Mar 28

Today’s News 28th March 2018

  • Visualizing The 50 Most Important Life-Saving Breakthroughs In History

    For most of civilized history, life expectancy fluctuated in the 30 to 40 year range.

    Child mortality was all too common, and even for those that made it to adulthood, a long and healthy life was anything but guaranteed. Sanitation was poor, disease was rampant, and many medical practices were based primarily on superstition or guesswork.

    But, as Visual Cpitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, by the 20th century, an explosion in new technologies, treatments, and other science-backed practices helped to increase global life expectancy at an unprecedented rate.

    From 1900 to 2015, global life expectancy more than doubled, shooting well past the 70 year mark.

    IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGHS

    What were the major innovations that made the last century so very fruitful in saving lives?

    Today’s infographic from AperionCare highlights the top 50 breakthroughs, ranging from pasteurization to the bifurcated needle, that have helped propel global life expectancy upwards.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Interestingly, while many of these innovations have some linkage to the medical realm, there are also breakthroughs in sectors like energy, sanitation, and agriculture that have helped us lead longer and healthier lives.

    To see innovations on an individual basis, AperionCare breaks them down further as follows:

    The breakthroughs that are credited with saving the most lives?

    Toilets, synthetic fertilizers, blood transfusions, the green revolution (also known as the “Third Agricultural Revolution”), and vaccines are each credited with saving 1 billion lives. Meanwhile, pasteurization, water chlorination, antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, and the bifurcated needle have saved hundreds of millions of lives each.

    There are also some unusual entries to the list.

    It turns out that satellites have actually saved 250,000 lives, thanks to the ability to better forecast natural disasters. Nuclear power also gets a shout out – and it may surprise some people that nuclear energy is the least deadly form of energy per kilowatt generated.

    PROGRESS IN LIFE EXPECTANCY

    For a graphical look at how this all has impacted life expectancy, the following chart from Our World in Datamakes a very clear case:

    The impact from these new technologies was first experienced in Europe at the end of the 1800s – and other continents quickly saw the benefits thereafter.

    Impressively, Africa has now passed the 60 year mark in life expectancy, with numbers still rising.

  • CENTCOM Commander Admits Failure In Syria Strategy"

    Authored by Geoffrey Aronson via The American Conservative blog,

    But Washington will continue to blunder into confrontations in the Middle East without a comprehensive strategy

    Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this month, CENTCOM commander General Joseph L. Votel set about talking straight on Syria. Votel, in a colloquy with Senator Lindsey Graham that was refreshing for its brevity and candor, acknowledged that the principal ambition of U.S. policy towards Syria—the removal of President Bashar al Assad at the behest of a motley assortment of Islamist and reformist oppositionists—has failed.

    An hour into Votel’s testimony, Graham got to the point:

    Graham: “Who is winning in Syria?”

    Votel:  “ …It would seem that the regime is ascendant.”

    Graham: “Do you see any likelihood that the [opposition] forces…can topple Assad in the next year?”

    Votel: “That’s not my assessment.”

    Graham: “Is it too strong a statement to say that with Russia’s and Iran’s help Assad has won the civil war?”

    Votel: “I do not think that is too strong of a statement. They have provided him the wherewithal to be ascendant.”

    Graham: “Is it still our policy that Assad must go?”

    Votel: “I don’t know that that’s our particular policy at this particular point.”

    Graham: “Thank you for your clarity and honesty; and it is not your mission in Syria to deal with the Iranian, Assad, Russia problem.”

    Votel: “That’s correct senator.”

    Graham and Votel are to be commended for their no-nonsense effort to inform Americans about Washington’s failure to achieve the strategic objectives underlying the U.S. engagement in Syria these many years. How many remember that the demand for Assad’s departure announced by President Barack Obama in August 2011 sparked a steady, incremental increase in U.S. support for and involvement in the civil war that persists to this day?

    But in 2013, ISIS, which threatened to topple the regime in Baghdad, replaced Assad as the enemy du jour. With critical support from newfound Kurdish allies, Washington’s war against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, has, at least for the moment, been all but won.

    Kurdish-led forces control almost a quarter of Syria, while Washington can justly celebrate its military victory. But this achievement, which itself is now threatening to unravel, mistakes a tactical for a strategic success. As it now stands, this military triumph is almost beside the original point, which was regime change, lest one forget.

    Indeed, in the next stage of the war over control of the Kurdish zone, our Kurdish allies are abandoning Washington’s fight against ISIS in places like Deir al Zur and are making common cause with Assad to defend Kurdish parts of Syria against Turkey. We have just witnessed their failed campaign in Afrin to repel Turkish forces and agreeable remnants of the inaptly named Free Syrian Army, the former object of Washington’s anti-Assad largesse. Faced with the embarrassing contradiction that the U.S. is enabling a military campaign waged by Kurds, joined at the hip with Turkey’s arch foe the PKK and allies of convenience with Damascus, against its NATO ally Turkey, now in command of the freedom fighters of the FSA, Washington can only stutter.

