Oct 13

Today’s News 13th October 2018

  • America's Disastrous Occupation Of Afghanistan Turns 17

    Authored by Doug Bandow via The American Conservative,

    …And the Taliban are in their strongest position in just that many years.

    America has now passed the 17-year mark in Afghanistan. U.S. troops have been fighting there for longer than the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined. Yet Washington is further away than ever from anything that might pass for victory.

    More than 2,300 American military personnel and 3,500 contractors have died in Afghanistan. The latest death occurred last week – Specialist James A. Slape from Morehead City, North Carolina. Another 1,100 allied soldiers have been killed, almost half of them from the United Kingdom. More than 20,000 Americans have been wounded. The direct financial cost has amounted to $2 trillion, with another $45 billion budgeted for this year.

    And for what?

    After so many years of senseless combat, Erik Prince’s proposal to turn the conflict over to contractors almost sounds reasonable. His lobbying efforts in Kabul have not been notably successful, but some day American personnel will come home. And then Washington’s friends in Afghanistan will find themselves on their own.

    Seventeen years ago the Bush administration was forced to act. After the 9/11 attacks, it was imperative to disrupt if not destroy al-Qaeda and punish the Taliban regime for hosting terrorist training camps. Washington quickly succeeded: al-Qaeda was degraded and dispersed, the Taliban was overthrown and punished. Washington should have left as quickly as it came. But the Bush administration had other hopes: to create a friendly, liberal, democratic state in Central Asia.

    If there was ever a chance to establish a stable regime in Kabul, it was right after the Taliban’s ouster. However, the Bush administration immediately turned to Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. That shift allowed for a Taliban revival. Even after twice increasing force levels—which peaked at 110,000 U.S. and 30,000 allied troops in 2011—the Obama administration was only able to limit the insurgency’s reach. Around that time I twice visited Afghanistan, and found that private, off-the-record opinions of allied military personnel, civilian contractors, and Afghan officials were uniformly pessimistic.

    Most saw the operation as a staying action at best. Since then allied troop levels have fallen precipitously, but the large Afghan security forces are an inadequate substitute. Afghan officials figure that as many as a third of soldiers and police are “ghosts,” existing only for payroll purposes. Attrition rates and desertions are soaring. Reported Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Afghan National Security Forces “performance will probably worsen due to a combination of Taliban operations, ANSF combat casualties, desertions, poor logistics support, and weak leadership.” To make up for that failure, “U.S. Special Operations troops increasingly [are] being deployed into harm’s way to assist their Afghan counterparts.”

    Over the last four years, U.S. officials figure the number of Taliban fighters has trebled to 60,000; Afghan sources put the number closer to 80,000. Estimates of government control are inflated by counting areas where the district headquarters is in Kabul’s hands, even if the rest of the territory is not. A January BBC survey estimated that the Taliban controlled 4 percent of the country and was active in another 66 percent of Afghanistan: the insurgents have “pushed beyond their traditional southern stronghold into eastern western and northern parts of the country.” Cordesman reported that the “Taliban now holds more territory than in any year since 2001.”

    The insurgents are using night vision equipment to mount attacks in the dark. Indeed, observed Cordesman, “Injured Afghan soldiers say they are fighting a more sophisticated and well-armed insurgency than they have seen in years”

    Even Kabul is unsafe: Washington now takes personnel to the airport via helicopter, avoiding the roads that I took as NATO’s guest in 2011. Of Taliban activity this summer, Al Jazeera reports: “The scale and intensity of these attacks have not been seen since 2001. The Taliban never had the capability to launch such massive offenses and never succeeded in taking over any major cities.” Civilian casualties are on the rise, hitting 2,258 during the first quarter of 2018. Although the Taliban is responsible for most of the deaths, as Kabul relies more on air support the UN reports that casualties from U.S. and Afghan airstrikes are rising.

    One need look no further than the Department of Defense for bad news. In May, the Pentagon’s inspector general reported that “available metrics showed few signs of progress.” And results are usually worse than what is admitted. For instance, Cordesman concluded that official U.S. data “provide highly suspect analysis.” Moreover, “official U.S. and Afghan data seem to sharply understate the level of growing threat presence, influence, and control.” Worse, official testimony estimates offered in testimony “seem more spin than objective.” Overall, Cordesman said, “the ‘surge’ in U.S. forces in Afghanistan failed to have a lasting effect and the levels of violence have grown sharply.”

    Money offers no answer. The Afghan government is incompetent, divided, and corrupt. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction continues to issue reports detailing massive waste and ineffectiveness of programs for everything from development to security. A recent analysis of Washington’s stabilization program concluded: “The U.S. government greatly overestimated its ability to build and reform government institutions in Afghanistan.” Whatever success it had won’t outlive the U.S. presence: “successes in stabilizing Afghan districts rarely lasted longer than the physical presence of coalition troops and civilians.”

