- Republicans Have Four Easy Ways To #ReleaseTheMemo…Not Doing So Will Prove Them Shameless Frauds
Authored by Glenn Greenwald and Jon Schwarz via The Intercept,
One of the gravest and most damaging abuses of state power is to misuse surveillance authorities for political purposes. For that reason, The Intercept, from its inception, has focused extensively on these issues.
We therefore regard as inherently serious strident warnings from public officials alleging that the FBI and Department of Justice have abused their spying power for political purposes.
Social media this week has been flooded with inflammatory and quite dramatic claims now being made by congressional Republicans about a four-page memo alleging abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act spying processes during the 2016 election. This memo, which remains secret, was reportedly written under the direction of the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, and has been read by dozens of members of Congress after the committee voted to make the memo available to all members of the House of Representatives to examine in a room specially designated for reviewing classified material.
The rhetoric issuing from GOP members who read the memo is notably extreme.
North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called the memo “troubling” and “shocking” and said, “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”
GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania stated: “You think about, ‘Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is.”
This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to “release the memo” – and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition.
On Thursday night, Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally Sean Hannity claimed that the memo described “the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.”
Given the significance of this issue, it is absolutely true that the memo should be declassified and released to the public – and not just the memo itself. The House Intelligence Committee generally and Nunes specifically have a history of making unreliable and untrue claims (its report about Edward Snowden was full of falsehoods, as Bart Gellman amply documented, and prior claims from Nunes about “unmasking” have been discredited). Thus, mere assertions from Nunes — or anyone else — are largely worthless; Republicans should provide American citizens not merely with the memo they claim reveals pervasive criminality and abuse of power, but also with all of the evidence underlying its conclusions.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have the power, working together or separately, to immediately declassify all the relevant information. And if indeed the GOP’s explosive claims are accurate – if, as HPSCI member Steve King, R-Iowa, says, this is “worse than Watergate” — they obviously have every incentive to get it into the public’s hands as soon as possible. Indeed, one could argue that they have the duty to do so.
On the other hand, if the GOP’s claims are false or significantly misleading – if they are, with the deepest cynicism imaginable, simply using these crucial issues to whip up their base or discredit the Mueller investigation, or exaggerating or making claims that lack any evidentiary support, or trying to have the best of all worlds by making explosive claims about the memo but never having to prove their truth – then they will either not release the memo or they will release it without any supporting documentation, making it impossible for Americans to judge its accuracy for themselves.
Anyone who is genuinely concerned about the claims being made about eavesdropping abuses should understand why the issue of evidence is so critical. After all, the House, Senate, and FBI investigations into any Trump collusion with Russia have so far proceeded with many startling claims in the media, but to date little hard evidence for the public to judge. Nobody rational should be assuming any claims or assertions from partisan actors about the 2016 election are true without seeing evidence to substantiate those claims.
The good news is there are at least four easy ways for congressional Republicans and/or Trump to definitively prove that all the right’s darkest suspicions about the Obama administration are true. If this memo and the underlying documents prove even a fraction of what GOP politicians and media figures are claiming about them, then what could possibly justify its ongoing concealment? Any or all of these methods should be promptly invoked to ensure that the public sees this evidence:
1. Trump can declassify anything he wants.
All classification by the U.S. government has no basis in laws passed by Congress (with one tiny exception that is irrelevant here). Rather, all classification is based on presidential executive orders, which rely on the president’s constitutional role as commander in chief of the armed forces. According to the Supreme Court, the presidential power “to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from the constitutional investment of power in the president.”
That means presidents can also declassify anything they chose to — for any reason or no reason — as they have done in the past. George W. Bush, under pressure in 2004, declassified the section of the 2001 presidential daily brief headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Barack Obama declassified the Justice Department memos produced during the Bush presidency on the legality of torture.
Thus if the House Intelligence Committee merely releases a version of its memo without the supporting documentation, that won’t be just because they don’t want Americans to see it – it will be because Trump doesn’t want us to see it either. Note that GOP House members are insistent that releasing the memo and the underlying source material would not remotely harm national security:
Releasing this classified info doesn’t compromise good sources & methods. It reveals the feds’ reliance on bad sources & methods.
— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) January 18, 2018
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So what possible justification is there for Trump to continue to conceal this alleged evidence of massive criminality from the American people by hiding it behind “classified” designations? Indeed, it is illegal to abuse classified designations to hide evidence of official criminality: so not only can Trump declassify such evidence, one could argue that he must, or at least should.