    Votel asserted that Russia’s role in Syria is not his problem. Yet even as Washington pivots away from post-ISIS Syria, the first hot military confrontation between the U.S. and Russia since World War II—for control of oil installations near Deir al-Zour—will be the latest attempt to hit the moving target that is U.S. policy in Syria.

    On February 8, Kurdish defenders, with the regime’s support, left Deir al-Zour for the battlefront against Turkey. Damascus may well have made a deal with the Kurds to provide safe passage in return for enabling the regime to take possession of the area’s oil installations.

    In any case Washington was having none of it. Close to 200 Russian contractors—aka mercenaries—were killed in airstrikes that included B-52 bombers based in Qatar, a tally that suggests a lopsided blow-out that aimed to send a clear “HANDS OFF” signal to any party attempting to undermine the U.S. effort east of the Euphrates.

    The loss of the currently inoperative “Conoco” oil installation to Assad would undermine the latest chapter in Washington’s policy merry-go-round, which is to prevent the regime’s restoration of sovereign control of territory and resources in a battle that Votel acknowledged the regime and its allies have all but won.

    Votel in his prepared testimony explained that “the intervention of the Coalition and regional powers in the Syrian conflict has blocked Assad’s ability to recapture major portions of northern Syria, and entrenched opposition fighters and VEOs [Very Extreme Organizations] across Syria continue to challenge regime control.”

    The Trump administration is now basing its post-Assad policy on creating an economically viable enclave in Syria’s east – now suitably democratic of course. Votel however, as he admitted on the Hill, had yet to receive the memo outlining the new military mission to confront a resurgent regime and its Iranian and Russian paymasters.

    The lack of a clear strategy to achieve well-defined objectives has never been a constraint on Washington’s response to opportunities or challenges produced by the war. Washington, in an unintended show of bipartisan unity, has consistently misapprehended America’s power to achieve regime change, the vitality of the Assad system, the viability of a domestic opposition, and the prospects of Russian intervention.

    Have the myriad assumptions and assessments that informed the original (failed) policy been reconsidered and changed to reflect lessons learned? The answer, sad to say, is no.

    Like the lobster in the pot of steadily heating water, the U.S. is being cooked in Syria – moving along a ladder of escalation against a changing array of forces and objectives – almost without realizing it.

    And now, this lobster is all but cooked.

  • Think It Can't Happen Here? Austin Bomber's Capture Exposes Depth Of US Surveillance State

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson via SHTFplan.com,

    Many have argued that there is neither a surveillance state, nor a concerted effort to disarm the public door-to-door, house by house, etc. Some of these are far-leftists, masquerading as conservatives….. trying to appear “skeptically cynical.”

    We’ll “game” the thought, to bring everyone back from opacity to transparency.

    1. The Communists, Marxists, Leftists, Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, and their ilk deliberately try to disguise the true objectives as outlined in the Planks of the Communist Party…passing themselves off as “middle-ground” in their stances.

    2. By denigrating the concept of an imminent surveillance state and ridiculing it, they draw conservatives who are still undecided (“fringe elements”) out of being proponents of the idea…further weakening and obfuscating people’s awareness.

    3. The movement of the groups mentioned never ceases: It hasn’t ceased with the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent reunification of Germany in 1990, nor the fall of the Soviet Union…more a “restructuring” than a fall…in 1992. The Communists are alive and well, operating within the United States at the lowest levels of society, and at the highest levels of government. We’ll stay with “Communists” as the label, as they are the end-state and will purge all the others who aren’t in complete lock step with them. They are Communists.

    That being mentioned, as they craft their narratives and lie openly upon the television, radio, and within the newspapers, there is a subtle, devious operation going on right before your eyes:

    The emplacement of a complete surveillance state of cameras and listening devices, all a part of the “wondrous internet of things.”

    For that last paraphrase, thank David Petraeus… former head of the CIA (in name only) yet without the technical alacrity to avoid the very thing he lauded… and hence, his downfall via Paula Bridewell. Thanks, Dave, for your erstwhile contribution to crafting the surveillance state. Dave serves as the prime example: no matter how much of a “big hitter” toward the NWO (New World Order) a globalist or establishmentarian one is, they are always expendable.

    The surveillance state has just been proven with the recent string of bombings in Austin, Texas where the protagonist blew himself up when he was tailed and cornered. This article was released by AP, written by Paul J. Weber on 3/22/18, and it seems to have escaped much notice. I am providing an excerpt that is almost the full article. When you read it, you will see why it is so important. Here it is:

    How Police Finally Found the Austin Bomber

    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The suspected Austin bomber is dead after terrorizing Texas’ capital city for three weeks. And in the end the manhunt wasn’t cracked by hundreds of phoned-in tips, the big pot of reward money or police pleading to the bomber through TV.

    One of the largest bombing investigations in the U.S. since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013 came to an intense close early Wednesday when authorities say they moved in on Mark Anthony Conditt at an interstate hotel. Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Conditt blew himself up after running his sport utility vehicle into a ditch.

