- Varoufakis: "Soros Phoned Tsipras In 2015 And Demanded [My Sacking]"
With billionaire ‘philanthropist’ George Soros making enemies and influencing people all around the world, a little more from his sordid puppetmastery background was exposed this week as his successful efforts to have a finance minister of a European Union nation fired have been put under the spotlight of awkward conspiracy fact.
Infamous former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis claimed on Monday that it was Soros who demanded that he was sacked from the Greek government in 2015.
As KeepTalkingGreece.com reports, in an interview with private Skai TV, the former minister and founder of DiEM25 said George Soros phoned Alexis Tsipras in July 2015 and demanded that he be sacked.
“Soros has picked up the phone about me only one time. When he contacted Tsipras in July 2015 and demanded my expulsion,” Varoufakis said.
He added that his “contact” with Soros was limited to this one phone call.
At the same time, he attacked Defense Minister Panos Kammenos who recently claimed Soros had funded the Prespes Agreement – and apparently had attacked also Varoufakis.
“Kammenos said about me that I was a Soros employee,” the ex finance minister said.
Saying that Kammenos is a far-right populist like Orban, Salvini and others, the ex minister stressed “when they want to tarnish someone’s reputation and honor, all these neo-fascists use the name of Soros.”
This trend shows antisemitism and anti-Jewish because “Soros is of Jewish origin,” the ex minister said.
Describing Soros as a “controversial” figure Varoufakis said that the billionaire “did a few good things but also some weird ones.”
After the interview, Varoufakis posted on Twitter that he recounted the incident with Soros in full in his book “Adults in the Room.”
As KeepTalkingGreece poignantly concludes, while we have not read Varoufakis’ book we wonder whether he also wrote what kind of power Soros had over the Greek SYRIZA-ANEL government to be able to demand his removal form government.
- Military Escalation In Europe Is Like Runaway Train: It's Time To Slow It Down
Authored by Arkady Savitsky via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Much has been said about the Trident Juncture 2018 NATO exercise being held in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders. This is the largest training event since the Cold War, but it’s only part of a broader picture, in which military war preparations targeting Russia are in full swing. Exercises are being coordinated, along with infrastructure facilities that are being built, expanded, and modernized. For instance, last week the construction of an aircraft maintenance hangar at Estonia’s Amari Air Base, the first military project fully funded by the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), was completed.
The event was celebrated by US and Estonian air force officials with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. More than $38 million in EDI funds are being invested in that base. Beyond the training, a joint maintenance facility will also support the NATO aircraft that are conducting air policing in Eastern Europe. The Air Force Times cited US Air Forces Europe Commander Gen. Tod Wolters, who promised that even more funding was coming down the pipe for other projects.
“Looking into fiscal year 2019, we are proposing a [European Defense Initiative] budget that demonstrates the US commitment to NATO,” he noted. According to him, “Our total [US European Command] request includes a significant funding increase from $4.7 billion to $6.5 billion.”
The NATO infrastructure modernization plans include upgrades to the Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary so that it can accommodate US F-15 fighters, A-10 attack planes, and C-5 transport aircraft, in addition to building a munitions storage facility at Malacky Air Base, Slovakia and a taxiway at Rygge, Norway. These steps are part of a larger effort to prepare for offensive operations against Russia.
The fiscal 2018 defense budget authorizes the US Air Force secretary to purchase land and build installations in other countries. There are plans to invest some $214 million into air bases in Europe, including a $13.9 million investment in Estonia’s preeminent military air base, Amari, plus the Lielvarde Air Base in Latvia is to receive a $3.85 million investment. The biggest chunk of the money, $67.4 million, goes to the Sanem Air Base in Luxembourg. The Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary will get another $55.4 million investment.
To all this can be added the US Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS) for permanent storage in Europe that have been modernized and replenished since 2017. The APS will be sufficient for another armored brigade to fall in on. The militarization of Northern Europe is underway and Poland is being rearmed and prepared to host American bases, such as Fort Trump. The US Air Force is expanding its presence on the European continent, along with NATO’s growing naval might in the Black Sea.
