Aug 01

Today’s News 1st August 2018

  • Spain Overtakes Italy For Migrant Arrivals

    There were dramatic scenes on a Spanish beach packed with tourists on Friday when a dinghy crammed with migrants landed in the surf. Its occupants quickly scattered among the holidaymakers with the police in pursuit. It was a busy weekend for the Spanish authorities who managed to rescue nearly 1,000 migrants from the Mediterranean with 200 pulled from 10 boats on Saturday.

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    Even though Europe has experienced a dramatic decline in migrant arrivals along the Mediterranean coast, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that more than 1,500 people have died attempting to make the crossing for the fifth year in a row.

    While the amount of arrivals in Italy has fallen considerably, Spain is experiencing a surge in traffic. Between 1 January and 25 July 2017, 94,448 migrants made their way to Italy and that fell to 18,130 during the same period in 2018, according to the IOM.

    Infographic: Spain Overtakes Italy For Migrant Arrivals | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Spain only counted 6,513 Mediterranean arrivals in the first seven months of 2017 and that has now climbed steeply to 20,992 between 1 January and 25 July 2018. Libya has clamped down on human traffickers and that has resulted in higher numbers of people attempting to make the crossing from Algeria and Morocco.

  • "Doomsday Weapon" – How Could The West Respond To Russia's Underwater Nuke Drone?

    Mikhail Khodarenok, military commentator for Gazeta.ru, via RT.com,

    US and British navies could counter Russia’s nuclear-powered autonomous torpedo, Poseidon, by using undersea sensors and anti-submarine aircraft, writes Covert Shores website. But is this really a viable tactic?

    The development of the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), originally known as ‘Status-6’, was first mentioned in November 2015. Western media later dubbed the submarine drone a doomsday weapon. 

    On March 1, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially confirmed the weapon’s existence in his annual address to the Federal Assembly.

    “We have developed unmanned submersible vehicles that can move at great depths – I would say extreme depths – intercontinentally, at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, cutting-edge torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels,” said Putin.

    It is reported that the main goal of the torpedo is to deliver a thermonuclear warhead to enemy shores in order to destroy important coastal infrastructure and industrial objects, as well as ensure massive damage to the enemy’s territory by subjecting vast areas to radioactive tsunamis and other devastating consequences of a nuclear explosion.

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    Another potential use for the Poseidon torpedo is to strike US aircraft carrier battle groups.

    On December 8, 2016, US intelligence reported that, on November 27, Russia had conducted a test of a nuclear-powered UUV, launched from a B-90 Sarov-class submarine. In February, the Pentagon officially added Status-6 to Russia’s nuclear triad by mentioning it in the US Nuclear Posture Review.

    At present, the technical specifications of Poseidon torpedoes are classified information. So far, it is known that the UUV is over 19 meters in length and almost two meters in width. Earlier, it was assumed that Poseidon would be equipped with a 100-megaton thermonuclear warhead that could obliterate entire coastal cities and cause destruction further inland, triggering tsunamis laden with radioactive fallout.

    However, according to the latest information, the power of the Poseidon’s warhead is just two megatons. But this does not change much. This amount of nuclear material is still enough to destroy large coastal cities, naval bases and cause a tsunami.

    In addition, a warhead of this class could easily wipe out any carrier strike group of the US Navy.

    According to some reports, Poseidon can develop speeds up to 70 knots, which is faster than any US nuclear submarine or anti-ship torpedo. The operational depth of the Poseidon is more than a thousand meters, which also significantly exceeds the capabilities of US submarines.

    According to Covert Shores, the new Russian UUV can be located with the help of Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV).

    ACTUV drone is a DARPA-financed US project to develop an unmanned ship designed to detect and track enemy submarines with the help of sonars. It is assumed that the vessel will not be equipped with weapons of any kind and will be used solely for reconnaissance purposes – however, this may change in the future.

    Sea floor sensor networks, including sonar buoys could also be deployed by maritime patrol aircraft, such as Boeing’s P-8 Poseidon, to locate the Russian UUV, according to Covert Shores.

    “Strangely enough, Covert Shores doesn’t mention the SOSUS system,” Rear Admiral Arkady Syroezhko, ex-chief of the autonomous vehicles program of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, told Gazeta.ru.

