- More Italians Move Savings To Switzerland As Fears Of Banking "Doom Loop" Intensify
With the euro weakening against the Swiss franc (recently trading at session lows of 1.14) and Italian stocks and bonds tumbling once again on reports that the European Commission is planning to reject the Italian draft budget plan submitted earlier this week – a repudiation of Italy’s populist leaders that was widely anticipated – the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offered a glimpse into how middle-class Italians are reacting to the deteriorating relationship between Italy and the EU, and its attendant impact on the country’s banks and capital markets. In a trend that’s eerily reminiscent of the banking run that precipitated the near-collapse of the Greek banking system (most recently in 2015), Italians are scrambling to convert their euros into Swiss francs and stash them across the country’s northern border with Switzerland.
Right now, the movement has mostly been limited to the wealthy. “The big players” have already gotten out…
The Swiss group Albacore Wealth Management told Italy’s Il Sole had received a wave of inquiries from Italians with €5m to €10m in liquid capital. The super-rich are already a step ahead. “The big fish have been organizing the expatriation of their wealth for some time,” it said.
…and those with between 200,000 euros and 300,000 euros in assets are moving more quickly, inspired by memories of desperate Greeks struggling with capital controls that restricted ATM withdrawals.
“There is fear creeping in,” said Massimo Gionso, head of family wealth managers CFO Sim in Milan.
“People are concerned that if we get into the same situation as Greece, they might find the banks are closed and they can take out only €50 a day from cash machines. They don’t want to risk it,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“These are families with savings of €200,000 or €300,000. They want to set up accounts in Lugano or Chiasso across the border in Ticino where everybody speaks Italian. The big players have already got their money out,” he said.
Since Italy is (for now at least) free of laws restricting the flow of money out of the country, these Italians are doing everything legally, with one expert claiming that authorities are informed and all transactions made on behalf of his clients are done legally. But that could soon change as the Italian government scrambles to contain a crisis that is drawing closer with every trading sessions. As one Barclays analyst told the Telegraph, “the risk of Italy sliding into an unstable debt spiral has increased.” Fabio Fois said risk spreads between 10-year BTPs and bunds could move “sharply higher”, possibly punching through the “tipping point” of 400 basis points. In fact, it’s widely expected that they will breach this threshold if Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s later this month decides to cut their ratings on Italian debt to “junk” status. Earlier Wednesday, an Italian government official warned that a downgrade “can’t be excluded”.
Markets have already priced in one-notch cut in the rating but not a further negative watch as well, which would bring ‘junk’ status into sharp focus.
One analyst said the deterioration in Italy feels distinctly similar to the eurozone-wide panic of 2011.
Simon Derrick from BNY Mellon said the drama feels like the onset of eurozone crisis in 2011. “This all has a very familiar pattern. Once the spreads blow up and reach 400, you reach a tipping point and the crisis takes hold,” he said.
Falling yields pose two distinct problems for Italian banks. First, since Italian banks hold sizable quantities of Italian sovereign debt on their balance sheets, any move higher in yields translates into a mark-to-market loss, and the banks get crushed. This, in turn, hurts their capital buffers, which limits the amount of money they can lend to customers. And as their capital reserves erode, the process risks sparking a “doom loop” that could send the whole system spiraling into a crisis.
However, it’s worth noting that Italian deposits held “rock solid” during the 20111 crisis.
Any sign that Italians might be pulling money from bank accounts is ominous. David Owen from Jefferies said Italian deposits held rock solid through the eurozone crisis. “It was nothing like Greece where there was wholesale liquidation. So far we haven’t seen any of that in the Italian data,” he said. However, figures from the Bank of Italy are released with a delay.
Though comments from the League’s economy spokesman certainly aren’t helping to sooth investors’ fears. Neither have reports that EU authorities are monitoring Italian bank liquidity “more intensely” than usual.
Lega economics spokesman Claudio Borghi told the Telegraph last week that the EU can expect “Armageddon” if it tries to force Italy to its knees. “They will find that the crisis is not Greece squared, but Greece cubed. This would be a thousand times worse,” he said.
And while large depositors pulled 72 billion euros out of Italian banks during May and June, money started flowing back in over the summer as Finance Minister Giovanni Tria tried to make nice with the European Commission. But the party bosses of the League and Five Star Movement are back in control, and betting that the EU will back down on its insistence that Italy abide by strict budget rules that would cap its deficit at 0.8%, far less than the 2.4% Italians are calling for in the proposed budget. And the ECB has already said it won’t come to Italy’s rescue in the event of a banking or sovereign debt crisis unless it secures a bailout from the European Stability Mechanism – an unlikely scenario unless Italy concedes in the budget deficit battle, which would be a crushing political blow to the ruling populist coalition. Once thing is for sure: Italian capital outflows data will become increasingly important to the market, assuming the standoff continues and BTP yields continue moving higher.
- Skripal And Khashoggi: A Tale of Two 'Disappearances'
Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Two disappearances, and two very different responses from Western governments, which illustrates their rank hypocrisy.
When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal went missing in England earlier this year, there was almost immediate punitive action by the British government and its NATO allies against Moscow. By contrast, Western governments are straining with restraint towards Saudi Arabia over the more shocking and provable case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The outcry by Western governments and media over the Skripal affair was deafening and resulted in Britain, the US and some 28 other countries expelling dozens of Russian diplomats on the back of unsubstantiated British allegations that the Kremlin tried to assassinate an exiled spy with a deadly nerve agent. The Trump administration has further tightened sanctions citing the Skripal incident.
London’s case against Moscow has been marked by wild speculation and ropey innuendo. No verifiable evidence of what actually happened to Sergei Skripal (67) and his daughter Yulia has been presented by the British authorities. Their claim that President Vladimir Putin sanctioned a hit squad armed with nerve poison relies on sheer conjecture.
All we know for sure is that the Skripals have been disappeared from public contact by the British authorities for more than seven months, since the mysterious incident of alleged poisoning in Salisbury on March 4.