2. The House (and Senate) intelligence committees can declassify any material they possess.
According to the procedural rules of both houses of Congress, their intelligence committees can declassify material in their possession if the committee votes that such declassification would be in the public interest. It is then declassified after five days unless the president formally objects. If the president does object, the full chamber votes on the question.
It is true that – in a measure of how embarrassingly deferential Congress is to the executive branch – neither the House nor the Senate intelligence committees has ever utilized this power, so it’s impossible to know how this gambit would play out in practice. But if Trump refused to release proof of the Obama administration’s misdeeds, congressional Republicans should have a straightforward way to overrule him.
3. The Constitution protects members of Congress from prosecution for “any speech or debate in either House.”
Members of Congress have legal immunity for acts they commit as part of the legislative process. Article I, Section 6, clause 1 of the Constitution states that “for any speech or debate in either House, [Senators and Representatives] shall not be questioned in any other place.” It is this constitutional shield that protected Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska from legal consequences in 1971 when he read sections of the Pentagon Papers during a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and then placed the rest of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record.
It’s true that members could face legal consequences for ancillary acts — perhaps if they unlawfully removed the relevant material from the congressional SCIF. But they could go to the House floor and describe both the memo’s revelations and the underlying evidence for it without any fear of legal consequences.
If the memo really proves what they claim, it would seem to be their patriotic duty would compel them do this. Ordinary citizens — like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning — have risked prison in order to expose what they believed were serious official crimes; these members of Congress can do this without any of those consequences. So what justifies their failure to do this?
4. Republicans can leak everything to the news media.
If for some reason Trump and the congressional leadership refuse to use any of the above options to vindicate themselves, a brave member of Congress could turn whistleblower and transmit the classified proof of the GOP’s claims about the memo to the news media.
Many outlets now have secure methods of sending sensitive material to them, such as Secure Drop. Those for The Intercept can be found here. (All leaking entails risks, as we describe in our manual for whistleblowers.)
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So that’s that. All Americans, particularly conservatives, should ask every Republican making spectacular assertions about this memo when they will be using the above ways to conclusively demonstrate that everything they’ve said is based in rock-solid fact.
If they do not, Republicans will conclusively demonstrate something else.
They will prove conclusively that all of this is about them shamelessly making claims they do not actually believe, fraudulently posturing as caring about one of the most vital, fundamental issues facing the United States: how the U.S. government uses the vast surveillance powers with which it has been vested.
- Who's Going To Davos
This year’s edition of the World Economic Forum begins on Tuesday in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
According to the organizers, some 3,000 visitors will attend this year’s meeting.
As our infographic shows most of them come from the United States.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Well with the government shut down… there’s no money to be made in ‘Murica!
Perhaps even more ironically, Bloomberg reports that President Trump’s Davos trip is “day-to-day” during the government shutdown.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said at a press briefing on Saturday that a final decision hasn’t been made on whether Trump will travel as planned, given the federal government shutdown that began overnight.
The president is expected to arrive at Davos on Jan. 25 and make a speech to the forum on Jan. 26.
- Google Has An Actual Secret Speech Police
Authored by Peter Hasson via The Daily Caller,
More than 100 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government agencies around the world help police YouTube for extremist content, ranging from so-called hate speech to terrorist recruiting videos.
All of them have confidentiality agreements barring Google, YouTube’s parent company, from revealing their participation to the public, a Google representative told The Daily Caller on Thursday.
A handful of groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and No Hate Speech, a European organization focused on combatting intolerance, have chosen to go public with their participation in the program, but the vast majority have stayed hidden behind the confidentiality agreements. Most groups in the program don’t want to be publicly associated with it, according to the Google spokesperson, who spoke only on background.
YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” program goes back to 2012, but the program has exploded in size in recent years amid a Google push to increase regulation of the content on its platforms, which followed pressure from advertisers. Fifty of the 113 program members joined in 2017 as YouTube stepped up its content policing, YouTube public policy director Juniper Downs told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
The third-party groups work closely with YouTube’s employees to crack down on extremist content in two ways, Downs said and a Google spokesperson confirmed. First, they are equipped with digital tools allowing them to mass flag content for review by YouTube personnel. Second, the partner groups act as guides to YouTube’s content monitors and engineers who design the algorithms policing YouTube but may lack the expertise needed to tackle a given subject.
