- 6 Factors Which Point To A Rigged Election
6 Factors Which Point To A Rigged Election
Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/18/2020 – 00:00Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
The US Election is still a burning issue almost two weeks after the people went to the polls, and though the race has been called for Biden by every mainstream media outlet in the world, the recounts are ongoing and irregularities manifest.
Trump’s legal team, and many in the alternate media, are claiming the election was rigged. With one voice the mainstream media – and the entire political establishment – denounce these claims as “baseless”, and scream there is “no evidence”.
This is incorrect. There is plenty of evidence, both circumstantial and direct, which breaks down into six basic categories:
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Precedent – It has happened before.
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Motive – Deep State/Military dislike of Trump’s policies is widely known.
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Foreknowledge – Establishment voices predicted this exact situation.
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Opportunity – The voting system is highly susceptible to fraud.
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Voting Irregularities – Known software “glitches” & irregularities in the reporting of the results.
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Cover-up – Dishonesty in the reporting of the situation.
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1. PRECEDENT
There is plenty of evidence that US elections have been rigged before.
Nobody is talking about it much, but US elections have been rigged before. Everyone is more than familiar with the 2000 election, which was called for Al Gore before Florida flipped to Bush and swung the election. The controversy over “hanging chads” and misplaced votes was all people talked about for weeks.
One noteworthy “error” with electronic voting machines, switched over 10000 votes from Gore to an obscure third-party candidate.
After weeks of legal battles, Gore eventually conceded. Within a year the “attacks” of 9/11 had happened, and the US was at war in Afghanistan and planning six more wars within 3 years.
More recently, it was revealed the DNC had gone out of its way to hand Hillary the presidential nomination over Sanders in 2016. Then in the 2020 primaries, despite embarrassingly lopsided losses in the first few primaries, Biden’s presidential campaign had a “miraculous turnaround”, thanks largely to irregularities in postal ballots in Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey.
This is evidence of precedent.
2. MOTIVE
The US Deep State has clear and publicly known motives for wanting to remove Trump from office.
It is no secret that many members of the US’s political establishment oppose Trump and Trump’s policies. This includes neo-con warmongers and chiefs of the military and intelligence agencies.
“The Resistance”, billed as some voice of the progressive alternative, boasted former members of George Bush’s cabinet as members.
The most strident opposition to Trump was on foreign policy – most specifically in the Middle East. Trump was committed to withdrawing from Syria, in direct opposition to the “Assad Must Go” crowd at the Pentagon and State Dept.
Just last week it was revealed that Department of Defense actually lied to Trump about their troop numbers in Syria, claiming to have pulled out almost everyone whilst they actually kept their covert war going.
Conversely, Biden has always been firmly in the establishment camp on Syria, and many warmongers are already predicting that Biden will want to “restore some dignity” to the Syrian people.
The US Deep State has carried out coups all around the world, many of them bloody and violent, in order to maintain Imperial ambitions and keep wars-for-profit going. They have every motive to want to remove Trump and put Biden in his place.
This is evidence of motive.
3. FOREKNOWLEDGE
Establishment voices have been predicting, and planning for, this exact situation for almost a year.
In January of this year – well before anyone could have predicted the effect the “pandemic” would have on the world – legal scholars were Wargaming the outcome of a disputed Presidential election based on postal ballots in Pennsylvania.
In August a group naming themselves the Transition Integrity Project published a document predicting a “disputed” election, that the counting would take much longer than usual and that it would not be certain who was President until January.
More generally, the outcome of the election was widely “predicted”, with multiple press outlets claiming there would be a “red mirage” and a “blue shift”. Meaning it would look like Trump would win, and then suddenly Biden would win at the last minute.
This is evidence of foreknowledge.
4. OPPORTUNITY
There is plenty of evidence that the US voting system is open to potential corruption.
Voting machines, for example, are owned and distributed by private companies. Many of which have political ties. An article in the Guardian, of all places, went into great detail about this just last year, when they were suggesting that Trump may have stolen the 2016 election.
Likewise, postal ballots are known to be susceptible to fraud. William Barr, the Attorney General, summed it up in a television interview in September, and written reports in 2007 and earlier this year, have gone into great detail about historical cases of postal vote fraud and possibilities of future occurrences.
This is evidence of opportunity.
5. VOTING IRREGULARITIES
There are plenty of irregularities in the results which suggest the possibility of something strange going on.
The story of the election by the numbers doesn’t really make logical sense. The turnout is said to be 72%, the highest in 120 years, and the first over 60% for over 50 years.
In the process Joe Biden, we are told, shattered Barack Obama’s popular vote record by almost 10 million votes.
Joe Biden?
This Joe Biden?
…got more votes than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?
Meanwhile Donald Trump increased his own popular vote by over 10 million, whilst increasing his vote share in almost every ethnic demographic, as well as with women and LGBT voters.
Making him the first incumbent president to increase his popular vote but still lose in over a century, and the only one since all 50 states were part of the union.
Even if you believe that narrative is possible, there’s more than enough evidence of voting irregularities to warrant at least questioning the result and investigating further.
In one Michigan county an error in the software configuration swung thousands of votes from Republican to Democrat and called a Congressional seat for the wrong party.
This error was only spotted because of the historically republican record of the county. In a more hotly disputed seat, this error could potentially never have been picked up.
Another Michigan county reported an error which switched 5,500 votes from Trump to Biden – a swing of 11,000 votes.
The software used in this county is used in 30 other states – including Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, all of which were decided by less than 1% of the vote, and any two of which could swing the election to Trump.
In fact Dominion, the company which supplied the questionable voting software, was denied a contract by the state of Texas in 2019 when judges found there were “concerns” about “whether [it] is safe from fraudulent or unauthorized manipulation”.
A subsidiary of Dominion was kicked out of the Philippines for being too easy to hack.
This video clip appears to show CNN’s coverage switching over 19,000 votes from Trump to Biden in Pennsylvania.
The graphed results of both Michigan and Wisconsin show decidedly odd jumps in Biden’s vote.
The counting itself was also deeply suspect, with several states taking almost a week to count the last few percent of the vote, whilst managing to count over 90% of the vote on the first evening. In Wisconsin the National Guard were brought in to “transcribe” damaged ballots, whilst in Pennsylvania they were allowed to count postal votes with “no clear post mark”, fairly obviously
As Glen Greenwald wrote, the very fact the count was so arduous and complicated raises questions about the outcome.
6. THE COVER-UP
The media are engaging in lies and censorship.
To state there is “no evidence” of election rigging is a lie. There is plenty of evidence. Every news outlet, channel and website is singing from the same hymn sheet on this – even Fox News, so often Trump’s supposed favourite channel.
Even before the election, as discussed above, all the mainstream media were running articles defending mail-in ballots, and claiming that they are not historically weak to voter fraud. This is totally untrue, as anyone who cared to research the topic would tell you.
In fact many countries have incredibly rigid controls on postal voting for exactly that reason.
And then, after the election, social media companies and mainstream media outlets censor the President of the United States.
So, why are all the media telling the same lies? Why are people being denied a platform?
This is evidence of a cover-up.
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Ask yourself:
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If, in 2016, some voting software used in 30 states had flipped 5500 from Hillary to Trump, and later been revealed to be financially tied to the Republican party, would that have been “just a glitch”, or evidence of cheating?
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If the Brexit referendum had swung violently to Leave after dumps of suspect postal ballots were permitted into the count by a judge who was a known Brexit supporter, would the media have kept quiet?
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If, in Russia, the media denied a platform to the opposition to accuse Putin of voter fraud, would that be “responsible media practice”, or evidence of bias and censorship?
We don’t know exactly what happened, or how the election was result was controlled, but as of right now the specifics do not matter.
The point is there is plenty of evidence suggesting something happened, more than enough to warrant asking rational questions and expecting reasonable answers.
Every time the media ignores the evidence, or censors those seeking it, they only display further that there must be some fire behind all of this smoke.
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- Trapped Travelers In Australia "Scream From Hotel" After Being Ordered Into Another 2 Weeks Of Quarantine
Trapped Travelers In Australia "Scream From Hotel" After Being Ordered Into Another 2 Weeks Of Quarantine
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:40Today in “it’s starting to look a lot like a prison-state using Covid as the excuse” news…
Harrowing scenes are surfacing at the Peppers Adelaide medi-hotel in South Australia, where travelers who were already in a 14 day quarantine have been told that they have to undergo the 2 week process for a second time.
This has resulted in guests screaming from their balconies to be released from the hotel, where some are being forced to stay despite testing negative for Covid, according to news.com.au.
The standoff comes as the country tries to deal with a local cluster of cases that has more than doubled. More than 4000 people locally, who are considered “close contacts” have been quarantined, as a result.
Professor Nicola Spurrier, Chief Health Officer, said: “These people have been advised to quarantine and they are being contacted on a daily basis for a symptom check. This is a huge amount of work, as you can imagine, to make sure that we are in regular contact with these people.”
The country has been able to identify 21 cases linked to one family cluster, which includes three young children and a baby. The state’s draconian measures are coming after reporting 18 new cases yesterday and 5 new cases today. Including the hotel, there are now 34 active cases, with 3 of which coming from a nursing home in Adelaide.
The CEO of the Anglicare Brompton Aged Care Home in Adelaide called it his “worst nightmare”. So far, all residents at the home have tested negative and are being tested daily.
The cluster was said to have started by a female cleaner working at Peppers, who then passed it to her family and two unrelated hotel security guards. It has triggered closures and isolation warnings across the area.
Second possibly only to some Asian areas, Australia has done well in limiting the spread of Covid throughout the country.
With just 27,756 cases and 907 deaths throughout the course of the pandemic, the country has been helped along by its geography – and the overreaching measures, like these, it has taken to control and and trace the virus.
- Beijing Sends Biden A Warning
Beijing Sends Biden A Warning
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:20Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
Because of Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden thundered during the campaign, the U.S. “is more isolated in the world than we’ve ever been… America First has made America alone.”
Biden promised to repair relations with America’s allies. And he appears to have gone some distance to do so in the congratulatory phone call he received from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan.
According to Suga, during the brief call, Biden said Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, islands Japan controls but China claims as its own.
“President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands,” said a delighted Suga.