    In short, the future looks dismal. Cordesman cited the Director of National Intelligence in concluding, “The overall situation in Afghanistan will very likely continue to deteriorate, even if international support is sustained.” Best would be a swift exit, bolstered by a simple understanding with the Taliban: create an Islamic state and Washington will stay away, but host terrorists who attack America and Washington will come back bigger and badder than the first time. The Taliban likely would respect that deal.

    But reality has little influence on U.S. policy. Both old and new military commanders, as well as administration officials led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, claim that administration strategy is succeeding. The president bumped up troop levels to some 15,000 U.S. and 7,000 allied personnel. “Our troops will fight to win,” he said. “We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.” Alas, this is errant nonsense. The most the new policy will do is put off failure until the next president takes office.

    None of the arguments for permanent war are persuasive. As a matter of geopolitics, Afghanistan is irrelevant to U.S. security. Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Iran all have a greater interest in regional stability. Washington should encourage a Central Asian conclave, perhaps under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Far better for Washington to leave and allow Afghanistan’s neighbors to reach a modus vivendi reflecting their relative interests. The result wouldn’t be a liberal, Westminster-style democracy allied with America. But it might be the best possible outcome in a messy, ugly world.

    A stable Pakistan is in America’s interest, but the war is highly destabilizing. Rather than push Islamabad to act against its perceived interests, Washington should exit and allow Islamabad to work with neighboring states in forging an acceptable compromise for those most concerned.

    Advocates of Afghanistan-forever cite terrorism. They contend that if we don’t fight the terrorists in Kandahar, we will have to fight them in New York. Really. For instance, the ever-hawkish Senator Lindsey Graham argued, “Last time we ignored Afghanistan we got 9/11.” Even the normally sober Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said America was in Afghanistan “to prevent a bomb from going off in Times Square.”

    Yet this tragic nation has little to do with terrorism. The Taliban are Islamic fundamentalists, interested in ruling at home, not killing abroad. In 2001, Afghanistan served as a convenient base for Osama bin Laden. After the U.S. intervened, he moved to neighboring Pakistan, where he was later killed. The architect of 9/11, Kalid Sheikh Muhammed, spent time in Bosnia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, and Pakistan – but never Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda morphed into a group of national franchises. These days the most vibrant branch is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been empowered by the U.S.-backed Saudi and Emirati onslaught against Yemen.

    Why else sacrifice U.S. lives and wealth in Afghanistan? There are many Afghans, especially women, who support creation of a liberal society. But that is beyond Washington’s ability to deliver, at least at reasonable cost. Afghanistan always has been ruled at the village and valley level. Someday it might become something different. But that is not Washington’s responsibility today.

    For some, to leave suggests failure by those who fought courageously. But it is not American or allied military personnel who are at fault. They have done everything they were asked to do and more. The blame falls primarily on three successive presidents who embraced a quixotic crusade to remake Afghanistan.

    In contrast to his predecessors, Donald Trump seemed to understand how hopeless the Afghanistan war is. Before announcing his candidacy, he said simply: “Let’s get out of Afghanistan.” A gaggle of establishment advisors has since pressed him to suppress his instincts, but he still has time to do the right thing. At 17 years and counting, it is far past time to bring America’s bravest home.

  • Dramatic Footage Captures Hypersonic Nuclear Aircraft Streaking Across China Sky 

    A mysterious light in the sky was spotted over China on Thursday, sparking panic. Witnesses shared pictures and videos of the unidentifiable object lighting up the night sky on Chinese social media channels, the object was seen above regions of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia at about 6:45 pm local time. 

    According to Metro, the footage is of a hypersonic plane. The paper said the plane is owned by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and is capable of Mach 10 (7,672 mph) while carrying a nuclear warhead.  Although there has been no official statement by Chinese, military bloggers claim the footage was caused by a hypersonic glide vehicle (known as DF-ZF). 

    Chris Bergin, managing editor of NASASpaceFlight.com, questions if the footage is just the “death throws” of the Soyuz rocket mishap from Thursday. Some Twitter users responded to his tweet and said, they think the “timing doesn’t match,” and it is, in fact, a hypersonic missile launch. 

    “Timing just don’t match. It happens that there was an airspace closure zone indicating something like a missile test from TSLC towards west earlier today, and while that one doesn’t match either (7am -ish UTC), it’s an indication that something else is responsible,” tweeted @cosmic_Penguin. 

    Another Chinese defense and security observer notes that “the PLARF seems to have conducted 2 test shots today at the Taiyuan space center, the 1st around 06h04 and the 2nd at 10:35 UTC. The latter is confirmed as a shot from base 65, formerly base 51. There have been many testimonies and 1 notice from the Local Government (Translated from French by Microsoft),” tweeted @HenriKenhmann.