It’s not just terrorist videos that Google is censoring. Jordan B. Peterson, a professor known for opposing political correctness, had one of his videos blocked in 28 countries earlier this month. A note sent to Peterson’s account said YouTube had “received a legal complaint” about the video and decided to block it.
The censors are at it again. No explanation — and no reason: Why in the world would this be blocked? https://t.co/YMMw2BLPx8 pic.twitter.com/xe7UnwPzGb
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 2, 2018
Here’s some more “explanation” for the censorship: incitement of hatred, terrorist recruitment, incitement of violence, celebration of terrorism. Even to fall briefly and erroneously into such a category is a chilling event…. pic.twitter.com/F00kmIGXLX
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 2, 2018
Peterson used his large social media following to push back, calling out YouTube on Twitter, where he has more than 300,000 followers. YouTube reversed Peterson’s block after another popular YouTuber, Ethan Klein, demanded an explanation on Twitter, where he has more than 1 million followers. Although the original notice said that YouTube was responding to a legal complaint, on Twitter the company gave the impression that the block was erroneous.
@TeamYouTube any insight on this?
— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) January 2, 2018
The overwhelming majority of the content policing on Google and YouTube is carried out by algorithms. The algorithms make for an easy rebuttal against charges of political bias: it’s not us, it’s the algorithm. But algorithms are designed by people. As noted above, Google’s anonymous outside partners work closely with the internal experts designing the algorithms. This close collaboration has upsides, Google’s representatives say, pointing to advances in combatting terrorist propaganda on the platform. But it also provides little transparency, forcing users to take Google’s word that they’re being treated fairly.
YouTube’s partnership with outside organizations to combat extremist content is just one part of the company’s efforts to prioritize certain kinds of content over others. YouTube also suppresses certain content through its “restricted” mode, which screens out videos not suitable for children or containing “potentially mature” content, as well as by demonetizing certain videos and channels, cutting off the financial stream to their operators.
Prager University, a conservative nonprofit that makes educational videos, sued Google in October for both putting their content in restricted mode and demonetizing it. Prager faces an uphill battle in court (as a private company, Google isn’t bound by the First Amendment) but the lawsuit has forced Google to take public positions on its censorship.
The Google representative who spoke with TheDC said that it is the algorithms that are responsible for placing videos in restricted mode. But in court documents reviewed by TheDC, Google’s lawyers argued otherwise. “Decisions about which videos fall into that category are often complicated and may involve difficult, subjective judgment calls,” they argued in documents filed on Dec. 29.
In her testimony before the Senate committee on Wednesday, Downs described some of the steps Google has taken to suppress “offensive” or “inflammatory” content that falls short of actual violent extremism.
“Some borderline videos, such as those containing inflammatory religious or supremacist content without a direct call to violence or a primary purpose of inciting hatred, may not cross these lines for removal. But we understand that these videos may be offensive to many and have developed a new treatment for them,” she said.
“Identified borderline content will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won’t be recommended, won’t be monetized, and won’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes. Initial uses have been positive and have shown a substantial reduction in watch time of those videos,” she added.
YouTube’s demonetization push, which is affecting some of the most popular non-leftist political channels, is meant to accommodate advertisers who seek to avoid controversial content, the Google spokesperson said.
Dave Rubin, a popular YouTube host, has seen his videos repeatedly demonetized. Rubin posted a video, “Socialism isn’t cool,” on Wednesday. The video was up a little over 24 hours before YouTube demonetized it on Thursday.
And of course, @TeamYouTube has demonetized my video on socialism. Guaranteed a critique of capitalism would’ve been just fine.
Join us via Patreon/PayPal/Bitcoin: https://t.co/gwBcGofxFZ pic.twitter.com/UqDX3uBZV0
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 18, 2018
Hey @TeamYouTube, can you let me know which part of this video isn’t advertiser friendly? Just trying to understand your official policy! https://t.co/zSu6c7LWqt
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 18, 2018
The video was later remonetized, a Google representative told TheDC. But users can’t recoup the advertising dollars they lost while their videos were erroneously demonetized.
“I suspect that there is some political bent to it but I don’t think it’s necessarily a grand conspiracy against conservatives or anyone who’s not a leftist. Part of the problem is their lack of transparency has created a situation where none of use really know what’s going on,” Rubin told TheDC.