Russian authorities and family relatives have been steadfastly refused any contact by London with the Skripal pair, despite more than 60 official requests from Moscow in accordance with international law and in spite of the fact that Yulia is a citizen of the Russian Federation with consular rights.
It is an outrage that based on such thin ice of “evidence”, the British have built an edifice of censure against Moscow, rallying an international campaign of further sanctions and diplomatic expulsions.
Now contrast that strenuous reaction, indeed hyper over-reaction, with how Britain, the US, France, Canada and other Western governments are ever-so slowly responding to Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi case.
After nearly two weeks since Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, the Saudi regime is this week finally admitting he was killed on their premises – albeit, they claim, in a “botched interrogation”.
Turkish and American intelligence had earlier claimed that Khashoggi was tortured and murdered on the Saudi premises by a 15-member hit squad sent from Riyadh.
Even more grisly, it is claimed that Khashoggi’s body was hacked up with a bone saw by the killers, his remains secreted out of the consulate building in boxes, and flown back to Saudi Arabia on board two private jets connected to the Saudi royal family.
What’s more, the Turks and Americans claim that the whole barbaric plot to murder Khashoggi was on the orders of senior Saudi rulers, implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The latest twist out of Riyadh, is an attempt to scapegoat “rogue killers” and whitewash the House of Saudi from culpability.
The fact that 59-year-old Khashoggi was a legal US resident and a columnist for the Washington Post has no doubt given his case such prominent coverage in Western news media. Thousands of other victims of Saudi vengeance are routinely ignored in the West.
Nevertheless, despite the horrific and damning case against the Saudi monarchy, the response from the Trump administration, Britain and others has been abject.
President Trump has blustered that there “will be severe consequences” for the Saudi regime if it is proven culpable in the murder of Khashoggi. Trump quickly qualified, however, saying that billion-dollar arms deals with the oil-rich kingdom will not be cancelled. Now Trump appears to be joining in a cover-up by spinning the story that the Khashoggi killing was done by “rogue killers”.
Britain, France and Germany this week issued a joint statement calling for “a credible investigation” into the disappearance. But other than “tough-sounding” rhetoric, none of the European states have indicated any specific sanctions, such as weapons contracts being revoked or diplomatic expulsions.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “concerned” by the gruesome claims about Khashoggi’s killing, but he reiterated that Ottawa would not be scrapping a $15 billion sale of combat vehicles to Riyadh.
The Saudi rulers have even threatened retaliatory measures if sanctions are imposed by Western governments.
Saudi denials of official culpability seem to be a brazen flouting of all reason and circumstantial evidence that Khashoggi was indeed murdered in the consulate building on senior Saudi orders.
This week a glitzy international investor conference in Saudi Arabia is being boycotted by top business figures, including the World Bank chief, Jim Yong Kim, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Britain’s venture capitalist Richard Branson. Global firms like Ford and Uber have pulled out, as have various media sponsors, such as CNN, the New York Times and Financial Times. Withdrawal from the event was in response to the Khashoggi affair.
A growing bipartisan chorus of US Senators, including Bob Corker, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and Chris Murphy, have called for the cancellation of American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as for an overhaul of the strategic partnership between the two countries.
Still, Trump has rebuffed calls for punitive response. He has said that American jobs and profits depend on the Saudi weapons market. Some 20 per cent of all US arms sales are estimated to go to the House of Saud.
The New York Times this week headlined: “In Trump’s Saudi Bargain, the Bottom Line Proudly Stands Out”.
The Trump White House will be represented at the investment conference in Saudi Arabia this week – dubbed “Davos in the Desert” by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He said he was attending in spite of the grave allegations against the Saudi rulers.
Surely the point here is the unseemly indulgence by Western governments of Saudi Arabia and its so-called “reforming” Crown Prince. It is remarkable how much credulity Washington, London, Paris, Ottawa and others are affording the Saudi despots who, most likely, have been caught redhanded in a barbarous murder.
Yet, when it comes to Russia and outlandish, unproven claims that the Kremlin carried out a bizarre poison-assassination plot, all these same Western governments abandon all reason and decorum to pile sanctions on Russia based on lurid, hollow speculation. The blatant hypocrisy demolishes any pretense of integrity or principle.
Here is another connection between the Skripal and Khashoggi affairs. The Saudis no doubt took note of the way Britain’s rulers have shown absolute disregard and contempt for international law in their de facto abduction of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. If the British can get away with that gross violation, then the Saudis probably thought that nobody would care too much if they disappeared Jamal Khashoggi.
Grotesquely, the way things are shaping up in terms of hypocritical lack of action by the Americans, British and others towards the Saudi despots, the latter might just get away with murder. Not so Russia. The Russians are not allowed to get away with even an absurd fantasy.
- China To Launch Moon Simulator In 2020
Government officials in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, have revealed plans to launch an illumination satellite, known as “artificial moon,” in 2020, according to Wu Chunfeng, chairman of Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Insitute Co., Ltd., as per a new report from the People’s Daily Online.
Wu debuted the illumination satellite at the national mass innovation and entrepreneurship conference in Chengdu last week.
He said the satellite would complement the moon at night, with its brightness eight times of that, and “bright enough to replace street lights in the city.”
The moon simulator can light up an area with a diameter of 10 to 80 kilometers (6 to 50 miles), while the operator of the spacecraft has precise illumination capabilities.
Even though China’s moon simulator is considered a giant leap for the country’s space program, some experts have expressed concern that artificial light from space could disrupt animal and human routines and astronomical observations.
Kang Weimin, director of the Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace, told the People’s Daily Online to dismiss the claims that the moon simulator would disrupt nature because it would only create a “dust-like glow in the sky.”
The Chinese paper did not give further specifications of the spacecraft or its official launch date.
In 1993, The New York Times reported that Russian scientists were attempting to mount a 65-foot-diameter disk of an aluminum-coated plastic film (space mirror) on its now-defunct Mir space station in a bid to illuminate the night sky.
