- Newt Gingrich on Democrat Russian Hacking Claim: 'This is About as Stupid as Anything I've Seen the Left Try'
I’m not a particularly big fan of Newt, mainly due to his connections with CFR and neocon scum. However, on the teevee, he serves as a good source of entertainment when mocking and belittling the left — making them look like asinine children — pouting, kicking and screaming because their nuclear toys were taken away.
On top of criticizing the left for pushing their paradoxical Russian hacking of the election charge, Newt also lays waste to the main stream media, a particularly fun hobby of mine — suggesting that they’re so butthurt by the abject rejection of the American people — they’ve become wholly uninterested in covering real news and instead live in a garish world of fantasy, festooned with lies and deception.
‘The cannot come to grips with the reality that the American people are turning against them.’
Enjoy.
Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com
- There's A Psy-Op, All Right; But It Isn't "The Russians"
Enough with “the Russians” already. This “Russian Disinformation” and “Russian Hacking” stuff is getting more ridiculous by the day.
First, don’t let the irony escape you that most, if not all, of the pundits breathlessly blaming the Russians for “fake news” and “election interference” are the very ones who were saying that Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in for president. They’re the ones who were providing her campaign with questions in advance, and allowing her people to approve/disapprove of articles.
Secondly, many of the entities blamed for spreading “Russian propaganda” were the ones with the audacity to tell the truth about the Clinton crime family and spread knowledge of the information released by Wikileaks. Obviously, I’m not including those Macedonian college kids in this, but keep in mind that they weren’t doing it for the Russians – they were doing it to make money.
This isn’t about the Russians at all, which anyone with half a brain realizes is absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s what this really is.
This is a war on the Trump presidency. It’s an attempted coup.
Maybe it’s even another effort to outright steal the presidency from Trump. Maybe there’s someone with a lot of money to throw into this “OMG THE RUSSIANS” rhetoric who really hates Russia and who really wanted Hillary Clinton to be the President. Maybe his name rhymes with “Doros.” I don’t know this for sure, but it’s at least a more likely story than “The Russians” hacking our election and deliberately spreading propaganda.
And it’s working. Ten of the Electoral College delegates have asked to be briefed on the Russian “interference” before they cast their votes on the 19th.
But that isn’t all. This is a two-for-one deal.
It’s important to note that the MSM lost every single bit of their remaining credibility during the last election and they’re desperate to get it back. It reminds me of a high school kid who gets caught doing something she shouldn’t, who then makes up stories about another group of kids to get people talking about them instead of her. The MSM can’t accept the fact that Hillary Clinton lost, despite their dishonest but enthusiastic efforts to steal the election for her. They’ll collude with whoever they have to in order to become relevant again.
Do you really have any doubt that they’ll collude with whoever they have to in order to become relevant again?
About “The Russians”
The whole plotline about “the Russians” really took off when the Washington Post published an article listing a couple hundred websites as Russian “fake news” sites. (I know the owners of quite a few of these sites personally -as in, we’ve shared meals and wine together – and I can tell you, they’re as American as apple pie.” The Washington Post later backtracked on the accusations but did not retract the article.
And today, the New York Times was at it with an article entitled, “C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence.”
Except that when you consider that evidence by definition is definitive and the NYT admits everything they have is circumstantial, then, doesn’t that completely negates the headline? The article is sheer speculation, just like the WaPo article that named the “fake news” sites.
What’s more, the FBI completely disagrees with the CIA, and they’ve been very public about it. They don’t believe that there is…well, evidence. I’ll quote from WaPo here.
The competing messages, according to officials in attendance, also reflect cultural differences between the FBI and the CIA. The bureau, true to its law enforcement roots, wants facts and tangible evidence to prove something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences from behavior.
“The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards — can we prove this in court,” one of the officials said. “The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means ‘we’re pretty damn sure.’ It doesn’t mean they can prove it in court.”
Give me a break. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never, ever believe anything the Washington Post refers to as investigative journalism. They have no idea what proof or evidence even means.
There’s a psy-op, all right, but it isn’t “the Russians” perpetrating it.
It’s the CIA (keep in mind that psyops is part of their job) working hand in hand with the MSM.
You just have to laugh at some of these headlines and quotes.
For your entertainment, enjoy the following round-up of headlines promoting the “Blame Russia” sentiment.
- Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House (source)
- House passes intelligence bill enhancing efforts against Russia (source)
- Where’s the outrage over Russia’s hack of the US election?” (CNN)
- Fake News, Russians, and Election Reversal (Town Hall)
- A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories (NY Times)
- DID RUSSIAN AGENTS INFLUENCE THE U.S. ELECTION WITH FAKE NEWS? (Vanity Fair)
- Experts Say Russian Propaganda Helped Spread Fake News During Election (NPR)
- Media Wakes Up To Russia’s ‘Fake News’ Only After It Is Applied Against Hillary (Forbes)
And then, have an eyeroll at some very silly quotes…
From an interview on NPR:
“But let’s remember, this was a very close vote where just, you know, a few tens of thousands of votes in a few states ended up making the difference. So I don’t know, if you believe that the kind of information that crashes through all of our social media accounts affects how we think and potentially how we vote, I think you would conclude that this kind of stuff does matter.” (source)
From the NY Times:
“RT [Russia Today] often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish. On the day President Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention, for example, it emphasized scattered demonstrations rather than the speeches. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog maligned by the established news media.” (source)
From a secret mystery source on CNN:
“There was no way that any one could have walked out of there with that the evidence and conclude that the Russian government was not behind this.” (source)
From CBS:
Responding to intelligence officials’ report that Russia tried to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Arizona) on Sunday said he doesn’t know what to make of Mr. Trump’s dismissal of the issue.
“I don’t know what to make of it because it’s clear the Russians interfered,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, I think that’s a subject of investigation. But facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign.” (source)
Politico reported:
“Donald Trump’s insult-laced dismissal of reports that the CIA believes Russia hacked the 2016 election to help him is rattling a spy community already puzzled over how to gain the ear and trust of the incoming president.” (source)
While some of the efforts are laughable, the end result could be incredibly serious.
And by serious, I mean devastating. It could result in civil war. It could result in World War III.
Despite the inadvertent hilarity, this is a blatant effort to keep President-Elect Trump out of the White House and to silence the opposition.
When all dissenting voices are silenced, you’re only getting one part of the story. You’re only getting the part that those in power want you to hear. If we learned nothing else from Wikileaks, we learned that there are dark secrets about the evils of money, power, and manipulation. We learned how many conspiracy theories about the Clintons were actually facts, and we learned some things we can’t unlearn about the proclivities of some of the most powerful people in Washington.
We learned that some people will do anything to remain in power.
We’re watching them do anything right now.
Never has an election been so vehemently contested. Never has our country been so divided. If the election results are cast aside, what do you really think will happen? Do you think Trump supporters will just sigh and accept it?
And what about Russia?
Just a few months ago, we were on the verge of war with them. By scapegoating “The Russians,” if this psy-op is successful, and Trump is kept out of office, what do you think is going to happen with tensions between the two countries?
Enough with “the Russians” already. The real conspiracy is happening right here in America.
- "This Is Total Chaos" – Venezuela Shuts Colombia Border To Stop "Mafia" Currency Smuggling
As if things were not already chaotic enough in the socialist utopia of Venezuela, following President Nicolas Maduro's decision to follow Indian PM Modi's playbook and announce that the nation's largest denomination bill (100-Bolivars – worth around 3c) will be pulled from circulation in 72 hours, he has tonight closed the border to Colombia to crackdown on currency smuggling by so-called "mafias".
As AP reports, President Nicolas Maduro on Monday ordered the closure of Venezuela's border with Colombia for 72 hours in a crackdown on currency smuggling by what he has called "mafias" trying to destabilize the socialist-run economy.
Maduro announced the decision after meeting with top economic aides. Earlier in the day, supporters of Maduro's socialist party circulated drawings on social media of criminals trying to smuggle cash into Venezuela like drugs.
"This is an attack against Venezuela, so this is a necessary, unavoidable measure," Maduro said in announcing the border closure in a televised address alongside top economic aides. "It's the first of a series of decisions that we're going to be taking to defend our bolivar, our economy and our people."
The border closure comes as Maduro is trying to curb Venezuela's galloping inflation and roll out a new range of bank notes after announcing on Sunday that the government would pull from circulation a 100-bolivar bill. It is currently the country's largest-denominated bill but worth only about 3 U.S. cents at the widely used black market rate.
Maduro warned Sunday that people would not be allowed to bring back 100-bolivar bills from outside Venezuela to trade them in for the new bank notes.
Maduro has long accused criminal gangs operating along the border of trying to smuggle everything from truckloads of subsidized food to gasoline sold in Venezuela at the world's cheapest prices.