“Does it seem that it is more so affecting non-leftist channels? Yeah, it does.”
- Baltimore's Top Cop Fired After Out-Of-Control Homicides
Baltimore’s top cop was fired Friday after a record year in per-capita homicides that has transformed Maryland’s largest city into one of the most dangerous areas in the United States.
To put things in perspective, Baltimore’s murder rate is 4x the average of other large cities and some 40 percent higher than Detroit. To make matters worse, Baltimore is now precisely tied with Venezuela, a country suffering from an economic collapse at 57.2 murders per 100,000 residents.
Mayor Catherine Pugh relieved Police Commissioner Kevin Davis of his duties after 2 1/2 years as top cop. Pugh, then announced that Deputy Commissioner Darryl DeSousa, who has been on the force for 30-years, will take Commissioner Kevin Davis‘ spot effective immediately.
Commissioner-Designate DeSousa:
“Baltimore has long been my home and I’ve spent my career on its streets and in its neighborhoods to address problems and bring about solutions that are meaningful for the people we serve.”MORE: https://t.co/evEpMlu8dC pic.twitter.com/LRzexpylkM
— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) January 19, 2018
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“As I have made clear, reducing violence and restoring the confidence of our citizens in their police officers is my highest priority,” said Pugh.
“The fact is, we are not achieving the pace of progress that our residents have every right to expect in the weeks since we ended what was nearly a record year for homicides in the City of Baltimore.”
The fact the Pugh is achieving no progress at all should be disheartening to residents og Baltimore. The city closed out 2017 with 343 homicides, just shy of the 353 set back in 1993 when the city had 100,000 more residents. Last year, Baltimore hit a 100-year low in total population, as the city as a whole continues to shrink in size. On top of that, the city has experienced 50-years of failed Democratic leadership coupled with deindustrialization, which has turned the area into a war-zone. As shown below:
Ex-Police Commissioner Kevin Davis was the 39th Police Commissioner in Baltimore since 2015. Davis, a fourth generation public safety professional, has been relieved of his duties in total shame, however, the chart below might provide evidence that Baltimore’s demise was a much larger trend that no public official could contain. Hence, why Pugh had to call in the federal government for assistance in 2017.
Before Davis entered the top cop position, Baltimore was actually on a trajectory of being revived. All was well in charm city, as the millennials were singing the gentrifying tune with Kevin Plank. Johns Hopkins Hospital was gentrifying the eastern district of the town, and the University of Maryland was gentrifying the west side, the ole’ divide and conquer seemed to be working just fine.
But something snapped in the city, right as Davis took the helm of the police force in 2015. Violent crime and homicides surged to levels not seen since the crack epidemic days of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
So, what sparked the violent energy?
Well, it was the Ferguson effect in 2014, which led to the Baltimore Riots in April of 2015. Community organizing groups from around the country sprinted into Baltimore and took advantage of the situation, as parts of the city burned to the ground. The governor called in the National Guard who shut down the city for one week with curfews and armed patrols. It was argued by many, that Baltimore experienced some form of martial law in those 7-days of hell. Nevertheless, the relationship between community and police evaporated, and that’s is when all hell broke out.
Pugh is using Davis as a scapegoat to deflect the blame from City Hall. Davis was set up to fail at the start because the Ferguson effect blindsided the city. As soon as the relationship between community and police ended, the police scaled back on active policing. That is the moment the town entered into an irreversible death spin.
A new police chief isn’t necessarily the answer unless there is a plan to restore the relationship between community and police, that community organized groups paid for by George Soros helped to destroy.
The takedown of Baltimore has been a long-term trend, but as of recent, it was accelerated post-2015. As the city implodes on itself in 2018, the opioid crisis will be the needed energy to deliver the final death blow. As the city marches towards collapse, the likelihood of the firing of more top officials is strong for the remainder of the year.
* * *
To gain an understanding of what is next for Baltimore. Pay attention to the current developments in Sweden. Read: “Sweden Is Preparing For A “Civil War”: PM Wants To Deploy Army In No-Go Zones.“
- The FISA Memo Is All The Ammo Trump Needs To Take On The CIA
FISA is an abomination. Let’s get that out of the way. And since I don’t believe there are any coincidences in U.S. or geo-politics, the releasing of the explosive four-page FISA memo after Congress reauthorized FISA is suspicious.
