Jun 27

Today’s News 27th June 2018

  • Sweden's 'Neo-Nazi' Party Support Surges As Immigrant Gang Violence Soars

    Many Swedes were horrified in early 2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump linked immigration to rising crime in Sweden, but an increasing number now agree with him.

    Amid soaring crime rates, gang violence, complaints about education, and pregnant mothers even being turned away from maternity wards due to a lack of capacity, resentment in Sweden has built over the influx of more than 600,000 immigrants over the past five years.

    And as Bloomberg reports, paying some of the world’s highest income-tax rates has been the cornerstone of Scandinavia’s social contract, with the political consensus in Sweden to save money for when the economy is less healthy.

    Yet the country is showing strains all too familiar in other parts of Europe with nationalists gaining support and Swedes increasingly questioning the sustainability of their fabled cradle-to-grave welfare system.

    “The Swedish social contract needs to be reformed,” a dozen entrepreneurs including Nordea Bank AB Chairman Bjorn Wahlroos and Kreab Founder Peje Emilsson wrote in an op-ed in the Dagens Industri newspaper on May 31. “Despite high taxes, politics isn’t delivering its part of the contract in important areas. We get poor value for money.”

    Although taxes have been raised in recent years, welfare has deteriorated, they said.

    “I don’t trust welfare at all, I need to build my own capital,” Bothen said while sipping his cappuccino at the NK department store in central Stockholm. “The problem with immigration is that our welfare state is not quite dimensioned for it. Of course we should help people, and we have a good situation here in Sweden, but we can’t handle an unlimited amount of people.”

    There are warning signs across Europe of what can happen if disillusionment goes unaddressed. In Britain, popular anger over rising immigration and creaking public services fueled the vote to leave the European Union. Nationalist parties, on the march across continent, just swept to power in Italy.

    And, judging by the latest polls, the rise of extreme populist groups in Sweden is accelerating fast.

    As Reuters reports, dozens of people have been killed in the past two years in attacks in the capital Stockholm and other big cities by gangs that are mostly from run-down suburbs dominated by immigrants.

    With public calls growing for tougher policies on crime and immigration, support has risen for the ironically named, Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots that wants to freeze immigration and to hold a referendum on Sweden’s membership of the European Union.

    Their worried mainstream rivals have started moving to the right on crime and immigration to try to counter the Sweden Democrats’ threat in the Sept. 9 election. But so far, they are playing into the hands of the far-right.

    “Right now they (mainstream parties) are competing over who can set out the most restrictive policies,” said Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lovin, whose Green Party is part of a minority government led by the Social Democratic Party.

    “It clearly benefits the Sweden Democrats.”

    Opinion polls put the Sweden Democrats on about 20 percent support, up from the 13 percent of votes they secured in the 2014 election and the 5.7 percent which saw them enter parliament for the first time in 2010.

    The Sweden Democrats’ rise on the back of anti-immigration sentiment mirrors gains for right-wing, populist and anti-establishment parties in other European countries such as Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria.

    The Sweden Democrats still trail the Social Democratic Party but has overtaken the main opposition Moderates in many polls. All mainstream parties have ruled out working with them.

    But they could emerge from the election as kingmakers, and a strong election showing could force the next government to take their views into consideration when shaping policy.

    Their policies include a total freeze on asylum seekers and accepting refugees only from Sweden’s neighbors in the future. They also want tougher penalties for crime and more powers for police, and say tax cuts and higher spending on welfare could be funded by cutting the immigration budget.

    Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the Sweden Democratic party, has described the situation as “pretty fantastic”.

    “We are dominating the debate even though no one will talk to us,” he told party members.

    The Sweden Democrats have succeeded in linking the two in the minds of many voters, even though official statistics show no correlation between overall levels of crime and immigration. However, while the government denies it has lost control but Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has not ruled out sending the military into problem areas.

    “Sweden is going down a more right-wing path,” said Nick Aylott, a political scientist at Sodertorn University said. “It is almost impossible to avoid according some sort of influence to a party with around 20 percent of the vote.”