    China’s Ministry of National Defense unveiled the DF-ZF in 2014 and has been tested a known seven times. 

    The images below were taken by residents Thursday: 

    “Residents in Chinese capital Beijing as well as in the northern regions of Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi province recorded videos showing the bright white plumes in the sky, which were also likened to SpaceX’s recent Falcon 9 launch after it created similar images.

    As the DF-ZF’s test launches have all been from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China’s Shanxi province — and because no other satellite launchers were reported on the day — the sightings seem to corroborate suggestions that it was indeed the plane’s eight flight test to date,” said the Metro. 

    Finally it’s worth noting that if China wanted to censor the images, it would have; it did not. Instead, it appears that the footage may have been an explicit warning to the Trump administration, as trade and currency wars are rapidly “heating” up to whatever comes next.

  • The Self-Defeating US Empire

    Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Trump is trying to square a globalized world through a national-based American capitalism. It won’t work…

    Former President Teddy Roosevelt (1901-09) described the essence of US foreign policy as “speaking softly while carrying a big stick”.

    Under the incumbent president, Donald Trump, it seems to be all about “speaking loudly”.

    What Trump is carrying in reserve is a moot question.

    The difference comes down to a question of credibility. A century ago, America was a formidable military, diplomatic and economic power. Hence, Roosevelt could afford to speak softly because there were other indisputable means at his disposal to reinforce US power.

    Today, the US is still a formidable military power, that’s for sure. But as for its economy and the role of the American dollar as a global payment mechanism the evidence suggests that it has lost much of its former dominance.

    President Trump seems to be trying to compensate for the decline in US power overall by way of adopting more bellicose and foghorn rhetoric for others to comply with American demands.

    This week saw a record fall in the American stock market. That suggests that the supposed strength of the US economy is not what it has been cracked up to be under Trump. A major factor in the collapse of the US stock market is reported to be the uncertainty prompted by the growing US trade war with China.

    Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin lamented the US policy of imposing sanctions against other nations and its over-reliance on the dollar as the main global currency exchange tool. Putin said the US was making a “strategic mistake” by using the dollar as a weapon with which to punish other nations to comply with Washington’s diktats.

    “This is a typical mistake of any empire,” he said at the Russian Energy Week Conference, in Moscow.

    Implicit in Putin’s comments was that the US is acting like a failing empire. Unsure of its former dominance, the US is resorting to brute force to shore up its otherwise declining power. But in doing so, America is acting above its credibility and thereby compelling others to seek ways around Washington’s overextended writ.

    When the dollar replaced gold as the global financial standard in the early 1970s, the American currency assumed a privileged position in international trade. But with such a privilege comes the responsibility to be a universally respected banker, which entails a certain apolitical character of the dollar.

    America’s loss of national economic power has resulted in the US abusing the global dollar system for its own selfish interests. That in turn results in loss of confidence by other nations. Washington is politicizing the dollar system in order to pursue its national interests.

    The over-reliance by Washington on economic sanctions against other nations is forcing them to seek ways of circumventing the US-dominated global system of trade and commerce.

    We see this in the European Union setting up a non-dollar system to continue trade relations with Iran after Trump abandoned the international nuclear accord with Tehran. We see it in the way Russia and China are setting up a payment system for oil and other commodities which obviates the use of dollars.

    So much for “free-market capitalism” for which America is supposed to be the global exponent. If America doesn’t get its way over markets then sanctions are imposed to “correct” the way. The gas energy supply from Russia to Europe is a classic example. Russian-suppled gas is commercially viable to meet European demand. Yet the US wants to supplant that market with its own more expensive gas, and the only way it can do that is to slap sanctions on Russia and European companies. That is not market economics. It is imperialist hegemonic diktat. That undermines the US dollar and principles of supposed American capitalism.

    Slowly but surely the world is moving away from the dollar as a universal currency. Because of Washington’s abuse of the dollar and its preeminence in banking as a political weapon to exert its national objectives.

    Putin said that US sanctions policy towards many countries and abuse of the dollar as global reserve currency is a “strategic error” committed by a waning empire. As more countries increasingly drop the dollar to circumvent US sanctions, the result will be a continual undermining of international standing of the US currency and banking system. A classic case of over-reach by Washington leading eventually to its own economic demise.

    If history tells us one thing it is that every empire has its day. Imperial over-reach is the sign of a declining empire.

    President Trump is clashing loudly over trade with China and almost every other nation, including the Europeans and Canada. Trump is shouting about “unfair” trade because he doesn’t have a big stick in reserve in terms of inherent American strength. The dollar is no longer the only show in town.

