- Giulio Meotti: Islam, Not Christianity, Is Saturating Europe
Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,
- Jihadists seem to be leading an assault against freedom and against secular democracies.
- Sunni Islam's most prominent preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi, declared that the day will come when, like Constantinople, Rome will be Islamized.
- It is Islam, not Christianity, that now saturates Europe's landscape and imagination.
According to US President Trump's strategic advisor Steve Bannon, the "Judeo-Christian West is collapsing, it is imploding. And it's imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous".
The impotence and the fragility of our civilization is haunting many Europeans as well.
Europe, according to the historian David Engels will face the fate of the ancient Roman Republic: a civil war. Everywhere, Europeans see signs of fracture. Jihadists seem to be leading an assault against freedom and against secular democracies. Fears occupy the collective imagination of Europeans. A survey of more than 10,000 people from ten different European countries has revealed increasing public opposition to Muslim immigration. The Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs carried out a survey, asking online respondents their views on the statement that "all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped". In the 10 European countries surveyed, an average of 55% agreed with the statement.
Mainstream media are now questioning if "Europe fears Muslims more than the United States". The photograph used in the article was a recent Muslim mass prayer in front of Italy's monument, the Coliseum. In echoes of the capture of the great Christian civilization of Byzantium in Constantinople, Sunni Islam's most prominent preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi, declared that the day will come when Rome will be Islamized.
Hundreds of Muslims engage in a mass prayer service next to the Coliseum in Rome, on October 21, 2016. (Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)
Do civilizations die from outside or inside? Is their disappearance the result of external aggression (war, natural disasters, epidemics) or of an internal erosion (decay, incompetence, disastrous choices)? Arnold Toynbee, in the last century, was adamant: "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder".
"The contemporary historian of ancient Greece and ancient Rome saw their civilisations begin their decline and fall, both the Greeks and the Romans attributed it to falling birth rates because nobody wanted the responsibilities of bringing up children," said Britain's former chief rabbi, Lord Sacks.
Everywhere in Europe there are signs of a takeover.
Muslim students now outnumber Christian students in more than 30 British church schools. One Anglican primary school has a "100 percent Muslim population". The Church of England estimated that about 20 of its schools have more Muslim students than Christian ones, and 15 Roman Catholic schools have majority Muslim students. In Germany as well, there are fears of a massive Muslim influx into the school system, and German teachers are openly denouncing the threat of a "ghettoization".
France saw 34,000 fewer babies born last year than in 2014, a new report just found. The number of French women having children has reached its lowest level in 40 years. A low fertility rate has become a plague all over Europe: "In 1995 only one country, Italy, had more people over 65 than under 15; today there are 30 and by 2020 that number will hit 35." Welcome to the "Greying of Europe".
Additionally, if it were not for Muslim women, France would have an even lower birth rate: "With a fertility rate of 3.5 children per woman, the Algerians contribute significantly to the growth of the population in France", wrote the well-known demographer Gérard-François Dumont.
Thanks to Muslim migrants, Sweden's maternity wards are busy these days.
In Milan, Italy's financial center, Mohammed is the top name among newborn babies. The same is true in London, in the four biggest Dutch cities and elsewhere in Europe, from Brussels to Marseille. It is Islam, not Christianity, that now saturates Europe's landscape and imagination.
Meanwhile, Europe's leaders are almost all childless. In Germany, Angela Merkel has no children, as British prime minister Theresa May and one of France's leading presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron. As Europe's leaders have no children and no reason to worry about the future (everything ends with them), they are now opening Europe's borders to keep the continent in a demographic equilibrium. "I believe Europeans should understand that we need migration for our economies and for our welfare systems, with the current demographic trend we have to be sustainable", said Federica Mogherini, the European Union representative for foreign affairs.
The Battle of Tours in 732 was the high-water point of the Muslim tide in Western Europe. If Christians had not won, "perhaps," wrote Edward Gibbon, "the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet". Does that sound familiar these days?
Islamists take culture and history more seriously than the Westerners do. Recently, in Paris, an Egyptian terrorist tried to strike the great museum, the Louvre. He planned to deface the museum's artwork, he said, because "it is a powerful symbol of French culture". Think about an Islamic extremist shouting "Allahu Akbar" while slashing the Mona Lisa. This is the trend we need to start reversing.
- The Transformation Of Our Nation Into A Surveillance State Is Almost Complete
The headlines are awash with the recent tensions with North Korea, and most are focused intently upon this act of the play that has been running hot for several years, now. Akin to the proverbial frog in cold water, however, we are not paying as much attention to the surveillance state that is continuing to wrap its tentacles around us. Eurasia is our ally, Eastasia is our enemy…and nobody notices that the chocolate ration has been diminished. While everyone focuses on what is reported in the headline news, everybody misses what is happening right before their eyes.
Point of Sale is the new jail, the ubiquitous surveillance system that records your every purchase and stores it in a personal database…an algorithm…in the government storage facility in Utah. Look above that register. It doesn’t matter whether you have a debit or credit purchase or not. Paying cash? Your anonymity only lasts until your image is captured in the little black dome camera right above your head…right next to the register. The sale is recorded, as well as your image.