Former NSA analyst (traitor? hero?) turned security state gadfly Edward Snowden came out in favor of President Trump vetoing the FISA reauthorization now that the full extent of what the statute is used for is known to members of the House Intelligence Committee, who are rightly aghast.
Officials confirm there’s a secret report showing abuses of spy law Congress voted to reauthorize this week. If this memo had been known prior to the vote, FISA reauth would have failed. These abuses must be made public, and @realDonaldTrump should send the bill back with a veto. https://t.co/BEwJ9EyIq0
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 19, 2018
But, like I said, timing in these things is everything. And the timing on this leak is important.
Someone leaked this memo to the House Intelligence Committee with the sole intention of giving President Trump the opportunity to do exactly what Snowden is arguing for.
And well Trump should.
This is the essence of draining the swamp. It is the essence of his war with the Shadow Government. If one makes the distinction between the Deep State and the Shadow Government, like former CIA officer Kevin Shipp does, then this falls right in line with Trump’s goals in cleaning up the rot and corruption in the U.S. government. In a recent interview with Greg Hunter at USAWatchdog.com,
Shipp explains, “I differentiate between the ‘Deep State’ and the shadow government. The shadow government are the secret intelligence agencies that have such power and secrecy that they act even without the knowledge of Congress. There are many things that they do with impunity. Then there is the ‘Deep State,’ which is the military industrial complex, all of the industrial corporations and their lobbyists, and they have all the money, power and greed that give all the money to the Senators and Congressmen. So, they are connected, but they are really two different entities. It is the shadow government . . . specifically, the CIA, that is going after Donald Trump. It is terrified that some of its dealings are going to be exposed. If they are, it could jeopardize the entire organization.” [emphasis mine]
Court the Military Against the Spooks
And as I’ve talked about at length, I’ve felt from the moment Trump was elected he was going to have to ally himself with the U.S. military to have any chance of surviving, let alone achieve his political goals.
Trump’s final campaign ad was a clarion call to action. It was a declaration of war against both the Shadow Government and the Deep State. And it ensured that if he won, which he did, they would immediately go to war with him.
And you don’t declare war like this if you aren’t prepared for the biggest knock-down, drag-out street brawl of all time. If you aren’t prepared for it, don’t say it. And for the past year we’ve been left wondering whether Trump was 1) prepared for it 2) capable of pulling it off.
Trump’s continued needling of the establishment; playing the long game and demonizing the media which is the tip of the Shadow Government’s spear while strengthening the support of both the military (through his backing them at every turn) and his base by assisting them destroy the false narratives of globalism has been nothing short of amazing.
As a hard-core, jaded politico, I can tell you I never thought for a second he had the ability to what he’s already done. But, as the past few months have pointed out, the real power in the world doesn’t rest with the few thousand who manipulate the levers of power but the billions who for years stood by and let them.
And those days of standing by are gone.
So, Trump cozying up to the military, cutting a deal with the military-industrial complex (MIC) has the Deep State now incentivized to fight the Shadow Government for him. The tax cut bill, while a brilliant example of political knife-fighting, is fundamentally about shoring up the finances of the corporations that make up the MIC through the repatriation of foreign-earned income, lowering the corporate tax rate and stealing even more of the middle class back from the Democrats.
Trump had the right strategy from the beginning. Civil Wars turn on what the police and the military do. They are instigated by and fanned by the spooks, but it is the soldiers and the cops who decide the outcome.
And so here we are.
FISA, It’s Everywhere You Don’t Want it to Be
Trump has called the Democrats’ and RINOs’ bluff on DACA and chain-immigration as a vote-buying scheme with zero political fallout. He’s properly reframed the looming government shutdown on their inability to stick to their original agreements.
His much-maligned Justice Department is now rolling up traitors associated with Uranium One, pedophiles and human traffickers all over the country and preparing for a showdown with blue state governors and attorney generals over “Sanctuary” grandstanding.
By leading the charge, he gave strength to the patriots within both the Shadow Government and the Deep State organizations to leak the material needed to keep his campaign afloat.
And as each new thing drops at the most inopportune time for the political establishment mentioned ad nauseum in that final campaign ad linked above, you have to wonder just how big the revolt inside these organizations is.
Because, right here, right now, Trump can demand the release of this FISA memo and use it to torpedo the very thing that allowed the entire “Russia Hacked Muh Election” nonsense and send it back to the sh$&hole it was spawned from in the first place, the CIA and the DNC.
