Today’s News 24th October 2018

• Europe Still Struggling With Major Measles Outbreak

  So far this year, Europe has experienced 41,000 measles cases and 40 deaths according to the World Health Organization.

  As Statista’s Niell McCarthy notes, the number of cases is far higher than any other 12-month total reported so far this decade. 2017 was the previous worst year with 23,927 cases in total.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Seven countries in the WHO European Region have seen over 1,000 infections this year: France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine.

  In the 12 months from September 2017 to August 2018, Ukraine was the worst affected country by far with 32,618 measles cases. Serbia came second with 5,710 while Russia was third with 3,940.

  

• The End Of Germany's Two-Party System

  Authored by Sławomir Sierakowski, via Project Syndicate,

  Ever since Germany’s federal election last September, it has been clear that the country’s once-stable political party system is in peril. Most significantly, collapsing support for the Social Democratic Party means that Germany – along with the rest of Europe – could be heading for a new era of paralysis and instability.

  

  The German Social Democrats’ (SPD) existential crisis can no longer be treated as a typical party crisis. The party captured a mere 9.7% of the vote in regional elections in Bavaria this month, and it is trailing both the populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Greens in national opinion polls. With another important regional election fast approaching in Hesse, polls indicate that the SPD will lose still more support, albeit not as dramatically as in Bavaria.

  The SPD and the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) have stood as the twin pillars of German politics since the end of World War II. But with the SPD declining, Germany is moving from a de facto two-party system to a multiparty system in which no single party plays a dominant role.

  The German post-war consensus is collapsing in key areas – history (attitudes toward WWII), geopolitics (attitudes toward Russia), the economy (attitudes toward the auto industry), and ethics (attitudes toward refugees) – and this is reflected in the fracturing of the political scene. German voters have rejected the longstanding CDU/CSU-SPD “grand coalition.” Whereas smaller parties once functioned as mere subsidiaries of either the SPD or the CDU/CSU, the bit players are now eclipsing the former stars.

  Moreover, what was once “Red Munich” has now turned Green. Whereas cities had long been SPD strongholds, they are switching to the Greens and other smaller parties. Making matters worse for the SPD, the demographic profile of its core electorate amounts to a death sentence. Only 8% of SPD voters are under the age of 30, and a whopping 54% are over 60. By contrast, just 24% of Greens are over 60. And Die Linke, meanwhile, has become increasingly attractive both to younger new leftists and aging post-communists from the former East Germany.

  Just as a two-party system ensures stability and predictability, so might its collapse contribute to radical social change. By definition, the fall of the establishment implies the rise of the anti-establishment, often in the form of populism. Since 2005, the SPD has participated as the minority partner in three grand-coalition governments. As a result, it has come to be associated with the status quo, even though it hasn’t been able to claim direct credit for the previous governments’ successes.

  Something similar happened in Austria, where the Social Democratic Party ruled either alone or in conjunction with the Austrian People’s Party between 1971 and 1999 (except for 1983-1986). Such long periods of grand-coalition rule allowed for the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria to present itself as an agent for change.

  When a grand coalition is threatened, its members tend to panic. Those who toe the party line lose support, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel has. Others thus attempt to appropriate populist language – as CSU leader Horst Seehofer has done in recent months – while still others will try to associate themselves with new political platforms. Hence, Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU has promised a “conservative revolution,” while Martin Schulz, the erstwhile leader of the SPD, has promoted EU federation.

  At any rate, when the constituent parts of a coalition start moving in different directions, things quickly fall apart. Still, it is worth noting that while the SPD and the CDU are currently losing support, their ideas remain popular. Their problem is not that they are devoid of ideas, but that they lack political credibility.

  This credibility deficit has created a vacuum for other parties to fill. Thus, the Greens have made gains in Bavaria by supporting an open-door refugee policy that actually originated with the CDU/SPD. Likewise, the AfD has wrested the anti-refugee mantle away from the CSU and Seehofer, who went so far as to try to undermine Merkel’s government from within while serving as Minister of the Interior. The common thread connecting all of the parties that performed well in the Bavarian election is that they ran politicians who are at least consistent in their views.