And what does Article V commit us to?
“Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger…”
Message: The U.S. will treat a Chinese attempt to take the Senkakus, tiny rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea, as an attack on the USA, and America will fight China to secure Japan’s right to keep the islands.
Biden has removed any ambiguity that may have existed and given Tokyo a U.S. war guarantee that covers the Senkakus.
The response of China’s foreign ministry was to angrily lay claim to the islands they call the Diaoyus as “inherently Chinese” and to dismiss the U.S.-Japan security treaty as a “product of the Cold War.”
This diplomatic clash comes as Henry Kissinger was warning the Bloomberg Economic Forum:
“America and China are now drifting increasingly toward confrontation, and they’re conducting their diplomacy in a confrontational way. … The danger is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into actual military conflict.”
Kissinger continued:
“Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I.”
World War I was the worst calamity in Western civilization — until the next war to which it led inexorably: World War II.
Last week, we also learned that during Chinese military exercises in August, the People’s Liberation Army fired two missiles thousands of kilometers from the mainland that struck a targeted merchant ship sailing in the South China Sea.
The missiles were the DF-21D and DF-26B.
Both missiles are known as “aircraft carrier killers.”
The U.S. routinely moves its carriers through these waters to underscore our contention that neither the South China Sea nor the Paracel and Spratly Islands within belong to China as Beijing claims.
Consistent with China’s toughening policies toward its neighbors, four members of the opposition in the Hong Kong legislature were ousted last week, which led to wholesale resignations that have left Hong Kong’s governing council under the total control of pro-Beijing hardliners.
The era of “one country, two systems” for Hong Kong, dating to the transfer of sovereignty by Great Britain, appears to be over. The dissidents and demonstrators who filled the streets just months ago appear to have been routed, and the city’s future looks less like the Hong Kong of yesterday than the Beijing of tomorrow.
These actions are consistent with the hard lines Beijing has taken on its “reeducation camps” for Uighurs in Xinjiang and its border dispute with India in the Himalayas.
While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lately sought to round up like-minded nations to stand up to China — Japan, Australia, India — there appears to be a reluctance, rooted in uncertainty as to whether Communist China or democratic America represents the future of Asia.
Trump’s “America First” policy asked the most basic of questions:
Are all these half-century old alliances, these commitments to go to war for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, as in Joe Biden’s estimation, assets to be nurtured and even expanded to cover more territories like the Senkakus? Or are they liabilities that could drag us into wars the American people do not want to fight?
While we reject China’s claim to all the reefs, rocks and islets in the South China Sea and her claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea, should we be obligated to go to war over these tiny parcels of land, especially when their legitimate owners are unwilling to fight for them?
Biden repudiates an “America First” foreign policy that puts U.S. security, sovereignty, liberty and vital interests above the interests of any other nation.
But what is it, then, that Biden puts first?
Globalism. A New World Order. A Crusade for Global Democracy.
Been there, done that.
Sixty years ago when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy faced off, the foreign policy debate was over whether the U.S. should fight Mao’s China to defend the tiny offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.
Kennedy thought not. Kennedy won.
- Huawei Threat "No.1 Concern For Democracy" Globally: National Security Advisor O'Brien
Huawei Threat "No.1 Concern For Democracy" Globally: National Security Advisor O'Brien
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:00Trump is planning to continue hardline measures against China during his last weeks in office, right up until inauguration day on January 20.
National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot recently boasted to Axios, “Unless Beijing reverses course and becomes a responsible player on the global stage, future US presidents will find it politically suicidal to reverse President Trump’s historic actions.”
And now in his latest statements National security adviser Robert O’Brien has singled out Chinese telecommunications company Huawei as the “number one concern” for democracy moving forward.
US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien “If you believe in democracy and you’re concerned about our elections, that’s the number one concern that we’ve got going forward and that all the democracies have is what China could do with that Huawei backbone in our countries,” O’Brien told The Hill in an exclusive interview. “It’s really quite scary.”
US defense officials along with the administration have long seen Huawei’s global 5G rollout as but a Trojan horse allowing Chinese intelligence and the PLA military backdoor access to whatever systems go online in host countries, particularly in the West.
Indeed O’Brien underscored precisely that it could give the Chinese government “backdoors to pull up every bit of data in the world.” However, US critics would point out this is exactly the kind of data hegemony that the NSA has long sought and practiced, even sweeping up US domestic communications, according to the Snowden archive revelations in 2013.
Here’s more from the interview according to The Hill:
“What’s really turned especially the Europeans, but also many of the Asians, is the fact that their personal private data is going to be owned 100 percent by the Chinese Communist Party,” O’Brien said.
“Think of what you could do with that from a microtargeting standpoint in an election,” he said. “If you know everybody, if you know their hopes, if you know their fears, if you know who’s having an affair, if you know who’s been diagnosed with cancer, if you know who’s having financial difficulties, if you know what someone’s dream vacation is. Think of taking all that information and then on a micro basis, being able to target that person, to blackmail them, to entice them, to attempt to influence them.”
Over the past years the US has not just blocked Huawei from US soil (along with other China-based tech companies believed linked to the PLA), but has pressured other countries to ban it as well.
A phone retailer in Shenzhen, China, via The Verge. Last week President Trump signed an executive order banning US investment in 31 Chinese companies that in some way has provided support to the Chinese military, whether through systems of logistical support.
- COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America
COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:40Authored by Michael Walsh via The Epoch Times,
Thanks to the dreaded Covid-19, it’s good-bye Thanksgiving and, soon enough, farewell Christmas. And after that, who knows?
Having discovered that Americans have lost their spines and are now easily penned inside their homes like two-legged sheep, the petty potentates who rule – not govern, rule – far too many states and municipalities have concluded that we will never fight back, never resist, and never reject their latest whimsical edicts.
For proof, look no farther than California, where 41 of the state’s 58 counties have just been returned to most-restricted status, and a statewide curfew is now being bruited in Sacramento. California is “pulling an emergency brake,” as CCP virus “cases” rise, said Newsom, who recently attended a pricey private birthday party at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley, violating his own Caligulan guidelines.
There are vague promises that things might begin to open again next year, but don’t hold your breath. “Two weeks to slow the spread” and “fifteen days to flatten the curve” have long since morphed into a semi-permanent nanny state in which the very act of slowing and flattening ensures that the virus will go on indefinitely by guaranteeing a continuous stream of new “cases” with which to frighten the public and increase government power.
In defiance of all previous medical experience, the Covid “pandemic” has muzzled the population with bank-robber masks, driven families asunder, forced elderly couples to die apart, punished schoolchildren with the false promise of “remote learning,” made Americans eye each other with suspicion and sidle away, and created a near-Stasi level of rats and snitches only too happy to inform on their fellow citizens.
It’s also killed the hospitality industry, the airlines, and commercial real estate. And all in brazen violation of the Constitution’s explicit guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, and religious observance.
It has been a monstrous disgrace, made even worse by its supine acceptance. But even more dire consequences have followed the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party on our shores. In short order:
Masks became normalized, even mandated, thus allowing the brutal, cowardly thugs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter “activists” to go about in public in ninja mufti, faces concealed in violation of innumerable local ordinances. Once, the wearing of a concealing mask was practically prima facie proof of criminal intent, but now, thanks to the irresponsible and self-aggrandizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other “experts,” the lack of a mask signals an inability to accept authority and perhaps also a willingness to expel the phantom virus into the faces of the innocent.
With the public rise of the neo-fascist Left in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, urban disorder became mainstreamed, justified as it was by calling it “mostly peaceful” protest against the United States of America and its form of government. Even as private gatherings were being banned, thousands gathered in the streets to demonstrate against the American constitution and celebrate Donald Trump’s apparent electoral defeat. Indeed, “Black Lives Plaza” on one of the most expensive blocks in Washington, D.C., violates private property and civil rights within sight of the White House.
Watching the videos of patriotic Americans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to show support for president Trump’s efforts to legally fight clear vote fraud in the recent election—as is his constitutional right—and who were then set upon, sucker-punched, and otherwise assaulted by the feral minions of Antifa and Black Lives Matter within sight of the White House, was sickening and enraging.
Once actual peaceful protest had become essentially forbidden, the red-diaper baby media was free to shed its skin-suit of journalistic “objectivity,” enthusiastically join the leftist cadres in its open loathing of Donald Trump and all that he symbolized, and renew its attack on the Constitution, including among other things, the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Bill of Rights. All in the name of a more “honest” journalism adhering to a “higher loyalty,” of course.
Indeed, the New York Times—Pravda West—in the run-up to the election informed the nation via Twitter that it would be the media that would call the winner of the 2020 election, even before the votes were counted, certified, and sent to the Electoral College.
“The role of declaring the winner of a presidential election in the U.S. falls to the media,” the Democrat propaganda sheet masquerading as a newspaper proclaimed, falsely.
It later deleted the tweet and issued a sheepish “apology” for “referring imprecisely to the role of the news media. … [It] projects winners and reports results; it does not declare the winner of the election.”
Of course, that was a bald-faced lie as well. In fact, insofar as the media is concerned, it does declare the winner—and its word goes. Why else is an often-masked Joe Biden now claiming the non-existent “Office of the President-Elect”? The media couldn’t wait to declare Biden over the top, even though the election is now in its constitutionally permitted disputation phase, and does not go to the Electoral College until Dec. 14.
Lastly, the Dreaded Covid occasioned a wholesale “emergency” rewriting of voting laws, removing essential safeguards in the name of “safety” and thus permitting a host of outcome-altering refinements, including a record-number of mail-in votes whose provenance is often unprovable, early voting, late voting, and last-minute registration and voting.
During the counts in crucial swing states, tallies were suddenly halted for a couple of hours in the wee hours as the Democrat urban-machine apparatchiks calculated how many manufactured votes were needed to overtake Trump’s lead and then, two hours later … they appeared, courtesy of foreign-made voting machines with hidden algorithms.
And all because of the CCP virus. For unless something dramatic happens, the Left will never, ever, ever let us go. Thanks to the hysterical overreaction to the novel coronavirus, the weaponizing of it by the Democrat Party in order change election laws and thus harvest millions of likely fraudulent mail-in votes in key swing states, and a leftist media that speaks with one voice as it gaslights the population with the party line, we are now all living in the unconstitutional hell of the neo-Marxists’ “new normal.”