    Trump was right after all.

  • Turkey's Election: Stockholm Syndrome At Its Worst

    Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

    Nothing could have better explained the Turks’ joy over their president’s election victory on June 24 than a cartoon that depicts a cheering crowd with three lines in speech balloons: “It was a near thing,” one says. “We would almost become free.” And the last one says: “Down with freedoms!”

    Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, won 52.5% of the national vote in presidential elections on June 24. That marks a slight rise from 51.8% he won in presidential elections of August 2014. More than 25 million Turks voted for Erdoğan’s presidency. His closest rival, social democrat Muharrem Ince, an energetic former schoolteacher, won less than 16 million votes, or nearly 31% of the national vote.

    The opposition candidate admitted that the election was fair. There have been no reports of fraud from international observers, at least so far.

    Despite the defeat, Ince was one of the many winners of Election 2018. For the first time since 1977 a social democrat politician won more than 30% of the vote in Turkey. Ince’s party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) won only 22.6% of the vote in the parliamentary race.

    Despite Erdoğan’s clear victory, his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) performed worse than expected: It won 42.4% of the vote in parliamentary elections, down eight percentage points from the 49.5% it won in the previous parliamentary race in November 2015.

    That decline deprived the AKP of winning parliamentary majority, with 295 seats in Turkey’s 300-member house. Instead, AKP’s right-wing partners, the National Movement Party (MHP) unexpectedly won 49 seats, bringing the total number of seats controlled by the governing bloc up to 344, a comfortable majority.

    The AKP-MHP alliance marks the official birth of Turkey’s new ruling ideology: A bloc of Islamists and nationalists that traditionally represent Turkey’s lowest educated rural population. Erdoğan may not be too happy having to share power with a party that was last in a coalition alliance in 2002 but with his AKP lacking a parliamentary majority he will have to keep the nationalists in partnership. He may also have to give them high-profile seats like vice-president and/or ministerial positions.

    After election results on June 24 Turkey will be further dragged into authoritarian politics with the blend of Islamism and nationalism emerging as the new state ideology. Deep polarization in the Turkish society will probably get deeper. There are already signs. In a victory speech in the evening hours of June 24 Erdoğan’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said that the losers of the election were the “terrorists”. In this politically-divisive, pathetic logic, 47.5% of Turks are terrorists: that makes about 38.5 million people.

    The national joy over the re-election of a man known best to the rest of the world for his authoritarian, sometimes despotic rule, is not surprising in a country where average schooling is a mere 6.5 years. As recently as April 2017, the Turks had already given up the remaining pieces of their democracy when they voted in favor of constitutional amendments that made Erdoğan head of the state, head of government and head of the ruling party all at the same time. The amendments gave the president almost unchecked powers and the authority to rule by decree.

    Pictured: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at a campaign rally on June 23, 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

    In its “Freedom in the World 2018” report, Freedom House categorizes Turkey as a “not free” country due to “due to a deeply flawed constitutional referendum that centralized power in the presidency, the mass replacement of elected mayors with government appointees, arbitrary prosecutions of rights activists and other perceived enemies of the state, and continued purges of state employees, all of which have left citizens hesitant to express their views on sensitive topics”. Turkey also tops Freedom house’s list of countries where democracy has been on decline for the past decade. Ironically, even civil war-torn Syria is at the bottom of the list (meaning its democracy has declined the least among the countries surveyed).

    Erdoğan’s Turkey was galloping toward dictatorship even before the Turks gave him the powers he wanted in the April 2017 referendum. Millions of anti-Erdoğan Turks are now terrified of the prospect of further torment under an Islamist-nationalist coalition show run by a president with effectively no checks and balances. Ince, the opposition candidate against Erdoğan has vowed to fight back. Let us hope he does not have to fight back from where many Erdoğan opponents have been locked up.

  • Who Are The Crypto-Tycoons?

    Going from rags to riches is every mortal’s dream these days, and with these Forbes figures, Statista’s Martin Armstrong introduces us to some names who have managed to do so by jumping into the crypto game right on time.