  Unfortunately for Germany, multiparty systems are generally unstable and less predictable, which explains why every other European country – Latvia is a current example – constantly struggles to establish a governing coalition. Under such conditions, it is not uncommon for bizarre arrangements to arise, including coalitions between the far left and the far right, as we have seen in Greece, Italy, and Slovakia.

  Germany’s best hope now is that its newly emerging multiparty system will impede the progress of the AfD, by nullifying its anti-establishment appeal. The AfD will take its place on the radical right as one party among many. Its support will remain in the 10-20% range, but it will not go any further than that. In fact, this has already happened in Bavaria, where the AfD garnered 10.2% of the vote this month, down from the 12.4% that it received in last year’s federal election.

  Another potential silver lining to a multiparty system is that it might lead to more political engagement. In the case of Bavaria, voter participation rose to 72.4% this election cycle, up from 63.6% five years ago.

  Looking ahead, Germany may now end up with rotating coalition governments comprising multiple parties. For example, one could imagine an arrangement between the CDU/CSU, the Free Democrats, and the Greens – the so-called Jamaica coalition. But this scenario would most likely produce political paralysis, because politicians from competing parties within the coalition would constantly undercut one another other while pandering to the popular will. Moreover, the chancellorship – traditionally very strong in Germany – will always be weaker in a patchwork government.

  Most likely, the fall of the CDU/CSU-SPD duopoly will undermine German hegemony in Europe, even if no other country can replace Germany in that role. At the same time, the weakening of the SPD will diminish the socialist faction in the European Parliament, where a similar eclipse of two-party rule could be in the offing. Yet without the twin pillars of the European People’s Party and the Party of European Socialists, the parliament will be incapable of making even insignificant decisions. As Germany and the SPD go, so goes Europe.

  

• Taiwan To Hold Live-Fire Drill Near Spratly Islands In Preparation For Chinese Invasion

  China is preparing for a military invasion of Taiwan in 2020. 

  To counter the threat, Taipei has been conducting live-fire war drills. 

  The latest round of exercises will start next month. 

  Taiwan armed forces are planning a three-day live-fire military exercise on Taiping Island in the heavily disputed waters of the South China Sea to show claim to its sovereignty over the Spratly Islands — a move that will anger China and maybe Vietnam. 

  

  According to the South China Morning Post, the exercise is scheduled between 8 am and 9 am from November 21 to 23, is expected to upset Beijing, which has also claimed the Spratlys. 

  “Beijing’s sovereignty claim over the Spratlys is consistent with that of Taipei’s, and any live-fire drills on Taiping only serve to reinforce the mainland’s sovereignty over the region, given that Beijing considers Taiwan a part of China,” said Wang Kung-yi a professor of political science at Chinese Culture University in Taipei. 

  Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration said Tuesday that the drill would involve firing into the sea and air in the area around Taiping Islands — using 40mm grenade machine guns and other heavy weapons. 

  

  “It is a routine shooting practice, which we have held for years,” Tsai Tzung-hsien, head of the public relations department of the coastguard, told the South China Morning Post. 

  The drill will be held within a five nautical mile range of Taiping, is aimed at safeguarding the integrity of Taiwan’s territory and thwarting an invasion from Beijing. 

  Tsai said the drill would not endanger commercial shipping lanes close to Taiping. 

  South China Morning Post asked what sorts of weapons would be used, Tsai said: “We will test the responsiveness both our light and heavy weapons as well as our personnel.” 

  The South China Sea is a heavily disputed economic zone and has overlapping maritime claims by Brunei, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. An estimated $5 trillion of global trade flows through the region annually, which the U.S. and Australia want shipping channels to remain international waters and have launched “freedom of navigation” operations in the region. 

  

  Two US Navy destroyers sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, in a move to aggravate China amid heightened trade war tensions with Beijing. 

  The USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Antietam, both Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, conducted routine transit to show U.S. commitment “to free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Colonel Rob Manning on Monday. 