    Russia is “de-dollarizing” its economy, meaning it is moving towards trade with other nations in bilateral currency exchange. The same goes for China and other nations. The upshot is the dollar is losing its international power, and, with that, the US economy is losing its former standing. The empire is waning. And the only one to blame for that is the US itself from its abuse of power.

    The ominous resort is the only stick left to Washington – military power. That is why the world is facing a dangerous situation. If America doesn’t get its way, it seems to be pushing the world to war.

    It could be all be very different of course. If the US were to stop trying to assert itself as a unipolar power and begin to engage with others on the basis of a multipolar world.

    Trump is trying to square a globalized world through a national-based American capitalism. It won’t work.

    And the more the US government tries to achieve that the more the dollar and American power falls into decline. Which makes US militarism a greater compensatory danger.

  • Woman Booted Off Flight For After Refusing To Leave With Her 'Emotional Support Squirrel'

    The ongoing controversy surrounding passengers’ demands to take their ’emotional support animals’ with them on long flights took a hilarious turn on Tuesday when a woman was forcibly removed from a Frontier Airlines flight after she was told that her “emotional support” squirrel wouldn’t be allowed on board.

    Passengers were forced to deplane from flight 1612 from Orlando, Fla., to Cleveland on Tuesday when the woman refused to obey a request to leave the flight with her squirrel, at which point the airline called the Orlando Police, who escorted the woman off the plane. The woman argued that she included in her reservation notes that she would be traveling with an emotional support animal – though the airline argued that she did NOT indicate that said animal would be a squirrel, according to the Cleveland Fox affiliate. 

    Frontier said it doesn’t allow rodents on its fights.

    The airline said the passenger noted in her reservation that she was bringing an emotional support animal, but she did not specify that said animal would be a squirrel.

    Airlines have been struggling to tighten restrictions on so-called “emotional support animals”, with Delta saying earlier this year that all requests for passengers to travel with ESAs would be “thoroughly vetted” (no pun intended, we think).

    Video of the incident is going viral:

    Southwest airlines has  banned all ESAs except for emotional support dogs, cats and, oddly enough, miniature horses. Meaning that travelers will need to leave their spiders, snakes and peacocks at home, as the following animals have all been banned from US flights.

    Two

    ESA

    Three

    4

    5

    6

    7

    8

    And now this guy…

    Squirrel

     

  • Multi-Polar Political Project Pushed Forward By Putin In India

    Authored by Tom Luongo,

    I have to wonder when Russian President Vladimir Putin sleeps.  He’s busier than any other leader, traveling the globe while consistently changing the board state geopolitically.

    While everyone, including me, has had their eye on the turmoil in U.S. political circles over the past couple of weeks, Putin visited India and in a little less than two days ended most speculation as to where India stands in the emerging multi-polar world that Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping are building.

    Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inked deals with huge future consequences for both countries.  So, while the headlines were all about the Trump Administration trying to pressure India into not buying S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, Putin and Modi put the final touches on Russia building India no less than six more nuclear power plants.

    One of the things holding India back as a first-world economy is a reliable electricity grid.  Having eight Russian-designed and built plants operating around the country will upgrade the landscape for India’s electricity usage immensely.

    Part of the reason India is such a large oil and gas importer is their electricity base load needs are being met with expensive hydrocarbons.  Shifting that to nuclear,more like France and the U.S., changes everything, especially in the long run, from a foreign exchange perspective.

    Bernard at Moon of Alabama was first on interpreting what the scope of these deals mean for the U.S.’s attempt to cleave India from the BRICS alliance.  He rightly linked the western media’s finally picking up the Rafale fighter jet corruption scandal dogging Modi as a sign that the U.S. is very angry over these deals and is beginning the process of undermining Modi’s government.

    Modi in every way declared India’s independence from the U.S’s “Quad” strategy aligning Japan, Australia and India with U.S. interests versus that of the BRICS and China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    Magnum IPI

    Remember, last year I told you about the early stage talks between Gazprom and the principle countries to resurrect the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, or IPI.  A small note in RT last year was all we heard of this until recently.

    FROM RT: Moscow and Tehran are about to sign a memorandum of understanding to back a new gas pipeline project, according to Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak.

    The countries will build a 1,200-kilometer long pipeline from Iran to India with the Russian energy major Gazprom developing several Iranian deposits along the route of the future pipeline.

    So, the IPI pipeline, long sought-after by all players and fought against by the forces of Hillary Clinton and the U.S. geopolitical guiding lights, is finally going to get done.

    And will likely get done before the TAPI pipeline – Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India – gets built across Afghanistan.  Right now Turkmenistan is building their section, Field of Dreams-style (if you build your section, they will build theirs).  But there are no plans at this point for a start date on construction of the Afghan or Pakistani legs of this boondoggle, no less the Indian.