Now the biometrics are becoming advanced enough to be able to measure the spacing between your eyes, the shapes of the ears, and other idiosyncrasies that are peculiar to each individual. But these differences do not matter, as long as they can be catalogued. All the states pretty much have Real ID, now, with driver’s licenses all linked into a central database and passed through the fusion centers and police departments at local, state, and national level. 1984 is now.
Here is an excerpt from the Passports page of the State Department of January 12, 2016:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Friday that Real ID-compliant identification, such as a passport or a driver’s license from a Real ID-compliant state, will not be required to fly domestically until 2018.
Yes, this is serious. Laws are not in place yet to prevent you from disguising yourself or altering your appearance. Yet. They do make it a crime to alter your appearance in the commission of a crime. The question becomes when do they make it a crime to vary from their THX-1138 program for us and keep them from recording you? Probably very soon.
In previous articles, it was mentioned that it is a rollercoaster with the administrations and the amount they can push the peoples’ perceptions of what is intolerable. As many of you have pointed out, the political party doesn’t matter…the surveillance state inches forward in increments: steadily and without respite. We are in a “slow” phase right now. President Trump is “in,” and the people are riding the crest of their “newfound freedoms,” right? Not so fast. Bush Jr. was certainly better than Clinton; however, his actions enabled the Warner Defense Act of 2006 and the abrogation of Constitutional rights in that 100-mile buffer zone around the Continental United States. The Patriot Act had already been in place, and many refinements were made to alter limitations on presidential actions concerning disclosure on actions overt and covert initiated by the Commander-in-Chief.
Obama came in and took the driver’s seat, and took away so many more of our individual rights and protections that the staggering populace is just now beginning to realize exactly what he did. Those actions have not been negated, and may even be promulgated. Most of the limaceous public is unaware, because the handouts and entitlements keep them stultified and obedient to whatever politician throws them the free Gaines Burgers.
The surveillance state is almost ubiquitous, and it has been made so through the efforts of our own complacencies.
Let us return to the point of sale. It isn’t simply for “inventory.” The main reason these corporations claim to store your demographics is for “marketing purposes,” but all of them are (at a minimum) “back-doored” by the NSA and other agencies who are scanning your information. They also have that cellular telephone to work with…the one that transmits a “pulse” every 4 seconds and stores information…metadata for large groups of people or geographic peculiarities…and personal information.
The happy cell phone is off and in your blazer, but it has sent a pulse out with your GPS location…in front of Cabela’s. When you go in and buy the ammo? The camera records your image and there’s a tie-in with the real-time purchase on your receipt. You’re known. Your vehicle is known, your itinerary for the day is known. It is also recorded.
All your shopping habits, everywhere you drive, where you shop for gas, and stop for a coffee break. All the cameras are recording. In addition, our fellow citizens, the “Muppets” are always communicating with you and photographing things with their little cameras. All of your activities, all of your banking, your entire life’s actions are all right there for them to paint a picture of you…and catalogue you for a later date…information stored and ready at their fingertips to access.
Edward Snowden spilled the beans concerning the surveillance that is becoming even more out of control. The satellites are being fine-tuned and honed, and it is occurring all over the world. Whole generations are being taught to conform now, while they are in their youth…in the schools, that are merely cages where children are taught only what they need to be functional. Children are made into obedient little beasts of conformity that can be controlled later…later, by those with power and money who were schooled to think creatively and to actually think, instead of regurgitating useless bits of information.
The funding for all of these actions come right from our taxes. We pay our jailers to create larger, more ingenious prisons to control us. Eventually come the chains for the ankles, and the abattoir materializes. There is less of a gap between total surveillance and “Soylent Green” than most people realize. For a good read, check out an older article written by Brandon Smith entitled Low-Tech Solutions for High-Tech Tyranny. It’s a good “starter piece” for your consideration if you have not thought of these things. Pick up Citizen Four, a documentary about Edward Snowden.
This stuff is happening now. Just because we are rid of Obama does not mean we are rid of the Globalist agenda and the transformation of our nation into a complete surveillance state. It is almost in place. Almost. The important thing is to know about it and not be lulled into a false sense of security that all is well, when it is not. It hasn’t happened yet, but “yet” can mean that it happens tomorrow. It is going to depend on us: seeing it for what it is, and refusing to go “gently into that good night.”
- "Something Stinks Here" – CrowdStrike Revises, Retracts Parts Of Explosive Russian Hacking Report
Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Last week, I published two posts on cyber security firm CrowdStrike after becoming aware of inaccuracies in one of its key reports used to bolster the claim that operatives of the Russian government had hacked into the DNC. This is extremely important since the DNC hired CrowdStrike to look into its hack, and at the same time denied FBI access to its servers.
Before reading any further, you should read last week’s articles if you missed them the first time.
Credibility of Cyber Firm that Claimed Russia Hacked the DNC Comes Under Serious Question
Now here are the latest developments courtesy of Voice of America:
U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year’s American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank.
In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with pro-Russian separatists.
VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.
CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence. The company has come under fire from some Republicans who say charges of Kremlin meddling in the election are overblown.
After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by “Fancy Bear,” a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.
CrowdStrike’s claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.
On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.