    Here is what’s known about how authorities finally zeroed in on the suspected bomber after 19 days, two dead victims and more than 1,000 calls of suspicious packages around the city:

    ___

    GETTING THE BOMBER ON CAMERA

    Conditt had been careful to avoid cameras before entering a FedEx store in southwest Austin this week disguised in a blond wig and gloves, said U.S. House Homeland Security chairman Michael McCaul. The Austin congressman had been briefed by police, the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

    McCaul said going into the store was Conditt’s “fatal mistake.” He said authorities previously had leads on a red truck and that the surveillance video from the FedEx store — where Conditt is believed to have dropped off an explosive package destined for an Austin address — allowed investigators to identify him and the truck.

    Said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, “I’m not sure how much they narrowed him down to an exact person of who he was before he went into that FedEx store.”

    ___

    TRACKING THE CELLPHONE

    At the FedEx store, McCaul said investigators got from surveillance the truck license plate that linked the vehicle to Conditt, which in turn gave authorities a cellphone number they could track. McCaul said Conditt had powered down his phone for “quite some time” but that police closed in when he switched it back on.

    “He turned it on, it pinged, and then the chased ensued,” McCaul said.

    Abbott said police were able to closely monitor Conditt and his movements for about 24 hours before his death. The governor said the phone number was used to tie Conditt to bombing sites around Austin.

    “The suspect’s cellphone number showed up at each of the bombing sites as well as some key locations that helped them connect him to the crime,” Abbott said.

    ___

    BUYING BOMB-MAKING MATERIALS

    Authorities say they also tracked down Conditt, a 23-year-old unemployed college dropout, through witness accounts and other purchases, including at a Home Depot where McCaul said the suspect bought nails and other bomb-making materials.

    Abbott said Conditt’s purchases at the Home Depot also included five “CHILDREN AT PLAY” signs, one of which was used to rig a tripwire that was set off by two men Sunday in a southwest Austin neighborhood. One of them was walking and the other was riding a bike.

    William Grote told The Associated Press that his grandson was one of the victims and had nails embedded in his legs from Sunday’s explosion.

    The batteries to power the bomb were purchased through the internet, McCaul said.

    ___

    STILL PUTTING TOGETHER A PROFILE

    The initial bomber profile sketched out by FBI behavioral scientists was that he was most likely a white male, McCaul said. And while that part was right, the congressman said, a full psychological profile won’t come together until investigators have time to comb through Conditt’s writings and social media posts.

    Conditt’s motive is not clear. But on Wednesday, police discovered a 25-minute video recording on a cellphone found with Conditt, which Manley said he considers a “confession” to the bombings. Manley said it described the differences among the bombs in great detail.”

    Obviously, someone made a big mistake in revealing this information to the stultified, oblivious public… that self-same public of “We the People” that has the right to know, and yet doesn’t understand what is happening. 

    Worse: The public doesn’t care what’s happening.

    Let’s summarize what these main points mean, for those of you who docare:

    1. The cellular telephone is nothing more than a tracking device…as mentioned, it “pings” its position and gives away the location of the owner…along with all of his vital information in the file… every four seconds.

    2. The cell phone’s location is tied into the location of every camera, public and private that has a tie-in to the CCTV system monitored by law enforcement in the fusion centers…from the Happy Burger parking lot cameras to the cameras mounted at the intersections in cities, towns, and suburbs. As the happy cell phone passes these locations, the movement is tracked in real time, and recorded.

    3. Granted, they had a suspect, but they can review all of the cameras at any business at any given time…to show what Joe the Plumber-turned-bomber may be purchasing at the friendly store…and they can tie that film in with real-time with the cell phone.

    4. The vehicle is also the “buddy” of the police and the surveillance establishment. They take pictures and film of the license plate, the car, and glimpses of Joe the Plumber driving it…corroborated by the happy, ever-pinging cellular telephone (the tracking device).

    5. All this data for everyone’s movements is recorded, catalogued, and stored…stored away for an indefinite period of time (forever) until the information is needed as evidence or in an investigation. Investigation!  Doesn’t that sound exciting?  Guess what?  Everyone is being investigated, and all of the data on everyone is kept.

    6. Purchases! Everybody has to buy things, stuff, etc.  Every time you pull up to the gas pump, the car is photographed.  The POS (point of sale) at the register tabulates and inventories everything, tying it in to the gas pump, with a picture of Joe and whatever form of fiat he used to pay for the gas and bag of chips.  Purchases track in real time, access whatever form of payment you use, tying you in with others…if you use your spouse’s credit card, for example.

    7. Cops have license plate/tag readers that can read hundreds of different plates, categorizing all of them in accordance with sensitive data that may have nothing to do with driving upon the roads or their record with the vehicle.