In October, the Ramstein Air Base in Germany received the largest shipment of ammunition in many years (since 1999). Some 100 containers have been delivered to “support NATO’s European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) and augment the Air Force’s War Reserve Materiel in Europe,” said Master Sgt. Arthur Myrick, 86th MUNS munitions flight chief.
NATO is aiming for territorial expansion. Only 36.9% of eligible voters participated in Macedonia’s Sept. 30 referendum over changing the country’s name and thus paving the way for NATO and EU membership. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, US Defense Secretary James Mattis, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were part of the West’s “Skopje landings” team that stormed that nation’s capital to influence the results of that vote. The voters said yes, but turnout was stunningly low — poor enough to stoke doubts about the plebiscite’s legitimacy.
On October 18, the decision to rename the country was pushed through the Macedonian parliament. This move also lacked overwhelming support from lawmakers, with the ruling coalition barely able to secure the required majority of 80 out of 120 votes to ram the measure through and jump-start formal accession talks at NATO headquarters. The US ambassador to Macedonia was actually inside the parliament building at the time of the vote, but US officials don’t think that counts as “pressure.”
The restoration of Macedonia’s Krivolak army training center to its full capacity, offering thousands of NATO soldiers a venue for drills, is already underway. Next year, Macedonia will host the Decisive Strike 2019 joint exercise that will involve about 1,000 US and Macedonian soldiers.
Albania is offering its territory for NATO bases. Kosovo is on its way to creating its own army. This is a blatant violation of international law. The UN Security Council has never approved it. But NATO nations support the move. US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Wess Mitchell, believes that “[n]obody can place a veto on Kosovo’s right to develop its armed forces.” According to him, Kosovo “has the right to form professional forces” and this would not pose a threat to either Serbia or Kosovo’s Serbs.
UN Security Council Resolution 1244 states explicitly that no other military presence except KFOR and Serbia’s army shall be permitted without the mandate of the UN Security Council. The declaration of independence in 2008 by Kosovo’s parliament without a previous UN-monitored referendum was a flagrant breach of that resolution. Kosovo, which is part of Serbia, is turning into “NATO Land” without the consent of the Serbian government. It has actually been annexed by the alliance. This entity was also created specifically in opposition to Russia. Hashim Thaci, the leader of Kosovo, makes no secret of it. He claims a threat is emanating from “the Russian military bases in Serbia, from Russia’s MIG jets in Serbia and from the Russian military exercises in Serbia.”
Whatever Russia does is being portrayed by Western officials and media as a demonstration of hostile intent. Should Russia sit idly by, watching all these preparations going on in full view? If those are not considered provocative behavior, then what is? Any nation would be concerned if an infrastructure were being built that was designed for offensive operations against it.
The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) is scheduled for October 31. Perhaps any expectation of progress is nothing but the slimmest of hopes. After all, this will be the eighth time the NRC has met in the last two years and no progress in any area has been achieved. But hope is the last to die. The escalation has gone too far. NATO’s war preparations have become too large-scale and provocative and have turned Europe into a hotbed. The time is right for the alliance — or at least its European members who have been negatively affected by these developments — to start talking seriously. On Oct. 31 they’ll have such a chance.
- Russians Are Turning Their Backs On Vodka
Is the age-old Russian love affair with vodka on the rocks?
In recent years, more and more Russians have ditched their national drink, preferring to sip craft beer and sample wine. However,as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, vodka remains a huge part of the country’s culture, something that has had deadly consequences for its male population.
According to the most recent World Health Organization data (2010), 30 percent of all male adults engaged in heavy episodic drinking in the past month. Excessive alcoholism among men has resulted in an average life expectancy of just 64 years of age, far behind the rest of Europe.
The following infographic used more recent WHO data to show how the situation is changing…
You will find more infographics at Statista
After the collapse of the USSR, vodka consumption peaked in 1995 with per capita consumption of pure alcohol of spirits amounting to nearly 9 liters. That year, per capita consumption of beer and wine amounted to just 1.54 and 0.81 liters of pure alcohol. Fast forward to 2016 and to a vastly different picture.
That year, per capita consumption of spirits sunk to just 3.25 liters of pure alcohol. Meanwhile, levels of beer and wine consumption have been rising steadily with the former surpassing vodka in terms of pure alcohol consumed.