How do you like it, America?
- US Bombers Enter Chinese Air Defence Zone As Beijing Mounts Massive Naval Drills
US Bombers Enter Chinese Air Defence Zone As Beijing Mounts Massive Naval Drills
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:20Two US long-range tactical bombers entered China’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday in an apparent show of force, just as the Chinese navy was conducting a series of simultaneous massive drills. Aviation tracker Aircraft Spots reported that two US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers left Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday morning and entered China’s ADIZ over the East China Sea, after refuelling in flight during the mission.
US Air Force B-1B bomber. Photo: AP Since the B1-B – which carries the biggest payload of any US bomber and – and is a departure from the fighter jets and spy planes the American forces have sent before on missions so close to the Chinese coast, the SCMP suggested that the US was sending a blunt warning to China.
Aircraft Spots said the US bombers flew very close to the northeast corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ and they would have entered the zone if they had continued on the same trajectory. Under international rules, aircraft flying over such zones should notify the relevant authorities before doing so. But the US and Japan do not recognize China’s claims over the area.
The bombers’ mission also coincided with massive Chinese naval drills conducted at the same time in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Bohai Sea. Military analysts quoted by SCMP said the exercises were a signal from China’s top brass that the People’s Liberation Army could conduct joint operations in different military theaters (all of which just happen to be in close proximity to Taiwan) at the same time.
The PLA drills were announced indirectly by China’s Maritime Safety Administration, which issued notices warning vessels to stay away from an area from the southern tip of the Yellow Sea to waters near Hainan Island. The no-go zone included an area with a 5km (3 mile) radius off the coast of Beihai in the southwestern region of Guangxi.
Another area in the South China Sea, in Honghai Bay southwest of Shanwei in southern Guangdong province, was restricted to traffic from Tuesday morning to early evening for “military training”. Honghai Bay is about 100km (62 miles) from Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island, which is also claimed by Beijing.
Quoted by SCMP, Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said the naval exercises would probably involve rocket launches. “The 5km [3-mile] radius [of the restricted areas] indicates that the strikes are to test their high precision [ability],” said Song, a former instructor in the PLA Second Artillery Corps, the predecessor of the Rocket Force.
A People’s Liberation Army ship is seen firing a missile in an East China Sea exercise in August. Photo: PLA via Weibo Song said the exercises indicated the PLA could mobilize forces in different regions in an emergency.
“Unexpected military clashes can happen anywhere, and if conflict happens in the Taiwan Strait, it could quickly turn out to be a large-scale military confrontation, and the Chinese military needs the ability to counterattack in the worst scenario,” he said.
John Bradford, a senior fellow specialising in maritime security issues at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said that by holding four exercises at the same time, the Chinese navy was clearly showing its military readiness.
“Such demonstrations will become more regular as the PLA Navy continues to expand the size of its force and the range of its operational competencies … In fact, we should expect this sort of thing to happen more frequently as the Chinese navy grows in size and mission,” Bradford said.
Speaking to the SCMP, Collin Koh, a research fellow also from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the drills were in response to what Beijing saw as an increasingly complex security environment.
“What I’ll see as something to watch is how these drills integrate various agencies, such as the PLA, civilian bodies and so on. This would be a logical expectation after the Central Military Commission recently issued a new outline on promoting joint operations in the PLA,” said Koh, referring to the body that commands and controls the military.
- NASA Wants To Build A Nuclear Plant On The Moon
NASA Wants To Build A Nuclear Plant On The Moon
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:00Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
NASA is planning to build a base and a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2026 and is inviting proposals from companies ready to take on the challenge.
According to a statement issued by the Department of Energy, the plan will involve the construction of a 10-kW class fission surface power system to be used for demonstrative purposes. The plant is to be manufactured and assembled on Earth and then shipped to the Moon on a launch vehicle. This vehicle will take the plant to Moon orbit, from where a lander will take it to the surface of the satellite.
The demonstration will continue for one year, and if successful, it could open the door to other missions on both the Moon and Mars.
“Once the technology is proven through the demonstration, future systems could be scaled up or multiple units could be used together for long-duration missions to the moon and eventually Mars,” said Anthony Calomino, head of NASA’s nuclear technology portfolio at the Space Technology Mission Directorate.
“Four units, providing 10 kilowatts of electrical power each, would provide enough power to establish an outpost on the Moon or Mars. The ability to produce large amounts of electrical power on planetary surfaces using a fission surface power system would enable large-scale exploration, establishment of human outposts, and utilization of in situ resources, while allowing for the possibility of commercialization.”
The Moon’s resources, although unproven, have been the topic of conversation for quite some time. Over the last decade or so, several lunar missions have sprung up, seeking to explore the Earth’s natural satellite for minerals and hydrogen.
The nuclear power plant demonstrator will have the capacity to run for 10 years, according to plans, with its generation capacity enough to power the equivalent of three to four large households.
- US Military Quietly Bought User Location Data From Popular Muslim App
US Military Quietly Bought User Location Data From Popular Muslim App
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:40According to Motherboard, a Muslim prayer smartphone app with tens of millions of downloads has severed ties with a location company that reportedly sold its user data to the US military.
Dubbed the “most popular Muslim app in the world,” Muslim Pro has been downloaded more than 98 million times in 200 countries. The app provides users with Muslim prayer times and shows them the direction of Mecca.
Motherboard released the report Monday that said Muslim Pro sold user location data to a company called X-Mode, which collects location data directly from the app and then sells it to contractors or the military.
Through public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis, Motherboard uncovered two separate, parallel data streams that the US military uses, or has used, to obtain location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, bought access to Locate X to assist on overseas special forces operations. The other stream is through a company called X-Mode, which obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military.
The news highlights the opaque location data industry and the fact that the US military, which has infamously used other location data to target drone strikes, is purchasing access to sensitive data. Many of the users of apps involved in the data supply chain are Muslim, which is notable considering that the United States has waged a decades-long war on predominantly Muslim terror groups in the Middle East, and has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians during its military operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Motherboard does not know of any specific operations in which this type of app-based location data has been used by the US military. -Motherboard
The report continued:
USSOCOM bought access to Locate X, a location data product from a company called Babel Street, according to procurement records uncovered by Motherboard. A former Babel Street employee described to Motherboard how users of the product can draw a shape on a map, see all devices Babel Street has data on in that location, and then follow a specific device around to see where else it has been.
The Locate X data itself is anonymized, but the source said “we could absolutely deanonymize a person.” Babel Street employees would “play with it, to be honest,” the former employee added.
USSOCOM purchased the “additional software licenses” for Locate X and another product focused on text analysis called Babel X in April, according to the public records. The bundle of additional licenses cost around $90,600, the records show.
In a statement, Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a US Special Operations Command spokesperson, confirmed the Locate X purchase, and added “Our access to the software is used to support Special Operations Forces mission requirements overseas. We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens.” -Motherboard
Following the Motherboard story, Muslim Pro released a statement via Twitter on Tuesday, outlining how “media reports” about the app selling user data to the US military is “incorrect and untrue.”
Media reports are circulating that Muslim Pro has been selling personal data of its users to the US Military. This is INCORRECT and UNTRUE. Muslim Pro is committed to protecting and securing our users’ privacy. This is a matter we take very seriously. #MuslimPro pic.twitter.com/2Lu0Zgvso1
— Muslim Pro (@MuslimPro) November 17, 2020
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According to Middle East Eye, who spoke with Zahariah Jupary, head of community at Muslim Pro, he said Motherboard’s report is “incorrect and untrue.”
Nevertheless, Jupary said Muslim Pro had cut all ties with X-Mode.
“We are immediately terminating our relationships with our data partners – including with X-Mode, which started four weeks ago.
“We will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure that our users practice their faith with peace of mind, which remains Muslim Pro’s sole mission since its creation,” Jupary said.
US Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard that his office was notified as early as September about X-Mode harvesting phone location data within the US and selling it to military contractors.
“In a September call with my office, lawyers for the data broker X-Mode Social confirmed that the company is selling data collected from phones in the United States to US military customers, via defence contractors. Citing non-disclosure agreements, the company refused to identify the specific defence contractors or the specific government agencies buying the data,” he said in a statement.
Readers may recall we have shared countless incidents of the federal government tracking citizens via their smartphones (see: here & here). Now the government is tracking people through contact tracing apps. Endless tracking – is it time to ditch smartphones?
- Apocalypse Now And The Rise Of The Extremes
Apocalypse Now And The Rise Of The Extremes
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:20The Western Minority Report
A few days ago, we learnt that Joe Biden and his team were considering Janet Yellen as a serious candidate for the next Secretary of the Treasury position. According to betting markets, Lael Brainard may be also well-positioned for the job.
Such potential links between the future administration and the Federal Reserve should not come as a surprise. First, the independence of the Fed is a myth. Second, since the late 1990’s, there have been two certainties in America (and not only in America): monetary policy and economic policy.
The fierce debates between Democrats and Republicans are just part of the political show, but they have no serious consequence on the underlying economic policy. In fact, all administrations have done basically the same thing, i.e. postponing the question of the debt and supporting asset wealth.
The fact that Biden’s team is considering Janet Yellen as a serious option is meaningful, as the former chair of the Fed claimed at the end of October 2016 that “Fed purchases of stocks could help in a downturn”.
Beyond the Treasury Secretary position, we have also heard radical voices among the Democratic Party calling for the forgiveness of student debt. You can be sure that people who already paid their loan back will appreciate that.
Once again,the next four years are likely be dominated by money printing and money spending. In fact, MMT has quietly become the golden rule of the United States. And also of Europe and Japan.
Would Keynes endorse post-Keynesian economics?
Almost all public decision makers in the West, whether they are central bankers or politicians, are heavily influenced by the old Keynesian way of thinking.
Every person who has studied a bit economics may be familiar with the following equation: Y = C + I + G + (X – M), where Y is the GDP, C is consumption spending, I is investment spending, G is government spending, and (X – M) is the trade surplus/deficit.