CNN said the space mirror failed in February 1999, when MIR astronauts were unable to unfold the umbrella-like mirror after it experienced technical failure.
If the mirror worked as plan, it would have been a giant artificial moon, according to CNN back then, reflecting sunlight onto Russia, numerous Soviet Republics, and even reaching parts of Germany and the Czech Republic.
Russian officials said in the 90’s that the mirror could illuminate construction sites, disaster areas, and or large cities.
Designers also said the mirror could have been used in agriculture to boost growing cycles by lengthening the day.
While it seems global governments have been working on moon simulators for decades, none of which have so far been successful, a handful of conspiracy theorist have alleged that the US government has a “solar sun simulator” satellite that creates an artificial sun.
- John Whitehead: You Want To Make America Great Again? Start By Making America Free Again
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“If the freedom of speech be taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington
Living in a representative republic means that each person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right, whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign.
That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about.
Yet through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials.
In the process, government officials have succeeded in insulating themselves from their constituents, making it increasingly difficult for average Americans to make themselves seen or heard by those who most need to hear what “we the people” have to say.
Indeed, President Trump—always keen to exercise his free speech rights to sound off freely on any topic that strikes his fancy—has not been as eager to protect the First Amendment rights of his fellow citizens to speak freely, assemble, protest and petition one’s government officials for a redress of grievances.
Not that long ago, in fact, Trump suggested that the act of protesting should be illegal.
The president has also suggested demonstrators should lose their jobs or be met with violence for speaking out.
Mind you, this is the man who took an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Perhaps someone should have made sure Trump had actually read the Constitution first.
Most recently, the Trump Administration proposed rules that would crack down on protests in front of the White House and on the National Mall.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The rules would restrict gatherings that now take place on a 25-foot-wide sidewalk in front of the White House to just a 5-foot sliver, severely limiting crowds. The NPS [National Park Service] also threatens to hit political protesters on the National Mall with large security and cleanup fees that historically have been waived for such gatherings, and it wants to make it easier to reject a spontaneous protest of the type that might occur, say, if Trump fires special counsel Robert Mueller.”
Imagine if the hundreds of thousands of participants in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, had been forced into free speech zones or required to pay for the “privilege” of protest.
There likely would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act.
What is going on here?
Clearly, the government has no interest in hearing what “we the people” have to say.
It’s the message that is feared, especially if that message challenges the status quo.
That’s why so many hurdles are being placed in the path of those attempting to voice sentiments that may be construed as unpopular, offensive, conspiratorial, violent, threatening or anti-government.
Yet the right of political free speech is the basis of all liberty.
It’s the citizen’s right to confront the government and demand that it alter its policies. But first, citizens have to be seen and heard, and only under extraordinary circumstances should free speech ever be restricted.
No government that claims to value freedom would adopt such draconian measures to clamp down on lawful First Amendment activities. These tactics of censorship, suppression and oppression go hand-in-hand with fascism.
Efforts to confine and control dissenters are really efforts to confine and control the effect of their messages, whatever those might be.
That’s the point, isn’t it?
The powers-that-be don’t want us to be seen and heard.
Haven’t you noticed that interactions with elected representatives have become increasingly manufactured and distant over the past 50 years? Press conferences, ticketed luncheons, televised speeches and one-sided town hall meetings held over the phone now largely take the place of face-to-face interaction with constituents.
Additionally, there has been an increased use of so-called “free speech zones,” designated areas for expressive activity used to corral and block protestors at political events from interacting with public officials. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have used these “free speech zones,” some located within chain-link cages, at various conventions to mute any and all criticism of their policies.
This push to insulate government officials from those exercising their First Amendment rights stems from an elitist mindset which views them as different, set apart somehow, from the people they have been appointed to serve and represent.
We have litigated and legislated our way into a new governmental framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.
With every passing day, we’re being moved further down the road towards a totalitarian society characterized by government censorship, violence, corruption, hypocrisy and intolerance, all packaged for our supposed benefit in the Orwellian doublespeak of national security, tolerance and so-called “government speech.”
Indeed, while lobbyists mill in and out of the homes and offices of Congressmen, the American people are kept at a distance through free speech zones, electronic town hall meetings, and security barriers. And those who dare to breach the gap—even through silent forms of protest—are arrested for making their voices heard.
On paper, we are free to speak.
In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official may allow.
Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms.
Indeed, the Supreme Court has had the effrontery to suggest that the government can discriminate freely against First Amendment activity that takes place within a government forum, justifying such discrimination as “government speech.”
If it were just the courts suppressing free speech, that would be one thing to worry about, but First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country.
Protest laws are not about protecting the economy or private property or public sidewalks. Rather, they are intended to keep us corralled, muzzle discontent and discourage anyone from challenging government authority.
The reasons for such censorship vary widely, but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”
If Americans are not able to peacefully assemble for expressive activity outside of the halls of government or on public roads on which government officials must pass, the First Amendment has lost all meaning.
If we cannot stand silently outside of the Supreme Court or the Capitol or the White House, our ability to hold the government accountable for its actions is threatened, and so are the rights and liberties which we cherish as Americans.
Free speech can certainly not be considered “free” when expressive activities across the nation are being increasingly limited, restricted to so-called free speech zones, or altogether blocked.
If citizens cannot stand out in the open on a public sidewalk and voice their disapproval of their government, its representatives and its policies, without fearing prosecution, then the First Amendment with all its robust protections for free speech, assembly and the right to petition one’s government for a redress of grievances is little more than window-dressing on a store window: pretty to look at but serving little real purpose.
What most people fail to understand is that the First Amendment is not only about the citizenry’s right to freely express themselves. Rather, the First Amendment speaks to the citizenry’s right to express their concerns about their government to their government, in a time, place and manner best suited to ensuring that those concerns are heard.
The First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.”