And if that means for a few months the FISA courts are inoperable while a new bill and a new set of rules is drafted so be it.
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- These Are The World's Real 'Shitholes'… Literally
In many countries worldwide, there is still a chronic lack of toilets, driving people to defecate outdoors.
In fact, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, just under a billion people still practice open defecation across the globe and it’s a problem that results in widespread disease and millions of deaths.
In 2015, the UN called for an end to open defecation by 2030 and some countries such as Vietnam have had considerable success eradicating it.
Others are still struggling, however, as the following map clearly illustrates.
You will find more statistics at Statista
According to the most recent World Bank data which is from 2015, 40 percent of people in India still defecate outdoors.
It is also common across Africa where the highest rates were recorded. Eritrea has the highest rate at 76 percent, followed by Niger (71 percent) and Chad (68 percent).
- NSA "Sincerely Regrets" Deleting All Bush-Era Surveillance Data It Was Ordered To Preserve
There is a growing consensus among many observers in Washington that the national security agencies have become completely politicized over the past seventeen years and are now pursuing selfish agendas that actually endanger what remains of American democracy.
As Philip Giraldi notes, up until recently it has been habitual to refer to such activity as the Deep State, which is perhaps equivalent to the Establishment in that it includes financial services, the media, major foundations and constituencies, as well as lobbying groups, but we are now witnessing an evolutionary process in which the national security regime is exercising power independently.
Nowhere is that “independence” of the ‘state within a state’ more evident than in the blatant and egregious news this week that The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings.
As Politico reports, the agency tells a federal judge that it is investigating and “sincerely regrets its failure.”
Since 2007, the NSA has been under court orders to preserve data about certain of its surveillance efforts that came under legal attack following disclosures that President George W. Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping of international communications after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. In addition, the agency has made a series of representations in court over the years about how it is complying with its duties.
However, the NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in a filing on Thursday night and another little-noticed submission last year that the agency did not preserve the content of internet communications intercepted between 2001 and 2007 under the program Bush ordered. To make matters worse, backup tapes that might have mitigated the failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016, the NSA said.
“The NSA sincerely regrets its failure to prevent the deletion of this data,” NSA’s deputy director of capabilities, identified publicly as “Elizabeth B.,” wrote in a declaration filed in October.
“NSA senior management is fully aware of this failure, and the Agency is committed to taking swift action to respond to the loss of this data.”
Defiance of a court order can result in civil or criminal contempt charges, as well as sanctions against the party responsible. So far, no one involved appears to have asked White to impose any punishment or sanction on the NSA over the newly disclosed episodes, although the details of what happened are still emerging.
“It’s really disappointing,” said David Greene, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been leading the prolonged litigation over the program in federal court in San Francisco.
“The obligation’s been in place for a really long time now. … We had a major dust-up about it just a few years ago. This is definitely something that should’ve been found sooner.”
Word of the NSA’s foul-up is emerging just as Congress has extended for six years the legal authority the agency uses for much of its surveillance work conducted through U.S. internet providers and tech firms.
Antiwar activist Justin Raimondo believes that something like a civil war is coming, with the war party Establishment fighting to defend its privileged global order while many other Americans seek a return to normal nationhood with all that implies.
If true, the next few years will see a major internal conflict that will determine what kind of country the United States will be.
- Jeremy Grantham Exposes The Corporatocracy: America's "Run By Those Guys For Their Own Interests"
Authored by Robert Huebscher via AdvisorPerspectives.com,
Have profit margins risen to a permanently higher plateau? Are average Americans better off than they were a generation ago? I had the opportunity to discuss those questions, which are centrally important to investing and economic policy, with Jeremy Grantham a couple of weeks ago.
The discussion took place as part of a larger interview about climate-change investing. Grantham is the co-founder and chief investment strategist of Boston-based Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo (GMO).
It’s been widely reported that over the last 20 years the number of publicly traded companies has decreased by about 50%. The common explanations center on the fact that the number of de-listings, mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies have outstripped the initial public offerings (IPOs).
But I wanted to know if there was a deeper explanation related to the fact that corporate profit margins are at historical highs. Over the last dozen years, with the exception of the financial crisis, profit margins have been between 9% and 11% of GDP. Prior to that, the last time they were above 9% was in 1951.
The U.S. economy has become more concentrated in the service and technology sectors, which are inherently more profitable than the manufacturing businesses that dominated 50 years ago. Those business, like Amazon, Apple and Google have built incredibly strong, near-monopolistic franchises that should translate to higher margins.