  This was the third “freedom of navigation” operation by American destroyers in the second half of this year. Multiple Chinese warships followed the two US ships during the transit, defense officials told CNN.

  It seems Taiwan has good reason to prepare for a Chinese invasion. 

  Geopolitical intelligence analyst, in a separate report, told the South China Morning Post that Beijing’s effort to increase military readiness and defend the “one China” policy, was uncovered in a leaked document specifying Beijing has a secret plan to invade Taiwan by 2020. 

  

• CJ Hopkins On The Assassination Of Donald Trump

  Authored by ‘Satirist’ and playwright CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

  OK… here’s a question for you.

  Let’s assume, strictly for the purposes of argument, that Donald Trump is literally Hitler, or at least a proto-Hitlerian fascist, like the neoliberal ruling classes and the corporate media have been saying he is. And let’s go ahead and also assume that he’s a treasonous Russian intelligence asset working in league with Vladimir Putin to destroy the very fabric of Western democracy, and that he isn’t even legitimately President, because he stole the election from Hillary Clinton with all those Russian bots and Facebook posts, and all that other stuff they’ve been accusing him of, which would make him the most monstrously evil villain in the history of monstrously evil villains, not to mention an existential threat to the nation, and Americans, and … well, the rest of humanity.

  And so, basically, what I want to know is, why don’t they just kill this guy?

  

  Seriously, if Trump is really Hitler, and a traitor, working for a foreign enemy, like The New York Times and more or less every other organ of the corporate media has been telling us he is for the last two years, well, how about getting SEAL Team 6 to storm the White House in the dead of night and shoot him in the face or something? That seems to go over pretty well with people. Or what about a simple heart attack? Don’t our spooks have some kind of heart attack juice that they could slip into his Diet Coke, or smear onto the doorknob of the Oval Office?

  Not that there’s really any need for subtlety. After all, if he’s actually a Russian operative, and a proto-Hitlerian genocidal dictator, there’s no reason to run a covert op or attempt to cover anything up. On the contrary, you would want do it openly, proudly, where all Americans could see it. Which is why I’d go with the DEVGRU option. They could waste him live on CNN. The bloodier the better. Just imagine the ratings! They could march into the Oval Office in that cool-looking kill squad body armor and beat him to death with a gold-plated golf club. It’s not like he’d put up much of a fight. What is he, like seventy years old or something?

  All right, I know you’re probably thinking that beating a sitting president to death with a gold-plated gap wedge is nothing to joke about, and that doing so (i.e., joking about it, not actually beating the President to death) is possibly a federal crime or whatever, but we’re talking Adolf Hitler here, folks. Do I have to link to every one of the literally thousands of impassioned editorials, articles, and TV and radio segments in which respected journalists at serious news outlets have warned us, over and over, and over, that Donald Trump is literally Hitler, or virtually Hitler, and probably also a Russian agent? I don’t think so. Do you think that respectable publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Time, and so on, would print such inflammatory allegations if the fate of democracy were not at stake? That would be rather reckless, wouldn’t it? I mean, how many times can you call a guy Hitler before Americans demand that somebody kill him?

  This is what we do, after all.

  Killing Hitler is America’s thing. America has been killing Hitler since… well, since Hitler killed himself. Saddam was Hitler. We killed him, didn’t we? Or we got some guys to kill him for us. Same goes for Gaddafi. He was Hitler. We killed the hell out of him. That was fun. We got some guys to sodomize him with a bayonet, and shoot him in the head, and then we laughed about it on national television. Oh, and Osama bin Laden. He was definitely Hitler … OK, not while he was working with the CIA, but later, after he went native on us. We shot him in the face and dumped in the ocean. And Milosevic, he was also Hitler! OK, we didn’t kill him, but we killed his whole country, then we put him on trial in the Hague for war crimes. And what about Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Khomeini, Bashar al Assad, and all the other Hitlers we wanted to kill, or tried to kill but couldn’t kill? The list goes on and on, and on.

