Today’s News 16th June 2018

• Splitting California Into 3 Pieces Is Long Overdue

  As we detailed earlier, it now looks like California voters will have the chance to vote on whether or not the state ought to be split up into three pieces.

  

  The Los AngelesTimes reports :

  If a majority of voters who cast ballots agree, a long and contentious process would begin for three separate states to take the place of California, with one primarily centered around Los Angeles and the other two divvying up the counties to the north and south.

  

  As Ryan McMaken, via The Mises Institute, notes, this latest move is just one of many efforts over many decades to split California up, and make its constituent parts more responsive to the people who live there. This effort, however, is more successful than past ones — for example, the 2016 proposed ballot measure breaking up California into six states. That one failed to qualify for the ballot.

  To say the least, breaking up California into smaller pieces is something that is long overdue. The population of California is a massive 39 million, making it larger than either Canada or Peru. And the GDP produced by that state is enormous as well. If California were an independent country, it would have an economy larger than that of the United Kingdom.

  This means the California government – which can (and does) skim off substantial portions of that wealth – is among the richest governments in the world.

  Moreover, the government holds a monopoly of power over a vast area which includes some of the best real estate in the world. Much of North America’s best coastlines, mountains, natural harbors, forests, and mountains are contained within California.

  And, here’s one of the best things about being a huge state (from the government’s perspective): the government can make it extremely inconvenient to escape it: “You don’t like our policies? Well, then, feel free to move hundreds of miles away to Phoenix or Reno.”

  It’s no wonder then, that the government of California has been able to abuse its taxpayers so freely. California has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation, and many leave the state because of it. More and more, the state is become a playground for the wealthy who have enough of a surplus to endure what ordinary people cannot. Thanks to endless regulations on development via environmental regulations and other measures, housing supply has been artificially limited, and thus the cost of housing in California has skyrocketed. This has led to a situation in which, as the Sacramento Bee put it “California exports its poor to Texas… while wealthier people move in.” But California apparently isn’t exporting all its poor — the state has the worst poverty rate in the nation when the cost of living is taken into account.

  And yet, the opponents of the new “Three Californias” ballot measure will surely be telling us that the status quo is perfectly fine. We’ll be told that the political establishment in Sacramento ought not be punished for decades of mismanagement, and that it would be too “extreme” to separate hard-left northern California from the more politically moderate areas of the south and east.

  A State Divided

  Indeed, the state isn’t nearly as united in its love of the dominant political agenda as we’re supposed to believe. As recently, as 2008, the vote on the same-sex marriage measure Proposition 8 illustrated some meaningful divisions in the state. Opposition to the measure (i.e., support for gay marriage) enjoyed a majority only in the northern parts of the state and along the central coast. A majority of voters in the south supported the measure, and even a majority in Los Angeles County voted for the measure. Whatever one’s opinion on the subject of marriage, the vote reiterated what has long been known: what we regard as “progressive California” has long been pushed primarily by Californians centered around the Bay Area and Silicon valley. While it would be silly to call Southern California a bastion of right-wing thinking, that fact is that Southern California is less about Hollywood than it is about miles upon endless miles of suburban neighborhoods filled with middle class people who have better things to do than push for Dianne Feinstein’s latest political hobbyhorse. A middle-class insurance worker in an unglamorous LA suburb with three kids has precious little in common with a pair of Princeton-educated Silicon Valley workers who live a dual-income-no-kids lifestyle, and who bring to the state the “enlightened” views we’ve come to expect from upper-middle-class suburbanites with expensive designer college degrees.

  Moreover, this latter group has been increasingly growing as the influential majority both in terms of population, and in the wealth and resources it can bring to the political game.

  So, it’s hard to not be sympathetic to Californians who might be happy to break free of the current political stranglehold and perhaps embrace a smaller, more flexible political community that might be slightly more responsive to local taxpayers and citizens.

  California is the Poster Child for Un-Responsive Government

  And it’s easy to see why many Californians might regard their political system as un-responsive to their particular personal and regional needs: California has, by far, the most unrepresentative state government in the United States.

  For every state legislator, there are more than 310,000 California residents. Second-place Texas, with 139,000 residents per legislator, doesn’t come close. These numbers aren’t even in the same league, though, with quite a few other states — including especially safe, wealthy, and healthy ones — like Minnesota, Utah, and Massachusetts. Those states have 1 legislator for every 23,600; 23,500; and 33,000 residents, respectively.

  

  This is what passes for political representation in California’s government.

  As Gerard Casey has pointed out, the very concept of political representation is built on a pretty shaky foundation as is. It’s implausible enough to claim that one person can truly represent the interests of 50 or 100 other people. But 20,000 people spread out over numerous communities, geographies and ethnic groups?

  In some circumstances involving fairly uniform populations, even that might be something many people could swallow. But 100,000 people? 3000,000? That mere suggestion of such a thing should be regarded as laughable. And yet that is the foundation on which California’s “democracy” is based. Its government, politically speaking, relies on the acceptance of the idea that the state’s legislature of 120 people can “represent” 39 million people spread across 163,000 square miles. 

  In practice, however, this idea is totally implausible, and the practical downsides are numerous as well.1 With such an unrepresentative scheme:

  • Large constituencies increase the cost of running campaigns, and thus require greater reliance on large wealthy interests for media buys and access to mass media. The cost of running a statewide campaign in California, for example, is considerably larger than the cost of running a statewide campaign in Vermont. Constituencies spread across several media markets are especially costly.