He compared the trade in cash to something like a centrifuge by which "mafias" operating from the Colombian border city of Cucuta buy scarce bolivars with hard currency and then recycle them back into Venezuela for a huge profit, driving down the currency's value in the process.
He said that earlier Monday 64 million bolivars in cash had been seized coming across the border on dirt trails that proliferate along the 1,378-mile (2,219- kilometer) border.
There was no immediate comment by Colombia's government. President Juan Manuel Santos and his top aides are visiting several European capitals after the Colombian leader over the weekend received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
In closing the border again, Maduro tried to sound conciliatory to Santos, saying the two had discussed the issue previously. He also seemed to acknowledge the seriousness of Venezuela's cash crunch by announcing a series of measures to stimulate electronic-based transactions.
Despite heavy printing of the 100-bolivar bills – 2.3 billion this year alone out of 6.1 billion in total – they are in short supply.
Venezuelans rushed to spend their 100-bolivar notes Monday, before the government's Wednesday deadline for taking the note out of circulation, and there also were logistical concerns about how authorities would remove the more than 6 billion 100-bolivar bills in circulation, and whether replacement bills were ready. Furthermore, as Bloomberg notes, according to a report by Torino Capital, a New York investment bank, the 100-bolivar notes account for more than three quarters of Venezuela’s cash outstanding and 11 percent of the nation’s money supply, making Maduro’s decree a difficult task for a nation in the throes of an economic crisis.
An estimated third of Venezuelans have no bank account and keep their savings in the soon-to-be-worthless bills. Venezuelans are in open revolt… (as Reuters reports)
Luis Volcanes, 36, had for six weeks withdrawn cash every day but on Monday ran around with a big brown envelope trying to deposit that same money, only to find cash machines at four banks in a row were not working.
"This seems crazy, like the government did this on a whim. I don't know what I'm going to do," Volcanes said as people trickled in and out of a bank in Caracas, complaining none of the machines worked.
One man unable to deposit money yelled, "This is total chaos!"
At least one shop owner threw his hands up in frustration.
Lucio Colombo, 47, who sells gifts and snacks in Caracas' wealthy Chacao district, has asked clients to pay in cash for the last two weeks because his credit card reader no longer works.
"So how do I get paid now?" he asked. "I was thinking of bringing my laptop so people can pay me by transfer – or I could just go on holiday. They are forcing me to stop working."
Chaos, indeed, but just remember this is not the doing of the socialist government…
The government said Machiavellian businessmen are hoarding goods and bloating prices to sabotage socialism. Interior Minister Nestor Reverol on Monday said criminals also were hoarding 100-bolivar bills in places such as Switzerland and Ukraine as part of a financial attack on Venezuela.
He showed photos of stacks of bolivar bills but presented no further evidence.
Economists scoff at the official line, pointing instead at strict currency controls and price fixing that hurt imports and reduce incentives for production. They said Maduro's measure will do nothing to improve product supply.
"I've never studied or heard of an economic theory that explains this measure," said Carlos Miguel with Caracas-based economic consultancy Ecoanalitica.
Adding to the aggravation, Monday was a bank holiday, meaning there were no tellers.
While many business were not accepting 100-bolivar bills, poor people living day to day could not afford to reject cash and many were using the bills to buy food for the day.
"I'll take everything you can give me to eat today," said taxi driver Jose Manuel Henrique, 49, whose cash income goes entirely to feeding his two children.
Still, Henrique, a former supporter of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, was annoyed. "The government can't get anything right. This wasn't thought out."
A sign that reads 'We inform our clients that 100 bolivar notes will be accepted until Tuesday 12/13/16. Thank you,' is displayed at a bakery in the slum of Petare in Caracas.
A 100 bolivar note is seen next to a sign that reads '100 bolivar notes are received until today,' at a store in the slum of Petare in Caracas
The big question of course is how long before the new bills become truly worthless?
And remember, as we noted earlier, Venezuela’s inflation has officially become the 57th official, verified episode of hyperinflation and been added to the Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table.
With Venezuela's move, we can now add the insolvent Latin American country to an increasingly large group of countries including India, Sweden, and Australia, which in recent months have been on a quiet crusade to eliminate all forms of paper money. Certainly, Venezuela will not be the last as only full control over a nation's currency will allow governments to enact global negative rates, something which is inevitable once the current "Trumpflation" euphoria finally ends.
- Penn Students Tear-Down Shakespeare Portrait "To Affirm More Inclusive Mission"
Submitted by Anthony Gockowski via CampusReform.org,
Students at the University of Pennsylvania removed a portrait of Shakespeare from a prominent location in the school’s English department after complaining that he did not represent a diverse range of writers.