  I kid you not, if there is anything Americans love more than working a hundred hours a week and buying stuff with credit cards, it is repeatedly killing Adolf Hitler.

  You just point at somebody, call him Hitler, and Americans are ready to help you kill him.

  And, even if someone isn’t technically Hitler, as long as those respectable news sources tell us it’s OK to kill them… well, that’s usually good enough for us.

  For example, if you’re messing around with our “interests,” like maybe interfering with our corporations’ exploitation of your Central American country, we will have no choice but to fund and train some sadistic death squads to hideously torture and murder your people until you come to your senses.

  Or, if you’re even considering aligning with some annoying, fanatically religious regime that deposed the puppet we installed in their country, and that is sitting in the middle of the Middle East screwing up our restructuring plans, and which the Russians won’t let us tactically nuke, well, we’ll have to help our friends, the Saudis, bomb the living Allah out of you, starve your women and children to death, and otherwise wipe you off the face of the Earth.

  So let’s not suddenly get all squeamish about killing Hitler or… you know, whoever. Killing Hitlers, and other bogeymen, and innocent men, women, and children is as American as apple pie, not to mention an extremely profitable business. So what’s the problem here, exactly? Either Trump is Hitler or he isn’t Hitler. If he’s Hitler, and a traitorous Russian agent, like all those respected media sources, and those anonymous “Intelligence Community” sources, and those people on Twitter say he is, what the hell is taking so long?

  Why doesn’t somebody get in there and kill him? What good are all these black ops types if they can’t even save America from Hitler?

  I don’t know, maybe the ruling classes don’t believe they have generated enough public support with all their “resistance” and “Hitler” stuff to brutally assassinate the president on television (which is hard to fathom, given the relentless propaganda campaign they’ve been concertedly waging).

  Perhaps it needs to be a grassroots effort. In which case, maybe the Democratic Party, Bill Kristol, Rob Reiner, Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, General Hayden, Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin, the Editorial Board of The New York Times, and other key Resistance fighters could organize a “March to Assassinate Trump.”

  People could break out their pussyhats again. Everyone loves those pussyhats!

  They could march on CIA headquarters in Langley. Just think of all the signs and slogans … “SCREW DEMOCRACY, JUST KILL HIM ALREADY!” “WHAT WOULD WILLIAM CASEY DO?” and the always popular call and response, “TELL ME WHAT THE DEEP STATE LOOKS LIKE … THIS IS WHAT THE DEEP STATE LOOKS LIKE!” The possibilities are almost endless!

  I’m not saying it would be a cakewalk… or that there wouldn’t be any kind of blowback. The Resistance would likely catch a little flak from the millions of toothless, Oxy-addicted, white supremacist Nazis that voted for the guy.

  There would probably be a bit of ‘civil unrest’, but then, what’s the point of militarizing virtually every major police force in the country if you’re not prepared to turn them loose on the citizenry every once and while?

  And anyway, the main thing is, regardless of how messy things would probably get, it would provide the global capitalist ruling classes with an opportunity to remind these unruly “populists” what happens when you vote for Hitler!

  

• Israel's Defense Chief Says "No Choice But War" As Forces Build Along Gaza Border

  We reported over the weekend that Israel has mustered its largest build-up of tanks and armored personnel carriers since 2014 at a deployment area along the border with Gaza and that “all-out war” looks inevitable after weeks of heightened tensions with Hamas. This after special UN envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov late last week warned the UN Security Council that “we remain on the brink of another potentially devastating conflict.”

  It now appears Israel is ready to act, as on Monday Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli parliament that he’s been left with “no choice” but to launch military action against Hamas militants. Last week rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, with one landing dangerously near the densely populated city of Tel Aviv, and unrest along the border fence has continued largely unabated for months. 

  

  During his bellicose speech before lawmakers, Lieberman threatened invasion of Gaza: “Wars are only conducted when there is no choice, and now there is no choice,” the defense minister said. He indicated that anything less than the “toughest response” to Hamas is not being considered as Tel Aviv has “exhausted the other options.”