    SOSUS is the US sound surveillance system for detecting and identifying submarines. It should be noted, however, that this system will be deployed only on the frontiers – for example, in the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, and the UK) gap, along the North Cape – Medvezhy Island line, in the Denmark Strait, and in a couple of other places. So it would be a mistake to believe that the SOSUS system is deployed in all parts of the global ocean. In the Pacific, for instance, it is hardly used at all.

    Syroezhko believes that, when it comes to tracking underwater objects, the key thing is to select the right location for the tracking system. But it’s very difficult to determine where Poseidon might appear, given its almost unlimited range and high speed.

    Also, according to Syroezhko, tracking Poseidon is only half the battle. To destroy the UUV, you need to have a permanent and combat-ready counter system, which means having forces and equipment on constant alert and ready for deployment. But the US doesn’t have such a system yet. To deploy such a system would require substantial financial resources — even for the US.

    As for the capabilities of our hypothetical enemies to destroy the Poseidon, they are extremely limited.

    “Today the MU90 Impact is the only NATO torpedo capable of reaching the depth of 1,000 meters,” Konstantin Makienko, deputy director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Gazeta.ru.

    The expert emphasizes that a single torpedo of this class costs over $2 million. Also, according to other military experts, even in a high-speed mode (92 km/h), which decreases its range significantly, this torpedo is still slower than the Poseidon.

    Makienko says that the Mark 54, which is the fastest US Navy torpedo, operates at 74 km/h. He believes that it is not capable of catching up with Poseidon or reaching its operational depth.

    “Until we see a live experiment, any claims about the potential detection or destruction of the Poseidon are completely groundless. Thus far, all we hear is just words,” says the former Chief of Staff of the Russian Navy Viktor Kravchenko.

    Currently no hypothetical adversary has a weapon capable of overtaking the Poseidon UUV at its operational depth or reaching its speeds, says Syroezhko.

  • India To Purchase US Missile Shield For National Capital Region

    To safeguard major cities across India, the government is in discussion with Washington to procure the next-generation air defense system to protect the National Capital Region (NCR) from Chinese or Pakistani aerial threats.

    The process for procuring the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System-II (NASAMS-II), a distributed and networked medium to long-range air-defense system, is currently underway, which includes new missile shields to replace outdated systems.

    Indian sources say the defense acquisitions council (DAC), chaired by defense minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has approved the “acceptance of necessity (AoN) for the acquisition of the NASAMS-II worth around $1 billion.”

    Sources told The Times of India that the Delhi Area Air Defence Plan, which includes Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parliament, North, and South Blocks, could soon deploy these new multi-tiered air defense networks to adequately secure its airspace from incoming fighter aircraft, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

    The NASAMS-II, armed with the three-dimensional Sentinel radars, short and medium-range rockets, multiple ground launchers, fire-distribution centers, and command and control units to rapidly detect, track and shoot down multiple airborne threats, is the same air defense system embedded in Washington, D.C, NATO countries, and Israeli cities.

    India’s move to quickly acquire NASAMS-II comes as the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is nearing completion of developing its two-tier ballistic missile defense (BMD) shield, which is designed to intercept nuclear missiles over the country.

    “Once the Phase-I of the BMD system is operational, it will be deployed to protect cities like Delhi and Mumbai from long-range missiles with a 2,000-km strike range. The NASAMS, in turn, is geared towards intercepting cruise missiles, aircraft and drones,” said a source.

    The Times of India notes that the government has kept a $2 billion procurement of two dozen Sikorsky MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters on pending status till the “two-plus-two” dialogue between New Delhi and Washington on September 06.

    Before granting AoN on the MH-60 Black Hawks, India wants to “assess the US response” on different subjects, including its sanctions regime under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) that attempts to block India from purchasing Russian armaments or Iranian energy.

    “The AoN for the helicopters, which are used to detect, track and hunt enemy submarines, has been deferred till September. Earlier also, it was not fielded in the DAC after US abruptly cancelled the two-plus-two dialogue (between Sitharaman and foreign minister Sushma Swaraj with their American counterparts, Jim Mattis and Mike Pompeo) slated for July,” said a source. Indian sources later explained to The Times of India that it was due to US’s upcoming engagement with North Korea.

