Constitution allowing a group of officials, most of whom were elected by nobody, to overthrow an elected president they simply think turned out to be bad at his job.
The alarmist accusations against Trump, especially when invoking mental illness to claim Americans are in danger, are perfectly timed fodder, dropped right after Labor Day into the election season, to displace the grinding technicalities of a Russiagate investigation. Political opponents of Trump had been counting on Mueller by now to hand them November amid a wash of indictments, and thus tee up impeachment with a Democratic majority in the House.
The op-ed does indeed signal a crisis, but not a Constitutional one. It is a crisis of collusion, among journalists turned to the task of removing a president via what some would call a soft coup.
Because it’s either that, or we’re meant as a nation to believe an election should be overturned two years after the fact based on a vaguely-sourced tell-all book and an anonymous op-ed.
- How To Explain The Cause Of The Syrian War In 2 Minutes
The last time time President Trump launched massive strikes on Syria in April of 2018, Jeffrey Sachs went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe just two days before the attack to give the American public a perspective they had never heard aired on a major cable network.
Importantly, Sachs is not some random unknown blogger or obscure editorial writer, but a renowned Columbia University professor and career Harvard academic who has won numerous awards and serves as special economic adviser to the U.N.
During the panel Sachs appeared to shock his hosts with erudite analysis of how the seven-year long war in Syria has fundamentally been fueled by covert regime change from the West and its Gulf allies — a rare if not unheard of subject for the show.
In a mere two minutes Sachs cut through the soundbites even as — just like now — the Trump administration was advancing completely unverified claims of an Assad chemical attack on civilians in order to prep the public for military intervention.
Sachs told the MSNBC panel:
We know they sent in the CIA to overthrow Assad. The CIA and Saudi Arabia together in covert operations tried to overthrow Assad. It was a disaster.
Eventually it brought in both ISIS as a splinter group to the jihadists that went in, it also brought in Russia.
So we have been digging deeper and deeper and deeper. What we should do now is get out, and not continue to throw missiles, not have a confrontation with Russia…
As we now have nearly the exact same situation a mere six months later with the current war of words between the US and Russia, and the potential for a “chemical provocation” in Idlib which could ignite a dangerous escalation toward World War 3, Jeffrey Sachs’ words are now more urgent than ever.
Here’s how to explain the cause of the Syrian war in 2 minutes…
2 minutes of truth about US intervention in Syria from Jeffrey Sachs @JeffDSachs is worth more than 98 percent of the bullshit we are hearing on TV — worth clicking on this: pic.twitter.com/T503g2oL1d
— Mark Weisbrot (@MarkWeisbrot) April 12, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
In the full interview, Sachs went on to summarize:
This happened because of us… We started a war to overthrow a regime. It was covert… a major war effort, shrouded in secrecy, never debated by Congress, never explained to the American people… And this created chaos, and so just throwing more missiles in right now is not a response.
He also insisted in the full segment:
This is the CIA, this is the Pentagon, wanting to keep Iran and Russia out of Syria. But no way to do that. And so we have made a proxy war in Syria. It’s killed 500,000 people, displaced 10 million. And I’ll say – predictably so.
There was wasn’t much the talking heads sitting across from the UN economist could say after that.
- Paul Craig Roberts: Armageddon Rides In The Balance
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
For some time I have pointed out the paradox of the American liberal/progressive/left being allied with the CIA, FBI, military/security complex and deep state. Now leftist Ann Garrison has noticed the paradox of this alliance. She concludes that the left has lost its mind.
Indeed, it has.
Out of its hatred of Trump the left has united with the forces of evil and war that are leading to conflict with Russia. The left’s hatred of Trump shows that the American left has totally separated from the interests of the working class, which elected Trump. The American left has abandoned the working class for the group victimizations and hatreds of Identity Politics. As Hillary put it, the working class comprises the “Trump deplorables.” The Democratic Party, like the Republicans, represents the ruling oligarchy.