In fact, the chair of the department confirmed in a statement that the portrait was stripped from the wall by his students as “a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department,” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
Additionally, Department Chair Jed Esty explained that the portrait was “delivered” to his office and replaced with a photograph of Audre Lorde, a celebrated African American feminist and author, in a move that was intended to send a message to Esty, whose department agreed to replace the portrait several years ago.
Esty went on to confirm that the portrait of Lorde will remain in Shakespeare’s place until he and his colleagues can reach an agreement on what to do next, announcing the establishment of a “working group” to help monitor the process.
According to a statement released by the school’s English department, the working group will help “declare and defend [its] departmental mission in the current political climate,” with Esty noting that the group will “initiate an open and collaborative conversation among students, faculty, and employees in English to come up with ideas for that public space.”
Notably, the school’s “Code of Student Conduct” explicitly prohibits students from “stealing, damaging, defacing, or misusing the property or facilities of the university or of others.”
Campus Reform reached out to the school for a comment on the matter, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
- Trump Picks Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson To Lead The State Department
After days of speculation and strawmen, and following Mitt Romney's statement earlier, AP is reporting that President-elect Donald Trump has selected Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department, according to two people close to Trump's transition team.
The decision caps a lengthy process that often played out In public and exposed rifts within Trump's transition team. But Tillerson's close ties to Russia could still complicate his Senate confirmation hearings.
Trump was set to formally announce Tillerson's nomination Tuesday morning. The people close to Trump's transition insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the pick ahead of that announcement.
If approved, Tillerson would be the first secretary of state in modern history without previous government experience, The Washington Post reported.
As KCTV5 reports, he is being called a controversial pick, partly because of his ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Putin gave the CEO a Russian government award three years ago after Exxon-Mobil cut a major oil deal with a Russian company.
Russia has recently been accused of hacking in an effort to influence the result of the presidential election in Trump's favor. President Barack Obama ordered an investigation Friday into Russian influence on the election.
Trump dismissed concerns about Russia in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, deeming the matter “ridiculous.”
The president-elect also used the interview to praise Tillerson for his business acumen and noted the CEO would be useful in matters regarding Russia because he “knows many of the players and he knows them well.”
He tweeted Sunday about reports that Tillerson would be getting the nomination, calling the CEO “a world class player and dealmaker.”
Trump tweeted this evening that his announcement will be tomorrow morning…
I will be making my announcement on the next Secretary of State tomorrow morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2016
As we noted previously, the 64-year-old Texas oilman, whose friends describe as a staunch conservative, emerged as a Secretary of State contender only last week following a meeting with Trump, when it was speculated that he would consider the offer "due to his sense of patriotic duty and because he is set to retire from the company next year." Tillerson's appointment would introduce the potential for sticky conflicts of interest because of his financial stake in Exxon: he owns Exxon shares worth $151 million, according to recent securities filings.
A quick biographical sketch of Tillerson courtesy of the WSJ:
The son of a local Boy Scouts administrator, Tillerson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the University of Texas, where he studied civil engineering, was a drummer in the Longhorn band and participated in a community service-oriented fraternity.
He joined Exxon in 1975 and has spent his entire career at the company.
For most of his adult life, he has also been closely involved with the Boy Scouts of America, even occasionally incorporating the Scout Law and Scout Oath into his speeches. Mr. Tillerson played an instrumental role in leading the organization to change its policy to allow gay youth to participate in 2013, Mr. Hamre said. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates subsequently moved to lift the organization’s ban on gay adult leaders as Boy Scouts president in 2015. “Most of the reason that organizations fail at change is pretty simple: People don’t understand why,” Mr. Tillerson said in a speech after the 2013 decision, urging leaders to communicate about the policy to help make it successful. “We’re going to serve kids and make the leaders of tomorrow.”
* * *
However it is not his Boy Scout exploits that will be the key talking point for pundits in the coming days, but rather his close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
According to the WSJ, few U.S. citizens are closer to Mr. Putin than Mr. Tillerson, a recipient of Russia's Order of Friendship, bestowed by the president…
… who has known Putin since he represented Exxon’s interests in Russia during the regime of Boris Yeltsin.
“He has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,” said John Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary during the Clinton administration and president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where Mr. Tillerson is a board member.
Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson with Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s prime minister, at
a signing ceremony in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in August 2011.In 2011, Mr. Tillerson struck a deal giving Exxon access to prized Arctic resources in Russia as well as allowing Russia’s state oil company, OAO Rosneft, to invest in Exxon concessions all over the world. The following year, the Kremlin bestowed the country’s Order of Friendship decoration on Mr. Tillerson.
The deal would have been transformative for Exxon. Mr. Putin at the time called it one of the most important involving Russia and the U.S., forecasting that the partnership could eventually spend $500 billion. But it was subsequently blocked by sanctions on Russia that the U.S. and its allies imposed two years ago after the country’s invasion of Crimea and conflicts with Ukraine.
Tillerson spoke against the sanctions at the company’s annual meeting in 2014. “We always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming with sanctions,” he said.
As such, many have speculated that under his regime, the State Department may quietly drop any existing sactions against Russia.
* * *
Then there is the thorny issue of potential conflicts of interest, and his massive holdings of Exxon stock.
One of the first issues Tillerson would have to resolve as secretary of state would be his holdings of Exxon shares, many of which aren’t scheduled to vest for almost a decade. The value of those shares could go up if the sanctions on Russia were lifted.
The shares would likely have to be sold under State Department ethics rules, Chase Untermeyer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, said in an interview. “He could not erase his strong relationship with a particular country,” Mr. Untermeyer said. “The best protection from a conflict of interest is transparency.”
Tillerson will sell his $150+ million in XOM shares tax free, courtesy of the same tax break that was introduced in 1989 under the administration of President George H.W. Bush, which allowed Hank Paulson, Colin Powell and plenty of other public servants to dispose of their equity holdings without paying taxes: to get the tax relief, it must be deemed “reasonably necessary” for a public official to divest his shares, or a congressional committee must require the asset sale, according to section 1043 of the tax code, something which is virtually assured in the case of Tillerson.
* * *
Finally, the environmentalists will certainly be displeased with Trump's choice, even thought Tillerson helped shift Exxon’s response to climate change when he took over as CEO in 2006. He embraced a carbon tax as the best potential policy solution and has said climate change is a global problem that warrants action. That was a break from his predecessor, Lee Raymond.
Still, Mr. Tillerson is a polarizing figure among Democrats and environmental activists. They have accused Exxon of sowing doubt about the impacts of climate change during Mr. Raymond’s tenure and say Mr. Tillerson hasn’t done enough to disclose the future impact of climate-change regulations on the company’s ability to get oil out of the ground.
“This is certainly a good way to make clear exactly who’ll be running the government in a Trump administration—just cut out the middleman and hand it directly to the fossil-fuel industry,” said Bill McKibben, the environmental activist and founder of 350.org.
Exxon has disputed the criticism and accused activists and Democratic attorneys general of conspiring against the company.
The son of a local Boy Scouts administrator, Mr. Tillerson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. He attended the University of Texas, where he studied civil engineering, was a drummer in the Longhorn band and participated in a community service-oriented fraternity.
As secretary of state, Tillerson would be fourth in line to the presidency.
- China Admits Economic Data Is Fake: "Some Local Statistics Are Falsified"
For years we’ve been writing about “fake data” coming out of China’s economic reports. As an example, we reported the following chart on import data back in April (see “The Chart Proving That China’s Trade Data Has Never Been This Fake“). Can anyone spot the outlier?
Now, China’s “top statistician” has confirmed via an article in the “People’s Daily” newspaper that “some local statistics are falsified, and fraud and deception happen from time to time.” Wow, so there’s a chance that China’s economy didn’t actually grow at a precise YoY rate of exactly 7.00% for the past decade…that always struck us as unlikely. Per the Financial Times:
China’s top statistician has acknowledged the country’s problems with falsification of economic data, pledging severe punishment for perpetrators in a nod to widespread suspicion that official numbers often fail to reflect true economic conditions.
“Currently, some local statistics are falsified, and fraud and deception happen from time to time, in violation of statistics laws and regulations,” Ning Jizhe, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, wrote in a column for Communist party mouthpiece the People’s Daily on Thursday.
Foreign economists and investors have long expressed doubts about China’s economic data. Most prominent are concerns about gross domestic product figures. Compared with other countries. China’s inflation-adjusted GDP growth rates are remarkably stable from quarter to quarter, even as nominal figures show considerable volatility. The NBS has denied charges that it manipulates inflation data to massage headline growth figures.