    Note that last year’s announcement only involved Moscow and Tehran.  Now Pakistan is officially on board, which, again, went unnoticed because the reporting on it was sans-information.  It took me no less than ten articles to finally find what they were talking about:

    Even most Pakistani sources omitted any reference to Iran in the announcement.   That, in and of itself, makes you wonder.

    Energy Dominance or Glutton?

    So, while the Trump administration continues to pursue its ‘energy dominance’ strategy to put us in the driver’s seat producing the marginal barrel of oil, Putin continues to make deals that undercut that and strengthen his central Asian partners.

    I’m beginning to think ‘energy dominance’ is stillborn before it even gets going.  U.S. oil production is accelerating and reaching all-time highs but so what if you can’t get the oil to market or have the refinery capacity to add value before exporting it around the world.

    Look no further than the spread between West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent Crude prices.  WTI is trading now at a $10 discount to Brent.  While that looks good from a ‘market share’ perspective, the reason for that is that the pipeline infrastructure in the U.S. cannot bring the oil pouring out of the Permian Basin to market.

    We’re in a different era while the oil market remains tight.  So, if the market is so tight, why is WTI trading at such a steep discount to Brent?  Sure some of this is worry over Iran being cut out of the market, but that explains the total oil market being up $10-15 over where it should be.

    It doesn’t explain the change that began last summer.

    This infrastructure problem is real.  The slowdown in drilling is here.  Multiple Frac Sand producers are looking at layoffs or contract terminations based on the Permian Basin boom turning quickly to bust, not because there isn’t demand for the product but because there’s too much oil overwhelming the market.

    If the entire supply chain isn’t tightly aligned then the project to marginalize Iran in the oil market will fail when November 4th rolls around and demand is still there but the suppliers can’t meet them.

    That’s why BP’s CEO is going after the Saudis saying they have spare capacity they aren’t bringing on line.  No one wants to take the blame for the disruptions in the crude oil market on the horizon.

    Which brings me back to India, Pakistan and Iran.  India will talk a good game to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about cutting back on imports, but at the end of the day India will buy as much Iranian oil as they need, so will China.

    There may be some virtue signaling, cutting back ten percent or so, but there is no way this market can take 2.8 million barrels of Iranian exports off the market and be in balance.

    And if you want to know why Modi finally made the decision to get off the fence about the BRICS look no further than the U.S. not being able to control the flow of energy like it has in the past.

    With each little victory across central Asia, Putin makes it easier and easier for other leaders to say yes to him and no to the U.S.

    One can only hold a system out of balance for so long.   And “The Heartland” of Central Asia has been in a constant state of upheaval for more than a hundred years thanks to first the British and then the U.S.’s imperial demands.

    But, the economic incentives are too big for countries like India to not make peace with its neighbors. Modi finally came to the conclusion that it is time to stop playing into the geopolitical games stoked via cultural and border conflicts by the U.S.  That going it alone as a buffer state only holds India back in the long run now that there is a resurgent Russia ready to work with China to knit the entire region together.

    We are witnessing, bit by bit, the end of our ability to implement the Brzezinski Doctrine of Central  Asian chaos.  Putin gets this and plays the game very well.

    And he just took a big piece off the board.

    *  *  *

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  • Boston Dynamics Terrifying Humanoid Robot Can Do Parkour Now

    Boston Dynamics’ “nightmare inducing” robots are seemingly becoming more human-like with each passing month. Whereas just a few years ago, the company’s “Atlas” robot could barely manage walking on uneven ground, the terrifying humanoid android can effortlessly run and leap over obstacles – or on to platforms and boxes. This latest upgrade follows an update from last year where BD demonstrated Atlas’ newfound ability to perform standing backflips with ease. Can you do that? We thought not…

    In one recently uploaded demo, Atlas does parkour – bounding over obstacles, running across platforms and picking up boxes.

    In other words, if you were looking for more evidence that the long-prophesied robot uprising is drawing closer with each passing day – well, here it is.

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

     

  • Google Vs. Trump: "The Good Censor" On Collision Course With The Patriot President

    Authored by ‘Washington Watcher’ via VDare.com,

    The leaked internal Google briefing “The Good Censor” [PDF] has received suspiciously little attention from the Main Stream Media, but it represents the crassest statement yet of the Tech oligopolies’ intention to impose Silicon Valley Political Correctness on the U.S.

    As American Thinker Editor Thomas Lifson puts it:

    “I congratulate Breitbart.com for the scoop, and I urge everyone -I am looking at you, President Trump and Congress – to read and ponder the fate of the Republic unless this company is defanged, most likely by antitrust action, but possibly also via civil courts.” [Stunning 85-page Google memo ‘The Good Censor’ leaked to Breitbart, October 10, 2018]

    What are Trump’s options? He’s certainly thinking about the issue.