    8. Every Internet search, every purchase, every query, every e-mail is saved and read/tabulated into the overall matrix that assesses the potential for an individual to be “harmful” and stored…to be matched against the subject’s behavior and movements at a later date. Systems are already in place that analyze keystrokes for the comparison and narrowing down of who the typist is.

    9. Every library sign-out…film, music, or book…is saved and kept for future reference.

    10. Biometrics are making the “fingerprint” even more specific…with eye to eye distances, ear shapes, and gaits measured.  Any exposed portion of the skin, and the movement and function of the limbs is analyzed and recorded.

    11. Every piece of mail is scanned to save sender and recipient’s addresses and (of course) purchases are recorded within the company and matched against what is sent out and to whom.

    12. Satellites can target and surveil in real time and tie in to all of the little devices just mentioned.

    13. Laptop computers can be traced in accordance with the purchaser’s information from the POS and onward…and the laptops record, photograph, and film as well as putting forth a “ping” of their own…especially when connected to the Internet. All laptop use is matched and corresponded to other places of business (their cameras, etc.)

    14. Association: when you’re on your laptop, and here come Smiling Sam and Brother Bob, each with pinging cell phones…letting the authorities know that in that moment of time (Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time”) Sam and Bob were right in front of you. Later they can haul both of them in to corroborate that you were on your laptop in front of HappyBurger at whatever date or time they have on record.

    This excerpt shows that all of these items are in place. Yes, they are surveilling you…are watching all of us. The surveillance is not ubiquitous yet. Not yet. It will be, and soon. They utilized every feature mentioned above to find the bomber. Great. Society has triumphed, and the mad bomber has met his end.

    But has society really triumphed? That article gives you insight into how the cage is almost completed…the construction is just about finished. What requires further thought is what they will do with this surveillance once it is in place and ubiquitous. Just a few further thoughts for your consideration. You may want to watch what you place into your e-mails and comments. There are techies in the Puzzle Palace and at Ft. Meade whose function is identifying the commenters.

    Don’t place anything on the Internet that can come back and bite you later. The most effective means of exchange are not on the Internet when it comes to information. Blogs, writers, and commenters have already been “marginalized” and their effectiveness diminished because it is an open source. Your true effectiveness in getting things done is at the “grass roots” level…locally, in small groups for discussion. Your “tool of transmission” is a manual typewriter.  Need copies?  Get back to Carbon paper. There won’t be a recording of what you copied at your FriendlyCopy center…the one with your information in real-time, right under the eye of the happy surveillance camera in the corner.

    The one that superficially is to make sure you don’t take more than 1 or 2 paper clips…but manages to send the fusion centers every bit of data they need to match up their culprit (the copier) to the scene of the crime. They’ll also match up his credit card at the register, tally up his total purchases and copies over a period of time, and get plenty of information as it films him walking through the store and out the door.

    Bottom line: we’re all “guilty” according to laws they haven’t even written yet. It is all about building a case against the average citizen. If you’re not the wolves, then you’re one of the cattle, in their eyes.

    It will become worse. Much, much worse. If you doubt it and do not take necessary precautions, you may find out it exists when they come knocking on the door. It may already be too late, and their song is “We’ve Only Just Begun,” by Karen Carpenter…. but not to smile. They’ve been doing that for years, as they have taken our taxes to craft the very cages that are almost completed. The next step? Not hard to figure out, and it has happened before…as history repeats itself. Think “Solzhenitsyn,” and think of tomorrow.

  • California AG, Eric Holder To Sue Trump Administration Over Citizenship Question On 2020 Census

    California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra (D) said a new question included on the 2020 census asking for citizenship status is illegal, and he will sue the Trump administration to remove it.

    “We’re prepared to do what we must to protect California from a deficient Census. Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea — it is illegal,” said Becerra in a statement.

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    “Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea — it is illegal,” Becerra wrote in a Monday San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece along with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

    “The size of your child’s kindergarten class. Homeland security funds for your community. Natural disaster preparation. Highway and mass transit resources. Health care and emergency room services. 

    Vital services such as these would be jeopardized and our voice in government diminished if the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 count resulted in an undercount” -Xavier Becerra

    In other words – the U.S. government shouldn’t be allowed to ask if U.S. residents are legal citizens, because it may lead to underreporting and therefore fewer benefits and Congressional representation would go to regions with high concentrations of illegal aliens. 

    Becerra argues that the Constitution requires the government conduct an “actual enumeration” of the total population – which, the California AG argues, should be conducted regardless of citizenship. 

    The census has a specific constitutional purpose: to provide an accurate count of all residents, which then allows for proper allotment of congressional representatives to the states. The Census Bureau has a long history of working to ensure the most accurate count of the U.S. population in a nonpartisan manner, based on scientific principles.

    Separately, former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he is also filing a lawsuit to stop the citizenship question from being included in the 2020 census. 