    The Times of India said Washington is moving towards granting a waiver to India from CAATSA, which means certain trade restrictions pertaining to Russia and Iran could be lifted.

    India is nearing the final stages in acquiring the Russian S-400 Triumf missile system despite strong criticism from Washington, which could be the trade-off Washington needs to solidify the NASAMS-II transfer. Since 2007, Washington has sold $15 billion in military weapons to India.

    As part of efforts to strengthen the country’s aerial security, India is in the process of deploying missile shields over critical cities across the country as the probability of conflict between China and Pakistan increases.

  • "You Are Criminalizing Diplomacy!" Professor Stephen Cohen Slams Neocon Max Boot In CNN Debate

    Stephen Cohen schooled prominent ‘Never Trump’ neocon and Council on Foreign Relations member Max Boot on CNN’s Anderson Cooper this week on the Trump-Putin Helsinki summit and general charges related to ‘Russiagate’. 

    It’s worth watching especially as it underscores why recognized academic experts are rarely given airtime on the mainstream networks if their perspective lies outside the accepted media group-think on Russia. 

    “I‘ve been studying Russia for 45 years,” Professor Stephen Cohen said as the debate got heated. “I‘ve lived in Russia, and I’ve lived here.”

    But predictably Boot cut him off, leveling the standard ad hominem that’s become the standard fallback retort to any ‘contrarian’ analysis, saying Cohen has been “consistently an apologist for Russia those 45 years.”

    “I don’t do defamation of people, I do serious analysis of serious national security problems,” Professor Cohen responded. “When people like you call people like me, and not only me, but people more eminent than me, apologists for Russia because we don’t agree with your analysis, you are criminalizing diplomacy and detente and you are the threat to American national security, end of story.”

    “Why do you have to defame somebody you don’t agree with?” Cohen continued. “They used to do that in the old Soviet Union.”

    Cohen’s credentials as professor emeritus at Princeton and New York University, author of numerous books on Russian history, and among the world’s most recognized analysts on modern Russia are without parallel when compared to the usual neocon ‘experts’ like Boot, who regularly appear on the network panels and in the op-ed columns.

    Cohen said he doesn’t find anything “unusual” about the Helsinki summit — especially nothing worth the level of broad 24/7 media push back that Trump’s private meeting with Putin received. Cohen and Boot sparred over what exactly the two leaders may have discussed, including possibly a resolution related to Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. 

    Anderson Cooper posed the following question with an incredulous look on his face: “You’re believing Vladimir Putin on this?”

    Cohen responded, “You have to take Putin’s word this is what they talked about,” and added, “I don’t want to shock you, but I believe Vladimir Putin on several things.”

    Of course this was too much for the Cooper and Boot — the latter which promptly charged Cohen with being a “Putin apologist”. 

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    Boot said elsewhere in the interview that “a lot of intelligence officials think that there is something highly suspect in the relationship between Putin and Trump” based merely on the supposed unwillingness of Trump to level personal criticism against the Russian leader the he does others. 

    Cohen responded, “I have no idea what Mr. Boot is talking about… He wants Trump to threaten Russia? Why would we threaten Russia?”

    Boot followed with, “Because they’re attacking us, Professor Cohen. Russia is attacking us right now according to Trump’s own director of national intelligence.”

    After an intense back-and-forth in which Boot again lazily accused the scholar of being a Putin apologist, Cohen concluded, “I think that Mr Boot would have been happy if Trump had waterboarded Putin at the summit and made him confess.” He said, “Trump carried out an act of diplomacy fully consistent with the history of American presidency. Let us see what comes out of it, then judge.”

    * * *

    Professor Cohen has a history of challenging powerful media figures, which is why his appearances on networks like CNN or MSNBC are very infrequent, despite his status as a world authority. 

    For example at the height of the 2014 Ukraine crisis he made Christiane Amanpour so frazzled that she began yelling antagonistically for show host Wolf Blitzer “to be very careful” in allowing what she called “pro-Russian” views to be expressed across CNN airwaves.