Many factors have played a role in the shift away from vodka. Rising alcohol prices and attempts at introducing better regulation have certainly played a part in reducing drinking in general. Craft beer has also become increasingly popular as startup costs are low and establishments do not need a liquor license if they only sell beer. The cost of a pint of locally brewed beer is also relatively cheap, making it an attractive option for thirsty customers.
- Why American Leaders Persist In Waging Losing Wars
Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,
As America enters the 18th year of its war in Afghanistan and its 16th in Iraq, the war on terror continues in Yemen, Syria, and parts of Africa, including Libya, Niger, and Somalia. Meanwhile, the Trump administration threatens yet more war, this time with Iran. (And given these last years, just how do you imagine that’s likely to turn out?) Honestly, isn’t it time Americans gave a little more thought to why their leaders persist in waging losing wars across significant parts of the planet? So consider the rest of this piece my attempt to do just that.
Let’s face it: profits and power should be classified as perennial reasons why U.S. leaders persist in waging such conflicts. War may be a racket, as General Smedley Butler claimed long ago, but who cares these days since business is booming? And let’s add to such profits a few other all-American motivations. Start with the fact that, in some curious sense, war is in the American bloodstream. As former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges once put it, “War is a force that gives us meaning.” Historically, we Americans are a violent people who have invested much in a self-image of toughness now being displayed across the “global battlespace.” (Hence all the talk in this country not about our soldiers but about our “warriors.”) As the bumper stickers I see regularly where I live say: “God, guns, & guts made America free.” To make the world freer, why not export all three?
Add in, as well, the issue of political credibility. No president wants to appear weak and in the United States of the last many decades, pulling back from a war has been the definition of weakness. No one — certainly not Donald Trump — wants to be known as the president who “lost” Afghanistan or Iraq. As was true of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the Vietnam years, so in this century fear of electoral defeat has helped prolong the country’s hopeless wars. Generals, too, have their own fears of defeat, fears that drive them to escalate conflicts (call it the urge to surge) and even to advocate for the use of nuclear weapons, as General William Westmoreland did in 1968 during the Vietnam War.
Washington’s own deeply embedded illusions and deceptions also serve to generate and perpetuate its wars. Lauding our troops as “freedom fighters” for peace and prosperity, presidents like George W. Bush have waged a set of brutal wars in the name of spreading democracy and a better way of life. The trouble is: incessant war doesn’t spread democracy — though in the twenty-first century we’ve learned that it does spread terror groups — it kills it. At the same time, our leaders, military and civilian, have given us a false picture of the nature of the wars they’re fighting. They continue to present the U.S. military and its vaunted “smart” weaponry as a precision surgical instrument capable of targeting and destroying the cancer of terrorism, especially of the radical Islamic variety. Despite the hoopla about them, however, those precision instruments of war turn out to be blunt indeed, leading to the widespread killing of innocents, the massive displacement of people across America’s war zones, and floods of refugees who have, in turn, helped spark the rise of the populist right in lands otherwise still at peace.
Lurking behind the incessant warfare of this century is another belief, particularly ascendant in the Trump White House: that big militaries and expensive weaponry represent “investments” in a better future — as if the Pentagon were the Bank of America or Wall Street. Steroidal military spending continues to be sold as a key to creating jobs and maintaining America’s competitive edge, as if war were America’s primary business. (And perhaps it is!)
Those who facilitate enormous military budgets and frequent conflicts abroad still earn special praise here. Consider, for example, Senator John McCain’s rapturous final sendoff, including the way arms maker Lockheed Martin lauded him as an American hero supposedly tough and demanding when it came to military contractors. (And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.)
Put all of this together and what you’re likely to come up with is the American version of George Orwell’s famed formulation in his novel 1984: “war is peace.”