    “We will litigate to stop the Administration from moving forward with this irresponsible decision,” Holder said in a Tuesday morning statement. “The addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy. This question will lower the response rate and undermine the accuracy of the count, leading to devastating, decade-long impacts on voting rights and the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding. By asking this question, states will not have accurate representation and individuals in impacted communities will lose out on state and federal funding for health care, education, and infrastructure.“

    Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the reinstatement of the citizenship question in a post to the department’s website (here). The question last appeared on the 1950 census.

    As The Hill notes, the DOJ under Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed for the inclusion of the question – arguing that it would allow Justice to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. 

    The census question has led lawmakers and pundits alike to opine on the legality, morality and practicality of such a move: 

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    It will be interesting to see how this is somehow spun as a Russian trick by the usual suspects… 

  • 'The Saker' Mourns: "What Happened To The West I Was Born In?"

    Via The Saker,

    Frankly, I am awed, amazed and even embarrassed.  I was born in Switzerland, lived most of my life there, I also visited most of Europe, and I lived in the USA for over 20 years. 

    Yet in my worst nightmares I could not have imagined the West sinking as low as it does now.  I mean, yes, I know about the false flags, the corruption, the colonial wars, the NATO lies, the abject subservience of East Europeans, etc.  I wrote about all that many times.  But imperfect as they were, and that is putting it mildly, I remember Helmut Schmidt, Maggie Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, even Chirac!  And I remember what the Canard Enchaîné used to be, or even the BBC.  During the Cold War the West was hardly a knight in white shining armor, but still – rule of law did matter, as did at least some degree of critical thinking.

    I am now deeply embarrassed for the West.  And very, very afraid.

    All I see today is a submissive herd lead by true, bona fide, psychopaths (in a clinical sense of the word)

    And that is not the worst thing.

    The worst thing is the deafening silence, the way everybody just looks away, pretends like “ain’t my business” or, worse, actually takes all this grotesque spectacle seriously.  What the fuck is wrong with you people?!  Have you all been turned into zombies?!  WAKE UP!!!!!!!

    Let me carefully measure my words here and tell you the blunt truth.

    Since the Neocon coup against Trump the West is now on exactly the same course as Nazi Germany was in, roughly, the mid 1930s.

    Oh sure, the ideology is different, the designated scapegoat also.  But the mindset is *exactly* the same.

    Same causes produce the same effects.  But this time around, there are weapons on both sides which make the Dresden Holocaust looks like a minor spark.

    So now we have this touching display of “western solidarity” not with UK or the British people, but with the City of London.  Now ain’t that touching?!

    Let me ask you this: what has been the central feature of Britain’s policies towards Europe, oh, let’s say since the Middle-Ages?

    That’s right: starting wars in Europe.

    And this time around you think it’s different?

    Does: “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior” somehow not apply to the UK?!

    Let me also tell you this: when Napoleon and Hitler attacked Russia she was undergoing deep crises and was objectively weak (really! research it for yourself!).  In both cases Russian society was deeply torn by internal contradictions and the time for attack as ideal.

    Not today.

    So I ask this simple question: do you really want to go to war against a fully united nuclear Russia?

    You think that this is hyperbole?

    Think again.

    The truth is that the situation today is infinitely worse than the Cuban missile crisis. First, during the Cuban missile crisis there were rational people on both side.  Today there is NOT ONE SINGLE RATIONAL PERSON LEFT IN A POSITION OF POWER IN THE USA.  Not ONE!  Second, during the Cuban missile crisis all the new was reporting on was the crisis, the entire planet felt like we were standing at the edge of the abyss.

    Today nobody seems to be aware that we are about to go to war, possibly a thermonuclear war, where casualties will be counted in the hundreds of millions.

    All because of what?

    Because the people of the West have accepted, or don’t even know, that they are ruled by an ugly gang of ignorant, arrogant psychopaths.

    At the very least this situation shows this:

    • Representative democracy does not work.

    • The rule of law only applies to the weak and poor.

    • Western values have now been reduced to a sad joke.

    • Capitalism needs war and a world hegemony to survive.

    The AngloZionist Empire is about to collapse, the only open question is how and at what cost.

    Right now they are expelling Russian diplomats en masse and they are feeling very strong and manly. Polish and Ukrainian politicians are undergoing a truly historical surge in courage and self-confidence! (hiding, as they do, behind Anglo firepower)

    The truth is that this is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg.  In reality, crucial expert-level consultations, which are so vitally important between nuclear superpowers, have all but stopped a long time ago.  We are down to top level telephone calls.  That kind of stuff happens when two sides are about to go to war.  For many months now Russia and NATO have made preparations for war in Europe.  And Russia is ready.  NATO sure ain’t!  Oh, they have the numbers and they think they are strong.  The truth is that these NATO midgets have no idea of what is about to hit them, when the Russians go to war these NATO statelets won’t even understand what is happening to them.  Very rapidly the real action will be left to the USA and Russia.  Thus any conflict will go nuclear very fast.  And, for the first time in history, the USA will be hit very, very hard, not only in Europe, the Middle-East or Asia, but also on the continental US.