    Infographic: Who Are The Cryptotycoons? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Although they are nowhere near the biggest fortunes of the world, their combined net worth matches the GDP of countries such as Cambodia, Honduras or Cyprus.

    A factor that clearly differentiates them from other multimillionaires is their age: none of them are over 60, and the youngest one, Brian Armstrong, has managed to stack up a considerable wealth at only 35 years of age.

    Their nationalities also shed light on the geographical range of cryptocurrencies: it comes as no surprise that U.S. and Canada citizens dominate the list.

    However, there is one intruder in this North American race: Changpeng Zhao, the Chinese CEO of Binance, one of the main crypto exchanges.

  • Russia's Nuclear Doctrine Is Being Distorted Once Again

    Authored by Vladimir Kozin via Oriental Review,

    On June 13, 2018, the Washington Post published an original piece by Paul Sonne that describes America’s potential use of the low-yield nuclear warheads that are to be installed on the future US B-61-12 nuclear bombs, as well as on the ballistic missiles carried by the Trident II submarines in the form of W76-2 warheads, in accordance with Washington’s 2018 nuclear doctrine.

    The article claims that the introduction of low-yield warheads and the idea of their potential use is being justified by the Pentagon as necessary due to the fact that Russia is allegedly prepared to use similar warheads against NATO countries, based on that nation’s current nuclear doctrine and because a purported strategy of “escalate to de-escalate” has apparently been “approved” by Moscow.

    It should be kept in mind that the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, which has sections covering the potential use of nuclear weapons, says nothing about the power of the nuclear weapons that might be utilized, nor is there any mention of warheads with either high or “low” yields in TNT equivalents. Those sections of the official doctrine do not even categorize Russian nuclear weapons into strategic vs. tactical varieties.

    Only one term is specified in Russia’s military and strategic posture: “nuclear weapons.” And only two circumstances are listed as a basis for their potential use: the first — only in response to the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the Russian Federation and/or its allies; and the second — in the event of aggression against Russia that employs conventional weapons to the point that “the very existence of the state is threatened.” In other words, only reciprocal actions are permitted in either case.

    Nor does the Russian nuclear doctrine list the countries or alliances against which nuclear weapons can be used.

    It seems odd that the US still does not understand the basic tenets of Russia’s nuclear posture. And it must be said that this is not the first time that Western analysts have taken such an unprofessional approach. This has become especially glaring in the run-up to the next NATO summit, which will take place July 11-12 in Brussels.

    On the other hand, the newest US nuclear doctrine, which was approved last February, specifies 14 justifications for the use of nuclear weapons, including “low-yield” warheads, which is how US arms experts classify nuclear warheads of 5.0-6.5 kilotons and below. These are precisely the sea- and air-launched warheads the Pentagon intends to utilize in accordance with its new concept of “escalating to de-escalate.” Under that theory, low-yield nuclear warheads can be employed by US nuclear forces on an increasing scale in a variety of regional conflicts, with the aim of “de-escalating” them, which might be accomplished with the help of a nuclear first strike.

    This practice could cause a chain reaction in the use of nuclear weapons, involving not only “low-yield” warheads, but also more powerful nuclear explosives.

    The practice being described — the potential use of low-yield nuclear weapons, which is a real fixation for the current US administration and is being discussed with increasing frequency in the US — suggests that America’s military and political leaders are committed to dramatically lowering the minimum threshold for their use and expanding the list of acceptable reasons to utilize them under real-world conditions.

    The adage from the past that everyone could relate to — “A nuclear war cannot be unleashed, because there will be no winners” — is now absent from the political statements that are being heard. It is clear that forces have taken the upper hand on Capitol Hill that are still incapable of imagining the consequences of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a path, even if this scenario proves unlikely, will inevitably lead to a potential undermining of the already fragile non-proliferation regime and a breakdown in the negotiations on establishing control over nuclear facilities, which — and this is not news — very few countries are taking part in at the present time.