No need to be a rock star scientist to understand that increasing public spending mathematically leads to an increase of the GDP. Besides, as the national income grows with Y, consumption spending may continue to rise afterwards (all things being equal), and so on. This theoretical virtuous circle is known as “the Keynesian multiplier”.
However, this model has serious scientific limits.
First, it is based on several unrealistic assumptions, like the fact that economic agents are said to be rational, and also the fact that the economy is supposed to reach an equilibrium which does not make any sense for living systems.
The second objection is the fact that this model is an approximation of very short-lived dynamics. Said differently, it may be true on a few months period, but the previous equation becomes highly unstable on the long run.
More specifically, the model does not explain the organic economic trajectory of a country, and it does not enable to understand what happens when debt and money supply become out-of-control. John Maynard Keynes did criticize the lack of public intervention during the Great Depression. However, I am not sure that he would have agreed on current policies based on infinite public deficit and permanent monetary expansion.
Infinite Bailouts
From Japan to America, all Western countries face a similar problem: their economies are ending a multi-decades Kondratiev wave, meaning that they are facing a structural crisis risk that may be necessary to start a new long period of sustainable economic growth. There are two big reasons for that: ageing population and debt spiral.
The organic economic demand in those countries structurally diminishes, leading to more solvency issues. While governments and central bankers always intervene to refinance agents, the problem is that such accommodative policies do not affect this organic demand trend. Worse, they create a bigger debt problem, with more zombie agents in the economy and more revenues dedicated to repayment, increasing the likelihood of more bailouts in the future (see There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch – Part 2).
Infinite QE
Beyond indebted agents, the biggest fear of our decision makers is to let markets crash. Probably, because it would lead to a severe confidence shock. At least for “the Haves” (i.e. upper classes, Baby-boomers). Thus, another priority of the past two decades has been to maintain the upward dynamic of assets like stocks, bonds, and real estate, whatever the cost for the economy.
Of course, this focus on markets has created severe distortions in the economy, as asset inflation is killing housing affordability and reducing savings capacities, resulting in a durable squeeze of working and middle classes (see There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch – Part 1).
While the so-called Keynesian multiplier effect has become extremely limited, one could argue that today the theoretical virtuous circle has been replaced by a vicious one, as more intervention is likely to lead to more zombification and more financial squeeze, leading to even more intervention afterwards.
One could this mechanism the negative Brrrr multiplier.
Supermassive Black Hole
To summarize, it is impossible for Western countries to create real and durable growth based on nothing, as there is no such thing as a free lunch. It is true that without all the interventions of the past 20 years, the economy might already be in depression.
But, the Kondratiev wave is a powerful natural force. Despite huge levels of money printing and deficits, such measures have not managed to recreate the growth dynamics of the aftermath of World War II. While Raoul Pal recently described bitcoin as a “supermassive black hole”, I believe that the real supermassive black hole is the end of the long-term cycle.
In other words, instead of an economic collapse, all we get is the spaghettification of the economic activity. But this is not good news. Indeed, Western economies are becoming immobile as the possibility of new Kondratiev wave is being postponed.
The Immobile Republics
In 1989, French diplomat and politician Alain Peyreffite wrote:
“Kids are playing on an escalator, walking up in the wrong direction. If they stop to walk, they go downstairs. If they keep on walking, they remain in a stationary position. If they climb faster, they go upstairs.”
According to him, this tricky game is the fundamental dynamic of all human societies. In the long run, immobile countries will gradually decline, leaving space for those making significant progress (see The Immobile Empire).
While the US, Europe, and Japan are immobile, willing to do “whatever it takes” to stimulate a dying system, other countries like China have started to restructure their economy, eliminating inefficient agents, creating new opportunities for the coming decades (see Reverse Black Swan?).
Western governments are not magicians, and there will be no revival without a major economic and financial reset.
Corruption and Democracy
Why does it seem impossible for politicians and decision makers to make such a diagnostic? Why are the questions of the debt and money supply never debated in the West? Why all the parties are pursing the same kind of economic policies, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, or Nationalists? Why do all central banks seem to reach a perfect consensus at each meeting?
And more importantly, why have capital and property markets become so important for our decision makers?
I do not say that there is an easy answer to those questions. Nevertheless, it looks like political power has been more and more monopolized by a cast of people sharing common interests. For instance, the fact that most of them belong to “the Haves” and will be negatively impacted by asset deflation.
Indeed, Jerome Powell and his S&P 500 ETF holdings is not an isolated case. You can be sure that the next Biden administration will be staffed by persons with quite significant financial and/or real estate wealth.
While politicians are good at being vocal about wealth inequalities, especially when they come from the left wing, all them will do whatever it takes to keep stimulating asset prices, leading to even bigger inequalities.
Why are more and more individuals willing participate to this speculative frenzy? Perhaps, because many among “the Haves not” have become desperately looking for more purchasing power in a world of low wage inflation. Thus, all that remain is the hope of huge capital gains on the stock market, the crypto market or the property market
We all know that markets have detached themselves from reality. But officials, and especially central bankers, refuse to admit that their policies are fueling bubbles. Probably because their intention is to keep this absurd ponzi scheme alive, as their actions since 2000 have clearly managed to feed a powerful “assets only go up” narrative.
Where is the glory in that?
The Rise of the Extremes
However, more and more people are getting angry as they do realize that such policies benefit to a minority.
Whatever your opinion on Donald Trump, the 2016 election should not be treated as a “political accident”. Same thing for the Brexit, Catalonia independence movement, recent success of Italian Lega Nord party or the Five Star movement, and the French “yellow vests” protest.
More and more people are getting fed up with the so-called “elites”. They feel that Western democracies are being controlled by mafia-style administrations which are corrupted and only work in their own interest.
Of course, the Trump administration did exactly the same thing as their predecessors in terms of federal deficit and money printing. However, the 2016 election and the record number of people who still voted for him recently despite all the media calling “to defend democracy by voting for Biden”, shows us how deep the political fracture in the West is.
Apocalypse Now?
2020 will end soon, and the current picture is unbelievable. Every week, the world most powerful central bank, the Federal Reserve, is multiplying media interventions to make sure that the fragile “assets only go up” narrative does not break. So, what’s next for America and Europe?
In my opinion, there are three possible scenarios for the future of the West, and each one is a dystopian perspective:
#1 – The narrative is finally broken and markets crash. This is the most likely scenario, as History shows us that it almost always ends like this. Central banks lose control and the West enters depression.
#2 – Political chaos spreads up with systemic dislocation in Europe and/or in America.
#3 – More and more trade exchanges are paid in non-dollar currencies (e.g. Chinese renminbi), meaning that Western fiat currencies quietly collapse, forcing central bankers to desperate moves that could break their financial system.
In fact, you should probably expect a mix of those three scenarios.
For those who do not believe that Western democracies can fail, I recommend they read more about the Mississippi Company bubble, the impact of the crash, and all the political events in France at the end of the eighteenth century.
- China's Xi: World Economy In Worst Recession Since Great Depression
China's Xi: World Economy In Worst Recession Since Great Depression
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:00Chinese President Xi Jinping told the 12th BRICS summit via video link on Tuesday that the global economy is experiencing “the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s” according to state media Xinhua.
He made the remarks while urging BRICS countries to cooperate in maintaining multilateralism which he said is a greater guarantee to “safeguard world peace and stability” during the tumultuous challenges of COVID-19.
According to Xinhua, Xi also urged “openness and innovation to facilitate global economic recovery, as well as green and low-carbon development.”
“At present, the world is caught between the most serious pandemic in the past century and momentous changes never seen in the last one hundred years,” Xi said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, illustrative file image via Xinhua “Despite all this, we remain convinced that the theme of our times — peace and development — has not changed, and that the trend toward multipolarity and economic globalization cannot be turned around,” the Chinese president added.
His proposals during the speech to lift the global economy out of COVID recession were summarized as follows in state sources:
- Upholding multilateralism and safeguarding world peace and stability;
- Deepening solidarity and cooperation in jointly coping with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic;
- Upholding openness and innovation to boost global economic recovery;
- Prioritizing people’s livelihood and promoting sustainable development across the world;
- Upholding green and low-carbon development and promoting harmonious co-existence of man and nature.
Xi gave the speech also on the heels of Sunday’s historic signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which had been eight years in the making.
🇨🇳President Xi Jinping, in addressing the 12th BRICS summit via video link today, put forward a series of proposals for BRICS cooperation to overcome global challenges including the #COVID19 pandemic & global economic recession. Read more: https://t.co/L9uio7nbxc @BRICSRussia2020
— Permanent Mission of China in Vienna (@ChinaMissionVie) November 17, 2020
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The RCEP agreement was signed during the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and effectively established the world’s largest trading block that is expected to encompass almost one-third of all global economic activity, crucially without the United States. It will go down in history as the biggest free trade deal ever among fifteen Asia Pacific Nations and involves ten ASEAN bloc member nations including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – and additionally their trade partners Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.
This past weekend China’s Premier Li Keqiang was cited in state media as hailing it as a “victory against protectionism” and in international media reports called it “a coup for China” which will bolster Chinese claims that it remains a “champion of globalization and multilateral cooperation”.
“The signing of the RCEP is not only a landmark achievement of East Asian regional cooperation, but also a victory of multilateralism and free trade,” Li said, after it’s been in negotiations for eight years.
This is a theme that Xi picked up on during his Tuesday speech which offered multilateralism as the chief antidote to lift the region out of recession.
Bill Clinton says China’s direction under Xi upended U.S. ties https://t.co/vhEG9WfkRo #OurNewEconomy
— Bloomberg (@business) November 17, 2020
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Meanwhile, the incoming Biden administration is expected to garner support from US allies in maintaining a firm line against China, as South China Morning Post notes on Tuesday:
In a rare joint opinion piece, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart Heiko Maas outlined their call in The Washington Post on Monday, less than two weeks after the US election.
“With Biden, greater transatlantic unity will be possible with regard to autocrats and countries that seek to enhance their power by undermining international or regional order. But a principled approach does not exclude dialogue and cooperation,” they wrote.
“Under a Biden administration, the compass needle of US foreign policy will continue to gravitate toward China, which we see as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time.”
They urged greater US-European unity in the face of a growing and increasingly assertive China, as well as Russia and Iran.