I have explained that the leftwing lost its bearings when the Soviet Union collapsed and socialism gave way to neoliberal privatizations. The moral fury of the leftwing movement had to go somewhere, and it found its home in Identity Politics in which the white heterosexual male takes the place of the capitalist, and his victim groups—blacks, women, homosexuals, illegal immigrants – take the place of the working class.
The consequences of the leftwing’s alliance with warmongers and liars is the leftwing’s loss of veracity. The left has endorsed a CIA orchestration – “Russiagate” – for which there is no known evidence, but which the left supports as proven truth.
The purpose of “Russiagate” is to prevent President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. In these times when so many Americans are hard pressed, normal relations could adversely impact the budget and power of the military/security complex by reducing the “Russian threat.” If there is no real Russian threat, only an orchestrated perceived one, the question arises: why does the military/security complex have a taxpayer-supported annual budget of $1,000 billion dollars?
The presstitutes have kept the truth from emerging that the “Russiagate” investigation has found no sign of a Trump/Putin plot to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary. Indeed, it has been proven beyond all questioning that the Hillary emails were not hacked but were downloaded on a thumb drive. This proof collapses the entire premise of “Russiagate.”
Nevertheless, the hoax continues.
Mueller’s indictments are for unrelated matters, such as income tax evasion in the distant past of Republican fund raisers and consultants. These charges have nothing whatsoever to do with Mueller’s mandate. Indeed, as Andrew C. McCarthy, a former US attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has made clear, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller to head the “Russiagate” investigation is not in compliance with the regulations that govern the appointment of a special prosecutor.
The appointment of a special prosecutor requires evidence of a specific federal crime that is to be investigated. You only have a special prosecutor when there is factual basis for believing that a federal crime has been committed. What is the federal crime? What is the factual basis? Mueller’s appointment does not say. Therefore, Mueller’s appointment is invalid. Rosenstein has violated the process. In my opinion, this is grounds for Rosenstein to be removed from office.
At one time, Congress—both parties—would have been all over the invalid Mueller appointment. However, after 16 years of Cheney/Bush and Obama regime lawlessness, even Republicans accept that the Constitution’s restraints on executive branch power, along with the laws and regulations Congress has established specifying the exercise of these powers, have been rendered meaningless by the “war on terror,” a hoax designed to further Israel’s interests in the Middle East and the neoonservative doctrine of US hegemony, while making billions of dollars for the military/security complex.
Charlie Savage’s book, Takeover, and David Ray Griffin’s book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World, accurately document how 9/11 was used to destroy the Constitution’s balance of power within the government and to create unaccountable executive branch powers that over-ride the Constitution’s protection of civil liberty. This demand for an unaccountable executive branch, pushed by VP—actually President in fact—Dick Cheney and his minions, such as Addington and John Yoo, was the agenda of the Republican Federalist Society. An early book laying out the legally invalid and legally incompetent argument that the president had powers unchecked by Congress or the judiciary was Terry Eastland’s book, Energy in the Executive. This collection of nonsense became Cheney’s bible as he proceeded in secret to remove constraints on executive branch power. The elevation of the executive branch above the law of the land is documented in Charlie Savage’s book. Read it and weep for your country destroyed by Dick Cheney.
On top of Cheney’s coup against accountable government, we have in America today another coup, organized by former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director Comey, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, the Democratic National Committee, the departed Republican senator John McCain, a coup fully supported by the entirety of the US presstitute media. This coup is against the democratically elected President of the United States for the sole reason that he threatens the power and profit of the entrenched military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us 57 years ago, by wanting to normalize relations with Russia, the world’s premier nuclear power.
The question is unavoidable: Why do the American people put up with this? Are they so insouciant that they have no realization that, if a president can be driven from office because he wants peace with Russia, the removed president’s successor will have to stand against Russia or also be driven from office. Trust and negotiation between the nuclear powers becomes impossible. Why do Americans support conflict with a nuclear power that can completely destroy America?