If the market has become dominated with highly profitable, monopolistic franchises, then maybe that is why there are fewer companies and profit margins are no longer “the most mean-reverting series in finance,” as Grantham once claimed.
GMO has looked at this issue extensively. As Grantham noted, “profit margins and return on sales will vary much depending on whether you are in the supermarket business or whether you are in some software company. There is no average to which it moves.”
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that returns for equities will be greater going forward. As Grantham explained, higher margins will attract more capital and reduce the returns relative to other asset classes. “If your capital is returning more in this area than the other area then capital will flow and balance it out,” he said.
Higher margins have been offered as an explanation, by Grantham and others, for why the cyclically adjusted price-earnings (CAPE) ratio is higher than its historical average. But CAPE ratios depend on other factors, such as real interest rates, so margins only tell part of the story.
Grantham said that the monopoly factor has increased margins “a bit.”+
“Corporate power as exercised through Congress, particularly in the U.S., has clearly increased the total domination of regulatory boards by the industries. Regulations have gone from being concerning to laughable, and totally run by those guys for their own interests,” he said.
Grantham is far more concerned about the societal impacts of unchecked capitalism than he is with its effect on margins.
“We are seeing a flowering of corporatism where government is designed to maximize the opportunities of giant influential companies and industries that spend a lot of money lobbying,” he said. “We continue down that primrose path today with yet another cycle of deregulating designed to help corporations.”
Grantham spoke about the “punishing consequences” that tax cuts and deregulation will have on the general public. +
He said that “maximizing the returns and the share of the pie going to corporations and the superrich is deplorable and has terrible effects on the economy in the long run. The average person in the street doesn’t have the buying power increments that they used to have.”
American prosperity
But is the average American really losing buying power? On this point, Grantham and I disagreed. Whether you go back 10, 20 or 40 years, I contend the standard of living for Americans has increased enormously.
Grantham, however, said that in terms of general well-being and happiness, Americans are worse off.`
“If you do your best to control for everything and measure happiness, this is not a particularly happy country,” Grantham said. “It is not entirely dependent on income by any means, and we have not improved.”
He acknowledged a couple areas where Americans are better off – entertainment, such as high-tech computer games, and medicine, where he said progress in drugs and technology are keeping people alive longer. To those I would add food, in light of the advances in the quality and variety of choices in cuisine, and transportation, considering the speed and safety at which we can travel by car, plane and other means.
But Grantham said that the average worker has not been paid more since 1974 for an hour’s work. “Does he feel more content, or does he feel extremely frustrated by his relative lack of progress compared to others?” he asked, rhetorically. “There is no doubt that he is more frustrated. The suicide rate in that group has gone way up. The drug addiction has gone way up.”
Indeed, he said there are all the indications of a “thoroughly miserable middle America.”
That is obvious from the suicide rate and the addiction rate, according to Grantham. He sympathizes with those who came from a world where one’s parents increased their annual wages by 3% or 4% real per year. Inflation-adjusted salaries have gone “dead flat” since the early 1970s, he said.
“This has been a bitter disappointment,” Grantham said.
I asked whether this could be the result of rhetoric from politicians and commentators who seek to amplify the fears of disadvantaged Americans. Grantham agreed that there has been a political background that encouraged – or even whipped up – disappointment.
“But it is also clear that the reasons for being frustrated have not come out of thin air,” he said. “This is not the postwar boom where blue-collar workers make enough money to feel very pleased with themselves, and have their kids one way or the other go to college. This is not by any means as successful a society.”
He pointed to some statistics that illustrate the lack of progress among Americans relative to other developed countries – more children are born to 16-year old girls, a higher murder rate, more people in prison (by a factor of three or four, he said), a higher rate of gun violence and lower life expectancies.
But the data on life expectancy is not conclusive. Life expectancy at birth is less for Americans than for most developed countries, but after approximately age 35, U.S. life expectancy is indistinguishable from the others. The reason is that the murder rate in the U.S. is so high and most victims are younger than 35.
Grantham countered that our infant mortality is 19th or 20th out of 20 developed counties and mothers who die in childbirth are very high compared to the others. He said that those rates have improved steadily, but that America pays the most for health care as a percentage of GDP, and we have worse outcomes than everyone except a couple of countries.