    For all these reasons, a dangerous future practice like this needs to be reexamined by Washington, in the interests of preserving global stability. In order to achieve this goal, the strategic guidelines for inflicting a first “preemptive and preventive” nuclear strike, as well as the continuing premise of “unconditional offensive nuclear deterrence,” which have remained unchanged since 1945, must be completely eliminated from American nuclear strategies.

    These are not ultimatums, as someone defending US nuclear policy has already tried to portray them. This is a completely natural, logical, and sensible step, which would no doubt be positively received all over the world.

  • "He's Out!": Establishment Democrats Rocked By Joe Crowley Primary Loss To Socialist Millennial

    Establishment Democrat Joe Crowley’s nearly two-decade career in Congress came to an end Tuesday night in a shocking primary loss to 28-year-old Democratic Socialist and former Bernie Sanders organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – a harsh critic of Israel and immigration enforcement.

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    Crowley – the 56-year-old Chairman of the House Democratic caucus had long been viewed as a potential House Speaker, and has been a staple in New York City politics as chairman of the Queens County Democratic Party. 

    His loss to insurgent candidate Ocasio-Cortez, his first primary challenge in 14 years, is a major upset to establishment Democrats trying to cobble together a “blue wave” of progressive support to combat Republicans in the upcoming midterms. Instead, it looks like Democrats are as fractured as ever. 

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    (there are eleven more tweets listing Crowley donors, so we’ll stop here)

    And speaking of Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept has covered New York’s 14th Congressional District race extensively (see here). Here’s why they thought she might have a chance back in May: 

    THE SAFE MONEY on a race in a machine-dominated district is to bet on the boss. And, to be sure, Crowley is likely to be the favorite. But Ocasio-Cortez has a few plausible reasons to believe there’s a path to victory:

    • She has more than 8,000 individual donors; that’s a pool she’ll continue to grow and can keep tapping into if her campaign gains momentum. It suggests that the 5,000+ signatures she turned in were no fluke.

    • Primaries are very low-turnout affairs, meaning the absolute number of votes she needs to win is quite low, in the high-four figures or low-five figures.

    • Crowley is the king of Queens, but he represents the Bronx from a distance. If Ocasio-Cortez can organize and run up her numbers in the Bronx, while holding her own in Queens, she can win.

    The case against her isn’t based on substance, but on raw politics. Crowley is a very good old-school politician: engaging on the stump, charismatic, and diligent about building relationships. He has close relationships with the bosses of the Bronx machine, which can turn out votes. And, for many Democratic voters, he’s not that bad. –The Intercept 

    President Trump took the opportunity to throw salt in Crowley’s wounds Tuesday night, tweeting: “Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election. In other words, he’s out!”

    Or, maybe Ocasio-Cortez schooling Crowley over ICE was the nail in the coffin in these politically charged times?

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  • A Newly Discovered Supervolcano Is Churning Under 3 States

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    A blob of molten lava has been detected under three states in the Northeast.  The new supervolcano currently brewing under New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont is creeping upwards and surprising geologists.

    The region in which the new volcano was discovered is geologically stable with no active volcanoes in the surrounding area.  Earthquakes are almost unheard of in the area.That means that the formation of the massive magma buildup in the northeast is a relatively recent event, scientists say. But keep in mind, in the timescale of Earth’s geological processes, this still means tens of millions of years.  If these findings hold up though, the northeast could be considered more active geologically than previously thought.

    Fox News reported that the unexpected supervolcano has been gradually making itself known to geologists in the United States. A huge mass of molten rock is slowly climbing upwards beneath three of the nation’s northeastern states. The new supervolcano only became evident through a new and large-scale seismic study. “The upwelling we detected is like a hot-air balloon, and we infer that something is rising up through the deeper part of our planet under New England,” says Rutgers University geophysicist Professor Vadim Levin.

    “Our study challenges the established notion of how the continents on which we live behave,” Professor Levin says. “It challenges the textbook concepts taught in introductory geology classes.” But there should be no fear of this supervolcano erupting anytime soon either.

    “It will likely take millions of years for the upwelling to get where it’s going,” Professor Levin explains. “The next step is to try to understand how exactly it’s happening.”