During the entirety of the Cold War, in which I was a participant, the emphasis was on reducing tensions and creating trust. Today Washington’s interest is piling provocation after provocation on a country that can wipe us off the face of the earth. The liberal/progressive/left, the Democratic National Committee, the CIA and the rest of the covert state, and the media whores all share this same commitment to the reckless and irresponsible provocation of a powerful nuclear power. As the US military itself acknowledges, Russia’s weapons are far beyond America’s defenses.
So what is going on? Is it the liberal/progressive/left’s desire that evil America be destroyed? Is this desired destruction of evil America the reason the left has allied itself so tightly with the warmongers in Washington? Is this the reason that the left and the Democrats and a handful of Republicans want to impeach President Trump for attempting to make peace with Russia?
How can these crazed immoral people present themselves as some sort of moral arbiter when they are locked on a trajectory that will destroy Earth?
This destruction might be closer than anyone thinks. Here is the situation in Syria:
Russia and Syria, in cooperation with Iran and Turkey, have begun the assult on Iblid province, the last stronghold of Washington’s proxy army consisting of Al Qaeda, Al Nursra, and ISIS mercenaries hired by Washington.
According to reports, which might or might not be true considering the lack of veracity that is the defining characteristic of the Western media, the US and UK have troops among the mercenary forces, hoping apparently that this presence will deter the attack. As the attack has already begun, this is a false hope.
The Russians discovered Washington’s plot to explode a chemical weapon in Iblid province and exposed Washington’s plot to the UN. Washington had it set up that once its proxies created the appearance of a chemical weapon explosion, Washington would send Tomahawk missiles upon the Syrian forces, thus protecting its proxy army that it sent to overthrow Assad for Israel. The Russian exposure of Washington’s conspiracy has denied Washington UN support. Moreover, Russia has sent a naval force armed with the new Russian hypersonic missiles to Syria and has announced that its aircraft in the area are also armed with these missiles. As the US Navy and Air Force have no defense whatsoever against these missiles, if the US attacks the Syrian/Russian forces, it will be Putin’s decision whether any US ship or military aircraft in the area exists as anything but a smoldering ruin.
In other words, the entire power in the area lies in Russian hands. If Washington had any sense—and it doesn’t, Washington has hubris and arrogance in the place of sense—Washington would be nowhere close to Syria.
The question is this: Will the hotheads in Washington conclude that the Russian announcements and marshalling of forces is “just another Putin bluff.” So far Putin has been loaded up with never-ending insults and provocation— blame for the crash of the Malaysian airliner, blame for poisoning a variety of people in England, blame for invading Ukraine, blame for interfering in US elections, blame for supporting the “dictator” Assad, a person democratically elected by a large vote who obviously has the support of the Syrian people as he liberates Syria from the forces Washington sent to put the country into the same chaos that exists in Iraq and Libya.
Have we reached the situation about which I have been worried, worries shared with my readers, in which Washington makes the miscalculation, based on the incorrect understanding of Russia’s resolve, to launch an attack on the Syrian/Russian forces that have begun the final liberation of Syria from Washington’s paid mercenaries? Yesterday the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity sent a letter to President Trump advising him of the war danger that the Trump administration has created by its continued illegal interference in Syria’s internal affairs.
The Russian government cannot accept Washington’s military intervention in behalf of Al Qaeda, Al Nursa, and ISIS without completely losing all credibility, not only in the world, but inside Russia itself.
A realistic alternative to military action would be for Washington to stand aside as Syria reconstitutes itself and use a propaganda war to blame Syria and Russia for civilian deaths and for destroying “democratic rebels” who rose against a “dictator.” The fear could be expanded to the Baltics and Ukraine by reviving the propaganda that Putin intends to reconstruct the Soviet Empire.
Washington has long used an expertly manufactured fear of Russia to control Europe. Fear can keep Europe in line, whereas military action against Russia could scare Europe into taking refuge in a revival of its sovereignty.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported: “President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold, U.S. officials said, raising the prospects for another retaliatory U.S. military strike as thousands try to escape what could be a decisive battle in the seven-year-old war.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the US strikes could target Russian and Iranian forces as well as Syrian forces.