    The Washington Post reported recently that the White House was backing off a proposed executive order that would have required federal agencies to “investigate and/or prosecute” tech giants for bias. Administration officials told WaPo:

    “Although the White House is concerned about the conduct of online platforms and their impact on society, this document is not the result of an official White House policymaking process.” [White House distances itself from reports that Trump could target Facebook, Google and Twitter with a new executive order, by Tony Romm and Josh Dawsey, September 22, 2018]

    WaPo reported Trump has demanded an executive order on this matter for some time, but all of the drafts have been deemed “unworkable.” Sources tell the Watcher that the fallout from the leak deterred the President but he still considers the issue a top priority for his base and he wants it addressed.

    Of course, first, we have to shoot down True Conservative notions that it’s not the government’s job to resolve tech censorship. Dogmatic Conservatism Incers insist the free market will magically fix the problem and government intervention would somehow be worse than suppression of right-wing views. Some—such as The Weekly Standard’sJonathan Last—have even celebrated this censorship as a necessary measure against “repugnant” voices. [The Case for Banning Alex Jones, August 8, 2018]

    All of these opinions are absolutely ridiculous and predicated on the notion that Big Tech won’t go after “respectable” conservatives, which isn’t even the case. PragerU, a mainstream conservative outlet, has been censored numerous times by Facebook and YouTube, in spite of its painfully respectable brand. And others will soon face the same treatment once the T ech Totalitarians realize they can continue this malfeasance with impunity. [Facebook Censors PragerU Videos And Shadow Bans Posts, by Kyle Perisec, The Daily Caller, August 17, 2018]

    The “free market” can’t do anything about it. Google has cornered over 92 percent of the search engine market—a higher market share percentage than Standard Oil at its peak. Big Tech has made sure that Gab, a free speech alternative to Twitter, is barredfrom ever posing a serious challenge. And no one wants to use a “conservative” Facebook. [Hate speech crackdown spreads to behind-the-scenes tech, by Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post, August 10, 2018]

    Big Tech has manipulated the free market to benefit its own interests and power. Tech execs know they don’t have to worry about conservative competition putting an end to their malpractices.

    That leaves only one serious alternative: government intervention.

    It is in America’s interest for this to happen. The public forums and printing presses of our day are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. If you are barred from these platforms, you are effectively eliminated from the public square. Big Tech wants to ensure right-wing viewpoints are consigned to the dustbin and no one has the freedom to share those views in public.

    This is where Donald Trump can step in and halt these disturbing efforts.

    Here are the two things the President can do without issuing an executive order.

    1. Continue Calling Out Tech Censorship

    Something as basic as Trump tweeting out criticism of Facebook and Google is actually remarkably effective. Tech giants are worried sick the President may target the industry and are wary of doing anything radical enough to draw his ire.

    Corporate executives are cowards. They live in fear of bad publicity. It’s why so many companies cave to Leftist pressure campaigns—no corporation wants to be branded as inadequately “woke.”

    This tactic hasn’t been as effective for conservative activists, but the President of the United States is a different matter. One tweet from him can impact market shares, inspire support for government regulation, inspire dozens of segments on cable news, and encourage congressional scrutiny. Big Tech does not want this.

    In the past, they actually have taken steps placate conservative complaints. One such example is Facebook laying off the Leftist journalists who ran its Trending section over criticism it was too biased against conservative news sources. [Facebook Lays Off Journalists From ‘Trending Topics,’ Replaces With Algorithm, by Leif Walcutt, Forbes,August 26, 2016]

    The power of the tweet is a strong weapon for Trump in his fight against tech censorship. Putting constant pressure on these companies to safeguard free speech increases the chances they will do so. Sources tell the Watcher that the Trump campaign plans to make this issue a central part of its agenda, as evidenced by campaign manager Brad Parscale’s op-eds and tweets [Big Tech is becoming Big Brother, Washington Examiner, August 16, 2018]

    What we need is for Trump to tweet and talk about this on a weekly basis. He should call out Google and Facebook for their pernicious practices at every rally. He should tweet out stories showcasing their bias every time one is published. The pressure must be relentless and constant until these platforms decide to take up reform on their own.

    If that fails or is insufficient, there is one direct action Trump can take:

    2. Target Section 230

    Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a sacred privilege for social media companies. This law protects Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from liability over the material published on their websites. One of the reasons these services are granted this privilege is the Congressional finding, embodied in legislation, that they “offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse.” [47 U.S. Code § 230 – Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material] In contrast, newspapers are subject to libel actions over Letters to the Editor, because they are assumed to have exercised editorial judgement in publishing them.