    Christiane Amanpour in 2014: We cannot allow “pro-Russian” perspectives on CNN! (begins at 2:25 mark)

  • Florida Launches Gun Confiscation Program, 467 Forced To Surrender Guns

    More than 467 people in Florida have been ordered by the government to surrender their firearms since March under a new law passed after the deadly Parkland shooting in February, according to a local ABC broadcaster.

    The Risk Protection Order, is a “Red Flag” law that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed several weeks after former student Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in March, allows the local government to disarm the civilian population if a judge determines they are a threat to themselves or others.

    Under the new law, state officials have the ability to file risk-protection petitions against irresponsible gun owners in court, which could result in local law enforcement stripping that individual of the second amendment.

    Recently, Sgt. Jason Schmittendorf, who is employed by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office, told ABC News that Tampa Bay officers have “taken in about 200 firearms and around 30,000 rounds of ammunition.”

    “You’ve got an AK-47 style here and an AR-15 style there. We’ve got some rifles and a cache of handguns,” said Schmittendorf, who showed the ABC News team some of the weapons confiscated under the new law.

    Sgt. Jason Schmittendorf of Pinellas Counties Risk Protection Order Unit speaks with ABC reporter Katie LaGrone (Source/ ABC) 

    Here are some of the weapons confiscated by officers (Source/ ABC)

    The Sheriff’s office has assembled a five-person team devoted to working only risk protection cases. Since March, the group has filed 64 risk protection petitions in court, the second highest number of cases in the state. Broward County leads with 88 risk protection petitions (as of early-July).

    “It’s a constitutional right to bear arms and when you are asking the court to deprive somebody of that right we need to make sure we are making good decisions, right decisions and the circumstances warrant it,” explained Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri when asked by ABC News why he decided to form an entire unit dedicated to upholding the new law.

    To get more clarity on Sheriff Gualtieri’s thought process, he also happens to be the chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, a task force designed to prevent future school shootings.

    Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri (Source/ ABC)

    Since March, ABC has learned that the new law has had over 467 risk protection cases filed across the state (as of July 24th), according to the FL Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DOACS). DOACS is in charge of gun permitting in Florida and is informed when a petition is filed. An agency spokesperson told ABC that “over a quarter of risk protection cases filed so far involve concealed license firearm holders whose license temporarily is suspended once the order is granted.”

    However, attorney Kendra Parris — who believes the new law could be disastrous — disagrees with the idea that state officials are making the right decisions. “I think we’re doing this because it makes us feel safer,” said Parris, in an interview with ABC. “What’s wrong with that,” asked reporter Katie LaGrone. “It violates the constitution,” responded Parris.

    Kendra Parris, Attorney, seen in an interview with reporter Katie LaGrone  (Source/ ABC)

    After four-and-a-half months of the new law, Parris believes Florida’s version of the “Red Flag” law has revealed some important grey areas that need to be addressed: including state officials targeting citizens with risk-protection petitions who do not have histories of violence or mental illness.

    “These are individuals who are often exercising their first amendment rights online, who are protecting constitutionally protected speech online,” she said. “Maybe it was odious, maybe people didn’t like it but they were hit with the risk protection order because of it,” she said.

    Parris told ABC News that she represented University of Central Florida student, Chris Velasquez, who made national headlines in March when Orlando police filed a risk protection petition after he spoke highly of mass shooters on social media.

    In another case, Parris describes, a minor, who said she wanted to kill people on social media.

    Parris mentioned that in both cases, the individuals did not own guns and both won their court cases.

    “The people whom I’ve represented fought back because they care about their future not because they cared about owning firearms,” she told ABC.

    Parris suggested that the law needs to be redefined to only target citizens with proof of gun ownership or who have histories of attempting to purchase one. In addition, she said the law needs to have a better understanding of who is an “imminent” threat and who is a “threat.”

    “As it’s written now the harm can be in 6 months or maybe in a year this person will go crazy, we don’t know but out of an abundance of caution we need to get this risk protection in place,” she said.

    According to ABC News, Pinellas County has the majority of risk protection cases in the state and most involve people with mental illness.

    With “Red Flag” Laws popping up across the country, it seems as the government’s plan to strip civilians of their firearms is already in motion.