- Q&A On The Birth Of "Fake News" A Century Ago
Q&A On The Birth Of "Fake News" A Century Ago
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:40Submitted by Carl M. Cannon, Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics; John Maxwell Hamilton, author of “Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda” (LSU Press), discussed his new book with RealClearPolitics.
So “Fake News” isn’t something Donald Trump invented, is it? The phrase has been thrown around for a long time, predating Trump’s presidency by exactly 100 years.
More than a hundred years. A small book was published in 1914 on the subject, “Fakes in American Journalism.” An 1897 book exposing sensational reporting of the Spanish-American War was called “Facts and Fakes About Cuba.” In World War I, as today, the term “fake news” and its equivalents were put to many uses, some of them, paradoxically, to promote falsehoods.
The Committee on Public Information, President Wilson’s wartime propaganda agency and the subject of my book, discredited information that ran counter to the administration’s point of view by calling it “enemy talk.” It added weight to this by trying to convince Americans that spies lurked everywhere, spreading pernicious information. By the way, only one, rather dopey spy, was apprehended and found guilty.
Meanwhile journalists leveled charges of “fake news” against the CPI, although the term they favored was “creeling.” This was in reference to the hyperkinetic head of the CPI, George Creel. Today the word we use for this is “spinning.”
Professor, I happen to know that you were researching this topic before Trump entered politics, but I’ll hazard a guess that when he popularized the phrase “Fake News,” you weren’t sorry. When did you realize that you had more than an academic book on your hands — that this is a subject every political practitioner, historian, and journalist is obliged to know?
I knew the subject was relevant when I started. The CPI was our first and only ministry of propaganda. It only lasted for the duration of the war. But its techniques and mindset lived on. I wanted to show how easy it is for a president to push the boundaries of propaganda. I found more abuse than I expected – the use of front organizations and other forms of deception, coercion, highly emotional appeals that promoted hatred and fear, to name a few of those abuses.
And then, out of nowhere, in the middle of my research, President Trump appeared to illustrate the point I was making on the ease with which boundaries can be pushed. He has, from first to last, aggressively appropriated the trappings of the presidency to enlarge the Trump brand, down to putting his name on coronavirus relief checks and playing “Hail to the Chief” while he declared, inaccurately, that he won the election.
What would gratify me most with regard to this book is if it elevates awareness of the danger that lies in the power the president has to propagandize and if it prompts steps to fence back those powers.
Your new book documents the practice of disseminating premeditated propaganda to the American people to the First World War. Yet, your prologue is set in 2003, during the second U.S.-Iraq war. Do you think U.S. presidents feel more entitled to deceive the American people during wartime?
Government leaders were cognizant of the importance of public opinion before the war and sought to sell themselves and their ideas. But their approaches were as primitive as trepanning is for brain surgery. The Great War accelerated the search for means to use and bypass the news media to shape thoughts. The war – the first total war – required national mobilization of matériel and minds. By the end of the war governments had become much more sophisticated about mass manipulation, and propaganda was an established part of governing, as well as business.
War has, ever since, accelerated improvements, if that is the right word, in propaganda. This is for an obvious reason. Wars are a matter of urgent national security, or at any rate they are waged based on that belief. Just as ammunition manufacturers ramp up production and improvise when war occurs, so do propagandists. They believe that nothing is more important than winning and that means getting public opinion behind the war. And, yes, that means taking shortcuts to keep people in line. At the end of the war, in a great moment of clarity, George Creel said in a speech to Chicagoans, “With the existence of democracy itself at stake, there was no time to think about the details of democracy.”
In his excellent book, “When Presidents Lie,” Eric Alterman details how presidents often shade the truth — not to protect troop movements and the like — but to stage-manage public opinion into empowering them to launch wars. Early on in your own narrative, you point out how French officials imposed news blackouts in the fateful first week of August 1914. Their aim was to eliminate coverage sympathetic to a peaceful resolution of Europe’s crisis. It’s almost too profound to contemplate the suffering and carnage that could have been spared had World War I been avoided, isn’t it?
British Prime Minister Lloyd George acknowledged after the war that if journalists had revealed the carnage on the battlefields, the public’s demand for early peace would have been irresistible. There are very good arguments why an earlier peace, one that did not have one side winning overwhelmingly, would have led to a fairer peace, which would have lessened the likelihood of a second world war. There was another long-term consequence of the suppression of information during the war. We often mark the Vietnam War, and the attendant withholding of facts, as the point at which the public started to become deeply cynical about the government. But this process started in World War I. Large elements of the public felt they had been tricked. Frank Cobb, the well-respected editor of the New York World, helped the administration with propaganda during the war. Afterward he rued that government propaganda had “goose-stepped” public opinion. And he feared what would come next. “God forbid,” he cautioned, “that our supreme achievement in the War should be the Prussianizing of ourselves.”
“Manipulating the Masses” begins before the United States entered the war in 1917. You remind us that during the 1916 presidential election year in the United States, German propaganda was so heavy-handed that it backfired — it helped get Woodrow Wilson reelected — while the British propagandists demonstrated great caution and restraint, but only for tactical reasons. Although we live in less-subtle times, foreign powers are still trying to influence U.S. public opinion, aren’t they?
Disinformation and other foreign meddling with public opinion has become a threat to national security in the same way that terrorism and nuclear proliferation are. Dealing with this threat is as high a priority. It must be acknowledged, too, that as much as we decry this activity by other countries, we do it ourselves to many of them.
Interference like this is a large part of the CPI story. British archives are full of notes in which officials lamented that they are ingénues in the arts of propaganda and that the Germans were brilliantly insidious. British officials sincerely believed this, but, really, they were the ones who were brilliant and insidious, not least of all at persuading opinion leaders in the United States to favor British interests.
Once the United States went into the war, the CPI actively sought to shape public opinion in allied, neutral, and enemy countries. It was not above using surreptitious methods, including the secret subsidization of news.
Ironically, the CPI was suckered into a White Russian disinformation scheme that prefigures the similar disruptions today. The duping of the CPI is a complicated story, as disinformation plots always are, but briefly it goes like this: White Russians faked documents to portray the Bolshevik leaders as German agents who therefore had no legitimacy. These documents were fed to Edgar Sisson, a senior CPI official in Russia, who brought them to Washington. The CPI successfully rammed them down the throats of American media.
The Wilson administration, which did not recognize the Bolshevik government, welcomed the Sisson Documents, as they came to be called, because they justified its decision to violate Russian sovereignty by joining in an Allied invasion of Russia. Few Americans today are aware of this invasion, but the Russians remember it. The Sisson Documents fueled Soviet-American animosity, and they fueled the Red Scare in the United States. They are a powerful example of the dangers that lie in what we call today “confirmation bias,” that is to say, the eagerness people have to embrace fake news that confirms what they want to believe.
Back to Wilson’s reelection in 1916. Tell our readers a little bit about Robert Woolley, who headed the publicity bureau of the Democratic National Committee.
Robert Woolley has not received the historical attention he deserves. It is difficult to see how Wilson could have won without him. Woolley had been a newspaperman, Senate aide, and longtime Democratic political operative. At the start of the campaign it was generally agreed that the victor would be Republican Charles Evans Hughes. Woolley helped Wilson eke out a victory by changing the way campaign publicity was done. He started on the campaign very early, prefiguring the continuous campaign cycle that now exists. Then, as the Republicans acknowledged afterward, Woolley expertly managed the flow of information to the press and the public. Roosevelt credited him with “the most brilliant achievement in the history of American politics.”
Woolley is important to the CPI story for two reasons. First, his publicity bureau became the test kitchen for the CPI. Woolley’s deputy, incidentally, was Creel. Second, and related to this, this episode established a pattern in which the way one uses information to win election shapes how one governs. Consider President Barack Obama, who harnessed social media in his presidential campaign. In office, he created an Office of Digital Strategy to reach the public directly via social media. More than half the staff had worked on an Obama presidential campaign.
One final point, if I may. I think Hughes would have been a better president than Wilson. This is certainly the case as it relates to free speech. Later, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, he led the way on privileging the First Amendment. Wilson subverted it.
Realizing that Woolley’s grandson is Chuck Robb, who was both governor and senator from Virginia – and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s son-in-law — who in modern American politics does Woolley bring to mind?
This is a difficult question. Maybe David Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and ardent Democrat who helped President Obama with communications strategy. He has attested to the point I made above about the link between campaigning and governing. Regarding the selling of the Iran nuclear agreement, which deftly and controversially used social media, he said the administration “approached these major foreign-policy challenges as campaign challenges, and they’ve run campaigns, and those campaigns have been very sophisticated.”
In 2020, conservatives — and a handful of old-school journalists — complained that the mainstream media essentially censored news unfavorable to Joe Biden, especially regarding his son Hunter’s shady business machinations in Ukraine and China. Although the establishment news outlets scoffed at the very idea that they were censoring news, a reader of your book might think, ‘They’ve been doing it for more than a century.’ I’m thinking now of George Creel, the evil genius at the center of your story. A well-known Midwestern muckraker in 1916, he essentially lobbies the Wilson administration for the job of being chief censor. What motivated Creel, who’d made his name as a muckraker?
George Creel was, through and through, a fighter. He had a bulldog face and spoke through clenched teeth. He was one of the more colorful members of that group of journalists whom we call muckrakers. Muckrakers spoke frankly of seeking to clarify public opinion by providing the sunlight of fact. They often chose political sides when they thought those sides would lead to better government. It was an easy call for them in general and Creel in particular to join the CPI. They would help the public understand. The problem was that these trust busters created a government information-trust that inevitably became an instrument of the administration. Creel, a longtime supporter of Wilson, fought to get the job, using his connection with the secretary of the Navy, newspaperman Josephus Daniels, whom he had defended from criticism during the 1916 election. Creel was a poor choice to head the CPI given the ease with which his emotions ran amuck.
So Creel is put in charge of something called the Committee on Public Information. What did the CPI do exactly?
The CPI had no plan to begin with. But it had energy. Creel was correct when he said, “There was no part of the great war machinery that we did not touch, no medium of appeal that we did not employ.”
The CPI shot propaganda though every capillary in the American bloodstream. It was a publishing conglomerate, with a daily newspaper, pamphlets, news services at home and overseas, syndicated stories and cartoons, and thousands of press releases. The CPI made prepackaged news a quotidian aspect of governing.