    I was born in a Russian military family and I studied Russian and Soviet military affairs all my life. I can absolutely promise you this, please don’t doubt it for one second: Russia will not back down and, if cornered, she will wipe out your entire civilization. The Russians really don’t want war, they fear it (as they should!) and they will do everything to avoid it.  But if attacked then expect a response of absolutely devastating violence.  Don’t take it from me, take it from Putin who clearly said so himself and who, at least on that issue, is supported by about 95% of the population.  From the Eastern Crusades to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, enough is enough, and the Russians will not take one more western attack, especially not one backed by nuclear firepower.  Again, please ponder Putin’s words very, very carefully: “what need would we have a world if there is no Russia?“

    All that for what?  The USA and Russia have NO objective reasons to do anything but to collaborate (the Russians are absolutely baffled the fact the leaders of the USA seem to be completely oblivious to this simple fact).  Okay, the City of London does have a lot of reasons to want Russia gone and silent. As Gavin Williamson, the little soy-boy in charge of UK “defense”, so elegantly put it, Russia should “go away and shut up”.  Right.  Let me tell you – it ain’t happening!  Britannia will be turned into a heap of radioactive ashes long before Russian goes away or shuts up.  That is simply a fact.

    What baffles me is this: do American leaders really want to lose their country in behalf of a small nasty clique of arrogant British pompous asses who think that they still are an Empire?  Did you even take a look at Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Gavin Williamson?  Are you really ready to die in defense of the interest of these degenerates?!

    I don’t get it and nobody in Russia does.

    Yeah, I know, all they did is expel some diplomats.  And the Russians will do the same.  So what?  But that’s missing the point!

    LOOK NOT WHERE WE ARE BUT WHERE WE ARE HEADING!!

    You can get 200,000 anti–gun (sigh, rolleyes) protesters in DC but NOBODY AT ALL ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR?!

    What is wrong with you people?!

    What happened to the West where I was born in in 1963?

    My God, is this really the end of it all?

    Am I the only one who sees this slow-motion train-wreck taking us all over the precipice?

    If you can, please give a reason to still hope.

    Right now I don’t see many.

    The Saker

    PS: yes, I know. The rules of the blog prohibit CAPS as this is considered shouting.  Okay, but this time around I AM TRYING TO SHOUT!  So, for this one time only, feel free to use caps if you want.  The world badly needs some shouting right now, even virtual shouting.

     

  • Ex-Supreme Court Justice Calls For Repeal Of Second Amendment

    Retired U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, 97, called for the repeal of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which gives Americans the right to own and bear firearms. 

    Stevens, who sat on the country’s highest court for 35 years prior to his 2010 retirement, contends that repealing the Second Amendment “would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States – unlike every other market in the world.” 

    It would also give criminals dominance over law-abiding victims who are unable to match force, not to mention the historical precident of governments disarmaming a population before committing atrocities. 

    Stevens’ comments were prompted by the response to the Parkland shooting, in which 17 students and faculty were gunned down at Florida high school on Valentine’s day – sparking a national debate over gun control in which several students from Marjory Stoneman High have risen to instant fame, becoming overnight celebrities in the push to erode the Second Amendment. 

    “Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday,” Stevens wrote in a NYT op-ed. “These demonstrations demand our respect.”

    Not all Parkland students agree, however. Kyle Kashuv, a pro-2nd Amendment survivor of the shooting, has been virtually ignored by the liberal mainstream media due to his divergent opinion on gun control. Kashuv has been asking why people are protesting guns when the Valentine’s Day massacre was entirely preventable had the Broward Sheriffs Department and FBI simply done their jobs amid several reports that suspect Nikolas Cruz was likely to shoot up a school. 

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    Of note, Parkland gun-control advocate Cameron Kasky backed out of a debate wiith Kashuv.

    Meanwhile, Kashuv has been calling out David Hogg and other Parkland survivors over Twitter, along with CNN’s Brian Stelter who recently admitted that he allowed the Florida wing of the Mickey Mouse gun control club spew false information over his network (shocker!). 

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    Ex-justice Stevens noted in his op-ed how the Supreme Court had already curbed the Second Amendment’s reach during the 20th century, and suggested that the threat of a tyrannical federal government was “a relic of the 18th century.” 

    By repealing the Second amendment, writes Stevens, the United States “would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.” 

    A repeal of the Second Amendment can be proposed with a two-thirds vote in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, or by a constitution convention assembled by two-thirds of the states, and ratified by three-fourths of the 50 states. 

    Or, they can just whittle down the Amendment until it’s unrecognizable and effectively neutered. 

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  • Socialist Utopia: Child Gangs Fight For "Quality Garbage" With Machetes In Venezuela

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    While many politicians and civilians in the United States focus on making the country a socialist regime, Venezuela’s children are forming gangs and using machetes to fight each other for “quality garbage” so they have something to eat.