  He said of protests which Israeli forces have somewhat routinely fired upon as Palestinians approach the fence and a security “no-go” zone: “There is no popular uprising,” and added, “There is violence organized by Hamas. Fifteen thousand people don’t come by foot to the border at their own will. They come by bus and are paid.”

  Lieberman’s accusation that Hamas pays large sums to protesters comes as international human rights groups have frequently decried Israel’s lose of live ammo to stop protesters from approaching the fence, which have over the past six months resulted in dozens of Palestinian casualties. 

  The defense minister said further that Hamas “controls the levels of the flames,” but Israel can take deterrent and defensive measures, according to the Jerusalem Post. “I don’t believe in reaching an arrangement with Hamas,” he argued. “It hasn’t worked, doesn’t work and won’t work in the future.”

  

  Last week tensions escalated further after Israel retaliated against Hamas rocket attacks on Wednesday by unleashing limited airstrikes on Gaza, which reportedly killed at least one Palestinian while injuring several more. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on the same day of the Gaza rocket launches and promised to take “very strong action” if such attacks continued.

  It does indeed look like broader military action is coming as a Reuters photographer had by the close of last week documented some 60 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers stationed along the Gaza-Israel border – with that number likely growing since – which Reuters noted is the largest reported mustering of forces since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

  

• College Scraps Homecoming King, Queen For Gender-Neutral Titles

  Authored by Jacob Floam via Campus Reform,

  Administrators at Stony Brook University (SBU) in New York caved to pressure from activists on the Student Affairs Homecoming Committee to get rid of the homecoming king and queen titles, traditions since 1984, and replace them with three “Stony Brook Royals.” 

  

  The change, which was originally reported by Stony Brook News, was also pushed by the University’s LGBTQ Services along with LGBTQ Services assistant director, Chris Tanaka. 

  “Programs, events, and competitions that are categorized by gender put folks in the awkward position of either choosing to not be seen or affirmed for who they are or just not participating at all,” Tanaka said to Stony Brook News.

  “This change has opened the door for more students to feel like Homecoming is an event in which they can fully participate.”

  Under the new format, ten students, regardless of their gender and without ratio, will be chosen as finalists to become Stony Brook Royals. The previous format required that five men and five women be chosen as finalists.

  “I applaud the Homecoming Committee for making this innovative change,” Chief Diversity Officer Lee Bitsoi told Stony Brook University News.

  “This is another step toward building a welcoming, caring, supportive and inclusive campus community where all students feel that they belong.”

  

  “It’s a dream come true,” Stony Brook “nonbinary” student and homecoming finalist, Allilsa Fernandez told NEWS12.

  “It doesn’t take away any opportunities from students who would like to be either king or queen,” Stony Brook student RJ Samodal told WABC-TV.

  “You can still apply. It’s just the title is different.”

  The scrapping of the homecoming queen and king titles is nothing new on college campuses.

  San Diego State replaced the titles in 2015.  

  In 2017, Northwestern University announced that students would vote on a “Homecoming Wildcat,” rather than a King and Queen.

  Penn State made the award gender-neutral in April of the same year.

  This September, Purdue University followed suit. 

  Stony Brook University also has a decade-old gender-inclusive housing program, which lets students “from across the gender spectrum” live together.

  SBU is a publicly-funded school in Suffolk County, Long Island and is part of the State University of New York system. The university has not shied away from public controversy. 

  During spring 2018, Campus Reform reported on an incident in which SBU’s Students for Justice in Palestine club threatened to “eradicate” Zionism on campus. Also, last semester, in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., the Young Democratic Socialists of America group at Stony Brook demanded that the campus police be disarmed. 

  Campus Reform  reported that the university’s Graduate Queer Alliance claimed that a debate in which a Christian author participated was “hate speech” in 2015. Furthermore, the entire SUNY system, which comprises of more than sixty colleges and universities, passed a resolution to “Create Transgender Health Care Education at SUNY Campuses” in Jan. 2017.