While President Xi Jinping has called for “seriously punishing statistical falsification and fraudulent behavior,” others points out that political influence over statistical data is the precisely the problem, not the solution. Of course, with local politicians evaluated on their ability to meet or exceed centrally planned growth targets, it’s no surprise that the “sum of provincial GDP figures” consistently exceeds the national calculations.
In October a powerful Communist party task force led by President Xi Jinping issued policy guidelines calling for “increasing data accuracy” through methods including harsher penalties for falsification. Mr Ning’s article lauds the achievements of his agency in implementing these guidelines.
“Seriously punishing statistical falsification and fraudulent behaviour benefits the rule of law and the upholding the credibility of the party and the government,” Mr Ning wrote.
Critics of Chinese statistics have consistently argued that political interference in statistical compilation is the problem, not the solution. Communist party officials, especially at the local level, are still evaluated largely on their ability to meet or exceed economic growth targets. For many years, the sum of provincial GDP figures has far exceeded the national total. The party has taken tentative steps in recent years to reduce the role of economic growth targets in evaluating cadres’ performance, but strong incentives remain.
Of course, while cynics may view this as a devastating admission, we suspect investors will promptly dismiss the potential impact of years of overstated GDP figures and quickly buy more stocks.
- 25 Cities On The Brink Of Disaster: "Don't Be Here When Things Get Violent, Unsafe, & Fragile"
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,
The 21st Century is inching ever closer towards chaos… and the time to get out of the big city is upon us.
With economic conditions, growing crises, desperate populations looking to scratch by, and more hatred and division than at any previous point in American history, the city has become a dangerous and unruly setting – and finding yourseld in one that is falling apart could be the worst mistake you ever make.
People are living in bigger urban zones than ever before… these megacities are the hotspots of global activity. But many are also proving to be the most dangerous place to be in a collapse. Crime is rampant, order is shaken and many people become willing to take advantage of the situation. Many areas are vulnerable to natural disasters, and have already lost control during past emergencies.
In other places, widespread unemployment is simply taking its toll through increases in theft and violence. Whatever the reason, there are many places where things are falling apart, badly.
As Wired reported, disaster is looming on a worldwide basis, but some are approaching total collapse, thanks to a storm of factors:
Using data on 2,100 cities, Robert Muggah has found which factors make an area more likely to become violent, unsafe and fragile. The data show 30 cities on the brink of disaster and what could cause it.
Infographic via Signal Noise.
Cities were rated based on factors including: conflict, fragility, population growth, unemployment rate, access to services, income inequality, air pollution, homicide rate, killings in terrorist attacks, political violence and the risk of natural disaster.
Natural disaster has proved very disruptive lately, as tsunamis and earthquakes have recently devastated New Zealand and rattled nearby Australia. Though things are fairly stable in these Western democracies, their geographical vulnerability to serious tectonic activity makes their civilization far than stable. Auckland, New Zealand made the list for risky cities.
But Haiti was even harder hit. The 2010 earthquake caused widespread devastation in a place that was already one of the poorest on the planet. The 2016 hurricane in Haiti proved that despite billions of dollars in donation, philanthropy and intervention by the likes of the Clinton Foundation, Haiti was still extremely vulnerable. Hundreds of thousands of people were once again displaced as their homes were destroyed; local governments and global NGOs did little to nothing to secure basic necessities, and the place remains one crisis away from total instability. Port-au-Prince, the capital and most populous city there is already a very risky and poverty prone place, and could become much worse in the wake of a disaster.
Of course, any number of urban areas in the war-torn Middle East and perpetual conflict zones of Africa has also made for very dangerous cities, with populations on the brink of disaster, and many individuals vulnerable to crime and violence on a daily basis. Ibb, Yemen, Kirkuk, Iraq, Aden, Yemen, Kabul, Afghanistan and Mosul, Iraq have become some of the worst locales, along with cities spread across the Congo, Mogadishu, Somalia and other highly disputed areas.
Brazil’s megacities are so saturated with the urban poor, and short on basic resources including drinking water, they literally millions of people are on the brink. Riots are possible, and a survival crisis could factor in for Sao Paolo, where 8 million people are at risk of having no access to water. Predictably, many cities in Colombia remain extremely fragile due to the ongoing drug war conflicts that have claimed lives, and left millions of people at the mercy of gang rule.
Venezuela has proven to be a special case, of near precision collapse, as its currency tanks and economic warfare brings people to their knees as they are forced to wait in line for rations, trade on the black market and deal in worthless cash. Socialism has worsened the problems created by the emergency drop in the oil prices. Caracas remains the biggest pool of hungry, poor and increasingly fed up people.