  • Japan, China Markets Turmoiling

    As the first full trading day since The BoJ shifted policy ever-so-gently, Japanese bond yields have blown out, spiking to 11bps. At the same time, Chinese stocks and Yuan are sliding on the heels of Trump’s tariff escalation.

    It seems no one was interested in buying 10Y JGBs as Kuroda faces his first test…

    “The market is more likely to test an upside to bond yields sooner or later given the BOJ allows wider deviations in the 10-year yield, and the yen will probably strengthen during the process,” Kato said.

    The policy tweak “points to a distant-future exit and thus is a catalyst for yen strength in the medium-to-long term.”

    This is the widest intraday range since 2016…

     

    The offshore yuan slipped as China weakened its fixing for the currency to the lowest since May 2017.

    “The tariff issue is ongoing, I think it’s a negotiating tactic,” Nick Griffin, chief investment officer at Munro Partners, said on Bloomberg Television.

    “How much we take of this as real and affecting earnings is questionable at this stage. In terms of an actual earnings effect, it’s not that big at the moment, it’s mainly just sentiment and risk appetite and for that it’s a moving feast.”

    And that is continuing to weigh on Chinese stocks at the break…

    And US Futures have been unable to rebound for now…

     

  • The Real 'Useful Idiots': How Our Intelligence Agencies Helped Putin Weaken America

    Authored by John O’Connor, op-ed via The Daily Caller,

    Today, no informed American citizen should have any doubt but that the Russian government attempted to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, one clear purpose having been to sow discord in the electorate. Many of these citizens, on both the left and right, have as well questioned President Trump’s rhetorical conflation of the question of Russian meddling, clearly proven, with the issue of Russian collusion, glaringly unproven. But this rhetorical confusion, obvious to all, is of little serious consequence beyond the political sniping it engenders.

    However, such resulting kerfuffles, unfortunately, divert focus from a far more critical issue of whether our intelligence agencies, directed by politicized partisans, have analytically conflated this Russian meddling with a Russian bias for Trump, in turn corroborating in their assessment the Russian collusion narrative.

    If such conflation has occurred, our intelligence agencies were either shamefully duped, or, worse, were enticed into intentionally framing a disliked political figure. In either case, these agencies would have helped Putin sow discord in America, the very wrongdoing they were sworn to investigate fully and fairly.

    While such questions demand, as would be expected, declassification and production of key documents, quite fortunately American citizens are not foreclosed by agency stonewalling from examining the infamous Steele dossier for at least partial and tentative answers. What these documents suggest to any critical thinker is that either because of frank partisan dishonesty or dumbfounding credulity, born of political bias, these former officials have thrown our country into divisive turmoil, weakening it beyond Vladimir Putin’s fondest dreams, as well hurting America’s standing in the eyes of the world.

    Before we delve deeply into this subject, let’s examine prefatorily what this Steele dossier is and what it isn’t. Many on the right see the Steele dossier as the flawed beginning of the Russian collusion investigation, just as many on the left had viewed it earlier as both the start and the solid heart of the investigation. Both are in error: the Steele dossier was in fact the Hail Mary pass thrown by American intelligence to get a FISA warrant after seven months of failure to prove an electoral conspiracy.

    While now discredited, it figures prominently in Congressional accusations against deposed officials John Brennan, James Comey, Peter Strzok, James Clapper and Bruce Ohr. For the past several months the debate on the Steele dossier has been whether it is, as the anti-Trumpers would have it, merely an “unverified” report which may ultimately be proven, or, as the Congressional majority would argue, a screed manufactured out of whole cloth.

    While this is an important argument, to be sure, the more compelling analysis is a deciphering of the meaning of the dossier under the assumption that it is literally true. What we mean by “literally true” is not that Trump and Putin colluded because Putin wanted Trump to win, but rather that it is true that Kremlin sources verified the collusion narrative to Steele researchers. If they did, the implications would be profound.

    If Kremlin sources in fact conveyed the Russia-Trump collusion narrative to Steele, the narrative would thereby likely be untrue. This is because Putin’s Kremlin would never easily and voluntarily reveal its true plans to a group affiliated with America political interests and Western intelligence, which the Steele/Nellie Ohr group obviously represented.