    “It is not Yellowstone-like, but it’s a distant relative,” Professor Levin says.  And geologists say that the volcano may never erupt at all. “Maybe it didn’t have time yet, or maybe it is too small and will never make it,” Professor Levin told National Geographic. “Come back in 50 million years, and we’ll see what happens.”

    These recent findings, which were published in the journal Geology, suggest that New England may not be so immune to abrupt geological change. “Ten years ago, this would not have been possible,” said Levin. “Now, all of a sudden, we have a much better eye to see inside the Earth.”

  • Naked 82-Year-Old Japanese Hermit Who Found Bliss On Remote Island "Captured", Forced Into Government Housing

    An 82-year-old Japanese hermit who “escaped” the entertainment industry and found bliss on a remote island has been yanked from his home of 29 years by Japanese authorities and taken to a government facility some 37 miles away. 

    Masafumi Nagasaki decided to live in solitude in 1989 after a friend told him about an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. He made his home on Sotobanari (“Outer Distant island”), a 1,000 meter-wide kidney-shaped island. Surviving on rice cakes and bottled water, Nagasaki rarely saw anyone outside of his weekly trips by boat to a settlement an hour away for provisions – paid for with a small stipend sent to him by his family.

    Each day is conducted according to a strict timetable, starting with stretches in the sun on the beach. The rest is a race against time as he prepares food, washes and cleans his camp before the light fails and insects come out to bite. -Reuters

    “Finding a place to die is an important thing to do, and I’ve decided here is the place for me,” he said.

    Discovered in 2012 without clothes at the age of 76, Nagasaki became known as the “naked hermit” – and has chosen to stop hunting and fishing out of a sense of guilt over having to kill the few animals who also inhabit the island. Before his recent eviction, he spent five days with Alvaro Cerezo, who operates island touring company Docastaway. 

    Cerezo told news.com.au that Nagasaki was evicted after someone found him in a “weak” state on the island, despite his Nagasaki being in generally good health. He “probably only had the flu” when he was found, said Cerezo. 

    Nagasaki describes how a typhoon devastated the island in his second year – stripping it of vegetation and leaving him to bake in the sun. He persevered for 27 more years, adapting to his environment while learning to make due with virtually nothing.

    He also described his perfect death, on the island in 2012 – his home of nearly three decades. 

    “It hadn’t really occurred to me before how important it is to choose the place of your death, like whether it’s in a hospital or at home with family by your side. But to die here, surrounded by nature — you just can’t beat it, can you?”

    Finally, Nagaskai shared an insight that many in the current unstable world would do well to note.

    When asked “What is the worst thing from civilization” his answer was simple – two words: “Money and religion.”

    We wonder how many of the 29 years alone it took him to realize that.

  • DOJ Won't Release Top Secret Loretta Lynch Intercepts Suggesting Secret Deal To Rig Clinton Probe

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) is refusing to release intercepted material alleging that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch conspired with the Clinton campaign in a deal to rig the Clinton email investigation, reports Paul Sperry of RealClear Investigations. 

    The information remains so secret that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz had to censor it from his recently released 500-plus-page report on the FBI’s investigation of Clinton, and even withhold it from Congress.

    Not even members of Congress with top secret security clearance have been allowed to see the unverified accounts intercepted from presumed Russian sources in which the head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, allegedly implicates the Clinton campaign and Lynch in the scheme.

    “It is remarkable how this Justice Department is protecting the corruption of the Obama Justice Department,” notes Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, which is suing the DOJ for the material.

    Wasserman Schultz, Lynch and Clinton have denied the allegations and characterized them as Russian disinformation. 

    True or false, the material is consequential because it appears to have influenced former FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to break with bureau protocols because he didn’t trust Lynch. In his recent book, Comey said he took the reins in the Clinton email probe, announcing Clinton should not be indicted, because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch’s credibility – clearly the intercepted material.