    Since it is highly questionable these platforms provide politically diverse forums anymore, it is arguably time for Congress to revisit Section 230. Not only is Big Tech’s censorship violating its spirit, so is their shifting claims on not being publishers. Indeed, Facebook’s lawyers have already paradoxically claimed that in some circumstances the company is a publisher, undermining the mega-platform’s numerous public claims that it is not a publisher. [Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes, by Sam Levin, Guardian, July 2, 2018]

    Both Google and Twitter have also undermined their own claims not to be publishers in litigation, according to court documents provided to the Watcher. Google claimed in its legal defense against PragerU’s lawsuit over censorship that it can exercise “editorial control and judgment” as a publisher. Twitter argued in court that it was similar to the New York Times and must have “exercise of editorial control and judgment” over the content it publishes.

    Congress has an obligation to investigate these companies over their apparent Section 230 violations, and Trump should encourage them to do so. Nothing will terrify Big Tech more than having the President cheer on stripping them of their Section 230 protection.

    Legislation amending Section 230 to explicitly state these companies may not engage in political discrimination would protect free expression for years to come.

    All Trump has to do is suggest the idea to allies like House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to get this done.

    Regardless of whether legislation would pass, it would be guaranteed to inspire serious reform in Silicon Valley. Every tech company would be desperate to prove it doesn’t censor conservatives and patriots and feel a chill at the prospect of suppressing popular right-wing views. Taking away Section 230 protection would make a serious dent on their businesses. They would want to do everything possible to keep it.

    Even though we may not see an Executive Order to tackle tech censorship this year, we shouldn’t lose heart. Trump isn’t going to forget about this issue and he will see more headlines on the dastardly behavior of tech giants. We just need him to speak out more on this problem and press Congress to do something about it.

  • Poopocalypse – San Francisco Is Now 'Doo-Doo Capital' Of USA

    RealtyHop, a website dedicated to helping millennials find smart home investments, released a new report on their blog which looked at poop complaints data of metropolitan cities across American and discovered that San Francisco received ten times more poop complaints than New York City, the largest city in the US. 

    “San Francisco, as small as it is, is covered by poop, dog and human poop. According to the San Francisco Department of Animal, there are around 120,00 dogs in San Francisco, making it one of the most dog-friendly cities. In addition to our furry friends, there are over 7,000 homeless individuals in San Francisco. Sounds a lot better than New York and Los Angeles, you might say. But the lack of shelters and a better system is putting the city in danger,” warned RealtyHop. 

    The report labels the Californian city as the “Doo-Doo Capital in the U.S.”  

    Data compiled by Realtyhop reachers showed 455.89 pop sightings reported per square mile in 2017.

    “Living in a s—ty neighborhood has a whole new meaning for San Franciscans,” RealtyHop states. “Unlike what we saw in Chicago and New York, the city center of San Francisco is, sadly, covered by poop, and neighborhoods away from the city center see fewer complaints (except for Golden Gate Park).” 

    Here are the Shittest Neighborhoods: 

    1. Golden Gate Park – 3218.75 Average Yearly Complaints/Per 10,000 Households – 23 complaints in 2017, 18 complaints in 2018 as of August 31st. 
    2. South of Market – 2492.90 Average Yearly Complaints/Per 10,000 Households – 4,436 complaints in 2017, 3,782 complaints in 2018 as of August 31st. 
    3. Tenderloin – 2272.61 Average Yearly Complaints/Per 10,000 Households – 4,035 complaints in 2017, 2,211 complaints in 2018 as of August 31st. 

    “While one would assume that lower-income neighborhoods might experience worse poop issues, that is not the case in San Francisco,” according to the website. “It seems that the poop crisis in San Francisco is unlike what we see in other cities (where you can just blame it on the cute furry little friends of ours), it reflects more so a social crisis.” 

    San Francisco’s comfortable climate has made it a mecca for the country’s homeless. Out of the 7,499 homeless people recorded in 2017, about 58%, or 4,353 people, were masked as unsheltered, which has spurred tent cities across the downtown. 

    Data compiled by RealtyHop shows the number of poop complaints has jumped from 2011 to 2018, and the number almost tripled — from 5,606 to 20,899 — from 2011 to 2017. Researchers say 16,310 complaints have been logged in so far this year, which may indicate 2018 could be the shittest on record. 

    In response to the very shitty situation, city authorities launched a six-person crew, under a new pilot program called the Poop Patrol, with the mission of cleaning up poop before anyone has a chance to complain about it. 

    However, none of this is surprising as the cost of living in the region continues to soar, leaving many residents left behind in the broken economy. Rising wealth, health, and education inequalities have driven the city to a breaking point, where low-income people have now been forced to live in tent cities and or their automobile. 