CPI advertisements were ubiquitous in newspapers and magazines. Families watched CPI-produced films in theaters across the country. Its Division of Pictorial Publicity produced nearly 1,500 poster designs, cards, advertisements, seals, and buttons for 98 agencies and committees. The CPI distributed tens of thousands of slides taken by the military.
The CPI was creative in enlisting the motion picture industry, advertising associations, universities, and others who could give it pathways into American homes and minds. The Boy Scouts, traveling salesmen, and corporate titans did the CPI’s bidding.
Did CPI suppress speech as well as disseminate the official government line?
We often think of propaganda one dimensionally, as only the provision of information. But if one is eager to shape thoughts, it is essential to suppress information that challenges the beliefs you instill in the public’s mind.
When the CPI was created, the idea was that it would handle censorship, which Wilson expected to be enacted in a law as all-encompassing as the British Defence of the Realm Act. Congress would not go this far. The military, the Post Office, and the Justice Department did get legal powers to control speech. The CPI had referred power from these entities to censor. Beyond that, the CPI did what it could to bully the press to conform. Because the government could block periodicals from the mail, refuse use of the cables, withhold newsprint, and close movie theaters – and because Creel was seen as so influential in such decisions – he had considerable bullying power.
There are other several villains in your story, besides Creel. A hero here and there, too, including the now-forgotten Vira Boarman Whitehouse. What drew you to her story?
Not all propaganda is bad, and Vira Whitehouse shows us why. One of the CPI’s great contributions was to conceive public diplomacy. They did not use that term, but they understood the value of reaching the man and woman on the street overseas. This can be very useful in building goodwill abroad, if it is done honestly. But embassies at the time did not want it done at all. They thought this was a waste of time and if something like it was done, it should be done clandestinely.
Whitehouse was wealthy and beautiful, and she was tough. She led the successful drive in 1917 to win the right for women to vote in New York. Creel, who was an ardent supporter of the suffrage movement, sent Whitehouse to Switzerland where the legation gave her a reception as chilly as the Alps. Allen Dulles, who was starting his career, suggested that she pose as a journalist rather than work openly. She declined and became so fed up with the embassy’s resistance that she returned home and took the matter up personally with Wilson. To the amazement of many, including Creel, she prevailed and returned to Bern. At the end of the war, Dulles said, “Mrs. Whitehouse – I am frank to admit – is doing good work, much better than I had thought possible. She is having a real influence in placing American news in the Swiss press and is in touch with a great many influential Swiss. … The influence of America in Switzerland is tremendous now.” This, however, did not stop Dulles from using journalists for intelligence gathering and spreading false information when he became head of the CIA many years later.
In 2020, Facebook and other social media firms were concerned about how political speech, some of which included false or misleading information, would be weaponized by the geometric nature of communications in the Digital Age. But a century ago, George Creel organized the “Four Minute Men” to accomplish a similar aim. This army of 75,000 amateur orators delivered speeches in union halls, churches, synagogues, and social clubs to tens of millions of Americans. Is there anything sinister about this kind of thing — then or now?
I would not use the word “sinister.” But I would say that the Four Minute Men had a sleight-of-hand quality to them. These speakers were leading citizens of their community. They were trusted. This apparent grassroots authenticity, however, was carefully orchestrated by Washington. The speakers were given new topics every few days, for instance, to urge people to buy war bonds, donate their binoculars to the Navy, and look out for spies. The speakers were given canned speeches. Guidance was so detailed that Washington told state chairmen how to run meetings with their local chairmen. Speakers were monitored by local leaders and local leaders were monitored by state leaders, and – well, you get the idea.
Last question, Jack. Knowing that our own government has been putting its thumb on the scales of public opinion for 104 years and counting, what do tell your journalism students at LSU about handling government-provided information? What advice would you give in this regard to working journalists covering American politics at this contentious crossroads of American history?
I am deeply troubled by trends in journalism. We can blame the Trump administration for perverting the White House press conferences. But the press has done its part to turn them into circuses as a result of reporters viewing them as an opportunity to get attention for themselves. Some exceptional reporting is being done by print and broadcast journalists, but too often the press shows its bias not only in story selection but also in the way reporters characterize events. It is disturbing to me that some journalists on our most esteemed newspapers say neutral journalism is old-fashioned.
This is not so, and it is not what our school at Louisiana State University teaches students. We teach them to give the government a fair shake but also question and probe. We provide tools to do this. For instance, we teach them how to interpret data. The house of journalism is diverse. We have room for pundits and analysts. But an enormous portion of that house must be a space for straight, unembroidered reporting. That kind of reporting shows respect for democracy. Democracy privileges process. It presupposes that open, fact-based deliberation ensures better outcomes.
The story of the CPI is a story of good men and women who lost their way when they worked for the government. As I said earlier, there is much we can do to put boundaries around the power of government to use our tax dollars to tell us what to think. But journalists have to police themselves. And that policing should begin in journalism classrooms in order that it may more readily carry on in newsrooms.
- ISIS Terrorist Who Authored 'Effective Stabbing Techniques' And 'How Does A Detonator Work' Released In Oregon
ISIS Terrorist Who Authored 'Effective Stabbing Techniques' And 'How Does A Detonator Work' Released In Oregon
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:20Federal authorities in Oregon have released a wheelchair-bound ISIS terrorist in the town of Troutsdale, while he awaits trial early next year for allegedly working with ISIS against the United States.
31-year-old Hawazen Sameer Mothafar, a US resident, was charged by a grand jury with two counts of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, and one count of providing and attempting to provide material support. He has also been charged with making false statements when he denied his ties to the terrorist organization in an immigration application.
Mothafar had conspired with ISIS for over half-a-decade, according to a nine-page indictment highlighted by Judicial Watch.
He produced and distributed ISIS propaganda and recruiting materials created and edited in coordination with the terrorist group’s official media operatives overseas. This includes the production, editing and distribution of many publications and articles in a pro-ISIS online media organization. Among his writings is a piece titled “Effective Stabbing Techniques,” which provides detailed guidance on the best way to kill and maim a target during a knife attack. Mothafar also published a tutorial in an Arabic publication titled “How Does a Detonator Work,” that explains in detail the use of explosive ignition devices. The same issue of the Arabic edition includes info graphics containing a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Statute of Liberty in New York on fire with a caption indicating that they will soon be attacked. Another one of Mothafar’s propagandas encourages readers to carry out attacks in their home countries if traveling overseas to fight is not possible. –Judicial Watch
The lion’s share of Mothafar’s writings were published by an online terrorist media conglomerate known as Al Dura’a al Sunni, or Sunni Shield, which distributes pro-ISIS propaganda. He also moderated private chat groups for the media outlet, and was in regular contact with ISIS leaders overseas according to the indictment. He was also somewhat of an IT guy, troubleshooting tech issues for the organization, along with providing high-level terrorists with technical support – including establishing social media an email accounts for their activities.
According to a senior ISIS official being held in custody in Iraq, it was Mothafar’s job to provide the Jihadis with “new accounts when we needed new accounts as soon as possible.”
In December 2019, Mothafar tried to acquire information involving piloting a drone carrying an object for Saleck Ould Cheikh Mohamedou, an Islamic extremist convicted for trying to assassinate Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the former president of the northwest African nation of Mauritania. Mohamedou is currently incarcerated there for the failed attempt. –Judicial Watch
“This defendant is a legal permanent resident of the United States who abandoned the country that took him in and instead pledged allegiance to ISIS and repeatedly and diligently promoted its violent objectives,” said Oregon’s top federal prosecutor, Billy J. Williams, in a statement earlier this month.
As a condition of his release, Mothafar – who has pleaded not guilty – will have restrictions on travel and the use of electronic devices. He was released because he “has physical disabilities and is confined to a wheelchair,” according to the DOJ.
- Is There Really A China Economic Miracle?
Is There Really A China Economic Miracle?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:00Authored by Daniel Lacalle,
The year 2020 will be an extremely tough year for the European economy. Added to an unprecedented drop is a strong impact in the fourth quarter due to the new lockdowns. Morgan Stanley estimates that the eurozone’s GDP will fall by 2.2% in the fourth quarter, a 7% drop in the full year 2020. In addition, the investment bank lowers the outlook for 2021 with a rebound of only 5% in the average of the euro area, delaying the recovery of 2019 GDP to 2023.
The “jobless recovery” is even more worrying. The apparently spectacular rebound data for the third quarter resulted in zero job creation. Unemployment in the eurozone in September stood at 8.3% and in Spain at 16.5%, not counting the millions of furloughed jobs in Europe.
In this environment, the United States’ recovery seems much stronger. GDP recovered in the third quarter to just 3.5% below 2019 levels. Unemployment has fallen to 6.9% in October but remains well above the record employment levels of 2019.
However, the data from China is apparently spectacular. The manufacturing and services index already show an enviable expansion. GDP for the first three quarters is already growing at 0.7% after an expansion of 4.9% in the third quarter. Urban unemployment in China is 5.4% after shooting to a paltry 6%. What is behind the Chinese miracle compared to the poor eurozone?
A planned GDP. The GDP of China is dictated by production, not demand. It is not an observed GDP, but rather planned by the government together with the provinces. For this reason, many analysts scrutinize the data and deduct various factors, including the increase and valuation of inventories. It is not by chance that inventories of iron ore, automobiles and finished goods have risen to the highest level in seven months as the economy recovers. If the economic situation were in the announced expansion, inventories would be falling rapidly when sold. Much is produced that is then not sold and remains in warehouses. Thus, it is not surprising that industrial prices fell 2.1% in September, export prices 0.9%, and the country’s debt soared 13.5% amid an apparently miraculous recovery. Industrial business profits have fallen 2.4% between January and September and, furthermore, factory door prices fell faster than expected in September and were at risk of deflation. These are signs of a slowly recovering economy, like all others, but not of a growth miracle.
In most economies, inventories are valued at market prices, while in China they are valued by the authorities and adjusted later. Constant methodological and base changes also lead to doubts regarding annual growth, despite the evident increase in transparency in recent years. Another difficult factor to analyse is the growth of construction activity, in a country where overcapacity is evident and ghost cities and white elephant uneconomical projects are multiplying.