This amounts to so much more than filing a lawsuit against the government. It works hand in hand with free speech to ensure, as Adam Newton and Ronald K.L. Collins report for the Five Freedoms Project, “that our leaders hear, even if they don’t listen to, the electorate. Though public officials may be indifferent, contrary, or silent participants in democratic discourse, at least the First Amendment commands their audience.”
As Newton and Collins elaborate:
“Petitioning” has come to signify any nonviolent, legal means of encouraging or disapproving government action, whether directed to the judicial, executive or legislative branch. Lobbying, letter-writing, e-mail campaigns, testifying before tribunals, filing lawsuits, supporting referenda, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives, peaceful protests and picketing: all public articulation of issues, complaints and interests designed to spur government action qualifies under the petition clause, even if the activities partake of other First Amendment freedoms.
There’s more.
Even more critical than the right to speak freely, or pray freely, or assemble freely, or petition the government for a redress of grievances, or have a free press is the unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment that assures us of the right to think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.
Just as surveillance has been shown to “stifle and smother dissent, keeping a populace cowed by fear,” government censorship gives rise to self-censorship, breeds compliance and makes independent thought all but impossible.
In the end, censorship and political correctness not only produce people that cannot speak for themselves but also people who cannot think for themselves. And a citizenry that can’t think for itself is a citizenry that will neither rebel against the government’s dictates nor revolt against the government’s tyranny.
The end result: a nation of sheep who willingly line up for the slaughterhouse.
Still, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas advised in his dissent in Colten v. Kentucky, “we need not stay docile and quiet” in the face of authority.
The Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even civil to government officials.
Neither does the Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on nonviolence).
If we just cower before government agents and meekly obey, we may find ourselves following in the footsteps of those nations that eventually fell to tyranny.
The alternative involves standing up and speaking truth to power.
Jesus Christ walked that road.
So did Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and countless other freedom fighters whose actions changed the course of history.
Indeed, had Christ merely complied with the Roman police state, there would have been no crucifixion and no Christian religion.
Had Gandhi meekly fallen in line with the British Empire’s dictates, the Indian people would never have won their independence.
Had Martin Luther King Jr. obeyed the laws of his day, there would have been no civil rights movement.
And if the founding fathers had marched in lockstep with royal decrees, there would have been no American Revolution.
In other words, if freedom means anything, it means that those exercising their right to protest are showing the greatest respect for the principles on which this nation was founded: the right to free speech and the right to dissent.
Clearly, the First Amendment to the Constitution assures Americans of the right to speak freely, assemble freely and protest (petition the government for a redress of grievances).
Whether those First Amendment activities take place in a courtroom or a classroom, on a football field or in front of the White House is not the issue. What matters is that Americans have a right—according to the spirit, if not always the letter, of the law—to voice their concerns without being penalized for it.
Frankly, the First Amendment does more than give us a right to criticize our country: it makes it a civic duty.
Let’s not confuse patriotism (love for or devotion to one’s country) with blind obedience to the government’s dictates. That is the first step towards creating an authoritarian regime.
One can be patriotic and love one’s country while at the same time disagreeing with the government or protesting government misconduct. As journalist Barbara Ehrenreich recognizes, “Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
Indeed, I would venture to say that if you’re not speaking out or taking a stand against government wrongdoing—if you’re marching in lockstep with everything the government and its agents dole out—and if you’re prioritizing partisan politics over the principles enshrined in the Constitution, then you’re not a true patriot.
Real patriots care enough to take a stand, speak out, protest and challenge the government whenever it steps out of line. There is nothing patriotic about the lengths to which Americans have allowed the government to go in its efforts to dismantle our constitutional republic and shift the country into a police state.
It’s not anti-American to be anti-war or anti-police misconduct or anti-racial discrimination, but it is anti-American to be anti-freedom.
Listen: I served in the Army.
I lived through the Civil Rights era.
I came of age during the Sixties, when activists took to the streets to protest war and economic and racial injustice.
As a constitutional lawyer, I defend people daily whose civil liberties are being violated, including high school students prohibited from wearing American flag t-shirts to school, allegedly out of a fear that it might be disruptive.
I understand the price that must be paid for freedom.
Responsible citizenship means being outraged at the loss of others’ freedoms, even when our own are not directly threatened.
The Framers of the Constitution knew very well that whenever and wherever democratic governments had failed, it was because the people had abdicated their responsibility as guardians of freedom. They also knew that whenever in history the people denied this responsibility, an authoritarian regime arose which eventually denied the people the right to govern themselves.
Citizens must be willing to stand and fight to protect their freedoms. And if need be, it will entail publicly criticizing the government.
This is true patriotism in action.
Never in American history has there been a more pressing need to maintain the barriers in the Constitution erected by our Founders to check governmental power and abuse.
Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.
If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.
My friends, let us not be played for fools.
The government’s ongoing attempts to suppress lawful protest activities are intended to send a strong message that in the American police state, you’re either a patriot who marches in lockstep with the government’s dictates or you’re a pariah, a suspect, a criminal, a troublemaker, a terrorist, a radical, a revolutionary.
Yet by muzzling the citizenry, by removing the constitutional steam valves that allow people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world, the government is deliberately stirring the pot, creating a climate in which violence becomes inevitable.
When there is no steam valve—when there is no one to hear what the people have to say, because government representatives have removed themselves so far from their constituents—then frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation.
Then again, perhaps that was the government’s plan all along.
As John F. Kennedy warned in March 1962, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
The government is making violent revolution inevitable.
How do you lock down a nation?
You sow discontent and fear among the populace.
You teach them to be non-thinkers who passively accept whatever is told them, whether it’s delivered by way of the corporate media or a government handler.
You brainwash them into believing that everything the government does is for their good and anyone who opposes the government is an enemy.
You acclimate them to a state of martial law, carried out by soldiers disguised as police officers but bearing the weapons of war.
You polarize them so that they can never unite and stand united against the government.
You create a climate in which silence is golden and those who speak up are shouted down.
You spread propaganda and lies.
You package the police state in the rhetoric of politicians.