  

• 'Overheating' US Economy Sparks Buying Frenzy For Private Jets

  Nothing says “healthy middle class recovery” quite like the luxury private jet market catching fire, which is the phase where the global economy finds itself right now with private aircraft getting so “hot” that even used planes are difficult to find.

  According to Bloomberg,  only a dozen pre-owned Falcon 7X planes are on the market currently, down from about 35 that were on sale a ayear and a half ago. As the market is tightening, buyers of luxury private aircraft are getting more aggressive, according to aircraft broker Steve Varsano.

  Varsano found out that bidding aggressively in the luxury plane market doesn’t even work sometimes. He recently bid on a plane sight unseen for a client who wanted a Dassault Aviation SA aircraft in India. He lost the bid when three other buyers emerged, and commented to Bloomberg: “The tables have turned. Just last year, the person running the sale would have been calling me everyday saying, ‘Hey, when are you coming over?'”

  

  Luxury jets had been in a glut for years, allowing buyers to call the shots. However, tax cuts in the United States have put sellers in control and companies like Emerson Electric and NextEra Energy Inc are helping the market rebound with recent purchases.

  And it’s great news for companies that make these planes like Embraer SA, Textron Inc. and General Dynamics Corp.’s Gulfstream division. They are all in the process of rolling out new models and are expected to deliver 8% more aircraft next year than this year. That stat defies the trend of deliveries being flat or down since 2014.

  The resurgence in the industry is coming mostly from the United States. About 70% of new plane deliveries have gone to the US, which already houses about 60% of the world’s private jets. The reduction of corporate taxes in the United States, from 35% to 21% has made companies flush with cash for large purchases. In addition, the rule change to allow for depreciation of capital investments has increased the incentive to buy aircraft.

  

  According to Bloomberg, here are some of the new models that will be hitting the market soon:

  • Bombardier is awaiting certification from the U.S. and Europe to begin deliveries of the Global 7500, the largest purpose-built corporate jet.
  • Gulfstream, whose G650 is the current holder of the biggest-jet crown, delivered a somewhat smaller plane, the G500, in September. It expects another model, the G600 to begin service early next year.
  • Cessna, a unit of Textron, is awaiting certification of its Longitude. The midsize jet is bigger than the company’s existing Latitude plane.
  • Not to be outdone, Embraer is increasing the range and improving cockpit controls of its similarly-sized Legacy planes and giving them a new moniker: Praetor.
  • Switzerland’s Pilatus Aircraft began deliveries earlier this year of its first jet aircraft, the PC-24.

  In addition, demand is also spiking for brand new planes that are based on older designs. For instance, Anadarko took delivery last month of a 2018 Gulfstream G550. This was the plane that Gulfstream made prior to the popular G650. Synovus Financial Corp. and NextEra Energy both recently purchased 2018 Embraer Legacy 500s. In September, Emerson purchased a used 2013 Falcon 7X. The company told Bloomberg: “Emerson is retiring an aging corporate aircraft. The 30-plus-year-old plane is significantly less efficient than the 2013 plane, which will offer better fuel efficiency and a much improved range to access global facilities.”

  

  As a result of purchases like these, prices have stabilized in the industry and used jet inventory is depleted. 

  According to Honeywell, pre-owned private jet inventory is down 13% from a year ago. For jets that are younger than 10 years, the number is more pronounced: inventory has decreased by 30%. The lowering of inventory in the used jet market foreshadows robust new jet sales. Honeywell estimates that 7,700 planes will be delivered over the next decade.

  Barry Justice, president of Corporate Aviation Asset Professionals, told Bloomberg: “Inventory is getting picked over. Good airplanes with high-quality avionics and interiors in good condition are getting harder to come by.”

  To be sure, the private jet market – which is reserved for the ultra high net worthy and corporations – is a bright spot in the US, where the stock market is just now starting to show some semblance of volatility. The recession, now nearly a decade ago, wound up throwing the jet market into turmoil at the time. Some in the industry haven’t lost sight of that. 

  Brian Foley, a business-aircraft consultant who spent 20 years as marketing director for Dassault’s North American jet unit, stated: “There’s one bogeyman hanging out there and that’s how long can this U.S. expansion go.”