  • Elected officials, unable to engage a sizable portion of their constituencies rely on large interest groups claiming to be representative of constituents.

  • Voters disengage because they realize their vote is worth less in larger constituent groups.

  • Voters disengage because they are not able to meet the candidate personally.

  • Voters disengage because elections in larger constituencies are less likely to focus on issues that are of personal, local interest to many of the voters.

  • The ability to schedule a personal meeting with an elected official is far more difficult in a large constituency than a small one.

  • Elected officials recognize that a single voter is of minimal importance in a large constituency, so candidates prefer to rely on mass media rather than personal interaction with voters.

  • Larger constituent groups are more religiously, ethnically, culturally, ideologically, and economically diverse. This means elected officials from that constituent group are less likely to share social class, ethnic group, and other characteristics with a sizable number of their constituents.

  • Larger constituencies often mean the candidate is more physically remote, even when the candidate is at “home” and not at a distant parliament or congress. This further reduces access.

  California epitomizes all of this. And it’s even worse when we consider the California’s Congressional delegation. For each US Senator in California, there are 19 million Californians. How much do you suppose a Californian’s single vote is worth to each senator? Approximately zero. (In California, each Congressional district, by the way, contains more than 600,000 residents for each member.)

  So, when we consider California’s enormous size, coupled with its tiny political class, it’s easy to see that political decision making occurs within a tiny, distant, and remote minority well insulated from the lives of ordinary people.

  This is true most places, of course, but California takes this reality to an extreme.

  The Benefits of Splitting up the State

  While it certainly not a panacea, splitting up California into smaller pieces would be a step in the right direction for many reasons.

  First of all, it would provide more options and choice to people living in California right now. Most Californians no doubt consider themselves to be “pro-choice” people. So why not embrace more “choice” among political regimes along the West Coast. With three Californias, current residents would more easily be able to relocate to a state that better fits their personal needs, without having to relocated hundreds of miles away. As its currently proposed, a resident of Los Angeles County who seeks to change the state government he lives under may relocate to Orange County. This isn’t totally convenient, of course, but it’s certainly more convenient and less disruptive than having to move to Tucson or Dallas or Denver.

  Decentralization has also often been shown to increase efforts to attract wealth and capital to each jurisdiction. This in turn limits the extent to which governments are willing to raise taxes and crush business with burdensome regulations. This, after all, is the model that has been working moderately well in Switzerland for centuries.

  And finally, splitting up the state would help put a dent in California’s utterly unrepresentative and unaccountable political class.

  Even after the split-up, the three Californias would still each be among the largest states in the US — and that would still come with all the problems with noted above. But, it’s a place to start.

  Moreover, there’s no reason each new California would have to adopt the model of a tiny 120-member legislature as “Old California” does now. Those who are unreasonably attached to the status quo would no doubt object to a 400-person House of Representatives as tiny New Hampshire has now. But even with a 200-person House, as Pennsylvania has , for each of the new Californias — each with approximately 13 million people — the state’s power would become a little less centralized, a little less insulated, a little less lofty.

  For More:

  • The US Should Have 10,000 Members of Congress  
  • Grant Statehood to America’s Core Cities
  • If the Majority Votes to Secede — What About the Minority?
  • No Country Should be Bigger Than This
  • If American Federalism Were like Swiss Federalism, There Would be 1,300 States

  

• 'The Rampage' – Israeli Supersonic Missile Built To Destroy High-Quality Targets In Iran And Syria

  Israeli Military Industries Systems (IMI Systems) and Israel Aerospace Industries, revealed a new air-launched, GPS-guided, supersonic missile called Rampage — that can hit high-quality targets more than 90-miles away.

  The missile can be mounted to the Israel Air Force’s McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II with capabilities to launch the supersonic missile outside the enemy’s detection and interception systems.

  

  The two Israeli state-run defense companies officially unveiled the new missile in a press release on June 11.

  According to the release, the supersonic missile was produced in response to a clear operational need of the ever so expanding modern battlefield, as the “counter weapon,” against new, rapidly emerging complex air defense environments in Iran and neighboring Syria. In other words, Iran and Syria are deploying new missile shields that could render the Israeli Air Force’s (IAF) aircraft inoperable in specific regions.

  In the past 12 to 18 months, both defense firms have jointly tested Rampage with the IAF and have shown the missile is fully operational.

  The missile is expected to head into series production and will be available for sale in 2019. The IAF is expected to purchase the rocket “to improve its surgical high-precision strikes with minimum collateral damage,” said Israel’s Ynet News.

  A video presentation shows a combination of an IAF F-16 air launching Rampage coupled with computer graphic scenes showing the missile striking enemy targets.

  “Sending four fighter jets carrying four Rampage missiles [each] allows us to strike under conditions we’ve never had before,” Eli Reiter, head of IMI Systems’ Firepower Division, told Ynet.

  “IMI Systems and IAI are proud to unveil a response to the challenges of modern battlefields. The Rampage joins a family of accurate rockets, which we have been providing to advanced militaries for years. Rampage complements the air response with a quantum leap in performance and extraordinary cost-effectiveness ratio, two factors which are important to many air forces around the world,” Reiter said in the company’s press release.

  Boaz Levy, general manager and executive VP of IAI’s Rockets and Space Group, told Ynet that the supersonic missile’s cost is approximately one-third of the price of similar missiles being sold on the global defense market.