The company removed language that said Ukraine’s artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.
Finally, CrowdStrike deleted a statement saying “deployment of this malware-infected application may have contributed to the high-loss nature of this platform” — meaning the howitzers — and excised a link sourcing its IISS data to a blogger in Russia-occupied Crimea.
In an email, CrowdStrike spokeswoman Ilina Dmitrova said the new estimates of Ukrainian artillery losses resulted from conversations with Henry Boyd, an IISS research associate for defense and military analysis. She declined to say what prompted the contact.
Dmitrova noted that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have also concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.
Here’s the problem. Yes, the FBI has agreed with CrowdStrike’s conclusion, but the FBI did not analyze the DNC servers because the DNC specifically denied the FBI access. This was noteworthy in its own right, but it takes on vastly increased significance given the serious errors in a related hacking report produced by the company.
As such, serious questions need to be asked. Why did FBI head James Comey outsource his job to CrowdStrike, and why did he heap praise on the company? For instance, back in January, Comey referred to CrowdStrike as a “highly respected private company.”
In a hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon outlining the intelligence agencies’ findings on Russian election interference, Comey said there were “multiple requests at different levels” for access to the Democratic servers, but that ultimately a “highly respected private company” was granted access and shared its findings with the FBI.
Where does all this respect come from considering how badly it botched the Ukraine report?
Something stinks here, and the FBI needs to be held to account.
- LA, Chicago, & New York Vow To Defy Trump Over Sanctuary City De-Funding
"We are going to become this administration's worst nightmare." Leading officials from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York have come out swinging a day after AG Sessions demanded yesterday that the country's so-called 'Sanctuary Cities' stop breaking Federal laws (or their funding will be cut, or worse).
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the surprise appearance at Sean Spicer's daily White House press briefing to announce that his DOJ will be taking steps to not only require that so-called "sanctuary cities" enforce federal immigration laws but would also be seeking to claw back past DOJ awards granted to those cities if they refuse to certify compliance.
"Today, I'm urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws. Moreover, the Department of Justice will require that jurisdictions seeking or applying for DOJ grants to certify compliance with 1373 as a condition for receiving those awards."
"This policy is entirely consistent with the DOJ's Office of Justice Programs guidance that was issued just last summer under the previous administration."
"This guidance requires jurisdictions to comply and certify compliance with Section 1373 in order to be eligible for OJP grants. It also made clear that failure to remedy violations could result in withholding grants, termination of grants and disbarment or ineligibility for future grants."
"The DOJ will also take all lawful steps to claw back any fines awarded to a jurisdiction that willfully violates Section 1373."
Attorney General Sessions says sanctuary cities 'cannot continue' https://t.co/YiS9doT3IE pic.twitter.com/nGmICgmiA6
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) March 27, 2017
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Sessions' demands were not well met by the major cities' leaders…
"We are going to become this administration's worst nightmare," said New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was among officials gathered in New York for a small conference that attracted officials from cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.
Mark-Viverito and others promised to block federal immigration agents from accessing certain private areas on city property, to restrict their access to schools and school records and to offer legal services to immigrants in the country illegally.
California Senate leader Kevin de León called Sessions' message, "nothing short of blackmail. … Their gun-to-the-head method to force resistant cities and counties to participate in Trump's inhumane and counterproductive mass-deportation is unconstitutional and will fail."
Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday he will fight efforts by the Trump administration to take away federal funding needed for law enforcement in Los Angeles.
Garcetti said that such actions would be unconstitutional, adding that the city’s policies are “designed to keep our residents safe.”
“Slashing funds for first-responders, for our port and airport, for counterterrorism, crime-fighting and community-building serves no one — not this city, not the federal government, not the American people,” he said. “We will fight to protect the safety and dignity of all Angelenos, and we will work closely with our representatives in Congress to make sure that Los Angeles does not go without federal resources that help protect millions of people every day.”
And Chicago was welcoming… to immigrants…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel doubled down on his own promise that Chicago will “continue to welcome” immigrants.
"I've always seen Chicago as a welcoming city,” Emanuel said in an interview from the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York on Monday.
“It welcomed my grandfather 100 years ago, we continue to welcome entrepreneurs, immigrants, and I would just say think of it this way: Half the new businesses in Chicago and the state of Illinois come from immigrants, nearly half,” he added. “Half the patents at the University of Illinois come from immigrants, and so we want to continue to welcome people, welcome their ideas, welcome their families to the city of Chicago, who want to build the American dream for their children and their grandchildren.”
As a reminder, in Sessions' view, these cities "make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets."
We are sure the tax-paying people of these great cities will be happy to support more taxation to pay for that loss of safety.
Under Trump’s order, mayors defending their sanctuary city status are essentially imposing a defiance tax on local residents. On average, this tax amounts to $500 per man, woman and child. Major cities like Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago have the most to lose, and nearly $27 billion is at stake across the country.
Here are the top 10 takeaways from our findings:
- $26.741 billion in annual federal grants and direct payments flowed into America’s 106 sanctuary cities (FY2016).
- On average, the cost of lost federal funding for a family of four residing in one of the 106 sanctuary cities is $1,810 – or $454 per person. A total population of 46.2 million residents live in the 106 sanctuary cities according to census data.
- Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Illinois governments received the highest amount of federal funding per resident and, therefore, have the most to lose by maintaining their sanctuary status.Washington, D.C. municipal government received the highest amount of federal funding on a per capita basis: $3,228 per person; $12,912 per family of four; or $2.09 billion total. The City of Chicago, IL received the second highest amount of federal funding on a per capita basis: $1,942 per person; $7,768 per family of four; or $5.3 billion total.
- In cities with populations of 100,000 and above, the communities with the least per capita federal dollars ‘at risk’ are St. Paul, Minnesota ($47 per person, $14.2 million total); Downey, California ($36 per person, $4.2 million total) and Miami, Florida ($67 per person, $29.7 million total).
- $15.983 billion in federal funds flowed into just twelve major American cities where 1 in 5 illegal entrants reside (FY2016).
- Department of Justice grants to law enforcement – i.e. city police departments – totaled $543.97 million (FY2016). Typically, this funding was only a small percentage of the local law enforcement budgets.
- $4.23 billion in federal funding of the 106 sanctuary cities flowed via the ‘direct payment’ type. These payments funded municipal services such as housing, education, community development, and schools.
- $21.5 billion in federal funding of the 106 sanctuary cities flowed via the ‘grant’ payment mechanism. These payments funded local police and fire departments, schools, housing, and city services.
- In Los Angeles, fully 1 in 5 city residents (22-percent) are illegal entrants. However, the amount of federal funding amounts to only $126 per resident; $504 per family of four; or $502.5 million total.
- In Newark, New Jersey, 19-percent of city residents are undocumented entrants. However, the amount of federal funding amounts to $733 per resident; $2,932 per family of four; or $206.7 million.
The threat of losing nearly $27 billion in federal funding seems to be having an effect on some cities. In fact, Miami already reversed their sanctuary city policy.
- Foundation & Empire – Is Donald Trump 'The Mule'?
Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
In Part One of this article I analyzed the similarities of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy to Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning, trying to assess how Donald Trump’s ascension to power fits into the theories put forth by those authors. Now I will compare Trump to the most interesting character in Asimov’s classic – The Mule.
The Mule
“A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man’s disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him.
The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him. “The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: ‘Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.’ “Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, ‘Never!’ and applied the spurs with a will.” – Isaac Asimov, Foundation
I had not thought about the Foundation Trilogy for decades, until someone recently mentioned it in a comment on my website. They pondered whether Trump’s arrival on the scene represented The Mule’s advent during the decline of the Galactic Empire. Trump’s numerous enemies would love to portray him as an evil mutant freakish warlord, bent on using his persuasion powers to mislead the populace into doing his bidding. I don’t necessarily see Trump as The Mule, but as a disrupting factor, disturbing the best laid plans of the establishment and helping reveal the hidden agendas of the Deep State.
Seldon’s science of psychohistory was outstanding at predicting the behavior of large populations but worthless in trying to predict what an individual might do. The emergence of the Mule, a mentalic mutant with an acute telepathic ability to modify the emotions of human beings, could not have been predicted by the Seldon Plan, focused as it was on the statistical movements of vast numbers of peoples and populations across the galaxy.
The Mule was the unpredictable variable in the equations of history and the greatest threat to the Seldon Plan. He disrupts the inevitability of the continued evolution of the First Foundation and potential early ending of the Dark Age. The Mule, through telepathic manipulation, defeats and takes over the Foundation’s growing empire, which has become increasingly control-oriented and out-of-touch with the outer planets in its rapidly expanding realm of influence.
There are certainly parallels between Trump’s arrival on the scene and The Mule’s psychohistory defying disruption of Seldon’s Plan. The Mule was described as a freak and the subject of derision. This fueled his ambition to take over the galaxy. I believe Trump decided he was going to be president on April 30, 2011 during the Correspondence Dinner at the White House when Obama unrelentingly mocked and derided him in front of the corrupt Washington power establishment. This public ridicule from an empty suit community organizer president, who never worked a real day in his life, angered Trump to his core and propelled him to seek and win the presidency.
The Mule enters the scene disguised as a clown named Magnifico Giganticus. Over time, he uses his psycho-manipulative abilities to sway the masses to his side and eventually takes over the galaxy. When Trump announced his candidacy, it was taken as a public relations stunt to further his faltering reality TV career. He has a magnificent gigantic ego. His persona was that of an irascible self-made billionaire with an enormous ego and hunger for the spotlight. He was the butt of many orange hair and orange skin jokes.
For the most part, he went along with the joke, as any publicity is good publicity when you are selling yourself as a brand. He put his name on buildings, Chinese made clothing, scam universities, and just about anything that would produce a buck. He became more famous for his TV show The Apprentice, and his tag-line “You’re Fired”, than for the billion dollar real estate empire he had built.
Like The Mule, Trump used the GOP establishment’s disdain and underestimation of his persuasion abilities to capture control of the party from the out of touch elitist party hacks. At the outset of his candidacy I was among the libertarian minded skeptics who didn’t take him seriously. I found him entertaining, but didn’t think he had the gravitas to be president. I liked his rhetoric about not interfering in foreign conflicts, protecting our borders, enforcing the rule of law, repealing the disastrous Obamacare law, and his relentless trashing of the left wing mainstream media and Washington establishment.