  

• "It's Like A Western Movie" – Paul Craig Roberts Fears A US-Russia Showdown In The Making

  Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

  It has taken the US military/security complex 31 years to get rid of President Reagan’s last nuclear disarmament achievement – the INF Treaty that President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev achieved in 1987.

  

  The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was ratified by the US Senate on May 27, 1988 and became effective a few days later on June 1. Behind the scenes, I had some role in this, and as I remember what the treaty achieved was to make Europe safe from nuclear attack by Soviet short and intermediate range missiles, and to make the Soviet Union safe from US attack from short and intermediate range US nuclear missiles in Europe. By restricting nuclear weapons to ICBMs, which allowed some warning time, thus guaranteeing retaliation and non-use of nucular weapons, the INF Treaty was regarded as reducing the risk of an American first-strike on Russia and a Russian first-strike on Europe, strikes that could be delivered by low-flying cruise missiles with next to zero warning time.

  When President Reagan appointed me to a secret Presidential committee with subpoena power over the CIA, he told the members of the secret committee that his aim was to bring the Cold War to an end, with the result that, in his words, “those God-awful nuclear weapons would be dismantled.” President Reagan, unlike the crazed neoconservatives, who he fired and prosecuted, saw no point in nuclear war that would destroy all life on earth. The INF Treaty was the beginning, in Reagan’s mind, of the elimination of nuclear weapons from military arsenals. The INF Treaty was chosen as the first start because it did not substantially threaten the budget of the US military/security complex, and actually increased the security of the Soviet military. In other words, it was something that Reagan and Gorbachev could get past their own military establishments. Reagan hoped that as trust built, more nuclear disarmament would proceed.

  Now that President Reagan’s remaining achievement has been destroyed, what are the consequences of the Trump administration’s concession to the profits of the US military/security complex?

  There are many, none good.

  

  The massive US military/security complex profits will increase as more increasingly scarce American resources flow into the production of intermediate range missiles in order to counter “the Russian threat.” The Republicans will want to pay for this by cutting Social Security and Medicare. I am unsure that the Democrats would be any different.

  The Zionist neoconservatives now have their hope rekindled of re-establishing American and Israeli hegemony with an undetected first strike nuclear cruise missile attack on Russia.

  More pressure will be on Putin’s government from Alexei Kudrin, the Jewish Lobby, and the billionaire oligarchs put in place by Washington and Israel during the Yeltsin years when Russia was degraded to an American vassal state. These Russian traitors are so powerful that Putin has to tolerate them. With neoconized Washington doing everything it can possibly do to damage the Russian economy and to draw Russian resources off from economic and infrastructure needs to military spending, Kudrin and the Western-supported elements of the Russian media will, with their demands to accommodate Washington, encourage Washington to put yet more pressure on Russia with the intention of forcing Russia into a vassal status with the Germans, British, French, and the rest of Europe, along with Canada, Australia, and Japan.

  The Russian government, by its meek response to extraordinary provocations, continues to encourage more provocations, as the provocations cost the US and its vassals nothing. The Russian government’s toleration of traitors, such as Kudrin, does not convince Western peoples that Russia is an open, free speech society. Instead, they believe Kudrin, not Putin. Americans believe that Putin is a thug who stole $50 billion and is one of the world’s richest men. I heard this yesterday from my own cousin. The Western media never paints a correct picture of life in Russia. The only achievement of the Russian government’s non-confrontational response to the West and toleration of treason within its own government is to convince Washington that Putin can be overthrown, just like the pro-Russian president of Ukraine and the presidents of Honduras, Brazil, Argentina.

  In the 20th century Americans, or that small percentage that is sentient, were influenced by dystopic novels such as Kafka’s The Trial, Orwell’s 1984, and Huxley’s Brave New World. We identified these novels with life in the Soviet Union, and we feared being conquered and subjectged to such life.

  It was a long time before I realized that the “Soviet threat” was a hoax, like Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” like “Iranian nukes,” like “Assad’s use of chemical weapons,” like . . . you can provide the examples.