  

  Rampage air-to-surface missile developed by Israel’s IMS, IAI. (Source: IMI Systems)

  The missile’s warhead will be guided by GPS-assisted inertial navigation system (INS) guidance package to hit enemy targets, which will allow the warhead to strike its target during the day/night and in any weather condition.

  IMI Systems told Ynet that the missile could repel an electronic warfare attack, the company added, “additional algorithm-based navigation system as a backup will give the missile immunity.”

  At the beginning of 2018, Syrian anti-aircraft missiles downed an IAF’s F-16 returning from a bombing campaign on Iran-backed positions in Syria.

  

  Confirmed photographs of the F-16 crash site in Northern Israel, which is reported to be 20-30km from the Syrian border. 

  

  Israeli security forces walk next to the remains of the downed F-16 Israeli war plane near the Israeli village of Harduf, Israel. February 10, 2018. Image (source: Reuters)

  While the winds of war appear unavoidable in Iran and or Syria, the IAF’s need for precision-guided supersonic missiles with long-range capabilities is essential before the next major conflict erupts. Otherwise, the emerging threat of high-tech Iranian/Syrian missile shields could pose a significant threat for the IAF.

  

• FBI Agents Called Hillary "President" While Investigating Her, Texted "Screw You Trump" On Election Day

  One of four FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s email server – not Peter Strzok or Lisa Page, referred to Clinton as “the President” in a text exchange with another FBI employee four days after interviewing the Democratic candidate, according to Thursday’s DOJ Inspector General report.

  

  Then, in a different text exchange with one of the other three Clinton email investigators (not Peter Strzok or Lisa Page), another agent wrote “screw you trump” after the first agent admitted “You should know…that I’m…with her.” 

  

  Those FBI investigators were dating at the time and were later married, meaning all four FBI case agents working the Hillary Clinton email investigation – the other two being Peter Strzok and Lisa Page – were ardent Clinton supporters, and at least three harbored animus towards Trump. 

  The report released yesterday by the inspector general for the Department of Justice referred to these two FBI agents not by their names but as “Agent 1” and “Agent 5.”

  The report said of these FBI agents that “we identified two instant message exchanges that appeared to combine a discussion of politics with the Midyear investigation.” (The FBI referred to the Clinton email investigation as “Midyear Exam,” “Midyear,” or “MYE.”) –CNS News

  The same agent who texted “screw you trump” – “Agent 5” – also wrote “she better win… otherwise i’m gonna be walking around with both of my guns… and likely quitting on the spot,” as well as “fuck trump” on December 6. 

  

  Clinton was interviewed by FBI agents on July 2 about her use of a private, unsecured email server which housed classified information while she was Secretary of State. According to the IG report, however, the FBI had already decided against recommending prosecution unless Clinton lied or confessed. 

  “By the time of Clinton’s interview on July 2, we found that the Midyear agents and prosecutors, along with Comey, had decided that absent a confession or false statements by Clinton, the investigation would be closed without charges,” reads the IG report.

  James Comey announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton three days later despite “evidence of potential violations of statutes.”

  “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said.

  At the same time, Comey thanked FBI personnel for what he called their “remarkable work” on the Clinton case and said that Americans would better understand how “proud” he was of these FBI agents when they had a “better sense” of the work they had done on the Clinton case. –CNS News

  “I want to start by thanking the FBI employees who did remarkable work in this case,” Comey said. “Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts.”

  Just remember, the Obama administration was “scandal free,” and according to the DOJ, after investigating itself, there was no evidence that any of the overt and well documented bias harbored by agents crept into the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

  

  

• Pepe Escobar: This Is The Key Word In The Trump-Kim Show

  Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

  By reaffirming the Panmunjom Declaration, the US President has committed to bringing its military back from South Korea and thus a complete denuclearization of the South as well as the North…

  

  The Trump-Kim geopolitical reality-TV show – surreal for some – offered unparalleled entries to the annals of international diplomacy. It will be tough to upstage the US President pulling an iPad and showing Kim Jong-un the cheesy trailer of a straight-to-video 1980s B-grade action movie – complete with a Sylvester Stallone cameo – casting the two leaders as heroes destined to save the world’s 7 billion people.

  Away from the TV, the former “Rocket Man”, now respectfully recast in Trump terminology as “Chairman Kim”, did strike a formidable coup by completely erasing the dreaded acronym CVID – or “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” – from the final text of the Singapore joint statement.

  Throughout the pre-summit negotiations, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) had always stressed an “action-for-action” strategy leading to denuclearization, as in Pyongyang being compensated every step of the way instead of waiting until after complete denuclearization – a process that could last over a decade – to be eligible for economic benefits.

  The Singapore joint statement enshrines exactly what the Russia-China strategic partnership – formalized in the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit – was suggesting from the beginning: a double freeze.

  The DPRK holds off on any new nuclear and missile tests while the US and South Korea stop the “war games” (Trump’s terminology).

  This logical sequence of the Sino-Russian roadmap is based on what South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed with Kim Jong-un at the inter-Korean summit last April. And that ties in with what North Korea, South Korea and Russia had already discussed at the Far East summit in Vladivostok last September, as Asia Times reported; economic integration between Russia and the two Koreas, including the crucial connectivity of a future Trans-Korean railway with the Trans-Siberian.

  Once again, this is all about Eurasia integration; increased trade between North Korea and Northeast China, concerning mostly Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces; and total, physical connectivity of both Koreas to the Eurasian heartland.

  That’s yet another instance of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) meeting the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). And not by accident South Korea wants to connect deeper with both BRI and the EAEU. 