I wasn’t a big fan of his bloviating about inconsequential matters. As time passed I began to realize he was probably the Grey Champion of this Fourth Turning and the regeneracy towards the next phase would be his unexpected election to the highest office in the land. He was the only person capable of destroying the fetid pustule known as the Deep State.
The Mule’s tormented childhood of alienation, combined with his mental ability to alter human emotions led to his desire for power, in order to exact revenge upon the human race which caused him so much pain. Trump’s childhood was no walk in the park, but it was far from being tortured. His father did send him to military school at the age of 13 to instill some discipline in him. It does seem like his drive to succeed was spurred by a desire to prove himself to his father and be more successful than his old man. Unlike The Mule, his motivation is not revenge motivated, unless you consider it revenge upon Obama for the abuse he withstood during that dinner.
The Mule had the mental capabilities to turn antagonists into followers, converting feelings of animosity into those of intense loyalty. He could also stimulate feelings of pervasive fear and panic among his enemies. He used the subtle influence of the subconscious to conscript individuals to his cause. The Mule used his mental powers to disrupt Seldon’s plan by invalidating his assumption no single individual could have a quantifiable impact on historical trends predicted by his theory of psychohistory. The Mule is a Grey Champion-like character rising to power at a crucial time in history as the disruptive factor to the best laid plans of over-confident elitists. The Mule uses his extraordinary cerebral abilities to conquer the unprepared and over-confident Foundation.
Trump has been underestimated every step of the way for the last two years. He has thrown sand into the gears of the political establishment, made up of both parties, and controlled by Deep State players used to getting their way. Trump was able to use his powers of persuasion to overcome the left wing media propaganda and motivate a large swath of disaffected Americans to come over to his side. The never ending barrage of misinformation and fake news spewed by the Deep State controlled media ignores the fact he won 53% of the white women vote, along with huge numbers of union workers from blue collar states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.
As documented during the campaign by Scott Adams, Trump’s phenomenal power of persuasion overcame all obstacles thrown in his way by the crooked establishment. He had no support from the GOP power players, was despised and ridiculed by the horribly corrupt Democratic establishment machine, scorned and mocked by the fake news corporate media, and undermined by the surveillance apparatus at the behest of the rancid resentful reprobate occupying the oval office. Their pure unadulterated hatred for the man resulted in them becoming blindsided and baffled by his tactics, strategy, and Svengali-like ability to draw huge crowds of normal Americans in flyover country.
Trump has disrupted the ongoing Deep State capture of our political, economic, financial, social, and cultural systems as a once in a lifetime figure destined to govern during a time of domestic disorder, global upheaval, civil chaos and ultimately war on a grand scale. The looting and pillaging campaign of the ruling class, disguised as free market capitalism and democracy, has been put at risk by an uncontrollable unpredictable outsider who doesn’t act according to their Plan.
The staged violent response by the billionaire funded left wing faux anarchists, fake news Russian conspiracy propaganda, and NSA/CIA/FBI campaign to discredit and/or overthrow the Trump presidency is the kind of response you would expect from a dangerous threatened animal backed into a corner. The establishment will not relinquish control without a bloody drawn out fight to the finish.
Since we know Asimov modeled the trilogy on Gibbons’ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, there has been much conjecture as to who The Mule represented. He has historical parallels with Attila the Hun, Tamerlane, Charlemagne and Roman Emperor Augustus. Based on the historical time frame in which he was writing (1941 – 1950), I think it is safe to assume he modeled some of The Mule’s traits after Adolf Hitler. His disturbed childhood, trauma during the First World War, hypnotic ability to manipulate the emotions of the German people, boldness in attacking his perceived enemies, and attempt at world conquest, parallels much of The Mule’s story.
When I try to find parallels to our current situation and the role Trump is playing, I see the Foundation trilogy in a different light. Isaac Asimov was an intellectual. He had a PhD in biochemistry and was a life-long member of Mensa. He was a university professor for most of his life. Academics believe in theories and academic mumbo jumbo, as we can see from decades of academics running the Federal Reserve, destroying our currency and forcing millions into economic servitude.
Hari Seldon is an intellectual who creates the Foundation, made up of other academic intellectuals. Then he sets up a Second Foundation of even more talented intellectuals as a backup plan in case the Foundation fails. The true ruling powers on this planet always have a backup plan. You never know whether the leaders or organizations you support are really part of a bigger plan you have not considered. Keeping the populace off-balance, confused, and seeking unseen enemies is just part of the plan.
The inevitable decline of the Galactic Empire was entirely predictable by Seldon, as every empire in world history has ultimately declined. Whether the Roman Empire was ruled by a despot, wise man, or idiot, it continued its centuries long decline from glory to destruction. Empires are created by fallible men whose failings, weaknesses, and desires never change. John Adams foresaw the future of an American Empire two centuries before it became an empire. The American Empire is in the process of committing suicide and a single individual, no matter how bold and resolute, will not be able to save it from its inevitable destruction.
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.