The War the Pentagon Knew How to Win
Twenty years ago, when I was a major on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, a major concern was the possible corroding of civil-military relations – in particular, a growing gap between the military and the civilians who were supposed to control them. I’m a clipper of newspaper articles and I saved some from that long-gone era. “Sharp divergence found in views of military and civilians,” reported the New York Times in September 1999. “Civilians, military seen growing apart,” noted the Washington Post a month later. Such pieces were picking up on trends already noted by distinguished military commentators like Thomas Ricks and Richard Kohn. In July 1997, for instance, Ricks had written an influential Atlantic article, “The Widening Gap between the Military and Society.” In 1999, Kohn gave a lecture at the Air Force Academy titled “The Erosion of Civilian Control of the Military in the United States Today.”
A generation ago, such commentators worried that the all-volunteer military was becoming an increasingly conservative and partisan institution filled with generals and admirals contemptuous of civilians, notably then-President Bill Clinton. At the time, according to one study, 64% of military officers identified as Republicans, only 8% as Democrats and, when it came to the highest levels of command, that figure for Republicans was in the stratosphere, approaching 90%. Kohn quoted a West Point graduate as saying, “We’re in danger of developing our own in-house Soviet-style military, one in which if you’re not in ‘the party,’ you don’t get ahead.” In a similar fashion, 67% of military officers self-identified as politically conservative, only 4% as liberal.
In a 1998 article for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Ricks noted that “the ratio of conservatives to liberals in the military” had gone from “about 4 to 1 in 1976, which is about where I would expect a culturally conservative, hierarchical institution like the U.S. military to be, to 23 to 1 in 1996.” This “creeping politicization of the officer corps,” Ricks concluded, was creating a less professional military, one in the process of becoming “its own interest group.” That could lead, he cautioned, to an erosion of military effectiveness if officers were promoted based on their political leanings rather than their combat skills.
How has the civil-military relationship changed in the last two decades? Despite bending on social issues (gays in the military, women in more combat roles), today’s military is arguably neither more liberal nor less partisan than it was in the Clinton years. It certainly hasn’t returned to its citizen-soldier roots via a draft. Change, if it’s come, has been on the civilian side of the divide as Americans have grown both more militarized and more partisan (without any greater urge to sign up and serve). In this century, the civil-military divide of a generation ago has been bridged by endless celebrations of that military as “the best of us” (as Vice President Mike Pence recently put it).
Such expressions, now commonplace, of boundless faith in and thankfulness for the military are undoubtedly driven in part by guilt over neither serving, nor undoubtedly even truly caring. Typically, Pence didn’t serve and neither did Donald Trump (those pesky “heel spurs”). As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich put it in 2007: “To assuage uneasy consciences, the many who do not serve [in the all-volunteer military] proclaim their high regard for the few who do. This has vaulted America’s fighting men and women to the top of the nation’s moral hierarchy. The character and charisma long ago associated with the pioneer or the small farmer — or carried in the 1960s by Dr. King and the civil-rights movement — has now come to rest upon the soldier.” This elevation of “our” troops as America’s moral heroes feeds a Pentagon imperative that seeks to isolate the military from criticism and its commanders from accountability for wars gone horribly wrong.
Paradoxically, Americans have become both too detached from their military and too deferential to it. We now love to applaud that military, which, the pollsters tell us, enjoys a significantly higher degree of trust and approval from the public than the presidency, Congress, the media, the Catholic church, or the Supreme Court. What that military needs, however, in this era of endless war is not loud cheers, but tough love.
As a retired military man, I do think our troops deserve a measure of esteem. There’s a selfless ethic to the military that should seem admirable in this age of selfies and selfishness. That said, the military does not deserve the deference of the present moment, nor the constant adulation it gets in endless ceremonies at any ballpark or sporting arena. Indeed, deference and adulation, the balm of military dictatorships, should be poison to the military of a democracy.
With U.S. forces endlessly fighting ill-begotten wars, whether in Vietnam in the 1960s or in Iraq and Afghanistan four decades later, it’s easy to lose sight of where the Pentagon continues to maintain a truly winning record: right here in the U.S.A. Today, whatever’s happening on the country’s distant battlefields, the idea that ever more inflated military spending is an investment in making America great again reigns supreme – as it has, with little interruption, since the 1980s and the era of President Ronald Reagan.