  When in doubt, re-read Panmunjom

  The Singapore joint statement is not a deal; it’s a statement.

  The absolutely key item is number 3: “Reaffirming the April 27, 2018, Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

  This means that the US and North Korea will work towards denuclearization not only in what concerns the DPRK but the whole Korean Peninsula.

  Much more than “…the DPRK commits to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”, the keywords are in fact    “reaffirming the April 27, 2018, Panmunjom Declaration…”  

  Even before Singapore, everyone knew the DPRK would not “de-nuke” (Trump terminology) for nothing, especially when promised just some vague US “guarantees”.

  Predictably, both US neocon and humanitarian imperialist factions are unanimous in their fury, blasting the absence of “meat” in the joint statement. In fact there’s plenty of meat. Singapore reaffirms the Panmunjom Declaration, which is a deal between North Korea and South Korea.

  By signing the Singapore joint statement, Washington has been put on notice of the Panmunjom Declaration. In law, when you take notice of a fact, you can’t ignore it later. The DPRK’s commitment to denuclearize in the Singapore statement is a reaffirmation of its commitment to denuclearize in the Panmunjom Declaration, with all of the conditions attached to it. And Trump acknowledged that by signing the Singapore statement.

  The Panmunjom Declaration stresses that:

  “South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. South and North Korea shared the view that the measures being initiated by North Korea are very meaningful and crucial for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and agreed to carry out their respective roles and responsibilities in this regard. South and North Korea agreed to actively seek the support and cooperation of the international community for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

  That’s the commitment. “International community”, as everyone knows, is code for the US as The Great Decider. If Washington does not bring back its military from South Korea, there will be no denuclearization. Essentially, that’s the deal discussed between Kim and President Xi Jinping in their two crucial, pre-Singapore meetings. Get the US out of the peninsula, and we have your back. 

  So all focus should be on “reaffirming”, the key word in the Singapore joint statement. 

  

• Plunging Manhattan Rents Are Helping New Yorkers Afford Larger Apartments

  Retail and consumer rents in Manhattan have been doing something unusual in recent years: They’ve been moving lower. And that’s helping renters think about reaching for that most important commodity among Manhattan’s rental community: More space.

  

  As Bloomberg reports, Manhattan rental units with three or more bedrooms accounted for 12.2% of new leases in May, the largest share since Douglas Elliman Real Estate started tracking the data in 2011. Excluding renewals, renters signed leases for 767 apartments in this category – a 20% increase from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the median rent for these homes fell 5.8% from a year earlier to an average of $5,650. By comparison, rental rates for two-bedroom units dropped 4.6% to $4,295, while rents for one-bedrooms moved ever-so-slightly higher, climbing 0.3% to a median of $3,459.

  

  With such massive discounts, and a glut of high-end apartments, it might make more sense to trade up to a bigger rental rather than buy, according to Hal Gavzie, Douglas Elliman’s executive manager of leasing. Because, for the first time in years, Manhattan has become a renter’s market.

  “We’re getting more people who were in the sales market and just haven’t pulled the trigger” on a purchase, he said. “They’re seeing that it’s a renters’ market, and maybe they’re just looking for that deal.”

  Of course, renters who are hunting for the best deal should look toward the outerboroughs like Queens, where landlords are making massive concessions to keep tenants on as a supply glut worsens. This has caused rents to drop by a massive 12% YOY. Beyond renters, small retailers hoping to sell their wares in downtown Manhattan are also finding incredibly favorable conditions as companies looking to sublease their storefronts are undercutting their own landlords. The result has turned lower Manhattan into a “shopping wasteland.”

  In what was an epic exercise in seeing the glass half full, Jared Epstein, vice president of Aurora Capital Associates, told Forbes that the drop in rents in retail districts like Soho could lead to a revitalization.

  “It’s going to bring SoHo back,” he said. Still, the property owners are suffering with a serious pullback, as rents have fallen nearly 30% in some parts of the neighborhood, like on Broadway between Houston and Broome Streets. But regardless of the broader trends, after years of inexorable rent increases, it seems like retailers and consumers just need a break.

  

• OIG Report On FBI/Clinton Shows Secrecy Threatens Democracy

  Authored by James Bovard, op-ed via USAToday.com,

  The 500-page inspector general’s report released Thursday reveals how unjustified secrecy and poor decisions helped ravage the credibility of both Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the FBI…

  

  Yesterday’s Inspector General report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton contained plenty of bombshells, including a promise by lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok that “We’ll stop” Donald Trump from becoming president. The report reveals how unjustified secrecy and squirrelly decisions helped ravage the credibility of both Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the FBI. But few commentators are recognizing the vast peril to democracy posed by the sweeping prerogatives of federal agencies.

  The FBI’s investigation of Clinton was spurred by her decision to set up a private server to handle her email during her four years as secretary of state. The server in her Chappaqua, N.Y. mansion was insecure and exposed emails with classified information to detection by foreign sources and others.

  Clinton effectively exempted herself from the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The State Department ignored 17 FOIA requests for her emails prior to 2014 and insisted it required 75 years to disclose emails of Clinton’s top aides. A federal judge and the State Department inspector general slammed the FOIA stonewalling.

  Clinton’s private email server was not publicly disclosed until she received a congressional subpoena in 2015. A few months later, the FBI Counterintelligence Division opened a criminal investigation of the “potential unauthorized storage of classified information on an unauthorized system.”