    In addition to relying on the shadowy Sergei Millian for confirmation of the collusion narrative on behalf of the Trump campaign, the Steele dossier purported to rely on numerous “Kremlin sources” or sources “close to Putin” or other high Russian officials. These supposedly knowledgeable sources lent the Steele dossier its formerly-touted authoritative power. But even though it is now acknowledged that the Steele dossier is a form of rubbish, the degree of stink debated, we should not merely toss it into the trash, because it still has much to tell us.

    That is so because we can all agree that any substantive statement issuing from the Kremlin, or officials close to Putin or other top officials, would likely have been approved by Putin himself. Let’s put it another way: if a Kremlin official disclosed a purported strategy of Putin he did not want revealed, would he see his skin curdle, or would his internal organs liquify, as the first symptom he had been poisoned by the SVR?

    In any case, let us assume some degree of professional standards practiced by ex-MI6 agent Steele and his main researcher, Nellie Ohr, who previously worked for Open Source Works, the CIA’s in-house open source research shop. We would not reasonably expect that they simply fictionalized their sources, but, rather, actually spoke to individuals who claimed knowledge, even if in fact only hearsay and rumor.

    We can further assume that Steele and Ohr had no means of coercing reluctant, and therefore likely true, statements from these sources. Indeed, a cursory reading of the dossier describes a group of highly talkative sources readily volunteering information. It is this eager divulging of information which cause any critical observer to assume that anything offered was Kremlin misdirection.

    Given these unassailably logical suppositions, it is very easy to view the Steele dossier as one big piece of Putin/Kremlin disinformation designed to hurt America. The ready connivance of Russian asset Sergei Millian, falsely posing as a Trump insider, only corroborates this assessment. What was said to Steele is important not for its substantive truth, but as a true reflection of falsehoods Putin wants us to confront uncomfortably, which we are now doing. If Putin wanted Clinton and/or her close allies in the partisan CIA and FBI directorships to believe in Trump-Russian collusion, and, inevitably to politicize it, he would have caused the disclosure of exactly what he did disclose to the willfully credulous Steele group.

    No intelligent person, however, should conclude from this scenario that Putin wanted Clinton to win, a deduction that goes a bridge too far, much like the simplistic inference that Putin wanted Trump to win. After all, Putin did, we must believe from the Mueller indictment of GRU operatives, hack and release Clinton emails. Indeed, it is reasonable to believe that Putin thought hobbling the sure winner, Clinton, would be more beneficial to Russia than harming the sure loser. That said, the Steele Dossier destroys the claim that Putin’s motive was a Trump win, since such is impossible to square with treasonous and salacious anti-Trump slurs Putin seemingly condoned in those dossier documents.

    But we can come to several less extreme, more reasonable assessments. First, we can reasonably believe that Putin’s motives were mainly to sow discord in the electorate and weaken our democracy already riven by partisan discord. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, reading the Steele dossier should tell any critical reader that Trump and Putin could not have been even tentatively colluding. If in fact they were colluding, would Putin have authorized such a confirmatory narrative to be released? Alternatively, if against Putin’s wishes, would Kremlin operatives have risked their lives to reveal the plot? Neither scenario seems credible. From the moment the ink was dry on the phony Steele dossier, John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, Peter Strzok and Bruce Ohr should all have known there was no electoral collusion.

    Other events, of which these officials knew well, corroborate this collusion. If there was a collusion conspiracy in full flower, would Russian agents have approached George Papadopoulos in April 2016, to tell of hacked emails? If the collusion narrative had an ounce of truth to it, why would anyone think that Papadopoulos needed either recruiting or informing? If American intelligence really thought there was a collusion conspiracy being pursued, why would they think that Peter Stone would be interested in purchasing for Trump from an FBI informant, Henry Greenberg, hacked DNC emails in exchange for payment of $2 million? Wouldn’t the conspiracy already underway have set methods, means and terms of colluding previously agreed upon? Why would American intelligence have Stephan Halper approach Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Stephen Miller, in July 2016, if they believed the plot was already in existence, as the Steele dossier suggested? In short, an intelligence officer has to either be criminally dishonest or frighteningly credulous to have bought the Trump-Putin collusion story. There never should have been an investigation left open after the laughably phony Steele dossier, preceded by seven months of investigative goose eggs. That an investigation did proceed, to the point of a thrice-renewed FISA warrant, followed by the sneaky Comey’s chumming up of the Mueller investigation, could only have gladdened Putin’s heart.