    If the material documents an authentic exchange between Lynch and a Clinton aide, it would appear to be strong evidence that the Obama administration put partisan political considerations ahead of its duty to enforce the law. –RealClear Investigations

    Then again, if the intercepts are fabricated, it would constitute Russia’s most tangible success in influencing the 2016 U.S. election – since Comey may not have gone around Lynch cleared Clinton during his July 2016 press conference – nor would he have likely publicly announced the reopening of the investigation right before the election – an act Clinton and her allies blame for her stunning loss to Donald Trump. 

    The secret intelligence document purports to show that Lynch told the Clinton campaign she would keep the FBI email investigation on a short leash – a suggestion included in the Inspector General’s original draft, but relegated to a classified appendix in the official report and entirely blanked out. 

    What is known, based on press leaks and a letter Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent Lynch, is that in March 2016, the FBI received a batch of hacked documents from U.S. intelligence agencies that had access to stolen emails stored on Russian networks. One of the intercepted documents revealed an alleged email from then-DNC Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz to an operative working for billionaire Democratic fundraiser George Soros. It claimed Lynch had assured the Clinton campaign that investigators and prosecutors would go easy on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee regarding her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. Lynch allegedly made the promise directly to Clinton political director Amanda Renteria. –RealClear Investigations

    “The information was classified at such a high level by the intelligence community that it limited even the members [of Congress] who can see it, as well as the staffs,” Horowitz explained last week during congressional testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority over Justice and the FBI.

    Congressional sources told RealClearInvestigations the material is classified “TS/SCI,” which stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. –RealClear Investigations

    Horowitz said that he has asked Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to work with the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to figure out if the intercepted material can be rewritten to allow congress to see it. Once appropriately redacted to protect “sources and methods,” said Horowitz, he hopes that members of congress can then go to the secure reading room in the basement of the Capitol Building, called the “tank,” and view the materials. 

    “We very much want the committee to see this information,” Horowitz said.

    For some strange reason, CNN, WaPo and the New York Times have uncritically taken Lynch, Clinton and Wasserman Schultz’s denials at face value, dismissing the compromising information as possibly fake and unreliable. Horowitz even quotes non-FBI “witnesses” in his report describing the secret information as “objectively false.” 

    FBI Sandbagging

    While the FBI apparently took the intercept seriously, it never interviewed anyone named in it until Clinton’s email case was closed by Comey in July 2016. In August, the FBI informally quizzed Lynch about the allegations – while Comey also reportedly confronted the former AG and was told to leave her office.

    Comey said he had doubts about Lynch’s independence as early as September 2015 when she called him into her office and asked him to minimize the probe by calling it “a matter” instead of an “investigation,” which aligned with Clinton campaign talking points. Then, just days before FBI agents interviewed Clinton in July 2016, Lynch privately met with former President Bill Clinton on her government plane while it was parked on an airport tarmac in Phoenix. In a text message that has since been brought to light, the lead investigators on the case, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, made clear at the time their understanding that Lynch knew that “no charges will be brought” against Clinton.

    Renteria, the Clinton campaign official, who ran for governor of California but failed to secure a top-two spot in the primary, insists the intelligence citing her was disinformation created by Russian officials to dupe Americans and create discord and turmoil during the election.  –RealClear Investigations

    While Lynch has never been directly asked under oath by Congress about the allegation – she swore in a July 2016 session in front of the House Judiciary Committee “I have not spoken to anyone on either the [Clinton] campaign or transition or any staff members affiliated with them.” 

    Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he’ll issue a subpoena for Lynch, but the panel’s top Democrat Dianne Feinstein (CA) has to agree to it per committee rules. Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey’s former #2, Andrew McCabe.

    Feinstein may be hesitant to sign on, as she says she thinks Comey acted in good faith – which means she thinks Congress shouldn’t have a crack at questioning a key figure in the largest political scandal in modern history.

    “While I disagree with his actions, I have seen no evidence that Mr. Comey acted in bad faith or that he lied about any of his actions,” said Feinstein during a Monday Judiciary panel hearing. Former Feinstein staffer and FBI investigator Dan Jones, meanwhile, continues to work with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS on a $50 million investigation privately funded by George Soros and other “wealthy donors” to continue the investigation into Donald Trump.