It is difficult to believe that Washington thinks attacks on Russian forces would go unanswered. Such a reckless and irresponsible act could initiate Armageddon.
The claim that Assad has approved the use of chlorine gas in the liberation of Iblid is propagandistic nonsense put out by Washington as an excuse for Washington’s effort to protect its proxy army in Syria with military strikes. All Syrian chemical weapons were removed by Russia and turned over to the US during the Obama regime. Moreover, Russia would not permit Assad to use chemical weapons if he had them.
Life on earth is faced with a situation in which Washington is so determined to overthrow Assad and to leave Syria in the same chaos as Libya and Iraq that Washington is willing to risk war with Russia. Never before have irrationality and immorality had such a firm hold on a government. The world should be scared to death of the recklessness and irresponsibility of the US government.
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PCR Readers: This is your website. Support it. Where else do you get truthful analysis? I am at risk speaking like this in a police state. If you don’t support truth, why should I put myself at risk?
- Vizio Smart TV's Caught Spying; Will Display Pop-Up Notification For Class Action Lawsuit
Vizio Smart TV owners who haven’t heard that the internet-connected televisions had been spying on them may find out about it directly from their Smart TV itself, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The secret “feature” was exposed in November 2015, when journalistic watchdog ProPublica revealed that Vizio TVs track viewing habits and share them with advertisers.
Vizio’s technology works by analyzing snippets of the shows you’re watching, whether on traditional television or streaming Internet services such as Netflix. Vizio determines the date, time, channel of programs — as well as whether you watched them live or recorded. The viewing patterns are then connected your IP address – the Internet address that can be used to identify every device in a home, from your TV to a phone. –Propublica
Following the report, several class action lawsuits ensued which were consolidated. The company argued in court that it was innocent and only recorded customers anonymously, however a California Federal Judge disagreed, once in March and once in July, in a class action lawsuit against the company.
Vizio insisted that it was only collecting and sharing nonpersonal information such as IP addresses and zip codes, but the plaintiffs had researchers coming forward to say that it was easy to figure out who was watching what. –Hollywood Reporter
Last Wednesday, attorneys in the class action suit asked the same judge to extend the deadline for a preliminary settlement – originally scheduled to be publicly detailed on September 12, so that they can notify owners through their TVs.
According to a court filing, “The Parties are developing a class notice program with direct notification to the class through VIZIO Smart TV displays, which requires testing to make sure any TV notice can be properly displayed and functions as intended. The additional time requested will allow the parties to confirm that the notice program proposed in the motion for preliminary approval is workable and satisfies applicable legal standards.”
Attorneys leading the class action say they wish to detail the terms of the settlement by October 3.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also investigated the company, settling with Vizio for just $2.2 million – a slap on the wrist.
Vizio has legal issues all around – as the company has also been pursuing a separate fraud case against China’s LeEcho over a failed $2 billion merger, after the Smart TV manufacturer accused the Chinese company of misrepresenting its financial health and “concocting a secret plan to obtain confidential consumer information,” according to the Reporter.
- National Solar Observatory Mysteriously Closed As Geomagnetic Storm Looms
The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico has been closed since last Thursday.
ABC-7 Monday spoke with Shari Lifson, who is with AURA, the company that co-manages the Observatory with NMSU.
“The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy who manages the facility is addressing a security issue at this time. We have decided to vacate the facility at this time as precautionary measure. It was our decision to evacuate the facility.”
Lifson told ABC 7 there is no time-table for the Observatory to be re-opened.
ABC-7 also reached out to the FBI, but did not hear back from the federal agency in time for deadline. The FBI did speak with local law enforcement about the length of the observatory closure.
“The FBI is refusing to tell us what’s going on. We’ve got people up there (at Sunspot) that requested us to standby while they evacuate it. Nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why.
The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say. But for the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there.
There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.”
The FBI did not tell Sheriff House the reason for the closure. Sheriff Benny House did tell ABC 7 that his local law enforcement did not have anything to do with either the observatory closure.