The military’s purpose should be, as Richard Kohn put it long ago, “to defend society, not to define it. The latter is militarism.” With that in mind, think of the way various retired military men lined up behind Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, including a classically unhinged performance by retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (he of the “lock her up” chants) for Trump at the Republican convention and a shout-out of a speech by retired General John Allen for Clinton at the Democratic one. America’s presidential candidates, it seemed, needed to be anointed by retired generals, setting a dangerous precedent for future civil-military relations.
A Letter From My Senator
A few months back, I wrote a note to one of my senators to complain about America’s endless wars and received a signed reply via email. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it was a canned response, but no less telling for that.
My senator began by praising American troops as “tough, smart, and courageous, and they make huge sacrifices to keep our families safe. We owe them all a true debt of gratitude for their service.” OK, I got an instant warm and fuzzy feeling, but seeking applause wasn’t exactly the purpose of my note.
My senator then expressed support for counterterror operations, for, that is, “conducting limited, targeted operations designed to deter violent extremists that pose a credible threat to America’s national security, including al-Qaeda and its affiliates, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), localized extremist groups, and homegrown terrorists.” My senator then added a caveat, suggesting that the military should obey “the law of armed conflict” and that the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) that Congress hastily approved in the aftermath of 9/11 should not be interpreted as an “open-ended mandate” for perpetual war.
Finally, my senator voiced support for diplomacy as well as military action, writing, “I believe that our foreign policy should be smart, tough, and pragmatic, using every tool in the toolbox — including defense, diplomacy, and development – to advance U.S. security and economic interests around the world.” The conclusion: “robust” diplomacy must be combined with a “strong” military.
Now, can you guess the name and party affiliation of that senator? Could it have been Lindsey Graham or Jeff Flake, Republicans who favor a beyond-strong military and endlessly aggressive counterterror operations? Of course, from that little critical comment on the AUMF, you’ve probably already figured out that my senator is a Democrat. But did you guess that my military-praising, counterterror-waging representative was Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts?
Full disclosure: I like Warren and have made small contributions to her campaign. And her letter did stipulate that she believed “military action should always be a last resort.” Still, nowhere in it was there any critique of, or even passingly critical commentary about, the U.S. military, or the still-spreading war on terror, or the never-ending Afghan War, or the wastefulness of Pentagon spending, or the devastation wrought in these years by the last superpower on this planet. Everything was anodyne and safe — and this from a senator who’s been pilloried by the right as a flaming liberal and caricatured as yet another socialist out to destroy America.
I know what you’re thinking: What choice does Warren have but to play it safe? She can’t go on record criticizing the military. (She’s already gotten in enough trouble in my home state for daring to criticize the police.) If she doesn’t support a “strong” U.S. military presence globally, how could she remain a viable presidential candidate in 2020?
And I would agree with you, but with this little addendum: Isn’t that proof that the Pentagon has won its most important war, the one that captured – to steal a phrase from another losing war — the “hearts and minds” of America? In this country in 2018, as in 2017, 2016, and so on, the U.S. military and its leaders dictate what is acceptable for us to say and do when it comes to our prodigal pursuit of weapons and wars.
So, while it’s true that the military establishment failed to win those “hearts and minds” in Vietnam or more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, they sure as hell didn’t fail to win them here. In Homeland, U.S.A., in fact, victory has been achieved and, judging by the latest Pentagon budgets, it couldn’t be more overwhelming.
If you ask – and few Americans do these days – why this country’s losing wars persist, the answer should be, at least in part: because there’s no accountability. The losers in those wars have seized control of our national narrative. They now define how the military is seen (as an investment, a boon, a good and great thing); they now shape how we view our wars abroad (as regrettable perhaps, but necessary and also a sign of national toughness); they now assign all serious criticism of the Pentagon to what they might term the defeatist fringe.
In their hearts, America’s self-professed warriors know they’re right. But the wrongs they’ve committed, and continue to commit, in our name will not be truly righted until Americans begin to reject the madness of rampant militarism, bloated militaries, and endless wars.
- Trump Nails Stormy Daniels With $341,000 Demand For Legal Fees
President Trump has demanded $341,559.50 in legal fees from Stormy Daniels after a federal judge threw out her defamation case against the president earlier this month, reports the Washington Examiner.