    The collusion investigation has roiled the country, dividing it even more stridently into red-blue factionalism. The American president has just met with his Russian counterpart, amid the propitiously-timed indictment by a special counsel of twelve GRU agents. This strife, which includes absurd partisan attacks on an obviously thin-skinned president in Trump, accompanied by shrieks from a herd of shallow journalists, has presented a seriously divided and weakened front to Putin. Trump’s amateurish press conference with Putin provided only icing on this already divided cake.

    So clearly these former American intelligence officers have weakened our country, and have wittingly or unwittingly done Putin’s bidding. How much of this is a product of fraud, and how much is simply partisan credulity, should be a serious issue of future studies, hopefully soon to be accelerated with a declassification of pertinent Russiagate-related documents.

    If in fact the Russiagate investigation had a sound basis, one would think that, in addition to causing nasty leaks, these officials would be the loudest proponents of the declassification and release of key documents elucidating the grounds for the probe. So their present diffidence should be seen as a big tip-off as to what these documents will show and what they will not show.

    Brennan, Comey and the rest likely know that if key documents are to be produced, their current, absurd cries of treason will be their last hurrah. Indeed, logic suggests that they have been either dishonest or, yes, grossly negligent, in the discharge of their duties, in either case growing out of blinding partisanship. So it seems apparent that there have been no more useful idiots, pushing Putin’s malevolent designs, than the recent heads of American intelligence. We hope – without confidence – that they will soon get their just due, and American intelligence will return to an honest, nonpartisan professional enterprise.

    *  *  *

    John D. O’Connor is the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the co-author of “A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, Being ‘Deep Throat,’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington” and is a producer of “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House” (2017), written and directed by Peter Landesman.

  • Do Americans View Their Trade Relationships As Fair?

    Understandably, most people are not experts on the subject of trade.

    But, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes,  while the average person won’t likely be able to guess the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, perceptions of trade relationships in the public eye are still a crucial indicator.

    If the majority of Americans think they are getting the short end of the stick on international trade, this sentiment ultimately affects how politicians campaign, how policy decisions are made, and the success of the wider economy.

    U.S. PERCEPTIONS OF TRADE

    In today’s chart, we break down the data from a recent Gallup poll on how Americans view the country’s trade relationships.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    At a high level, here is how it looks by country:

    Source: Gallup, June 18-24, 2018

    The majority of Americans think relationships with Canada (65%), the European Union (56%), and Japan (55%) are fair. When it comes to Mexico, respondents are split (44% fair, 46% unfair).

    Meanwhile, it’s clear that most Americans think they are getting the short end of the stick with China, with 62% of respondents describing the relationship as unfair.

    THE CHINA PROBLEM

    China is America’s largest trading partner, so this negative sentiment has meaningful implications.

    The balance of trade that the U.S. has with China is also crystal clear: in 2017, the two countries traded $636 billion of goods, but the vast majority of this number comes from Chinese imports into the United States:

    Most economists actually think that trade deficits are less important than they appear, but this trade gap is also visceral for many people. After all, U.S. exports barely make a dent in the mix, and this sends a message that America is “losing”.

    Between the above trade deficit, intellectual property issues, and jobs going overseas, it’s understandable why the perception of Chinese-U.S. trade is under fire in terms of public sentiment.

    And with the start of the recent trade war, the view on China could sour even further.

    THE PARTISAN PERSPECTIVE

    Interestingly, Democrats and Republicans have very different views on U.S. relationships, including the one with China:

    Source: Gallup, June 18-24, 2018

    Comparing Republicans and Democrats, three different relationships have opinion gaps of about 30%: Canada, European Union, and Mexico. In all cases, Democrats favored the relationships far more than Republicans.

    That said, when it comes to China and Japan, the parties are slightly more aligned.

    Only a minority in both parties thought the U.S. trade relationship with China was fair, with 21% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats in agreement.