  The IG report gives the impression that the FBI treated Hillary Clinton and her coterie like royalty — or at least like personages worthy of endless deference. When Bleachbit software or hammers were used to destroy email evidence under congressional subpoena, the FBI treated it as a harmless error. The IG report “questioned whether the use of a subpoena or search warrant might have encouraged Clinton, her lawyers … or others to search harder for the missing devices [containing email], or ensured that they were being honest that they could not find them.” Instead, FBI agents worked on “rapport building” with Clinton aides.

  Indictment justified

  FBI investigators shrugged off brazen deceit. An unnamed FBI agent on the case responded to a fellow FBI agent who asked how an interview went with a witness who worked with the Clintons at their Chappaqua residence: “Awesome. Lied his a__ off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility] at res [residence], to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic.” When his colleague replied that “would be funny if he was the only guy charged n this deal,” he replied, “aint noone gonna do s___” as far as filing charges. 

  Perhaps the most frequent phrase in the IG report is “According to the FD-302 …”  This refers to the memo an FBI agent writes after interviewing targets or witnesses in an investigation. Relying on Form 302s (instead of recordings interviews) maximizes the discretion of FBI officials, allowing them to frame issues or create a narrative or buttress charges of lying to a federal agent.

  The FBI waited until the end of the investigation to interview Clinton and had decided to absolve her “absent a confession from Clinton,” the IG report noted. There was no recording and no transcript; instead, a 302 report allowed FBI Director James Comey to proceed with the preordained “not guilty” finding. Clinton had received numerous classified emails (some of which were marked with a (C)) on her private email server. The IG report notes, “According to the FD-302 from Clinton’s interview, Clinton told the FBI that she did not know what the ‘(C)’ meant and ‘speculated it was a reference to paragraphs ranked in alphabetical order.’”

  The IG noted, “Witnesses told us, and contemporaneous emails show, that the FBI and Department officials who attended Clinton’s interview found that her claim that she did not understand the significance of the ‘(C)’ marking strained credulity. [FBI] Agent 1 stated, ‘I filed that in the bucket of hard to impossible to believe.’” Comey told IG investigators that “by her demeanor, she was credible and open and all that kind of stuff.” But a video recording of the showdown (especially the alphabet line) would have been invaluable to Americans who doubted Clinton and the FBI.

  Anti-Trump texts spurred the IG to refer 5 FBI employees to the FBI for possible disciplinary penalties. One FBI agent labeled Trump supporters as “retarded” and declared “I’m with her” [Hillary Clinton]. Another FBI employee texted that “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer texted that he was “devastated” by Trump’s election and declared “Viva la Resistance!” and “I never really liked the Republic anyway.” The same person became the “primary FBI attorney assigned to [Russian election interference] investigation beginning in early 2017,” the IG noted.

  Lack of transparency

  The IG report deals briefly with a kerfuffle over the FOIA release of Clinton Foundation documents a week before the 2016 election. Regrettably, the IG overlooked FBI’s horrendous record on FOIA compliance, spurring bitter complaints even from its former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. A federal judge slammed the agency for claiming it would require 17 years to fulfill a FOIA request on surveillance of antiwar activists in the 1960s. The FBI also makes ludicrous redactions to FOIA releases — such as deleting the names of Clark Kent and Lois Lane from a theatrical adaptation of Superman because disclosing them would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

  The IG report illustrates the vast sway that federal agencies sometimes seek over what Americans are permitted to know about candidates and their government. Unfortunately, this coroner’s inquest into 2016 chicaneries will do nothing to prevent covert federal meddling from tilting future elections. 

  And as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wisely warned in 2012 that “lack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government.”

  

  In a separate note, Jim Bovard expounds on the fact that a politically weaponized FBI is nothing new, but plenty dangerous…

  In reality, the FBI has been politically weaponized for almost a century.

  The FBI was in the forefront of the notorious Red Scare raids of 1919 and 1920. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer reportedly hoped that arresting nearly 10,000 suspected radicals and immigrants would propel his presidential campaign. Federal Judge Anderson condemned Palmer’s crackdown for creating a “spy system” that “destroys trust and confidence and propagates hate.” He said, “A mob is a mob whether made up of government officials acting under instructions from the Department of Justice, or of criminals, loafers, and the vicious classes.”

  After the Palmer raids debacle, the FBI turned its attention to U.S. senators, “breaking into their offices and homes, intercepting their mail, and tapping their telephones,” as Timothy Weiner noted in his 2012 book, “Enemies: The History of the FBI”. After the FBI’s political espionage was exposed, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone, warned in 1924, “A secret police system may become a menace to free government and free institutions because it carries with it the possibility of abuses of power which are not always quickly comprehended or understood.” Stone fired the FBI chief, creating an opening for J. Edgar Hoover, who would head the FBI for the next 48 years. Hoover pledged to cease the abuses but the outrages mushroomed.

  In the 1948 presidential campaign, Hoover brazenly championed Republican candidate Thomas Dewey, leaking allegations that Truman was part of a corrupt Kansas City political machine.

  In 1952, Hoover sought to undermine Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson by spreading rumors that he was a closet homosexual.

  In 1964, the FBI illegally wiretapped Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s presidential headquarters and plane and conducted background checks on his campaign staff for evidence of homosexual activity. The FBI also conducted an extensive surveillance operation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention to prevent embarrassing challenges to President Lyndon Johnson.