Guatamala City, Mixco and Villa Neuva, Guetemala as well as San Pedro Sula, Honduras were identified as particularly vulnerable cities in Central America, as refugees continue to seek amnesty in the United States to escape the ongoing turmoil in their own countries.
Perhaps surprising to some, many major European cities are quite vulnerable as well to global economic pressures via sharp increases in immigration, “rape” scandals and social concerns about terrorism.
London, UK is one of the wealthiest cities, and yet it faces enormous pressures from overwhelming immigration, from growing economic disparity and from cultural clashes, threats of terrorism – and now, fighting between political factions over Brexit and other issues.
The Eastern bloc is especially vulnerable to these pressures that could lead to a growing unrest. France, Germany, Sweden and Norway also face major instability over immigration and cultural issues.
But some of the most unstable cities on the planet rank among those in the United States.
Places like Baltimore, Detroit, Washington D.C., New York, Philadelphia and other cities across the map are still deeply divided often police and race issues. Many have seen serious riots, looting and unrest. These social wedge issues are still being pushed from moneyed political interests, while political divide after the direction of the country has become sharp.
Dallas, Texas just suspended pension payments for some of its civil servants, a sign that financial insolvency could create an epidemic during the next crisis. Several states, like California, have over promised benefits to state employees in the pension programs, without ever planning to pay for them. If people lose it, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and the whole of the surrounding areas could simply erupt. Similar problems have left Detroit, Michigan and Puerto Rico, the commonwealth island, extremely vulnerable to bankruptcy and economic apocalypse that could contaminate the nation and global within hours.
If a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, hits the East or Gulf Coast, tens of millions of people could be caught up in traffic, locked in cities without food, and desperate to cling to order and survive. Likewise, if a major earthquake hit the West Coast, millions could be displaced and left without many options. That’s when things turn ugly.
The world is reaching a tipping point, and much chaos and instability could come crashing down anytime now. Many cities have made themselves open targets for collapse, with economic normalcy already hanging by a thread and populations already restless and growing increasingly discontent.
Be prepared. These things are building, and there are quite a few places you’d rather not be when the SHTF.
- Top US Spy Agency Refuses To Endorse CIA's Russian Hacking Assessment Due To "Lack Of Evidence"
When the WaPo posted last Friday’s story about a “secret” CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, the readers of the Bezos-owned publication took it as gospel, despite, as we promptly noted, there being no evidence provided by the CIA, and as we learned today, the FBI openly resisting the CIA’s assessment. It now appears that once again the WaPo may have been engaging in “partial fake news”, as it did with its Nov. 24 story about “Russian propaganda fake media.”
According to Reuters, the so-called overseers of the U.S. intelligence community as it supervises the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), while not disputing the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations – something which would be unprecedented for the US spy industry and would telegraph just how partisan and broken the country’s intelligence apparatus has become – has refused to endorse the CIA’s assessment “because of a lack of conclusive evidence” that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
As Reuters conveniently notes, the ODNI position could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks. The ODNI’s position confirms that Trump was once again, you guessed it, right.
“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. officials.
As reported earlier, the FBI, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, likewise declined to accept the CIA’s analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said.
The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the attacks. The commission, which identified major intelligence failures, recommended the office’s creation to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies.
As a reminder, the first hint that the US would scapegoat Russia for an “unexpected election outcome” took place on October 7, when the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Back then, president Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks. Reports of the assessment by the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings, have prompted congressional leaders to call for an investigation.
The narrative escalated rapidly last week, when outgoing president Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns power over to Trump on Jan. 20.
So how did the CIA come to its conclusion?
According to Reuters, the agency assessed after the election that the attacks on political organizations were aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday. Moreover, only materials filched from Democratic groups – such as emails stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman – were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said.
The CIA conclusion – one of induction and no supporting evidence – was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday. “(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.
Earlier Monday, Senator John McCain said on Monday also confronted the CIA’s assessment, saying there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election. “It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.
McCain also questioned an assertion made on Sunday by RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who said that there were no hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations. “Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that doesn’t mean it’s true,” said McCain. “We need a thorough investigation of it, whether both (Democratic and Republican organizations) were hacked into, what the Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a conclusion yet. That’s why we need a thorough investigation.”
Well, just because HIllary said that, it did make it true, so perhaps Reince is right as well?
Meanwhile, in an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment. Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign.