It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.” – John Adams, The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
I don’t see Trump as an evil Mule character in this Shakespearian tragedy, as it progresses towards its ill-fated denouement. I also don’t see Seldon and his ensemble of elitist intellectuals as the saviors of the universe. I see The Foundation as the Washington and Wall Street elite who are the face of the establishment – Pelosi, Schumer, Ryan, McConnell, Yellen, Dimon, Blankfein, Immelt, Gates, Buffet, etc. The Second Foundation was hidden in plain sight, operating in the shadows, unknown to the masses, and controlling the galaxy from behind the curtain. They were the Galactic Deep State.
The Seldon Plan smells like a current day Soros Plan. Wealthy, highly educated, egotistical, hubristic, evil snakes who believe they are the smartest men in the world operate behind the scenes as the invisible government, manipulating the mechanisms of society and pulling the wires controlling the public mind. Soros, along with other shadowy smug billionaires, are not fans of populism.
They believe they are entitled to run the world as they choose, with no input or resistance from the ignorant masses. With the basket of deplorables rising up and electing Trump, the Deep State players are now openly fighting back and revealing their warped thought process. Elitist billionaire Ray Dalio recently revealed his populism fears and those of his fellow billionaires. He doesn’t consider himself a common man.
Populism is a political and social phenomenon that arises from the common man, typically not well-educated, being fed up with 1) wealth and opportunity gaps, 2) perceived cultural threats from those with different values in the country and from outsiders, 3) the “establishment elites” in positions of power, and 4) government not working effectively for them. These sentiments lead that constituency to put strong leaders in power. Populist leaders are typically confrontational rather than collaborative and exclusive rather than inclusive. As a result, conflicts typically occur between opposing factions (usually the economic and socially left versus the right), both within the country and between countries. These conflicts typically become progressively more forceful in self-reinforcing ways.
In other words, populism is a rebellion of the common man against the elites to some extent, against the system. The rebellion and the conflict that comes with it occur in varying degrees. Sometimes the system bends with it and sometimes the system breaks. Whether it bends or breaks in response to this rebellion and conflict depends on how flexible and well established the system is. It also seems to depend on how reasonable and respectful of the system the populists who gain power are. Classic populist economic policies include protectionism, nationalism, increased infrastructure building, increased military spending, greater budget deficits, and, quite often, capital controls.
Dalio, Soros and their fellow billionaires see populism as a threat to their wealth, power, and control of the world. But, it’s much ado about nothing. It’s like jockeying for the best seat on the Titanic as it sinks into the frigid ocean depths of the Atlantic. The American Empire is in shambles and no one can reverse its course at this point. I’ll address that distressing situation in Part Three of this article.
- New Study Says Robots Took All Of Detroit's Jobs, Not Mexico
As Trump gets ready to renegotiate NAFTA and impose tariffs on companies looking to outsource production to Mexico, a new study from MIT and Boston University suggests that industrial robots, not Mexico, may be the bigger factor contributing to the high levels on unemployment in the Midwest.
Entitled “Robots and Jobs: Evidence From US Labor Markets,” the authors of the study found that the addition of 1 robot per 1,000 workers results in an 18-35 bps reduction in the employment-to-population ratio and 25-50bps reduction in wages. Per Bloomberg:
One additional robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by 0.18 percentage points to 0.34 percentage points and slashes wages by 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, based on their analysis. To put that in context, the U.S. saw an increase of about one new industrial robot for every thousand workers between 1993 and 2007, based on the study.
“The employment effects of robots are most pronounced in manufacturing, and in particular, in industries most exposed to robots; in routine manual, blue collar, assembly and related occupations; and for workers with less than college education,” the authors write. “Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, we do not find positive and offsetting employment gains in any occupation or education groups.”
Worth noting: the authors estimate that robots may have increased the wage gap between the top 90th and bottom 10 percent by as much as 1 percentage point between 1990 and 2007. There’s also room for much broader robot adoption, which would make all of these effects much bigger.
While the study found that only 360,000-670,000 jobs had been lost to robots over the past couple of decades, estimates indicate that an additional 3.5 million permanent jobs losses could occur over just the next 10 years which would increase the natural unemployment level by over 2%.
Because there are relatively few robots in the US economy, the number of jobs lost due to robots has been limited so far (ranging between 360,000 and 670,000 jobs, equivalent to a 0.18-0.34 percentage point decline in the employment to population ratio). However, if the spread of robots proceeds as expected by experts over the next two decades (e.g., Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012, especially pp. 27-32, and Ford, 2016), the future aggregate implications of the spread of robots could be much more sizable. For example, BCG (2015) offers two scenarios for the spread of robots over the next decade. In their aggressive scenario, the world stock of robots will quadruple by 2025. This would correspond to 5.25 more robots per thousand workers in the United States, and with our estimates, it would lead to a 0.94-1.76 percentage points lower employment to population ratio and 1.3-2.6 percent lower wage growth between 2015 and 2025.
Of course, the impact is even more dramatic when you consider that the job losses are heavily concentrated in a handful of industries. The automotive industry employs 39% of existing industrial robots, followed by the electronics industry (19%), metal products (9%), and the plastic and chemicals industry (9%).