    Socialism is only good for those already at the very top.  It’s a very important lesson for anyone seeking to “remove the wealth” from the 1%.  Never assume that the rich will allow you vote their money away in the first place. The other issue most socialists forget that the 1% is made up the very wealthy politicians from both parties who will profit immensely from the implementation of socialism.  Of course, when that does happen children starve and become violent as a means to survive and have just one more meal.

    The Miami Herald has detailed the lives of children forced to live under the harsh realities of socialism. Liliana, at the age of only 16, has become the mother figure for a gang of Venezuelan children and young adults called the Chacao, named after the neighborhood they’ve claimed as their territory. The 15 members, ranging in age from 10 to 23, work together to survive vicious fights for “quality” garbage in crumbling, shortage-plagued, socialist dystopia of Venezuela. Their weapons are knives and sticks and machetes. And their only prize is garbage that contains food scrapes barely good enough to eat.

    Many of the children in the Chacao gang flock to a life of violence but a family-oriented one because there’s no other option if they want to eat.  There are at least 10 gangs in the capital of Caracas according to social workers and police estimate. “There were always children on the street in Venezuela but now we are seeing a new phenomenon — kids who get more food on the street than at their homes,” says Beatriz Tirado, who leads “Angeles de Calle,” or Street Angels, a non-governmental charity.

    “Our kids are finding ways to survive because neither in their homes nor in their communities is there enough food,” explains social worker Roberto Patino, who has established 29 public diners all over the country to feed the massive numbers of hungry children. But Patino also bemoans that there are not enough resources to help the children get their lives back on track let alone feed them properly. For now, many have turned to trash bags as a source of nutrition.

    But the gang life is dangerous for the children. Often, they venture into the more affluent neighborhoods of the politicians. One of those territories is Las Mercedes. It has high-end restaurants that attract the political elite Venezuelans. Because garbage bags there often contain leftovers and even untouched food, they are sought after by a number of the gangs. The clashes over bags of trash can be deadly.

    The children often take to the consumption of street drugs at an early age as well.  They become criminals, tossing the law out the window to survive.  They steal, assault people, and use drugs like crack, sometimes smoked in makeshift pipes made from the parts of discarded plastic dolls, but for a very disturbing reason. “When you smoke you don’t feel hungry,” explains Patricio.

    The few failures of capitalism are much preferable to the few success of socialism. Although one can argue that there haven’t been any successes with regards to socialism unless you count the lining of the pockets of the politicians who rule over everyone else.

  • "The Days Of Giving Them A Pass Are Over" – Advertisers Demand More Transparency From Facebook, Google

    Even before the New York Times and the Guardian published their bombshell exposes about Cambridge Analytica, data published by market observers showed that the advertising “duopoly” of Facebook and Google had seen its market share slip in 2017 for the first time ever.

    And while some advertisers, including Mozilla and Commerzbank, have already pulled advertising campaigns from Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted the fact that the company has for years aggressively marketed users’ data with little transparency or agency, other large advertisers are taking advantage of an opportunity to squeeze better rates – or more bespoke service – from both of the ad behemoths, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    Firms like Proctor & Gamble and Subway are cutting back on ad spending on one or both of the two platforms because data has allowed them to more efficiently allocate their ad spending dollars.

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    The demands for more accountability and better service started two years ago after Facebook revealed that its metric for the average time users spend watching videos was artificially inflated because the company was only counting views of more than three seconds. Then it continued last year following revelations that some advertisers content posted on YouTube appeared near video content that was deemed to be either racist or otherwise extreme.

    Following this string of run ins and scandals, WSJ says large advertisers are fundamentally reshaping their relationship with the two advertising behemoths – even leveraging their rivalries with smaller firms like Twitter and Snapchat to further pressure the market leaders.

    Madison Avenue’s increasing uneasiness with the platforms and its moves to push back aggressively are fundamentally reshaping the relationship. Advertisers’ broad push for changes has played out in behind-the-scenes dust-ups, veiled and overt threats and advertising boycotts, and has extracted some concessions from the tech giants. Among the leaders is P&G, the world’s largest advertiser.

    Many companies are actively policing their ad purchases to ensure they avoid objectionable or irrelevant content. Some are cutting budgets. And they are demanding far more transparency from Google and Facebook about the performance of their ad campaigns to make sure they aren’t wasting money.

    During a meeting of the Association of National Advertisers, companies staged a mini-revolt after Facebook tried to convince them that its video advertising remained effective even if customers only watched for a few seconds. Advertisers were miffed at what appeared to be Facebook trying to justify offering misleading data about its video ads. So Facebook relented and offered to provide more transparent data.

    Facebook told advertising giant Publicis Groupe that average video viewing time was likely overestimated by 60% to 80%. Other miscues followed. Facebook fixed the problems as they arose and said they didn’t affect billing, but trust with advertisers had frayed.

    “The days of giving digital a pass are over—it’s time to grow up,” Mr. Pritchard said publicly at an industry trade group meeting in January 2017.

    The following month, at a meeting of the Association of National Advertisers, the group wanted to know when Google and Facebook would allow the industry’s measurement watchdog, the Media Rating Council, to audit some of their metrics.