We, for one, can’t wait to hear his testimony – under oath – why in the span of one month so much has changed, and who precisely prompted the CIA to “infer” that Russia is responsible for Hillary Clinton’s loss. Or maybe we will just have to wait for Wikileaks, pardon Russia, to hack Podesta’s email account for that first?
- Clinton Campaign, Top Democrats Call For Intel Briefing, Commission Ahead Of Electoral College Vote
Update: The push to delegitimize the election results continued after a trio of top Senate Democrats called for a nonpartisan commission to investigate allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Sens. Ben Cardin (Md.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (Vt.), the top Democrats on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence and Judiciary committees, back the creation an independent commission with 18 months to report its findings The Hill reports.
“The American people deserve a nonpartisan, transparent, public investigation into this insidious attack on our democratic institutions,” Cardin said. “As a nation it’s time to get to the bottom of it and learn what we can do to prevent it from ever happening again.”
The commission would be tasked with investigating allegations of Russian cyber attacks, trying to identify those responsible and recommending responses and future measures to prevent interference in U.S. elections.
Feinstein added that the commission would determine if Russian hacks tried to undercut Hillary Clinton, the Democrat presidential nominee, or “undermine our democratic system.”
“This bipartisan commission will help identify the specific ‘actors’ responsible and recommend a possible course of action to prevent this from ever happening again,” she said.
The panel, according to the Democratic senators, would have access to both classified and unclassified information, as well as the ability to subpoena officials about Russian activities tied to the presidential race.
Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, added on Monday lawmakers must “rise above the fray and engage in a serious, independent, and bipartisan investigation.”
“This is larger than any one candidate or any one election,” he said. “This is about protecting our democracy now, and going forward.”
Of course, none of these calls would have been made had Trump lost the election, and in fact he would have been crucified by the press for daring to question the outcome of the vote.
* * *
Earlier:
And there it is.
Just as we first laid out on Saturday following Friday night’s shock “report” that the CIA had concluded Russia had intervened in the presidential election on behalf of Trump, which we quickly assessed had all the marks of a “soft coup” attempt, and which culminated most recently with a report that up to 10 electors had requested a briefing on “Russian Interference” before the presidential vote, moments ago none other than the Clinton campaign, by way of its top political adviser John Podesta, said the campaign is supporting an effort by members of the Electoral College to request an intelligence briefing on foreign intervention in the presidential election, Politico reported.
In his statement released on Monday, Podesta said “The bipartisan electors’ letter raises very grave issues involving our national security,” and added that “electors have a solemn responsibility under the Constitution and we support their efforts to have their questions addressed.”
“Each day that month, our campaign decried the interference of Russia in our campaign and its evident goal of hurting our campaign to aid Donald Trump. Despite our protestations, this matter did not receive the attention it deserved by the media in the campaign. We now know that the CIA has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump. This should distress every American.”
Podesta’s statement is the first public statement from the Clinton campaign raising questions about the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s victory.
It follows the previously reported open letter from 10 presidential electors, including Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Christine, requesting an intelligence briefing ahead of the Dec. 19 vote of the Electoral College.
Why this push is curious, is because during today’s briefing Press Secretary Josh Earnest explicitly stated that “US intel agencies didn’t detect any malicious cyberactivity “that interfered w the casting and counting of ballots” on Nov. 8″, a narrative at odds with that concocted by the WaPo, in its interpretation of what the CIA allegedly concluded in its “secret” assessment, which thenbegs the question: who is lying?
Shortly after Podesta’s statement, the Democratic National Committee disseminated a Politico story that revealed the electors’ call for a briefing. Two Democratic members of Congress have also suggested the Electoral College should take an active role in reassessing, or stopping, a Trump presidency.
It was unclear which particular agency would provide the briefing, if it was permitted, especially in light of reports that there has been a shcism between the CIA and FBI in their interpretation of whether Russia had indeed intervened directly to push for a Trump election.
While so far no proof has been provided by the CIA substantiating its claim, we doubt one will be forthcoming. After all as the WaPo itself reported some time ago, citing an official, “the intelligence community is not saying it has ‘definitive proof’ of such tampering, or any Russian plans to do so.” In other words, there is merely “extrapolation” based on a personal biases to reach a desired, goalseeked outcome, without any factual validation whatsoever.
However, it is likely that should the Clinton Campaign’s request for a “breifing” be granted, that it would lead to a dramatic split among the already polarized US nation. As to whether the Electoral College would ultimately vote against Trump, we leave it up to readers to consider the possible, and very damaging for the US, consequences.
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