Meanwhile, the following maps help to highlight the exposure of various regions of the country to industrial automation, imports and offshoring of jobs. Not surprisingly, the heaviest concentration of robots has developed in the rust-belt region where they’ve replaced 1,000s of UAW workers.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that economists had prematurely predicted the demise of labor markets due to technological advances:
“We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come—namely, technological unemployment” – Keynes, 1930
“Labor will become less and less important. . . More and more workers will be replaced by machines. I do not see that new industries can employ everybody who wants a job” – Leontief, 1952
- Brodsky: "A Socialized Market With Guaranteed Positive Returns For All Must Fail"
Submitted by Paul Brodsky via Macro-Allocation.com
“Selfishness is a virtue.”
– Ayn Rand
“Selfishness is profitable, but for institutionalized investors it takes courage to be selfish.”
– Paul Brodsky
Self-Serve
In Passive Aggressive, we made the case that ETFs can be useful vehicles for thoughtful active investors. A few people agreed with our self-assessment in the piece that we were being self-serving because we are launching a modestly priced pro-volatility fund that actively manages ETFs. To some this might raise the issue of whether the report was truly objective. It was, and in fact we would argue that opening a fund using the approach endorsed in Passive Aggressive shows our high level of conviction towards it. It would be unconscionable were we not to not share an opportunity we see as worthy of opening a business.
Objective analysis is objective because the ideas and conclusions are free of bias, not because the analyst is free of a potential conflict of interest. Full-disclosure separates self-interest from self-dealing.
We have argued recently that US and global output growth are declining fast, Trump’s economic initiatives would have little impact (best case), long-duration Treasuries should be bought and high yield credit sold, gold should be owned, US housing and retail sectors should be shorted, as well as other macro trends and applications. Most of our suggestions have been counter-consensus and would benefit from a general increase in economic and market volatility. By discussing the ETF approach within the context of MAI, it is our hope that subscribers value the overall strategy enough to consider acting on it in some measure, whether it is with us, with someone else, or on their own. But enough about that…Who pursues which investment strategies and why got us thinking about a broader question: can an alternative-investment style without widespread acceptance have merit, or should it be avoided by practical investors? The crux of the issue is when should an investor consider an unconventional approach she has not considered before? Our answer: now, at least for a portion of the portfolio.
A Precarious Setup
On one level, it is satisfying to watch investors migrate to lower-cost passive investment vehicles because higher-cost active management has consistently under-performed. One might say the market for investment intermediation is rational. One might also argue passive investing is not rational at all because it is not forward looking. Rising markets, an unwillingness to acknowledge fat tails (unlikely knowns), and the inability to model Black Swans (unknown unknowns) have concentrated popular wealth into a narrowly distributed range of highly vulnerable assets and investment strategies.
The trend towards passive investing implies the preponderance of a type of investment behavior called reflexivity – basically, an established trend begets the continuance of it. This mindset is typically embraced by traders, but less prevalent among investors who generally regard themselves as fundamental long-termers. The irony is that for long-term investors, the broad migration to passive investment vehicles is occurring in full revolt against longer term macroeconomic and commercial fundamentals.
When we step back and look at the broad macroeconomic setup, characterized by aging populations in the world’s largest economies, declining overall birth rates among the world’s wealth holders, record sovereign and household leverage, the continued economic emphasis of finance over production, the reliance on over-accommodating central banks (even during the Fed’s current rate hike phase), historically high equity, bond and real estate prices and record low asset and liability values (in real terms); we cannot help but conclude that asset prices are generally rising due mostly to inertia, in spite of unreason, and that the most likely outcome will be something unexpected and disappointing.
Even though it is a rejection of the established secular bull market in assets and the social, economic, political and financial cultures established and tweaked over the span of our career (almost to the day), our heart and mind (not to mention the vast sweep of investment and economic history) tell us structural change is coming. We can use our experience to forecast specific events and new trends that might occur, and we have, but we cannot know exactly what form structural change will take or when it might begin.
Into the Breach
A socialized market framework with implicitly guaranteed perpetual positive returns for all must fail. The best approach is to confront the point of criticality head-on, where “wealth” seems to be permanent but is not. Turning popular passive instruments on themselves to take advantage of great market distortions promises to be an aggressive hedge against misguided inertia – an effective portfolio offset that strikes at the belly of the beast. ETFs are here to stay, but their market prices and liquidity profiles are not.
Serve yourself. All investors and trustworthy market professionals should be expected to act selfishly by seeking to identify and profit from unsustainable distortions. If investors must put that in a more virtuous context to satisfy their consciences (or fiduciary charters), then they can make themselves feel better by knowing that helping to close unsustainable distortions is the only way capitalism can survive. Capitalism without failure is like Catholicism without hell. In this case, investors can do well by doing good if/when market hell arrives.
Selfishness is profitable, but for institutionalized investors it takes courage to be selfish.
- House Committee Passes Bill To "Audit The Fed"
The Republican-controlled Committee on Oversight and Government Reform approved a bill earlier today to allow for a congressional audit of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, a proposal Fed policymakers have opposed and likely faces a difficult path to final approval in the Senate. Under the bill, the Fed’s monetary policy deliberations could be subject
to outside review by the Government Accountability Office.While similar bills have garnered some support from Democrats in the past, they uniformly spoke against the current proposal during a meeting of the House of Representatives suggesting the current iteration would face stronger resistance from an increasingly polarized environment in Washington D.C..