And then, when and if the people finally wake up to the fact that the government is not and has never been their friend, when it’s too late for peaceful protests and violence is all that remains to them as a recourse against tyranny, you use all of the tools you’ve been so carefully amassing—the militarized police, the criminal databases and surveillance and identification systems and private prisons and protest laws—and you shut them down for good.
Divide and conquer.
It’s one of the oldest military strategies in the books, and it’s proven to be the police state’s most effective weapon for maintaining the status quo.
How do you conquer a nation?
Distract the populace with screen devices, with sports, entertainment spectacles, political circuses and materialism.
Keep them focused on their differences—economic, religious, environmental, political, racial—so they can never agree on anything.
And then, when they’re so divided that they are incapable of joining forces against a common threat, start picking them off one by one.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, what we’re witnessing is just the latest incarnation of the government’s battle plan for stamping out any sparks of resistance and keeping the populace under control: censorship, surveillance, battlefield tactics, military weaponry, and a complete suspension of the Constitution.
- Scientists Warn World Facing Major Famine, Could "Lead To Severe Shocks To Global Food System"
Researchers from Washington State University have published a new report of the Great Drought, the most destructive known drought of the past 800 years – and how it sparked the Global Famine that claimed the lives of 50 million people. The scientists warn that the Earth’s current warming climate could spark a similar drought, but even worse.
One of the lead researchers, Deepti Singh, a professor in WSU’s School of the Environment, used rainfall records and climate reconstruction models to characterize the environmental conditions leading up to the Great Drought, a period in the mid-1870s known for widespread crop failures across Asia, Brazil, and Africa. The drought was connected to the most extreme manifestation of the El Nino supercycle ever recorded.
“Climate conditions that caused the Great Drought and Global Famine arose from natural variability. And their recurrence — with hydrological impacts intensified by global warming — could again potentially undermine global food safety,” lead author Singh and her colleagues wrote in the Journal of Climate, published online Oct. 04.
The release of the study came days before the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that global warming could cause intense droughts, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
WSU says Global Famine was among the worst humanitarian disasters in modern time, comparable to the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, World War I and World War II. As an environmental disaster, it was the worst.
“In a very real sense, the El Nino and climate events of 1876-78 helped create the global inequalities that would later be characterized as ‘first’ and ‘third worlds’,” writes Singh, who was influenced by “Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World,” which detailed the social impact of the Great Drought and additional droughts in 1896-1897 and 1899-1902.
Singh’s report is the first global-scale analysis of climatic conditions for the 1870s. There are no other in-depth studies that characterize the dynamics of what led up to the Great Drought.
“This is the first time that somebody is taking multiple sources of data — like rain gauges and tree-ring drought atlases that let us go back 500 and 800 years (respectively) — as well as multiple datasets of past climatic conditions, to quantify the severity of this event and the severity of the conditions that led to it,” Singh said.
“The length and severity of the droughts promoted the Global Famine, aided in no small part by one of the strongest known El Ninos, the irregular but recurring periods of warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean. That triggered the warmest known temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean and the strongest known Indian Ocean dipole — an extreme temp difference between warm waters in the west and cool waters in the east. These, in turn, triggered one of the worst droughts across Brazil and Australia,” said WSU.
Singh said natural variations in sea-surface temps induced the drought, a similar weather event could occur today, but a lot worse. With rising greenhouse gases and global warming, the researcher said El Nino events could become intensified in the future, in which case, “such widespread droughts could become even more severe.”
Singh warns that “such extreme events would still lead to severe shocks to the global food system with local food insecurity in vulnerable countries potentially amplified by today’s highly connected global food network.”
While the WSU scientists, UN, and IPCC warn of impending climate danger, President Trump on Sunday told CBS’ 60 Minutes in an interview that climate change scientists have a “political agenda” as he casts doubt on whether humans were responsible for Earth’s rising temps.
. @LesleyRStahl : “Do you still think that climate change is a hoax?”
Pres. Trump: “Look, I think something’s happening, something’s changing, and it’ll change back again…”https://t.co/EVT05KB0UY. @60Minutes pic.twitter.com/VbHTsJDGfn
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 15, 2018
Trump suggested that climate change might not be caused by humans, and added that he did not want to take action that could cripple the American economy.
“I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again,” said Trump. “I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs.”
While WSU scientists, IPCC, and now President Trump have all stated that global temperatures are, in fact, rising, it seems that all parties are at disagreement to what is actually causing the anomaly. One thing, however, is likely: a sharp increase in temperatures, for whatever reason, could trigger the next big El Nino supercycle that would devastate global food supply chains and trigger another famine, a contingency for which the world is not prepared.
- Paul Craig Roberts Fears "Western Civilization No Longer Exists"
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
Societal Collapse awaits in the wings if climate change and nuclear war don’t finish us off first…
The Cheney-Bush and Obama regimes destroyed due process, with the result that American citizens were detained in prison indefinitely without evidence and murdered without evidence or trial. In violation of US and international laws, the US government used torture to produce “terrorists,” who were not terrorists, in order to justify Washington’s wars, wars that have nothing whatsoever to do with “fighting terrorism.”
The Democratic Party’s Identity Politics’ successful demonization of white heterosexual males has made American universities unsafe for white heterosexual males. Any woman can accuse them of rape, and despite the absence of any evidence, and even in the face of complete evidence to the contrary, the university, in total violation of all known rules of due process, can convict the accused—indeed, conviction on accusation alone is mandatory in American universities—and destroy the reputation of the accused along with his ability to continue his education.
In the article below federal courts confronted with these mandatory university convictions of white males have overturned them, ruling against the universities’ violations of due process. The corrupt university administrations are serving Identity Politics, not justice.