    Instead, Facebook executives including Carolyn Everson, vice president for global marketing solutions, launched into a presentation about how video ads were effective on Facebook, even if users only watched them for a very short time, said people familiar with the meeting, frustrating some attendees.

    “If our boards come to us and ask us, ‘Do you know where these dollars went’ and we cannot confirm it, we have a problem and therefore you do,” said Deborah Wahl, who was then U.S. marketing chief of McDonald’s Corp. , according to one of those people.

    Facebook executives got the message and laid out a plan to give more measurement data to third-party companies and promised to undergo an audit of its measurement processes.

    Offering more precise metrics has allowed advertisers on both Facebook and Google’s platforms to better measure engagement, allowing them to save money in the process.

    P&G this month said it cut more than $200 million in digital ad spending in 2017, including 20% to 50% cuts at “several big digital players,” partly because better data showed it was wasting money. P&G found that the average view time for a mobile ad appearing in the news feed on platforms such as Facebook is only 1.7 seconds.

    Restaurant chain Subway plans to cut back on Facebook spending this year because of concerns about whether its ads are being viewed sufficiently, according to a person familiar with the matter. One global beverage company is planning to cut its spending on Facebook ads by about 30% in the U.S. and the U.K. this year because of a decline in effectiveness, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    But making sure – for example – that advertisements for Tide-branded products don’t appear alongside videos of teenagers attempting “the Tide pod challenge’ – is just the beginning. Both advertising behemoths have gotten the message that they can no longer take their customers for granted.

    The question now is, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and several of his peers likely headed for a Congressional hearing later this year, will we see more advertisers jump ship?

    One thing’s for sure: Media companies – which have suffered enormously as Facebook and Google have siphoned off the ad revenue on which they once depended – will be watching closely for even the slightest opening.

  • "Please Remain Cool" Fund Managers Beg As FANG+ Index Drops Most On Record

    Echoing the immortal words of Bob Pisani, “the most important thing is to remain cool” according to Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, Birmingham, Alabama-based senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management, who helps oversee about $17 billion.

    “Cool” will be an important word for tomorrow, after NYSE’s FANG+ index crashed 5.6% today – its biggest drop ever – putting the widely-owned index of mega-tech, ultra-high P/E names deep in correction territory (down almost 14% from its highs)…

    Volume was extremely high compared to yesterday’s practically-silent melt-up…

    And as Bloomberg notes, in this bull market alone there’s been five other corrections like this one, and it’s taken around seven months on average for equities to climb out of their hole. Based on that path, the current jitters won’t be fully eradicated until August… just in time for MidTerms to spike volatility once again.

    “People’s muscle memories spaz,” said Michael Purves, Weeden & Co.’s chief global strategist. “It’s like going to the gym and lifting weights after you haven’t been to the gym for two years. Part of it is just a very normal psychological, emotional reaction to a very stressful thing.”

    But tomorrow is critical as the index of tech stocks sits at the intersection of two critical support levels – a two-year trendline connected higher lows from early 2016 and The Shanghai Accord and the crucial 100-day moving-average…

    Volatility is back with a vengeance. Bloomberg points out that there have already been 22 days in which the S&P 500 moved more than 1 percent in the first three months of the year, triple the total for all of 2017.

    “You had this incredible low-volatility environment, but markets are supposed to go up and down,” Michael O’Rourke, Jones Trading’s chief market strategist, said by phone. “Relative to how markets should be and how they behaved most of my career, thus far this selloff is not a major event. At this point the selloff relative to history is just a blip.”

    So the rupture is back-to-normal, and normal is usually hard as the FANG+ index lost $180 billion in market cap today alone (and just the four FANG names are now down over $260 billion in the last 10 days).

    “So much of the money was directed toward tech stocks, and there is a much greater emotional identification for investors in these household names,” said Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategist at BTIG LLC In New York.

    ‘‘People are incrementally more agitated than they were during February’s leg down because everyone believed the coast was clear. People are optimistic by nature, so when corrections hit, they are largely unexpected and emotionally jarring.”

    One other point of note – Nasdaq futures were up over 3% yesterday and down 3% today – that hasn’t happened since 2011 – and, as @Dburgh notes, is not a great signal for the weeks ahead judging by the last 14 occurrences.

    Consider, as @L0gg0l noted, in 13 of the 14 occurrences, the US economy had entered a recession.

    Finally, we circle back to “Bucky” – our hero wealth manager from the beginning of this note. He has some final reassuring words for all of his clients (and potential clients):

    “I keep the checklist of things that went wrong during the financial crisis, and I look at it from time to time to see where we stand. We’re nowhere close…”

    Of course, we don’t want to break it to “Bucky” that valuations are off the charts compared to ‘the last financial crisis’ and correct us if we’re wrong, there wasn’t $20 trillion of assets purchases by central banks creating the greatest potemkin village market the world has ever known.

    Still, probably nothing.

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