The House previously passed similar versions of this legislation twice before in 2012 and 2014, with dozens of Democrats joining nearly unanimous Republican support. That said, those bills both died in the Senate and likely would have faced a Presidential veto from Obama had they survived anyway.
That said, Trump expressed interest in passing such legislation multiple times during the 2016 campaign cycle which means the 3rd time might just be the charm for Republicans.
It is so important to audit The Federal Reserve, and yet Ted Cruz missed the vote on the bill that would allow this to be done.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2016
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President-elect @realDonaldTrump has stated his support for #AuditTheFed. Let’s send him the bill this Congress. https://t.co/1twVBMv37u
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 4, 2017
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And while proponents of the bill argue that the Fed wields too much power over the U.S. economy with minimal oversight, opponents assert that Fed decisions should be informed purely by economic indicators and completely insulated from “political pressure”…and we presume those same opponents would argue that Yellen’s decision to wait until just after the conclusion of the 2016 Presidential election to start hiking rates had absolutely nothing to do with politics. Per Reuters:
Proponents of the measure argue that the Fed is too powerful and lacks sufficient oversight for its interest rate decisions. But Fed officials from Yellen on down, as well as other critics, have warned that such a policy could subject the Fed to undue political pressure and discourage it from taking unpopular steps for the good of the overall economy.
“We should not in any way hinder their independence,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, echoing the sentiment of Fed policymakers who say they could come under political pressure to avoid making unpopular decisions such as raising interest rates to slow growth and control inflation.
The next step for the bill would be a floor vote by the entire House, where Republicans hold a solid majority, followed by a Senate vote that would be much more difficult given Republcans’ narrow lead.
- Congress Poised To Obliterate Broadband Privacy Rules
Authored by Lauren McCauley via TheAntiMedia.org,
Privacy advocates on Monday are urging Americans to call their elected officials, warning that there are only 24 hours left to “save online privacy rules” before the U.S. House of Representatives votes on a measure that would allow major telecom companies to collect user data and auction it off to the “highest bidder.”
Wasting no time, the House is expected to begin debate late Monday on S.J. Res. 34, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) privacy provision, implemented under former President Barack Obama, which requires that providers such as Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon get a user’s permission before collecting or selling sensitive data.
As Common Dreams reported, 50 Republican senators voted to advance the resolution last week.
“We are one vote away from a world where your [Internet Service Providers or ISP] can track your every move online and sell that information to the highest bidder,” Kate Tummarello, policy analyst for the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), said Monday.
Explaining how the FCC’s “commonsense” rules would have prevented ISPs from doing a “host of creepy things,” Tummarello wrote: “Those rules were a huge victory for consumers. Of course, the ISPs that stand to make money off of violating your privacy have been lobbying Congress to repeal those rules. Unfortunately, their anti-consumer push has been working.”
Meanwhile, the opposition is responding with a campaign of its own to pressure lawmakers—said to be in the pocket of the telecom industry—to protect #broadbandprivacy.
On Monday, the grassroots advocacy Fight for the Future announced that it will unleash billboards in Washington, D.C. and other select districts exposing any Congress member who votes to gut internet privacy rules.
“Congress should know by now that when you come for the internet, the internet comes for you,” said Evan Greer, the organization’s campaign director, who added that “these billboards are just the beginning. People from across the political spectrum are outraged, and every lawmaker who votes to take away our privacy will regret it come Election Day.”
Similarly, encrypted communications provider Private Internet Access has taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times naming the senators who “voted to monitor your internet activity for financial gain.”
Private Internet Access, a VPN provider, takes out a full page ad in the @nytimes calling out 50 senators #Broadbandprivacy pic.twitter.com/Gg62Fwycb7
— Zuri Berry (@zuriberry) March 26, 2017
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Meanwhile, in a series of tweets, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) enumerated on the implications of the resolution, concluding that House lawmakers should “stand up against industry pressure to put profits over privacy & reject the resolution to overturn the FCC’s privacy rule.”
The resolution also prohibits the FCC from issuing rules that are substantially the same in the future.
— ACLU National (@ACLU) March 27, 2017
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Without FCC rules, companies would be able to sell your sensitive data to advertisers, big data brokers, and even the government.
— ACLU National (@ACLU) March 27, 2017
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The House should stand up against industry pressure to put profits over privacy & reject the resolution to overturn the FCC’s privacy rule.
— ACLU National (@ACLU) March 27, 2017
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Further, Muhammad Saad Khan at The Next Web explained how a rollback of privacy rules could usher in a new wave of cyber attacks.
“Considering what is at stake here, and how much data ISPs already have on us, it will not come as a surprise if in the long run, the number of cyberattacks increase by leaps and bounds,” Khan wrote. “Monitoring activities and data theft will rise significantly, as if they were already not a menace. With gadgets, households and even cars being connected to the internet as part of the IoT (the Internet of Things), it is not that hard to imagine how deadly a cyberattack could possibly be if things turn for the worst; which they will, as history suggests.”
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