  • Buchanan: Will Tribalism Trump Democracy?

    Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

    On July 19, the Knesset voted to change the nation’s Basic Law.

    Israel was declared to be, now and forever, the nation-state and national home of the Jewish people. Hebrew is to be the state language.

    Angry reactions, not only among Israeli Arabs and Jews, came swift.

    Allan Brownfeld of the American Council for Judaism calls the law a “retreat from democracy” as it restricts the right of self-determination, once envisioned to include all within Israel’s borders, to the Jewish people. Inequality is enshrined.

    And Israel, says Brownfeld, is not the nation-state of American Jews.

    What makes this clash of significance is that it is another battle in the clash that might fairly be called the issue of our age.

    The struggle is between the claims of tribe, ethnicity, peoples and nations, against the commands of liberal democracy.

    In Europe, the Polish people seek to preserve the historic and ethnic character of their country with reforms that the EU claims violate Poland’s commitment to democracy.

    If Warsaw persists, warns the EU, the Poles will be punished. But which comes first: Poland, or its political system, if the two are in conflict?

    Other nations are ignoring the open-borders requirements of the EU’s Schengen Agreement, as they attempt to block migrants from Africa and the Middle East.

    They want to remain who they are, open borders be damned.

    Britain is negotiating an exit from the EU because the English voted for independence from that transitional institution whose orders they saw as imperiling their sovereignty and altering their identity.

    When Ukraine, in the early 1990s, was considering secession from Russia, Bush I warned Kiev against such “suicidal nationalism.”

    Ukraine ignored President Bush. Today, new questions have arisen.

    If Ukrainians had a right to secede from Russia and create a nation-state to preserve their national identity, do not the Russians in Crimea and the Donbass have the same right — to secede from Ukraine and rejoin their kinsmen in Russia?

    As Georgia seceded from Russia at the same time, why do not the people of South Ossetia have the same right to secede from Georgia?

    Who are we Americans, 5,000 miles away, to tell tribes, peoples and embryonic nations of Europe whether they may form new states to reflect and preserve their national identity?

    Nor are these minor matters.

    At Paris in 1919, Sudeten Germans and Danzig Germans were, against their will, put under Czech and Polish rule. British and French resistance to permitting these peoples to secede and rejoin their kinfolk in 1938 and 1939 set the stage for the greatest war in history.

    Here in America, we, too, appear to be in an endless quarrel about who we are.

    Is America a different kind of nation, a propositional nation, an ideological nation, defined by a common consent to the ideas and ideals of our iconic documents like the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address?

    Or are we like other nations, a unique people with our own history, heroes, holidays, religion, language, literature, art, music, customs and culture, recognizable all over the world as “the Americans”?

    Since 2001, those who have argued that we Americans were given, at the birth of the republic, a providential mission to democratize mankind, have suffered an unbroken series of setbacks.

    Nations we invaded, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, to bestow upon them the blessings of democracy, rose up in resistance. What our compulsive interventionists saw as our mission to mankind, the beneficiaries saw as American imperialism.

    And the culture wars on history and memory continue unabated.

    According to The New York Times, the African-American candidate for governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, has promised to sandblast the sculptures of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis off Stone Mountain.

    The Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, has a pickup truck, which he promises to use to transfer illegal migrants out of Georgia and back to the border.

    In Texas, a move is afoot to remove the name of Stephen Austin from the capital city, as Austin, in the early 1830s, resisted Mexico’s demands to end slavery in Texas when it was still part of Mexico.

    One wonders when they will get around to Sam Houston, hero of Texas’ War of Independence and first governor of the Republic of Texas, which became the second slave republic in North America.

    Houston, after whom the nation’s fourth-largest city is named, was himself, though a Unionist, a slave owner and an opponent of abolition.

    Today, a large share of the American people loathe who we were from the time of the explorers and settlers, up until the end of segregation in the 1960s. They want to apologize for our past, rewrite our history, erase our memories and eradicate the monuments of those centuries.

    The attacks upon the country we were and the people whence we came are near constant.

    And if we cannot live together amicably, secession from one another, personally, politically, and even territorially, seems the ultimate alternative.

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