US District Judge James Otero dismissed the case against Trump after ruling that an April tweet calling a forensic sketch of a man Daniels claims threatened her was a “total con job.” Otero said Trump’s tweet constitutes “rhetorical hyperbole” covered by the First Amendment, and ordered Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) to pay Trump’s legal fees.
“The court agrees with Mr. Trump’s argument because the tweet in question constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the U.S.,” Otero said in his October 15 ruling.
In a Monday court filing, Trump’s attorneys demanded $341,559.50 from Daniels, claiming that she “filed this action, not because it had any merit, but instead for the ulterior purposes of raising her media profile, engaging in political attacks against the president by herself and her attorney, who has appeared on more than 150 national television news interviews attacking the President and now is exploring a run for the presidency himself in 2020.”
Of note, Trump is seeking reimbursement for more than 500 hours of attorneys’ fees, with hourly rates ranging from an average of $841.64 for high-profile attorney Charles Harder (who represented Hulk Hogan in his $140 million lawsuit against Gawker), to $756.49 an hour for Los Angeles attorney Ryan Stonerock, all the way down to $307.60 for Harder LLP attorney Ted Nguyen.
Avenatti told the Examiner: “This is a number created out of whole cloth,” adding “And it is nothing compared to what he will owe my client from the main NDA case.”
Daniels filed a separate defamation lawsuit against President Trump in the spring for suggesting she lied.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump, however she filed a lawsuit claiming that the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) was invalid since it lacked Trump’s signature.
President Trump has denied the affair, while his attorneys argued in early October that the lawsuit should be dismissed since Trump was not going to enforce the NDA.
The lawsuit is moot because Trump has consented that the agreement, as she has claimed, was never formed because he didn’t sign it and he has agreed not to try to enforce it, Trump said in his court filing. The company created by Cohen to facilitate the non-disclosure agreement, which initially said Clifford faced more than $20 million in damages for talking, said in September that it wouldn’t sue to enforce the deal. –Yahoo
Read the Monday filing seeking attorney’s fees below:
- How The Government Uses Its Giant Facial Recognition Database
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
In July 1996, flight TWA 800 exploded in mid-air, 12 minutes after taking off from JFK International Airport in New York. All 230 passengers on board were killed.
It would be four years before an investigation concluded the likely cause of the explosion was a short circuit in the plane’s fuel tank.
But at the time, President Clinton felt the overwhelming need to do something.
People suspected terrorism. So Clinton issued new airport security rules.
From then on, identification was required to board an airplane.
Before that, you just needed a ticket.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, airport security escalated.
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) were born.
Screening procedures intensified. Agents could now feel you up and down. Then came naked body scanners and the Real ID requirement.
Real ID standards were part of the post-9/11 security hysteria. But they are just now coming into full effect.
The federal guidelines require states to issue IDs that meet certain federal standards, or else the ID cannot be used for flying.
One of these standards is that the photo on the ID has to work with facial recognition systems.
CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has now completed a pilot program for using biometric data for boarding flights exiting the country. Biometric data includes unique identity markers like fingerprints, iris scans, and facial recognition.
The DHS audited the pilot program, and found that it was a success. They caught 1,300 people who had overstayed their visas.
Wait, what? I thought this was supposed to be about national security?
But that’s not what you get from the propaganda piece on the CBP’s website.
One of their “success stories” involved a Polish couple leaving the country. They were using fake documents. But the biometric data revealed they were ordered deported and hadn’t left.
Now they were leaving. So the CBP let them leave. But first they warned them, with official documentation, that if they returned again they could face felony charges.
How is that a success story, worth the cost of tens of billions of dollars?
CBP makes it seem as if the entire purpose of this technology is to find foreigners who are entering (or living) in the country illegally.
Except that it isn’t just the foreigners that are being targeted.
The CBP, TSA, and DHS are building facial recognition databases for everyone– US citizens included.
These pilot programs scoop up whatever official pictures the US government has of you.
This includes passport photos, ID photos, and photos taken upon reentering the United States after international travel.
Delta Airlines has even started testing a new program that scans your face prior to boarding your flight and matches it against this government database.