    Of interest, Amanda Renteria is also former Feinstein staffer. Also recall that Feinstein leaked Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s Congressional testimony in January.

    Lynch was dinged in the IG report over an “ambiguous” incomplete recusal from the Clinton email “matter” despite a clandestine 30-minute “tarmac” meeting with Bill Clinton one week before the FBI exonerated Hillary Clinton.

    Interesting how a “dossier” full of falsehoods about Trump not only released to the public, but was used by the FBI as part of an espionage operation on the Trump campaign – while an intercepted communication from Russia is suddenly classified as so top-secret that even members of Congressional intelligence oversight committees can’t see it.

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  • World Domination: UN Continues Fight To Disarm All Americans

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    The United Nations is gearing up for round two in the fight to disarm the American public. Last month, the United Nations’ International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) held a week-long conference geared towards making gun control an international priority.

    Wanting world domination, the global elites are seeking to prevent Americans from being able to escape the slavery they have planned for everyone by enacting “global gun control.” According to Townhall‘s Beth Baumann, during RevCon3, the conference on the program of action on small arms and light weapons, the UN’s Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres had a message delivered on his behalf.  It reads, in part:

    Every year, over half a million people are killed violently around the world, mostly through small arms fire.

    Those pulling the trigger may be soldiers, border guards or police, using their weapons as a last resort, in accordance with the principles of necessity, proportionality and restraint. Some are private security guards or civilians, using a registered firearm for protection or in self-defence.

    But the huge majority of those who kill with small arms do not fit this description. They may be members of armed groups who are terrorizing people of a country or a whole region with killings and sexual abuse. They could be members of national security forces who are abusing their power. They might be terrorists aiming to destroy lives and sow fear; criminals holding up a grocery store; or gang members killing those who get in the way of a drug deal.

    Tragically, many of them are men using an illegally-acquired weapon against the women who are their partners. In some countries, more than 60 percent of killings of women are committed with firearms.

    Illicit small arms are also used against United Nations peacekeeping forces. In 2017, 56 peacekeepers died in violent attacks – the highest number in over two decades.

    Controlling and regulating small arms therefore requires action that goes well beyond national security institutions. It includes providing alternative livelihoods for former combatants, engaging with municipal governments and police, working with civil society, including grass-roots organizations and community violence reduction programmes, as well as local businesses.

    Small arms control is a prerequisite for stability and conflict prevention, which is critical to achieve the mutually reinforcing goals of sustaining peace and sustainable development.

    Only through sustainable development will we be able to build just, peaceful and inclusive societies and to achieve lasting peace.

    The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is our agreed roadmap for building peaceful, resilient and prosperous societies on a healthy planet. Among the 17 Goals, there is a specific target to reduce arms flows, based on improving the tracing of weapons.

    The Agenda for Disarmament that I launched last month includes a renewed focus on controlling small arms. And it includes my commitment to establish a dedicated facility within the Peacebuilding Fund, to ensure solid financing for coordinated, integrated, sustained small arms control measures.

    When the UN says that over a half a million have been killed by guns worldwide, they conveniently leave out the number of people killed in wars and by governments pretending to act on the behalf of people (democide-death by your OWN government). The democide numbers are not even close when compared to private citizens acting on their own. As Baumann wrote: “The reason they have to use “grassroots organizations” they’re meaning gun control groups, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action. They’re utilizing Americans to fulfill their desire to push gun control. Their reason? It looks better if Americans are demanding we abolish the Second Amendment instead of other countries trying to pressure us.”

    But just how many people were killed by their own governments (democide)?  Well, it’s hard to say because according to Glenn Floyd, the stats are deliberately concealed by State Coroners. The leading cause of non-natural death around the globe today, other than natural causes, is democide. It far outpaces private murderers and suicides.

    Governments always offer excuses for the murder, like overpopulation, political opposition, and economic concerns. But that doesn’t mean they’ve provided adequate justification to the immoral killings.  And now the global elites will seek to prevent those they seek to enslave any ability to fight back.

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