  From 1956 to 1971, the FBI carried out “a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order,” a 1976 Senate report noted. The FBI’s Operation COINTELPRO involved thousands of covert operations to incite street warfare between violent groups, to get people fired, to portray innocent people as government informants, to destroy activists’ marriages, and to cripple or destroy left-wing, black, communist, white racist, and anti-war organizations. Even feminists were eventually added to the target list. Senate investigators warned, “(The) FBI intelligence system developed to a point where no one inside or outside the bureau was willing or able to tell the difference between legitimate national security or law enforcement information and purely political intelligence.”

  Hoover served as FBI boss until his death in 1972. A New York Timesobituary noted, “The more awesome Mr. Hoover’s power grew, the more plainly he would state, for the record, that there was nothing ‘political’ about it, that the FBI was simply a ‘fact-finding agency’ that ‘never makes recommendations or draws conclusions.’” This was the myth that allowed a federal agency to accumulate vast power which it continues to covertly exercise. The FBI pirouettes as the saintliest institution in Washington while its leaders dish dirt to their political or media favorites.

  *  *  *

  The first step to reining in the FBI is to open the agency’s files. Oversight is often a mirage thanks to  FBI spurning of congressional subpoenas and other information demands. Federal judges have been riled by FBI false testimony and withholding of evidence in major court cases ranging from Ruby Ridge, Waco, Orlando Pulse Massacre, and Bundy Ranch showdown. The FBI has perennially exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act.

  It has been more than 40 years since a Senate committee had the gumption and the sway to reveal the stunning details and breadth of FBI misconduct. It is time for another independent investigation with the courage and the clout to compel full disclosure from the most powerful domestic government agency. Investigators should receive all the crowbars they need to pry open FBI records.

  In the coming weeks, we will be assured that a few firings and perhaps a few indictments is all that is needed to put the FBI on a straight and narrow path. But the Founding Fathers never intended a secret police force to be an independent fourth branch of the federal government. As James Madison warned in 1788, “Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.”

  

• This Abandoned Macy's Is Now A Homeless Shelter Housing Its Former Employees

  The Macy’s at the Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Virginia used to be an iconic and historic building. In what is now undoubtedly a sign of the times, it has been converted into a homeless shelter until the property can be razed and its owner, the Howard Hughes Corporation, can repurpose the property and build something new at its location.

  

  Even more telling, this homeless shelter houses many of those who used to work at the very same Macy’s.

  In the realm of brick-and-mortar retail, the times are definitely a changin’. We have often, on this site, detailed not only the slow and painful death of brick-and-mortar retail as it has been occurring, but also how the value of once coveted mall property has disintegrated and similarly, how landlords of these properties now find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place – tenants are dropping like flies, sales numbers used to help calculate rent are on the decline and property appraisals have been underwhelming. This has led to a influx of abandoned property, not unlike the Macy’s in Alexandria, just sitting and waiting to be repurposed.

  

  The Macy’s in the Landmark Mall was the topic of a recent New York Times article, detailing how a once historic landmark that it is now abandoned and has become a homeless shelter, 15 months after it had its last customers. The Macy’s “now provides 60 beds, hot meals and showers for families and for single men and women who are having trouble finding a place to live in a city with a scarcity of affordable housing.”

  Here is The New York Times on the property’s once iconic status as a historic landmark:

  The Landmark Mall was once at the vanguard of shopping. Opened in 1965, the mall housed the region’s most fashionable department stores, Hecht’s, Woodward & Lothrop and Sears & Roebuck. Boys came to buy their first suit at the haberdasher, and teenage girls could get their shoes dyed to match the color of their prom dress.

  Alexandria’s former mayor William D. Euille remembered playing the clarinet in the high school band at the mall’s opening ceremony. “It was the economic engine of the city,” he said.

  Landmark tried to adapt over the years. It began as an open-air shopping center and went through an overhaul in the 1980s to enclose the property.

  

  Like many other malls, however, it has gone the way of the buffalo:

  Eventually, the mall succumbed to retail’s propensity to chase after newer, flashier spaces. Developers built larger malls with more upscale brands nearby in Pentagon City and Tysons Corner, siphoning customers away from Landmark.

  Landmark’s original anchor stores either have been bought out, went bankrupt or are clinging to life — like many in the retail business. Last year, 6,985 stores closed in the United States, a record number, according to Coresight Research, a retail analysis and advisory firm. This year, retailers are on a pace to close roughly 10,000 stores.

  In its final years of operation, the Landmark’s tenants included two dollar stores and a tax preparer. Only the Sears is still operating. A lone, blue inflatable figure dances on the store’s roof, beckoning shoppers.

  

  Plans to revamp the property, including a 2009 effort to help it once again become an open-air shopping destination, have failed – namely due to the property’s former owner, General Growth Properties, went bankrupt after the 2008 financial crisis. Subsequent to that, the mall was sold and those plans were scrapped.  

  Landmark’s current owner, the Howard Hughes Corporation, plans to tear down the mall and build a mixed-used space that could include offices, retail and other attractions that are still being finalized. It could take many more years to complete the planning, permitting and construction process for such a huge project.

  “It’s a great piece of real estate,” said Mark Bulmash, a senior vice president of development at Howard Hughes.

  The article then tells several stories of individuals who are moving into this property as it has now become a temporary homeless shelter for a builder who is seeking shelter while it constructs a permanent location on the other side of Alexandria:

  Karleen Smith used to work at the Macy’s in Landmark Mall, putting price tags on summer dresses, housewares and the latest styles of shoes.

  On Saturday, Ms. Smith, 57, returned to her former store, not as an employer or a customer, but as a resident.