The reduction in urban unemployment also hides a more complex reality. Unemployment in China is close to 11% on average, according to the Long Run Trends in Unemployment and Labor Force Participation in China study (NBER Working Paper No. 21460), and probably well above 13% in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis.
According to Capital Economics, Nomura or HSBC University of Beijing, another important challenge is calculating GDP with a realistic deflator. By using a deflator – the impact of prices on GDP – that is much lower than the observed one, GDP appears artificially higher than it really is. In an economy where inflation is underestimated, nominal wages, which grow at an official 3.6%, lose purchasing power almost every year due to the real cost of living, especially in food and daily expenditures, which are much higher than the official ones.
In a recent study (A forensic examination of China’s national accounts, Wei Chen et al, 2019) the authors concluded that China’s GDP may have been exaggerated by around 2% per year between 2008 and 2016, showing that China’s real GDP is probably 18% lower than the official figure. China’s GDP is never revised, and the December figure simply stands and is consolidated without question. This is an important factor that the Chinese authorities have tried to correct with greater transparency and adjustments by the NBS (National Bureau of Statistics). The problem is that provinces have accelerated their race in the effort to provide spectacular figures and the magnitude of the corrections of the national office does not compensate for these “exaggerations”.
Another problem is that annual revisions compute for growth but are not revised in the GDP figure for the year. The calculation base is reduced. For example, according to independent consultancy China Beige Book, gross capital formation for the third quarter of 2019 has been revised down by 2.3 trillion yuan. As the 2019 figure falls, the growth on the same data for 2020 seems spectacular. That same review was made with the retail sales figure. Those for August 2019 were revised down by 50 billion yuan and the growth figure for 2020 seems miraculous. However, a revision of such depth in the base calculation of figures for 2019 did not generate a downward revision of the GDP for that year.
These methodological problems are added to the survey used for the calculation. The government uses a list of companies that generate a minimum amount of revenue. That list grows and shrinks, creating homogeneity problems that the NBS tries to adjust for.
In the United States, each daily, weekly, and monthly data is analysed by different independent entities and each data point is impossible to manipulate by a government authority. That is why the GDP is constantly revised. China’s GDP is the only one that is not revised. It is published and consolidated.
It is a shame, because the reality observed by companies and citizens in China is that the economy is recovering slowly and unevenly, but it is recovering, probably with a year-on-year drop of 2.5% which would be, in any case, a very positive figure. Falling into planned overcapacity and excess of triumphalism on the part of some provinces competing to provide better data than others ends up questioning the reality of the improvement in the economy.
Beijing has pledged to bring the data up to IMF standards, but lack of independent scrutiny and the competition from the provinces when it comes to providing positive and spectacular figures continue to generate inconsistencies between sales, inventories, consumption, and profits. The recovery of the real economy in China is happening, but it is not dissimilar to that of many of the leading Asian countries.
- Offshore Cash Piles Into New Index For China's Opaque Corporate Bond Market
Offshore Cash Piles Into New Index For China's Opaque Corporate Bond Market
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:40See no evil, hear no evil…
Perhaps that’s the investing motto of the cash piling into the new Bloomberg Barclays Liquid China Credit Index, an offshore index that aims to track “investment grade” corporate bonds in China, despite the opacity of the country’s credit market.
The index was launched last week, according to FT, and is “designed to track the liquid, tradable portion of onshore renminbi-denominated credit bonds.”
Bloomberg has claimed that the index could help market participants “better understand” China’s credit market, which has virtually no ETFs or indices offshore that track its corporate bonds.
Steve Berkley, chief executive of Bloomberg Index Services, said: “Investors and asset managers can use [the index in] numerous ways, including in product launches, derivative contracts and traditional benchmarking.”
He continued: “With government and policy bank securities now fully phased into the Global Aggregate Index, the Liquid China Credit Index is an important step towards establishing broader transparency and accessibility into China’s credit markets”.
Ji Zhuang, Asia-Pacific head of indices at Bloomberg said: “We have had global ETF issuers expressing interest in launching products tracking the China credit index, whether that is the LCC [index] or custom versions of the index, to suit their needs,”
China’s credit market is somewhat of a black box. About 70% of all Chinese companies don’t have ratings from global rating agencies. Of the ones that do – like one domestically AAA- rated, state backed coal company that recently defaulted on its debt – the ratings don’t seem to mean much.
To try and offset the notoriously risky credit market, the Bloomberg product “selects bonds that have traded on at least 10 per cent of the business days over the past three months and have at least Rmb250m ($37.8m) in aggregate trading volume over that period.”
The index contained 125 securities from 48 government and corporate issuers, as of October 30. The average yield of products in the index was 3.4% and the average duration was 1.9 years.
Jian Hu, senior managing director of fixed income at Guangzhou-based E Fund Management, told FT: “From our conversations with offshore investors, most of them have not yet been convinced to invest in China credit bonds.”
Despite this, in the first 9 months of 2020, offshore holdings of Chinese onshore bonds are up 38% from the end of 2019.
“Signs are positive that we are seeing, for example, international managers setting up local credit funds operations, which will help drive the activity and liquidity of this market,” he concluded.
- Wayne County Board Breaks Deadlock, Votes Unanimously To Certify Election Results While Demanding Audit
Wayne County Board Breaks Deadlock, Votes Unanimously To Certify Election Results While Demanding Audit
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:38Since 2020 wouldn’t be complete without officials flip-flopping during major elections, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers reversed has unanimously voted to certify the results of the November 3 election, hours after two Republicans on the board refused to do so.
Tonight’s big headline is no longer true: the vote has now been certified in Wayne County, which includes Detroit. https://t.co/AIckwFsmRD
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 18, 2020
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The board has called on Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to conduct an audit of irregularities in Wayne County.
* * *
Officials in Wayne County, Michigan – home to the city of Detroit, have refused to certify the results of the Nov. 3 election, after the Board of Canvassers have deadlocked in a 2-2 vote along party lines.
Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chair Monica Palmer (R, left) talks with Vice Chair Jonathan Kinloch before the board’s Nov. 17, 2020 meeting in Detroit (photo: Robin Buckson via The Detroit News) Both Republican members of the board refused to move forward amid discrepancies discovered in absentee ballot poll books – issues which were previously noted in the county’s summer primary and the November 2016 election, according to Just the News.
🚨🚨BREAKING: This evening, the county board of canvassers in Wayne County, MI refused to certify the election results. If the state board follows suit, the Republican state legislator will select the electors. Huge win for @realDonaldTrump
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 17, 2020
During the meeting, Democrat member Jonathan Kinloch objected, saying “I smell politics at the core of this action,” adding “I smell the games.“
“I smell politics at the core of this action,” says Democrat member Kinloch of the Republicans on 4-member Wayne County Board of Canvassers that just deadlocked 2-2 on certifying election results in Michigan’s largest county, which hasn’t happened in memory. “I smell the games.” pic.twitter.com/7tAK9prwut
— Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo) November 17, 2020
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According to Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox, “enough evidence of irregularities and potential voter fraud was uncovered” during the election to trigger the deadlock.
I am proud that, due to efforts of the @migop and the RNC under the leadership of @GOPChairwoman Ronna McDaniel, enough evidence of irregularities and potential voter fraud was uncovered resulting in the Wayne County Board of Canvassers refusing to certify their election results. https://t.co/n8RmYa0OzM
— Laura Cox (@MIGOPChair) November 17, 2020
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Here’s a rundown and some analysis from Robert J. DeNult of Duke Law (via Twitter):
Alarmed that Michigan county canvassers—who usually certify vote totals in bipartisan, unified fashion—are deadlocking on certification because of false fraud claims. This is not normal and has never happened in history.
— Robert J. DeNault (@robertjdenault) November 17, 2020
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Continued…
Michigan has a system where panels of citizens (2 D’s, 2 R’s) have to certify vote totals. Usually 4-0 approved. This year, R’s statewide discussed not approving them and splitting to a deadlock. This appears to be part of that effort in Wayne County.
This county covers Detroit. The panel R’s said they would approve everywhere *but* Detroit, building strong case for an inherent racial discrimination claim in a future voting lawsuit. But this is extremely concerning. Counties that fail to certify send evidence to Secretary of State (a Dem) and State Board of Canvassers to certify. State Board similarly split (2 D’s, 2 R’s). In the end obstruction is unlikely to work. But it is a clear effort to deligitimize election and delay.
A winner of Wayne County (Biden, or someone else who won an election there) may want to bring a state lawsuit about this. While it’s not clear there is a proper claim to make, a judge might ask the panel to give evidence of why it is suddenly deadlocked, or order them to certify.
* * *
And as The Detroit News notes, the lack of certification in Wayne County could extend the deadline for a possible recount – petitions for which are required to be filed with the county clerk within six days after the county canvassing board certifies the election.
At the state level, recount petitions in the races for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state House can be filed with the secretary of state within 48 hours after the State Board of Canvassers certifies the election results and adjourns.
The U.S. Constitution requests the states to certify their results by Dec. 8, which is known as the “safe harbor” day. Any state that doesn’t do so potentially invites Congress to get involved in resolving a dispute about which candidate won the state’s electoral votes. –The Detroit News
Committee Chairwoman Monica Palmer (R) said that the refusal to certify the results was based on she and her GOP colleague’s belief “that we do not have complete and accurate information in those poll books.”
The decision will move to the State Board of Canvassers next, which just tweeted that it has just moved a Wednesday meeting from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Board of State Canvassers meeting has been rescheduled to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, and will be held remotely. Agenda and a link to the meeting: https://t.co/It2K0gPQ6L
— Michigan Department of State (@MichSoS) November 18, 2020
- Trump Fires DHS Official Whose Agency Rebuffed Election Integrity Claims
Trump Fires DHS Official Whose Agency Rebuffed Election Integrity Claims
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:24President Trump has fired a top DHS official whose agency has been publicly contradicting doubts over election integrity since at least October.
Chris Krebs, who ran the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security, was fired over ‘highly inaccurate’ statements regarding election fraud, according to a Tuesday evening tweet from the president.