For the conspiracy-minded, Sunspot is a mere 130 miles from Roswell, New Mexico, and about 90 miles from the White Sands Missile Range. Established in 1958, the observatory predates the unincorporated area in the Sacramento Mountains that was named for it.
All of which would be odd enough, but as SHTFplan.com’s Mac Slavo details below, the observatory is closed just as a massive hole has opened up in the Sun’s corona, which means we’re officially on watch for a geomagnetic storm. Auroras will be likely across much of North America as the sun heads into a solar minimum.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a storm watch for a G2-level solar storm on September 11.
That’s a moderate storm on the 5-level scale, with G5 being the highest, according to Science Alert. We’re currently heading into a solar minimum, the least active period of the Sun’s 11-year cycle. That means there will be a much lower sunspot, coronal mass ejection, and solar flare activity.
If you are one of those who loves seeing the aurora borealis or the “Northern Lights,” have your camera handy, because it could be a beautiful show. As the holes open up in the Sun’s corona, although these are cooler, less dense regions of plasma in the Sun’s atmosphere, they are also more dramatic with open magnetic fields. These open regions allow the solar winds to escape the Sun’s surface more easily, blowing electromagnetic radiation into space at high speeds. If Earth is in the way of those solar winds, we could experience some intense outcomes.
While the effects of this wind will be slightly stronger than those of a G1 storm, according to Science Alert, they’ll probably pass most of us by. High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms due to surges from geomagnetically induced currents, and longer storms can cause transformer damage, but it looks like this storm will be a relatively short one. According to the British Met Office, the solar winds could travel at speeds of up to 600 kilometers per second (372 miles per second) in the next two days.
Spacecraft operations may be affected as the storm impedes GPS, which means corrections may need to be issued by ground control. And high-frequency radio propagation can fade at high latitudes.
The biggest effect will probably be the light show since the solar winds are responsible for auroras. As they blow in from space, they interact with charged particles (mainly protons and electrons) in our magnetosphere.
These charged particles then rain into the ionosphere and travel along the planet’s magnetic field lines to the poles, where interactions with other particles, such as oxygen and nitrogen, manifest as dancing lights in the sky. –Science Alert
According to a map released by NOAA, the auroras resulting from this storm will likely be visible from Alaska, as well as the states across the United States’s Northern border with Canada and as far south as Iowa and Illinois. There will also be aurora australis visible from Antarctica.
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Just in case you were blowing off the tin-foil-hat views of the observatory closure, we note that all these solar/space cams down at the same time:
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Webcams located at SOAR Observatory – The Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope located in Chile
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Webcam located at Mauna Kea observatory at the University of Hawaii Hilo
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Webcam from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope observatory in Hawaii
- Dramatic Footage From Vostok-2018, Russia's Largest War Games Since The Soviet Union
The Vostok 2018 military exercise kicked off in Russia’s far east on Tuesday, involving 300,000 troops and close to 40,000 military vehicles. It’s been billed as the most expansive war games on Russian soil since 1981 under the Soviet Union.
It further includes 1,000 aircraft, two Russian naval fleets and all airborne units, along with a contingent from China, and a Mongolian troop deployment.
Controversially, China is to deploy an unprecedented number of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops and equipment numbering in the thousands, which also constitutes the first time a country not from the former Soviet bloc has conducted joint games with Moscow and on Russian soil.
All images via the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) China has sent about 3,200 PLA elite forces troops, along with 30 fix-wing aircraft and helicopters to deploy during the exercises.
A Financial Times report described the joint deployment as including “Hundreds of Russian and Chinese tanks, attack helicopters, fighter jets and thousands of soldiers…” in “a show of strength and friendship between Asia’s two largest military powers”.
At a moment when NATO is expanding up to Russia’s Western border and with “non-aligned” Scandinavian countries Sweden and Finland increasingly cooperating in NATO war games, one major element to the games sure to attract the attention of Washington military planners is the inclusion of simulated nuclear weapons attacks.
Both Russia and China are among the world’s major longtime nuclear armed powers, and both are experiencing soaring tensions with the United States.