  The former Macy’s in this vacant shopping mall outside Washington has been transformed into a homeless shelter.

  “It’s weird to be moving into this building. I used to work here,” she said inside the shelter’s common room, which was once the men’s department. “It’s called survival.”

  Smith’s memories of the building, prior to its current state, were fondly noted in the NY Times article – again just making even clearer how the property is long past its heydey and has made a full 180 degree turn for the worse:

  Ms. Smith, the former Macy’s worker, rested on the floor of the common room under a frayed green blanket. Before coming to the shelter, Ms. Smith had been living in a car and showering in a recreation center. “I was tired,” she said.

  Ms. Smith, who worked at Macy’s as a seasonal hire during the holidays 10 years ago, remembers the store fondly.

  On a slow day, she would try on makeup at the cosmetics counter and spray herself with samples of perfume. She said she could never afford to buy anything of her own. “All I could do was admire it.”

  As Ms. Smith waited to move into her new room, the electricity cut out to a portion of the shelter and the staff set up battery powered camping lanterns to light the way for movers. Volunteers brought crockpots with taco makings for dinner and put together goody bags for the children staying there.

  

  For many of the current residents of the shelter, what has happened is nothing short of shocking.

  Keith Ham, 43, who has been living the shelter for about three months, said his family did not believe where he was moving.

  “They say, ‘Macy’s at the mall?’ And I say, ‘For real, Macy’s at the mall.’”

  We detailed the glut in retail space in an early May article that we published, noting that the American shopping mall – that centerpiece of the 1980’s big-box retail model – has fallen on hard times in recent years as the growing dominance of e-commerce has finally started to take a toll on brick-and-mortar retailers – a subject that we’ve frequently discussed.

  Shifting consumption patterns (i.e. the dawn of e-commerce), years of underinvestment by mall owners, and a seemingly unceasing stream of retailer bankruptcies are the factors that have been responsible for most of the damage to Mall REITS, particularly products tied to lower quality malls.

  Emptying storefronts and malls have only exacerbated a glut of American retail space. The country now has roughly 24 square feet of retail space per capita, more than twice that of Australia and 5 times that of the UK.

  

  In April, we talked about the breakneck speed with which retail shopping space was closing. Retail real estate carnage is continuing this year with no signs of slowing up, as Bloomberg reported back in April that over 77 million square feet of retail real estate has closed this year and that 2018 will easily pass 2017’s record of 105 million square feet closed. The latest example was the fall of the once massive Toys ‘R’ Us name:

  The fall of the Toys “R” Us chain, with more than 700 U.S. stores, shows how much retail real estate has changed in just the last decade. When KKR & Co., Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust took over the company in 2005, the buyers justified the $7.5 billion price, in part, because of the supposedly valuable properties that came with the deal.

  We also noted that the price of such properties was tanking. If there was ever to be any silver lining to the complete carnage in the retail real estate space, it was the argument that has been perpetuated over the last decade or so: despite retail stores closing, the real estate would eventually be worth something. 

  This argument was made by real estate investment trusts as well as activist investors and analysts who tried to put a positive spin on the death of brick and mortar retail. Now, with more space freeing up, the bid under former retail property is at ask of falling off as supply is starting to get far ahead of demand:

  Real estate can put a floor under the value of a retailer and make it easier for the company to borrow. Maybe a particular store concept doesn’t work out as consumers’ tastes change, but in that case, investors can always sell the land and buildings to someone with a better plan. Long-term leases can be similarly valuable. But what if the problem isn’t that a particular store is out of fashion, but that consumers are just shopping less at brick-and-mortar retailers in general? As more storefronts empty, the valuation floor will look wobblier.

  

  The story of Alexandria should come as no surprise to anybody who has been following brick-and-mortar retail, watching it get torched by online competitors, mostly Amazon.com. Unfortunately as times goes on, the reality only gets more desperate for brick-and-mortar retail, and its (former) employees, at a time when many considered that the decimation of brick and mortar may finally be ending.

  It appears that it’s only just beginning.

  

• The Texas Bullion Depository Officially Opened For Business This Week

  Authored by Mike Maharrey via The 10th Amendment Center,

  The Texas Bullion Depository officially opened for business this week. The creation of the facility represents a power-shift away from the federal government, and sets the foundation to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.

  

  In June 2015, Gov. Greg Abbot signed legislation creating the state gold bullion and precious metal depository. The facility will not only provide a secure place for individuals, business, cities, counties, government agencies and even other countries to store gold and other precious metals, the law also creates a mechanism to facilitate the everyday use of gold and silver in transactions. In short, a person will eventually be able to deposit gold or silver – and pay other people through electronic means or checks – in sound money.

  The facility began accepting deposits of precious metals on Wednesday, June 6. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar became the first depositor. He praised the depository as a secure place to store gold and silver.

  “Once you’ve made that deposit, it is going to be there tomorrow and in the future, until you make a decision to withdraw it or you want to sell it,” he told the Texas Tribune.

  Rep. Giovanni Capriglione sponsored the legislaiton creating the depository. He also deposited gold on Wednesday. He said he thinks the Texas facility could be the first of many across the U.S.

  “I can’t think of any place else in the world that could create a bullion depository this way, and I’ve heard from legislators across the country who want to do what we are doing, from Tennessee to Utah,” he said in a statement. “We will see a lot of financial interest in this depository, with gold, silver and other commodities coming here.”