  The vast majority of the peoples in the world have no idea what is happening. They are trying to find or to keep jobs, to provide housing and food, to find the money for a mortgage or car or credit card payment in the US, and in much of the world water to drink and a bit of food to eat. They are stressed out. They have no energy to confront bad news or to figure out what is happening. They are abandoned by governments everywhere.

  Outside of Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, where is there a government that represents the people?

  

  Even in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, are there governments that actually believe in themselves instead of in Western propaganda?

  

• As Trump Approval Hits Record High, Dems Fear Low Millennial, Hispanic Turnout

  With just two weeks left until the midterm vote, Democrats are worrying that their get-out-the-vote efforts (which have included such novel strategies as catfishing people on twitter) won’t mobilize the two demographic groups that are seen as crucial to a Democratic victory: Young people and Hispanics, per Bloomberg.

  

  Meanwhile, the latest Gallup poll shows that support for President Trump surged to 44% during the first two weeks of October, just one percentage point below his personal best, which was reached during his first week in office. Gallup attributed the bump to the contentious confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as the decades-old accusations of sexual misconduct apparently galvanized support for the president.

  

  The boost in Trump’s approval rating helped push his average approval rating for his seventh quarter in office, which began July 20 and ended October 19, to 41.2%. This Q7 average  fell short of his 41.9% sixth-quarter average, but it’s still nearly 5 percentage points above where it stood one year ago. And while Trump’s Q7 approval is still comparatively low, it’s not much lower than similar ratings for Bill Clinton (41.4% in 1994), Ronald Reagan (41.7% in 1982) and Jimmy Carter (42.3% in 1978). Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, also registered a weak Q7 approval rating during his seventh quarter in office, averaging 44.7% job approval in the late summer and early fall of 2010.

  

  In addition to Kavanaugh, several other notable developments occurred during Trump’s 7th quarter. The BEA confirmed that GDP growth expanded to 4.2% during the second quarter, consumer confidence climbed to its highest level in 2 decades while the S&P 500 broke through 2,900 for the first time.

  

  Unsurprisingly, Americans who identify or lean Republican have consistently given Trump higher job approval ratings, and during his seventh quarter in office, their average approval rating increased from 81% to 85%, a sign that the president is slowly winning over more voters who were likely once members of the “#NeverTrump” camp. His average Q7 approval rating among independent voters also improved by 3 percentage points.

  

  And while poll suggest that Republicans are closing the gap with Democrats, increasing the likelihood that they retain control of the House and the Senate following the Nov. 6 midterm, the Dems are worried that signs of interest among Latino voters won’t translate to the voting booth. According to Bloomberg, one survey released Sunday found 71% of Latinos registered high interest in the midterms, a jump from the 49% of Latinos who said that in mid-September. Among voters under 35, the poll said 51% expressed high interest, which is lower than the 65% average for all registered voters.

  This is hugely problematic for Democratic strategists, because there are 31 GOP-controlled districts where Hispanics make up one-quarter of the population or more.

  “It’s just a really, really big question about who’s going to turn out to vote,” Lake said. “We could lose Senate seats over it. We could lose – the margin in the House could be greatly reduced. There are a good 15 seats where the millennial and Latino vote make a huge difference, could be the margin of victory.”

  In the past, any interest ahead of the vote expressed by young voters and minorities didn’t translate at the ballot box, as both demographics largely sat out the midterms in 2014, 2010 and 2006. Historically, the trend in non-presidential elections is that voters are older, white and married – demographics that often benefit Republicans.

  In 2014, Hispanics comprised 25.1% of eligible voters but just 6.8% of the electorate. In 2010, they accounted for 21.3% of eligible voters and 6.6% of the electorate. In 2006, a strong year for Democrats, they were 17.3% of eligible voters and just 5.6 percent of the electorate.

  One strategist perfectly summed up the contradiction in the data: while young voters are “very, very fired up, but the question is: Are they fired up for the next protest or for the next election?”

  

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