In response to the impending Vostok-18 games Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon announced late last month, “We urge Russia to take steps to share information regarding its exercises and operations in Europe to clearly convey its intentions and minimize and potential misunderstanding.”
Prior Pentagon reports suggest the games will be closely watched by U.S. intelligence agencies especially due to Russia’s willingness to simulate nuclear combat.
On Monday Russian state sources began publishing dramatic footage of the extent of the military deployment on the eve of the exercises beginning.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff, described some of strategic maneuvers to be employed in the games: “There are plans to practice massive air strikes, cruise missile training, defensive and offensive operations, raids, and bypass maneuvers.”
And this unusual commandeering of a civilian highway:* * *
Putin is expected to observe the exercises this week first-hand in the far eastern region alongside Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is overseeing them. As president, Putin has the title of armed forces commander-in-chief.
And likely entire civilian highways will be commandeered as military aircraft landing strips as happened during the lead-up to this week’s major military exercise last month:
A busy motorway in Russia was turned into an emergency runway as part of a military exercise which saw warplanes thunder over stunned motorists.
Vehicles were halted on the Khabarovsk to Komsomolsk-on-Amur motorway to allow Su-30SM, Su-35S and MiG-31 pilots to test their landing and takeoff skills on the narrow road.
Halted motorists filmed the amazing scenes as they got a grandstand view for the military exercise close to the Chinese border in the Russian Far East.
Meanwhile, the US-funded official news source VOA News has cited experts who dispute the Russian defense ministry’s much touted numbers on total troop deployment.
“Numbers and figures for these kinds of exercises are typically what we might call to be true lies, in that they’re statistical lies whereby the Russian army’s General Staff tallies every single unit-formation that either sends somebody to the exercise or has some tangential command component in it,” said Michael Kofman, Russia and Eurasia security and defense analyst at the Kennan Institute, as cited by VOA.
“This basically means that if a brigade sends one battalion, then they count the whole brigade,” he explained. “So these numbers are not entirely fictional, but you have to divide them by a substantial amount to get any sense of how big the exercise actually is.”
“And they typically revise the numbers after the fact,” Kofman added. “For example, originally after Vostok 2014, they said that they had 100,000 participants, and then I guess they decided it wasn’t impressive enough, because they later posted an official figure of 155,000.”
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A map of estimated deployment numbers, via VOA News:
- Americans Need Constitutionally-Compliant Social Media
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
– Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
This past Friday, Alex Jones was de-platformed from the last couple of third party tools he had been using to publicly communicate his message after Twitter and Apple permanently banned him and his website Infowars. This means an American citizen with a very large audience who played a meaningful role in the 2016 election, has been banned from all of the most widely used products of communication of our age: Twitter, Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Apple’s iTunes.
You can point out he still has his radio show and website, and this is unquestionably true, but when it comes to the everyday tools most people interact with to receive information and communicate in 2018, Alex Jones has been thrown down the memory hole. Not because he was convicted of a crime or broke any laws, but because corporate executives decided he crossed an arbitrary line of their own creation.
To prove the point that tech oligarchs are acting in a completely arbitrary and subjective manner, let me highlight the following tweet.
Exactly.
As I wrote last month:
“They’re not terrified about what Alex Jones says, they’re terrified that it’s popular.”https://t.co/s4mQai053s https://t.co/hRvTWRtOAf— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) September 6, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
It’s not against the law to be crazy or say crazy things in this country. It’s also not against the law to say hateful things. It’s pretty obvious the main reason Alex Jones was deleted from public discourse by Silicon Valley executives relates to his impact and popularity. As highlighted in the tweet above, unabashed bigots like David Duke and Louis Farrakhan continue to have active presences across social media, and rightly so. The difference is neither David Duke nor Louis Farrakhan played a major role in the election of Donald Trump, whereas Alex Jones did. Jones and Infowars were having an outsized impact on the U.S. political discourse in a manner tech giant executives found threatening and offensive, so they collectively found excuses to silence him.