  Austin-based Lone Star Tangible Assets runs the depository for the state. It currently operates it out of its existing facility in Austin, but plans to open a new building for the depository in Leander sometime in 2019.

  You don’t have to be a Texas resident to use the depository. Any U.S. citizen can set up an account online and then ship or personally deliver metal to the facility. The Texas Bullion Depository will accept gold, silver, platinum, rhodium and palladium.

  The depository does not currently have a system in place to faciliate everyday transactions with gold and silver, but that remains part of the long-term plan.

  According to an article in the Star-Telegram, state officials want a facility “with an e-commerce component that also provides for secure physical storage for Bullion.” While in the development phase, officials said plans for a depository will include online services that would let customers accept, transfer and withdraw bullion deposits and related fees.

  Ultimately, depositors will be able to use a bullion-funded debit card that seamlessly converts gold and silver to fiat currency in the background. This will enable them to make instant purchases wherever credit and debit cards are accepted.

  By making gold and silver available for regular, daily transactions by the general public, the new depository has the potential for wide-reaching effect. Professor William Greene is an expert on constitutional tender and said in a paper for the Mises Institute that when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

  “Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a ‘reverse Gresham’s Law’ effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes).

  “As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”

  Gresham’s Law holds that “bad money drives out good.”  For example, when the U.S. government replaced silver quarters and dimes with coins made primarily of less valuable copper, the cheap coins drove the silver out of circulation. People hoarded the more valuable silver coins and spent the less valuable copper money. So, how do you reverse Gresham?

  The key is in making it easier to use gold and silver in everyday transactions. The reason bad money drives out good is that governments put up barriers to using sound money in day-to-day life. That makes it more costly to spend gold and silver and incentivizes hoarding. When you remove barriers, you level the playing field and allow gold and silver to compete head-to-head with Federal Reserve notes. On an even playing field, gold and silver beat fiat money every time.

  The Texas Bullion Depository also creates an avenue toward financial independence. Countries around the world, including China, Russia and Turkey, have been buying gold to limit their dependence on the U.S. dollar. University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said a state depository can serve a similar function for Texas.

  “This is another in a long line of ways to make Texas more self-reliant and less tethered to the federal government. The financial impact is small but the political impact is telling, Many conservatives are interested in returning to the gold standard and circumvent the Federal reserve in whatever small way they can.”

  The Texas Bullion Depository creates a mechanism to challenge the federal government’s monopoly on money and provides a blueprint for other states to follow. If the majority of states controlled their own supply of gold, and people began using precious metals in daily transactions, it could conceivably make the Federal Reserve completely irrelevant.

  

• 'DISEASE X': New Strain Of Bird Flu Kills 40% Of Those Who Contract, 100s Dead In China

  A “new” strain of deadly bird flu dubbed “Disease X” by the World Health Organization (WHO) has killed hundreds of people in China, and is just three mutations away from becoming transmissible between humans, according to experts.

  

  The strain, H7N9, circulates in poultry and has killed 623 people out of 1,625 infected in China – a mortality rate of 38.3%. While first identified in China in 2013, H7N9 has recently emerged as a serious threat seemingly overnight. 

  

  Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for the UK, told The Telegraph that H7N9 could cause a global outbreak.

  “[H7N9] is an example of another virus which has proven its ability to transmit from birds to humans,” said Van-Tam, who added “It’s possible that it could be the cause of the next pandemic.”

  The WHO says N7N9 is “an unusually dangerous virus for humans,” and “one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we’ve seen so far” 

  

  “H7N9 viruses have several features typically associated with human influenza viruses and therefore possess pandemic potential and need to be monitored closely,” said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

  Researchers led by James Paulson of the Scripps Research Institute in California have been studying the mutations which could potentially occur in H7N9’s genome to allow for human-to-human infection.

  The team’s findings, published in the journal PLoS Pathogens on Thursday, showed that in laboratory tests, mutations in three amino acids made the virus more able to bind to human cells — suggesting these changes are key to making the virus more dangerous to people. –Japan Times

  That said, the mutations would need to occur relatively close to each other to become more virulent, which has a low probability of happening according to Fiona Culley, an expert in respiratory immunology at Imperial College London.

  “Some of the individual mutations have been seen naturally … these combinations of mutations have not,” and added: “The chances of all three occurring together is relatively low.”

  

  Wenday Barclay, a virologist and flu specialist also at Imperial College says the study’s findings reinforce the need to keep the H7N9 bird flu under close surveillance. 

  “These studies keep H7N9 virus high on the list of viruses we should be concerned about,” she said. “The more people infected, the higher the chance that the lethal combination of mutations could occur.”

  

  According to the CDC, Human infections with bird flu viruses can happen when enough virus gets into a person’s eyes, nose or mouth, or is inhaled. This can happen when virus is in the air (in droplets or possibly dust) and a person breathes it in, or when a person touches something that has virus on it then touches their mouth, eyes or nose.

  

  The reported signs and symptoms of avian influenza A virus infections in humans have ranged from mild to severe and included  conjunctivitis, influenza-like illness (e.g., fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches) sometimes accompanied by nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting, severe respiratory illness (e.g., shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, viral pneumonia, respiratory failure), neurologic changes (altered mental status, seizures), and the involvement of other organ systems –CDC

  Rare human infections with some avian viruses have occurred most often after unprotected contact with infected birds or surfaces contaminated with avian influenza viruses. However, some infections have been identified where direct contact was not known to have occurred. Illness in people has ranged from mild to severe.

  Don’t let this happen to you: 

  

  

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