A Terrible College Case Shows The High Cost of ‘Believe Women’
UC Santa Barbara Case Demonstrates Why…
Authored by DAVID FRENCH via The National Review
There is no substitute for evidence and due process
Through much of the last month, the American people have been treated to a version of the emotional and ideological argument that’s dominated the American academy for much of the last ten years. The argument goes something like this: Women rarely lie about rape. Thus, the failure of criminal or civil justice systems to achieve overwhelming rates of conviction or impose liability at the rates of predation means that fundamental reform is mandatory.
Consequently, we must make it easier for women to bring claims, protect them from the rigors of proving claims, and utilize decision-makers trained to understand and respond to the unique trauma of victims. Moreover, when considering sexual-assault claims outside of courts, understand that due process is less important when a man’s liberty isn’t at stake. After all, a campus court isn’t a criminal trial. It’s an evaluation of academic suitability.
The result of this argument has been wholesale national “reform” — part of it mandated by the Obama administration’s Department of Education, and part of it willingly undertaken by colleges themselves — that has caused universities to lower burdens of proof, channel serious claims into summary proceedings, restrict the ability to cross-examine witnesses, and even limit access to evidence in an effort to streamline the process of punishing sex offenders.
It’s been a disaster.
From coast to coast, accused students — typically men punished for sexual assault with barely a chance to defend themselves — are filing lawsuits containing often-shocking claims. Judges, accustomed to the value of due process, often find themselves stunned at the unfairness of campus proceedings. And if you think that wrongful convictions for sexual assault aren’t serious because the men don’t go to prison, well then talk to the young men whose careers and reputations are shattered before they’ve had a chance to build a life.
In the days after the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, when the op-ed pages were still filled with examples of women’s rage, a California state court of appeals handed down a decision in a case against the University of California–Santa Barbara that should remind us all of the high costs of a rush to judgment.
It should remind us all of the value of due process.
The facts of the case are relatively simple. After a night of drinking, a female student (“Jane Roe”) fell asleep on a mattress that was pressed up against a living room wall. Later that evening, a male student (“John Doe”) became intoxicated and lay down on the same mattress. She was under the covers. He was fully clothed on top of the covers, with his back to Jane. There were two eyewitnesses sitting on a couch, talking less than three feet away.
Jane testified that she woke up to discover that John was molesting her. She was too terrified at first to cry out and then finally, when the assault ended, screamed for everyone to get out of the apartment. John denied the claims and instead claimed that he first heard Jane’s story when “she woke [him] up by basically yelling about someone hurting her.”
The two eyewitnesses testified that it would be “physically impossible” and “not physically possible” for Jane’s claims to be correct. They saw Jane wake up “confused, disoriented, and mumbling in foreign languages.” They thought she was having a bad dream.
Jane reported the alleged assault to police, and two days later submitted to an exam by the city’s Sexual Assault Response Team. The police did not take any action against John. The university, however, did. After a hearing, it sentenced him to a two-year (eight-quarter) suspension.
The university hearing was a carnival funhouse of due-process violations. First, the university allowed a detective to testify about a report that allegedly indicated that “bruising/laceration [was] noted in the anal area” without producing the actual report. The parts of the report the university did produce did not contain any such language. Moreover, the detective couldn’t say whether the finding could have any other cause. Testifying about a report the accused wasn’t able to see violates the “best evidence rule” — an evidentiary standard that “precludes oral testimony to prove the content of a writing.”
That’s basic stuff, yet it was only the beginning of the university’s problems.
Next, the university only disclosed to John the day before the hearing the fact that Jane was taking an antidepressant called Viibryd. When John tried to ask Jane about the consequences of mixing Viibryd and alcohol, she declined to answer the question. When John tried to introduce evidence that Viibryd “has many side-effects” that “become severe when alcohol is consumed . . . such as hallucinations and sleep paralysis and night terrors” the university declined to consider it. The reason? He couldn’t produce a qualified expert.As the court of appeals noted, this “placed John in a catch-22; he learned the name of the medication Jane was taking too late to allow him to obtain an expert opinion, but the Committee precluded John from offering evidence of the side effects of Viibryd without an expert.”
And that’s not all. John was forced to represent himself. His lawyer could only advise and support, but the university allowed its general counsel to “actively participate and to make formal evidentiary objections.” As a consequence, “A student, whose counsel cannot actively participate, is set up for failure because he or she lacks the legal training and experience to respond effectively to formal evidentiary objections.”
So, let’s review — the university violated a basic rule of evidence, withheld key information from John until the day before the hearing, refused to let him question the accuser about that information, and then allowed its lawyer to render objections to John’s case. The court’s conclusion was stinging: “It is ironic,” said the court “that an institution of higher learning, where American history and government are taught, should stray so far from the principles that underlie our democracy.”
In other words, the university stacked the deck. It biased the proceedings against John, and in so doing violated his fundamental constitutional rights. Note that the court did not excuse these violations because it was ruling on a mere academic hearing. Bad processes hurt people, even when those bad processes don’t result in prison.
I’m singling out the UCSB case simply because it is so recent. It’s but one example among many. In fact, two weeks before the California court handed down its opinion, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a case that Brooklyn College professor K. C. Johnson — perhaps the nation’s foremost expert on Title IX adjudications — called “unusually troubling, even in the Title IX realm.”
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The guilty finding led to a loss of the accused student’s ROTC scholarship and Navy career, after a process in which the accuser neither appeared at the hearing to speak and answer questions, but didn’t even submit a statement to the hearing. (The evidence in the case was a Title IX investigator’s report and a statement written on the accuser’s behalf by a university counselor.) The complaint alleged that the accused student had no chance to present exculpatory witnesses, including a roommate who said that the alleged assault never occurred.
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As Judge [Amy Coney] Barrett noted, “It was a credibility contest in which you not only did not hear directly from [the accuser], you didn’t even read words that she had written.”
I wonder if that student is consoled that its “only” his Navy career at stake. The goal of any adjudication is justice, and centuries of experience have taught us that justice is elusive when due process is denied. We cannot have our culture believe that the way of the university is the way forward for our nation. The guiding principles should be clear. Respect women and hear their claims. But “believe women”? No, believe evidence, and give every accused a fair opportunity to defend his liberty, his education, and his career.