When the outrage mob consisting of politicians, corporate media outlets like CNN, and even his own employees, complained to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on the issue of Alex Jones, he couldn’t hold the line on free speech because his company’s own policies are junk. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube should have a clear policy when it comes to speech, and it should be this: If it isn’t breaking the law – in other words, if it’s protected speech under the First Amendment – it stays up. Period. When you have corporate rules against “hate speech,” you’re relying on a concept that doesn’t really have any sort of legal standing when it comes to free speech in this country. There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution.
As such, when Twitter, Facebook or Google executives throw someone off their platforms for hateful speech, this isn’t because someone broke the law, but because the individuals in charge of these platforms decided such speech wasn’t something they wanted on their products. If these products are the primary ones used for communication in this country, then we lose our speech rights in practice, even though they remain protected under the law.
Americans like to talk a big game about how proud they are of their country and how exceptional it is, but what in fact are we so proud of? Is it GDP growth, a booming stock market, or is it something else? For me, it’s the Bill of Rights. The civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are non-negotiable as far as I’m concerned, but we as a people have been dangerously complacent as these rights have been systematically eroded since the post 9/11 power grab. Despite all the anti-freedom trends that have transpired in 21st century America, free speech rights remain quite expansive and very much in place. In theory that is.
I say in theory because in practice we’re learning how easily speech can be marginalized to the point of becoming erased from public discourse. We’ve allowed the digital public square to be dominated by corporations focused on profit maximization and whose policies quite explicitly do not reflect the law of the land and values that we supposedly hold dear.
If you’re like me and you think the civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are fundamental to who we are as a people, it must necessarily be unacceptable that a handful of private technology corporations that do not adhere to these principles have dominated the rails of public communication to the point a handful of executives get to decide what acceptable speech is.
This has ushered in suppression of free speech by other means, and reminds me of a 1975 quote by Henry Kissinger:
Kissinger: Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I’m afraid to say things like that.
As such, we now find ourselves in a situation where we as Americans continue to have expansive free speech rights under the law, but face subjectively minimized free speech rights in practice. So what are we supposed to do about it?
First, we need to recognize and accept that this problem exists, and then admit that it will only get worse the longer we rely on these tech giants to provide the rails of public communication.
Second, we need to understand that creating digital public squares that adhere to constitutional principles is not a luxury, but a necessity at this point if we want to actually flex our civil liberties in the digital world.
Third, we need to think about why the tech giants are so vulnerable to pressure when push comes to shove on free speech. It’s this last point I want to discuss further.
If we’re going to create and embrace communications platforms for both video and text dedicated to protecting the civil liberties defined by the constitution, I don’t think they can be structured as for-profit corporate entities focused on making shareholders happy. Facebook, Twitter and Google rely on advertisers for their revenue, so if big business starts to get uncomfortable with certain types of speech they can effectively pressure these entities to censor. Likewise, if these companies become concerned that “hate speech” could affect expansion into lucrative overseas markets that have laws against such behavior, they will typically make the best business decision as opposed to the best civil liberties decision. As such, in order to create successful, anti-fragile communications platforms guided by constitutional civil liberties, such platforms must be driven by principle instead of profit. Profit focused entities are far more likely to quickly fold under pressure.
The other fundamental problem with our current suite of social media companies is their use of proprietary algorithms. Hidden code can conceal all sorts of practices you wouldn’t want at work in a genuine free speech focused platform. Corporations can use such algos to suppress content from certain people, while promoting that of others. When code is secret, users can only guess what’s going on behind the scenes, while the companies can just brush off concerns as conspiracy theory and claim the code must stay hidden for proprietary business purposes. Speech and human communication is too important to leave in the hands of profit-focused tech oligarchs. Code must be open source.
Let me wrap up by sharing an interesting video on the dangers of our growing acceptance of censorship, by Canadian organic farmer Curtis Stone. While the points he brings up aren’t anything we haven’t discussed before, I find it meaningful when people not hyper-focused on politics begin to get seriously concerned about the existential dangers of allowing tech oligarchs to control the public square of human communication.
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