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more,” he wrote, adding “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
…votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2020
On Saturday, Krebs called on the public to ignore “wild and baseless claims…even if they’re made by the president” regarding the election – while reportedly telling associates that he expected to be fired.
Krebs’ agency developed a “rumor control initiative” to, as the New York Times describes it “keep Americans from doubting the integrity of the election system.”
In the West Wing, Mr. Krebs’s agency is regarded as a deep-state stronghold, an antagonist that has contradicted Mr. Trump’s false claims that fraud was rampant, software mistakes were vast and the election was stolen. It did not help that as Mr. Krebs gave speeches and interviews around the country about election security, he rarely, if ever, mentioned Mr. Trump’s name. –NYT
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- What A Biden Victory Would Mean For Middle-East Oil
What A Biden Victory Would Mean For Middle-East Oil
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:20Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,
Whilst media-annointed U.S. President-elect, Joe Biden, will almost certainly focus on dealing with the tail of the COVID-19 pandemic and repairing the economic damage to the U.S. that it has wrought, when he turns his attention to fully to shaping Washington’s policy in the Middle East it is likely to be significantly different to his predecessor’s in key policy areas.
Top of the list of his considerations are likely to be what to do about Iran, in particular the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew in May 2018, and Saudi Arabia, especially its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).
For Iran, although Biden is widely expected to bring the U.S. back into the JCPOA, OilPrice.com understands from sources close to the new Administration that a number of the key members of the team that negotiated the original JCPOA deal with Iran – which included virtually all of the tougher clauses that were then dropped by former President Barack Obama in his rush to sign the deal in 2015 – will be returning to the Biden negotiating team.
It is vital to note that these clauses that were dropped by Obama were the very same clauses that were later laid out by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 as being essential for any deal being made under Trump. These original, tougher clauses are going to form the basis of the Biden Administration’s renegotiation of the JCPOA with Iran and, unlike last time, both France and Germany are now behind the key clause of these that is designed to check Iran’s ballistic missile program, along with the E.U. formally as a whole.
The core concepts that will form the basis of the renegotiation of the JCPOA by the Biden team are, OilPrice.com exclusively reveals, as follows:
1. The safety and security of U.S. troops from Iran or Iran-sponsored attacks in Iraq and elsewhere;
2. The safety and security of Israel; and,
3. The inextricable link between Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and its ballistic missile program.
In this last regard, Biden’s team is to make it absolutely clear – and there is no room for alteration on this point – that Iran is not to build, import, maintain, hold, or test any ballistic missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometres. This effectively precludes all ‘intermediate range’ ballistic missiles – that is, those with a range of between 3,000 and 5,500 km – including, crucially, the Hwasong-12 missiles that Iran is planning to get in from North Korea as part of the expanded military element of its 25-year deal with China, as exclusively revealed by OilPrice.com.
These core concepts will run through each of the specific clauses with which the Biden JCPOA team will begin negotiations and these will include the following, OilPrice.com understands from people close to proceedings:
1. Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear programme and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity;
2. Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor;
3. Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country;
4. End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems;
5. Release all U.S. citizens as well as citizens of U.S. partners and allies;
6. End support to Middle East terrorist groups, including – but not limited to – Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad;
7. Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration of Shia militias;
8. End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a final peaceful, political settlement in Yemen;
9. Withdraw all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria;
10. End support for the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and the region;
11. End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked Quds Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world; and,
12. End its threatening behaviour against its neighbours, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks.
For its part, according to senior Iranian sources close to the Petroleum Ministry spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com last week, Tehran’s negotiators will start with the following conditions:
1. Compensation by the U.S. for the damage done by sanctions to its economy;
2. Immediate access to all of Iran’s frozen deposits in Europe, the Far East and everywhere else;
3. Guarantees that Israel does not continue to increase its intelligence and military presence in the region to threaten the security of Iran; and
4. Recognition of the national security interests of Iran including not discussing anything to do with the 25-year China deal.
Clearly, Mehrdad Emadi, head of the international risk analysis company, Betamatrix, in London, exclusively told OilPrice.com last week, the U.S. is unlikely to agree to any of these four conditions but will likely be willing to allow Iran not to lose face entirely in the negotiations, so will allow it the following:
1. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to equipment relating to civilian aircraft;
2. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to medicines and medical equipment;
3. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to technology needed to upgrade its oil and gas and petrochemicals sectors; and
4. Allow U.S.-monitored access to some of its frozen deposits but subject to Iran’s full agreement on Financial Action Task Force conditions on transparency.
For Saudi Arabia, Biden’s starting point was made clear in broad terms on 2 October when he said that he would seek to:
“…reassess our relationship with the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia], end U..S support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”
With regard to MbS, during the same speech – which marked the second anniversary of the murder of expatriate Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, which according even to the CIA was carried out on the personal orders of the Crown Prince – Biden appeared to endorse the CIA’s findings. He said:
“Two years ago, Saudi operatives, reportedly acting at the direction of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, murdered and dismembered Saudi dissident, journalist, and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi,…His offense – for which he paid with his life – was criticising the policies of his government.”
He added, in an extremely worrying twist for MbS personally:
“Today, I join many brave Saudi women and men, activists, journalists, and the international community in mourning Khashoggi’s death and echoing his call for people everywhere to exercise their universal rights in freedom…America’s commitment to democratic values and human rights will be a priority, even with our closest security partners.”
For MbS, these comments come at a time when his second failed oil price war in less than five years has left the ruling Saud dynasty facing the greatest existential threat to its continued rule over the country since Ibn Saud first consolidated his Arabian conquests into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
Not only is the Kingdom economically crippled but also its core relationship with the U.S. is at its lowest ebb since it was established in 1945 between then-U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Saudi King at the time, Abdulaziz. Such anger was felt in Washington that the Saudis had yet again attempted to destroy, or at least disable, the U.S. shale oil industry in March this year, that even the pro-MbS former President Donald Trump felt compelled to personally call the Crown Prince on 2 April and tell him that if he did not end the oil price war them the U.S. would withdraw its military support for Saudi Arabia.
Given these factors, MbS’s hold on power has never been more tenuous, particularly with other senior Saudis jostling for position in light of King Salman’s extremely poor health. Those looking to re-assert their claim to the throne – most notably Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, King Salman’s nephew and the former crown prince – are supported by those 500 or so highly-placed Saudis who were rounded up from 4 November 2017 and held captive in the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh as part of MbS’s supposed crackdown on corruption. In reality it appeared to be more of a standard criminal shakedown in which those being held were told to hand over around US$800 billion of their assets to MbS’s grouping or else their lives would become a lot worse very quickly. The same tactic was used in 2020, with the same sort of people rounded up, including again Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, plus most notably as well Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, one of three members of the Allegiance Council (the senior royal organisation that endorses the line of succession), who opposed MBS’s appointment as crown prince in place of his cousin bin Nayef in 2017.
- "Crushing Response" Leading To War: Iran Responds To Report That Trump Mulled Attack
"Crushing Response" Leading To War: Iran Responds To Report That Trump Mulled Attack
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:00An Iranian government spokesman on Tuesday issued an official response to a late Monday NY Times report that said Trump sought “options” from his generals and advisers on mounting a preemptive strike on Iran.
Iran vowed a “crushing response” and military action in retaliation, according to the statement. “Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said in televised remarks via state channels.
Via Arms Control Center Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz seized on the potential for Trump to degrade the Islamic Republic’s nuclear abilities with just weeks to go in his presidency, saying that “If I were the Iranians, I would not feel at ease,” according to remarks cited in Reuters.
“It is very important that the Iranians know that if, indeed, they suddenly dash toward high levels of enrichment, in the direction of nuclear weaponry, they are liable to encounter the military might of the United States – and also, perhaps, of other countries,” Steinitz said in an interview on Israel’s Army Radio.
Israel itself has lately signaled it could act on its own against Iran should Biden move to restore conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, which Trump had pulled the US out of in May 2018. Tel Aviv has long maintained that Iran would secretly pursue nuclear weapons under cover of the deal.
The American people have spoken.
And the world is watching whether the new leaders will abandon disastrous lawless bullying of outgoing regime—and accept multilateralism, cooperation & respect for law.
Deeds matter most
Iran’s record: dignity, interest & responsible diplomacy.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 8, 2020
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The New York Times report had noted that “Mr Trump asked his top national security aides what options were available and how to respond” – but that his top advisers argued against it, saying it would spiral into major war which would consume his last weeks in office.
The Iranians have been positively celebrating Biden’s victory as it means a likely softening of sanctions and potential restoration of terms of the JCPOA.
- SoftBank CEO Warns Of "Lehman-Like-Crisis" That Could Crash Global Economy
SoftBank CEO Warns Of "Lehman-Like-Crisis" That Could Crash Global Economy
Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/17/2020 – 18:45Speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday morning, SoftBank CEO Masa Son warns about the possibility of an impending “disaster” that could tank global markets in the coming months as the second wave of the virus pandemic intensifies.
In the short run, I’m pessimistic,” says SoftBank’s @masason at the #DealBook Online Summit https://t.co/FGlqjPG068 pic.twitter.com/9ml4EClaaH
— DealBook (@dealbook) November 17, 2020
Dealbook editor and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin tells Son during the virtual conference that he’s usually the most optimistic investor in the room – though Son’s attitude appears to have drastically shifted in recent times, maybe due to SoftBank’s terrible performance after losing $3.7 billion after months of wild success in creating the most significant “gamma squeeze” on record which led to a massive late-August melt-up in FAAMG names. There’s also been news of an exodus of executives at Son’s investment fund called Vision Fund.
Sorkin asks Son to shed more color on what could trigger the “worst-case scenario” of an event crashing global markets.
Son responds by saying even as the vaccines come – there could be “some major company” that could “crash” and produce a “domino effect” of financial turbulence around the world.
He said it could be “just one bank,” causing a “Lehman-like-crisis.”
He warns anything could happen in the coming months and believes things are getting somewhat better with the positive news of vaccine developments. But he cautioned that he’s “prepared for the worst-case scenario.”
Son’s warning comes as Nasdaq futures have stalled for nearly four months, a second coronavirus wave is ravaging the West, and double-dip recession fears are surging.
Watch: Masa Son: We Want To Be Prepared For The Worst-Case Scenario
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