But you can’t use life expectancy to claim that medical outcomes in the U.S. are worse than for other countries, unless you carefully adjust for our murder rate.
I acknowledged that Americans pay more for medical care, but I contended that a better question to ask is whether all health-related government spending, including social services, is greater in the U.S. than for other developed countries. Those social services, including welfare, food stamps, and subsidized housing, contribute to better health outcomes in the same way as does healthcare. When you look at all health-related spending, the data for the U.S. is not that different than our peers (The major OECD countries on average spend about $1.70 on social services for each $1 on health services. But the US spends just 56 cents per health dollar – see here).
The question of whether Americans get better outcomes for our healthcare dollars is significant, yet for most of us its relevance will be limited to cocktail-party conversations. But the larger question of how fast our standard of living is advancing has profound implications for economic policymakers. If our standard of living is improving faster than the published data indicates, then it means that inflation has been overstated. If inflation is overstated, then real growth rates and productivity are understated.
Most importantly, this runs contrary to the claims by politicians and others about stagnating real wages.
This is where Grantham and I had the sharpest difference. He said, “There is no question that GDP growth has slowed way down. Productivity has slowed way down and we have entered a low-growth world.” In his view, this has led to extreme income inequality and favoring of corporations.
“Where it goes and how long it lasts, nobody knows. You would hope for a swinging back of the pendulum, and I would certainly hope, and to some extent I expect that that will occur in the not too distant future.”
I agree that that income inequality has risen and corporations are more favored by government policy. But I am not persuaded that real growth rates in the U.S. are as low as Grantham fears, nor am I convinced that Americans are as bad off as he claims.
- Video: Inside America's Deadly Opioid Crisis
Opioids kill more people than they cure. Every day in the United States, some 140 people die from taking opioids – addictive opiate-based drugs. They’ve become the leading cause of death among the under-50s, ahead of road accidents and firearms. France24’s US correspondents, Valérie Defert, Baptiste Fenwick, Hayde Fitzpatrick and Romain Jany, take a look at the deadly opioid crisis.
Opioids are neither viruses nor bacteria, but painkillers. In the United States, they are prescribed in abundance and are perfectly legal for a small injury or a tooth extraction. Opioids are analgesics, highly powerful painkillers, derived from opium. But many patients become addicted to the drug in just a few days and today this medication, which can cause fatal overdoses, actually kills more people than it cures.
The death of celebrities such as Prince and Michael Jackson put the painkiller addiction epidemic in the spotlight, a scourge that permeates every US region and all social classes.
As soon as we began reporting, we became aware of the magnitude of the problem. Millions of patients have become addicted to opioids unintentionally, simply because their doctor prescribed them painkillers after an injury or an operation. Many people have played a role in this health scandal: the government and its agencies, influenced by pharmaceutical lobbies and unable to regulate themselves; the pharmaceutical companies, which concealed the danger of certain drugs, eyeing tens of billions of dollars in profits; and some unscrupulous doctors.
The situation has been exacerbated by dangerous political decisions. A recent Washington Post investigation revealed that in April 2016, at the height of the opioid crisis, and under pressure from pharmaceutical lobbies, Congress passed a series of laws easing the rules on painkiller distribution.
National health emergency
Nevertheless, as soon as he came to power, Donald Trump vowed to act on this overdose epidemic. On October 26, 2017, he declared the opioid crisis a “national health emergency”. Many commentators believe Trump acted quickly to satisfy his electoral base, because those worst affected by the opioid crisis are white, middle-class Americans, living in the centre of the country. But several months after his announcement, nothing has changed, as the funds have still not been released.
Another scandal was Donald Trump’s appointment of Tom Marino to deal with the opioid crisis. Marino is the Republican Congressman who was tasked with helping pass the laws that favoured the pharmaceutical industry in the first place.
Finally, why did the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorise the sale of opioids, such as Oxycontin in 1998, without conducting valid scientific tests? And amid the current addiction epidemic, why has the FDA decided not to ban this drug? After all, we now know that the Purdue Pharma laboratory concealed the addictive nature of these pills. It was even fined 600 million dollars, a record in the United States. We contacted the FDA, which claims to take the crisis “very seriously”. But no restrictions have been taken and Oxycontin is still prescribed today.
After filming this report, it’s incredibly frustrating to realise that although everyone is talking about the crisis, nothing changes. Every day, thousands of Americans continue to put their lives in danger, without even knowing it.
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