Just imagine that if the Democrats, who in their glory represented the working class, were to achieve political power and appoint federal judges. No white heterosexual male would be safe. Under the Democrats’ Identity Politics, white heterosexual males are automatically guilty. Due process is not needed. By definition, white heterosexual males are racists, misogynists, and rapists. No evidence is needed.
I am waiting for the case when a white university female brings a rape case against a black university male. It will be interesting to see how the university chooses which side to take. In such a case we have two victims of “white male supremacy.” Which victim will prevail against the other victim. Will the university come down on the side of the protected black or on the side of the protected female? Or will the university decide that the rape was actually done by a white male pretending to be a black.
This question illustrates the complete breakdown of American society.
Most likely this deplorable situation is the case throughout the Western World. Society is so divided that there is no society there. And the idiot Russians want to join us!
To be truthful, there is nothing left of Western civilization, and the fault is not Russia’s, China’s, Iran’s, or Venezuela’s. It is our own.
We are an insouciant people, unconcerned, ignorant, worried only about unimportant things, kept ignorant and confused by a media that serves only the One Percent.
The American people, indeed the people of the West, have no awareness that they are headed into total destruction, if not by climate change, if not by nuclear war, then by societal collapse.
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- "Dead" Ukrainian Fugitive Found Living Like A King In Actual French Castle
A “high-profile” Ukrainian fugitive who faked his own death was discovered hiding out in a 12th-century French feudal castle known as Château de La Rochepot, living like a king, according to Bloomberg. The man allegedly forged death certificates to evade authorities following an anti-corruption crackdown in which he stands accused of stealing 12 million euros from a private company between March to May of 2015.
The fugitive, identified only as the “King of the Castle” by the European Union’s law-enforcement agency Europol, was detained on Oct. 5 near Dijon, according to a Tuesday statement. Officers recovered 4.6 million euros ($5.3 million) of property, including a 12th-century feudal castle, a vintage Rolls Royce Phantom, jewelry and three works of art by Salvador Dali. In parallel, the spokeswoman of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said the country will seek to extradite Dmytro Malynovskyi from France. –Bloomberg
According to Europol, “The suspect is thought to be behind a complex case of international fraud and money laundering.”
French @Gendarmerie arrest Ukrainian ‘King of the Castle’ and seized over EUR 4 million, with Europol’s support. The suspect is thought to be behind a complex case of international #fraud and #moneylaundering.
Read more: https://t.co/esIVkLwzDN pic.twitter.com/vC6LHzO3g3— Europol (@Europol) October 16, 2018
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Malynovskyi was found after French police launched a January investigation over alleged suspicious transactions related to the purchase of the castle for 3 million euros by a Luxembourg shell company “whose ultimate beneficial owner was a Ukrainian citizen suspected of corruption at a large scale in his country.”
In other news, you can buy a giant French castle for a 3 million Euros ($3.4 million USD) – about the same price as a 1,400 sqft house in Palo Alto, CA.
vs.
The “King of the Castle” was arrested with three accomplices, according to Europol – which coordinated with French, Ukrainian and Luxembourg authorities to determine that Malynovskyi used false death certificates, and “was not only alive, but was enjoying a lavish lifestyle in France.”
The arrests highlight how graft remains a key political issue for Ukraine even after a 2014 revolution toppled then-President Viktor Yanukovych and exposed massive government corruption and bribery. The International Monetary Fund made the creation of an anti-corruption court a condition of unlocking its $17.5 billion bailout. Non-residents based in Ukraine were among customers implicated in about 200 billion euros that flowed through the Estonian unit of Danske Bank A/S between 2007 and 2015, much of which the lender regarded as suspicious. –Bloomberg
In a Tuesday Facebook post, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it had prepared documents to seek the extradition of Malynovskyi.
“The ‘resurrected’ citizen forged his death certificate and is now using a forged passport of a foreign country,” said spokeswoman Larysa Sargan.
A Dijon investigative magistrate leading the case charged two men of dual Ukrainian and Moldavian nationality and subsequently placed them in pretrial detention, the gendarmerie said in its separate statement. Two women, also dual nationals from the same countries, were charged and then released. –Bloomberg
Swiss Authorities separately froze $2 million in accounts belonging to Sergey Kurchenko, an ally of Kanukovych, at the request of Ukrainian law enforcement.
- What's Going On In Idlib, Syria's Demilitarized Zone?
In mid-September, Putin and Turkey’s Erdogan agreed on establishing a 15 – 20 km-wide demilitarized zone in Idlib province along the Turkish border.
Russian and Turkish forces will control the zone, an offensive to liberate Idlib put on hold at least until later this year, maybe not until 2019.
Full withdrawal of US-supported terrorists was to be completed by October 15, the deadline missed because al-Nusra and allied jihadists refuse to disarm and leave – likely at the behest of Washington, their paymaster.
According to AMN News, Syria’s military “demand(s) answers regarding the(ir) failed…withdrawal from the designated buffer zone,” adding:
“(T)he Syrian Arab Army’s High Command is in talks with the Russian military about the next steps to take in the Idlib, Aleppo, Latakia, and Hama provinces” in response to noncompliance with the buffer zone agreement – by US-supported terrorists.
A Syrian military source said jihadists in Idlib continue attacking government forces and civilians, explaining:
They’re “strengthening their positions, digging new trenches and expanding their network of underground tunnels,” digging in for continued battle.
Al-Nusra, its affiliate Guardians of Religion Organization, and the Turkistan Islamic Party of Syria intend remaining in their positions, including strategic high ground and nearby areas held, using them as platforms for continued shelling.
Idlib is the last major stronghold of US-supported terrorists in Syria, controlled by tens of thousands of jihadists.