    “It’s a kind of middle-class homelessness,” writes Steve Lopez in an article for the Los Angeles Times. 

    San Francisco covered in poop seems to be the result of a widening wealth inequality crisis. There are no indications the wealth gap will normalize in the region, as the shit storm is expected to get worse.  

     

  • Johnstone: We're "Trapped In An Orwellian Oligarchy"

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Facebook, Twitter Purge More Dissident Media Pages In Latest Escalation

    Facebook has purged more dissident political media pages today, this time under the pretense of protecting its users from “inauthentic activity”. In a statement co-authored by Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Nathaniel Gleicher (who also happens to be the former White House National Security Council Director of Cybersecurity Policy), the massive social media platform explained that it has removed “559 Pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

    This “inauthentic behavior”, according to Facebook, consists of using “sensational political content — regardless of its political slant — to build an audience and drive traffic to their websites,” which is the same as saying they write about controversial things, and posting those political articles “in dozens of Facebook Groups, often hundreds of times in a short period, to drum up traffic for their websites.”

    In other words, the pages were removed for publishing controversial political content and trying to get people to read it. Not for writing “fake news”, but for doing what they could to get legitimate indie media news stories viewed by people who might want to view it. The practice of sharing your material around in Facebook groups is common practice for most independent media content creators; I did it myself a lot in late 2016 and early 2017, and pretty much all my indie media peers at the time did too.

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

    “For those of you who read what I write, you know that I did not violate any standards,” writes Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, whose personal profile and Facebook page for her political blog NoisyRoom.net were both deleted. “In fact, I don’t send out most of what I write. I send on big news links and a few memes. It was enough to get me banned and the pages are simply gone.”

    “Facebook took down my page with nearly 70,000 followers, labeling it as ‘spam,’ when I have spent 4 years working to build that page up and using it to post the articles I wrote and videos of my reporting,” tweeted RT America’s Rachel Blevins. “This is so incredibly wrong and is affecting hundreds of similar pages.”

    “And just like that 5 + years of hard work promoting ideas of peace and freedom have been erased,” wrote a Facebook user called John Liberty, who lost multiple pages about police accountability, cannabis legalization and libertarianism.

    Two of the most high-profile pages which were shut down have probably been seen at some point by any political dissident who uses Facebook; the Free Thought Project, which had 3.1 million followers, and Anti-Media, which had 2.1 million. I’ve found useful information on both sites before, and despite disagreeing with them ideologically in some areas have found them both vastly more legitimate than anything you’ll find on Google News.

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

    As if that wasn’t creepy enough, some of the accounts purged by Facebook appear to be getting censored on Twitter as well, bringing back memories of the August cross-platform coordinated silencing of Alex Jones. The aforementioned Anti-Media has now been suspended from Twitter just hours after tweeting about being removed from Facebook, along with one of its top writers Carey Wedler, and a Unicorn Riot activist named Patti Beers who had more than 30,000 Twitter followers has just been removed from both sites as well.

    I have said it before and I will say it again: in a corporatist system, wherein there is no clear line between corporate power and government power, corporate censorship is government censorship. You can’t have a system wherein corporate lobbying and campaign finance amount to legalized bribery of elected officials, wherein massive Silicon Valley corporations form extensive ties with secretive government agencies in order to eclipse their competition, and then claim this is a matter of private corporations enforcing their own rules on their own private property. This is just what totalitarian government censorship looks like in a corporatist oligarchy.

    Do you want a few Silicon Valley plutocrats determining what political speech constitutes “inauthentic activity” for you? Do you want a world in which the masses are herded into massive government-allied social media stables which are then regularly brought before the US Senate to pledge more iron-fisted censorship of problematic political speech? Do you want a world in which social media corporations are forced to make alliances with existing power structures in order to be allowed to grow? Do you want a world in which venues of political discourse are increasingly sterilized to favor the agendas of the ruling class? If not, the time to act is now.

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

    Regardless of where you’re at on the political spectrum, if you oppose the status quo then opposing internet censorship of any political speech is now a matter of simple self defense. If this wasn’t obvious to you when they shut down Alex Jones, it should damn well be obvious to you now. If you want to change the existing system in any way which takes power away from those currently in power, your voice is next on the chopping block. They’re locking all the doors down as fast as they can to keep us trapped in this Orwellian oligarchy until they get us all killed by war or ecocide. If they shut down the public’s ability to share dissident information, they’ll have locked the final door. Don’t let them.

    UPDATE: Free Thought Project has, like Anti-Media, now been removed from Twitter as well as Facebook. There definitely appears to be some kind of coordination or overlap between Twitter and Facebook censors.

    *  *  *

    Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out mypodcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal,buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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