On Monday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Idlib’s demilitarized zone agreement is untenable if al-Nusra and other jihadists fail to comply, saying:
“We cannot keep quiet about the continuation of the current situation in Idlib if the Nusra Front refuses to comply with this agreement,” adding:
“After liberating territory east of the Euphrates River, freeing Idlib from terrorists’ control is the next objective, stressing the province will be returned to Syrian sovereignty.
If the Russian/Turkish demilitarized zone isn’t implemented, Damascus will take other options to eliminate al-Nusra and other terrorists in Idlib, he said.
“Because (millions of) Syrian citizens in Idlib, and it is not their fault, we said that the liberation of Idlib with reconciliation is much better than the bloodshed. Syria’s support for the (Moscow/Ankara) Sochi agreement came from its desire not to shed blood,” al-Moallem explained.
Commenting on US occupied territory in the country, he stressed the importance of liberating it from their presence, returning the entire nation to Syrian control.
“(W)e still consider Turkey a state that is occupying our territories. Therefore, our armed forces cannot participate with their forces in any operation east of the Euphrates,” he stressed.
Head of Russia’s reconciliation center in Syria Vladimir Savchenko blamed the Trump regime for the failure of al-Nusra and other jihadists to withdraw from Idlib’s demilitarized zone, saying:
Because of US “inaction,” they “establish(ed) control over a 20-kilometer strip on the Euphrates’ east bank between the settlements of Hajin and al-Susa,” adding:
US forces continue “simulat(ing)” fighting against ISIS terrorists they support. Days earlier, their fighters abducted 700 civilians during an attack on a refugee camp near al-Bahrah, holding them hostage as human shields.
On Tuesday, Iraqi General Dia al-Wakil blasted Washington, saying its so-called coalition supports the scourge of ISIS it pretends to oppose.
“I do not believe that the (US-led) international coalition wants to bring an end to terrorism in the region,” he said, adding:
“Under the cover of the ‘fight against terrorism,’ US forces can remain and strengthen here. Behind this are economic goals. Americans need oil and arms sales contracts.”
ISIS and other terrorists are deployed where the US wants them used. Their fighters are “simply transferred to a given point” from another, including from one country to another.
“We have already seen how terrorists moved throughout the region before the international coalition’s very eyes,” transported by Pentagon helicopters. It happens repeatedly.
ISIS “has not been destroyed, but will still be used in political struggles, especially amid instability in the Middle East.” The same goes for al-Qaeda, its al-Nusra offshoot, and other terrorist groups.
Separately, Iranian Foreign Ministry official Jaberi Ansari said a massacre in Idlib by al-Nusra and/or other terrorists is Tehran’s red line.
It would have “grave humanitarian and moral, as well as political costs, which is unacceptable,” he said – no further elaboration added on how Iran might respond.
- Leaked Files Confirm Julian Assange Plan To Move To Moscow
A month after the Associated Press published internal WikiLeaks files which suggested the transparency organization’s founder Julian Assange had since 2010 contemplated moving to Russia — outside the reach of US and UK authorities — newly released Ecuadorean government documents have revealed a more elaborate plan to escape to Moscow by using Ecuadorean diplomatic cover.
The documents show that the plan was being pursued as recently as 2017, and involved Assange being transferred from his Ecuadorean embassy hideout — where he’s been stuck for the last six years — via a politically sensitive process whereby Ecuador would name him as a political counselor to the country’s embassy in Moscow.
Image via Ars Technica/Reuters Should the plan have succeeded, Assange could have possibly freely exited the UK for Russia as an official diplomat for Ecuador with all the legal protections afforded such status. However, British authorities vetoed his diplomatic status and refused to recognize such a designation, which ultimately blocked the plan from coming to fruition.
According to the AP, which has linked to the 167 pages of Spanish language secret internal government documents, Assange was actually for a brief period made “political counselor” to the Ecuadorean Embassy in Moscow:
The files were made public late Tuesday by Ecuadorean opposition lawmaker Paola Vintimilla, who opposes her government’s decision to grant Assange nationality. They largely corroborate a recent Guardian newspaper report that Ecuador attempted the elaborate maneuver to get Assange to Moscow just before Christmas last year.
Russian diplomats called the Guardian’s story “fake news,” but the government files show Assange briefly was made “political counselor” to the Ecuadorean Embassy in Moscow and eligible for a monthly salary pegged at $2,000.
It appears the leaks are part of an organized opposition plan to quash any possible future escape or transfer attempts before they materialize.
The files show Ecuador went so far as to apply for Assange’s diplomatic ID card — something which the British vetoed. One letter dated December 21, 2017 released as part of the leaked trove on Tuesday shows Britain’s Foreign Office said U.K. officials “do not consider Mr. Julian Assange to be an acceptable member of the mission.”
And subsequent to this, the AP reports, an eight-page memo to parliamentarian Paolo Vintimilla said that Assange’s position as counselor was revoked a few days later. The memo had further summarized the entirety of the plan to allow Assange to escape UK soil under cover of diplomatic protection.
From the documents:
Here’s the staffing note laying out Assange’s would-be job in Moscow, complete with salary. We’ll hopefully have it another docs up soon. pic.twitter.com/AWNrPlUHQU— Raphael Satter (@razhael) October 17, 2018
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Thus far neither the British Foreign Office nor the Russian Embassy in London have issued comment. A number of political leaders and media pundits in the West have long accused Assange and WikiLeaks of being an arm of Russian intelligence, and they’ll most certainly seize upon these new files to continue such allegations; however, with Assange’s physical and also possibly mental health reportedly deteriorating after six years of confinement within the small embassy space, it makes perfect sense that he would attempt any way out possible — while further seeking the protections of any sympathetic government.
In 2013 Edward Snowden fled to Moscow after going public with thousands of classified NSA files from Hong Kong which revealed an extensive illegal domestic spying network by the United States government. Snowden has been granted a permit by the Russian government to stay until at least 2020, and he’s reportedly residing at an undisclosed location in or around Moscow.
It appears Assange too was hoping to make it to Russian soil under Ecuadorean cover where he also might have eventually been granted such a deal.
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