(One of our members of team Sovereign Man recently suffered the indignity of this procedures at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.)
JetBlue has a similar program, and claims that “The customers are really delighted by it. . . they think it’s cool and they’re having fun.”
I’m not sure who these dairy cows are who think that it’s cool and fun for the government to have a giant database of biometric data.
Even if you could trust the government with this info, you absolutely cannot rely on them to keep it private. Or secure.
The Department of Homeland Security knows this well.
In 2014, over 25,000 DHS employees had their personal details stolen from a database managed by a contractor that performed background checks.
If you think hackers stealing your Social Security Number is bad, just imagine them gaining access to your biometric data.
But, hey, nobody cares.
Americans long ago gave up freedom for security.
Now they are delighted to give up even more freedom. Not even for security… for convenience. If they can shave a few minutes off of their boarding procedure, they’re “delighted,” regardless of the cost.
It’s really shocking when you think about it.
Explosions and terrorist attacks were all the excuse needed to deprive Americans of privacy while traveling.
Now Americans trade their most intimate personal details to save three minutes boarding a plane.
It wasn’t that long ago that you didn’t even need an ID to fly.
Right now Americans can still opt out of facial recognition. But it is only a matter of time until it isn’t optional.
And with Real ID deadlines coming to a close, there is no denying the federal government access to your biometric data.
They don’t have to ask, “Papers please.” They already know.
And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.
- Stoned Driving On The Rise As Marijuana Overtakes Alcohol As Most Commonly Detected Intoxicant
Marijuana has overtaken alcohol as the most commonly detected intoxicant found in US drivers, according to Science Daily, citing a new article published in the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis.
According to the report, approximately 13% of drivers pulled over by police test positive for marijuana, compared to 8% with a measurable amount of alcohol (measurable, not necessarily over the limit). That said, cannabis remains detectable for much longer than alcohol – which makes it difficult to gauge the number of actively stoned drivers vs. drunk drivers.
Driving drunk vs. stoned
The average drunk driver (BAC > 0.01%) is around 6.5 times more likely to crash than someone driving sober, however those with a BAC of .09% or more are 11 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash as a sober driver. Drivers with a BAC of 0.125% are 30 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash, while those driving plastered with a BAC of 0.22% or higher are 380 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash.
Age matters too. A 16-year-old male with a BAC of .09% is five times as likely as the average driver with the same BAC.
Overall, drivers with a BAC above 0.08% are responsible for over 80% of all deaths involving detectable amounts of alcohol according to the report, citing a 2014 NHTSA study.
The effects of stoned driving, meanwhile, is much more difficult to gauge – however “three relevant facts are clear” according to the report; driving under the influence of cannabis adds to crash risk, especially in combination with alcohol and other drugs; the risk of driving under the influence of cannabis alone, even at high levels, is much lower than the risk of driving under the influence of high levels of alcohol; and the pharmacokinetics of cannabis make it difficult to to empirically demonstrate impairment.
Cannabis use acutely degrades driving ability, particularly on automated driving responses (Asbridge, Hayden, and Cartwright 2012; Grotenhermen et al. 2005). Cannabis use impairs both attention and psychomotor performance (Ramaekers et al. 2004). Additionally, consumption can cause drowsiness and lethargy, slowed down reaction times, and alter time perception, which can lead a driver to swerve or to follow other cars too closely (Ramaekers et al. 2004). Neither the quantity of cannabis (nor its primary active agent THC) consumed, or the blood level of THC, strongly predicts the degree of impairment. –Journal of Drug Policy Analysis
Studies of the effects of stoned driving have varied as well. A 2012 study found that drivers who consumed cannabis at least three hours before driving were around twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash vs. drivers who don’t consume pot. A 2013 study, however, found no significant increase in risk of fatal motor vehicle accidents, however it did find a significant increase in the risk of a crash resulting in property damage.
Driving stoned may be safer than driving drunk due to the way cannabis affects cognitive functions vs. alcohol.
Even at levels nearly twice the 5 ng/ml legal limit in some states, the measured performance degradation with respect to perceptual and motor tasks is approximately equivalent to that at the legal BAC threshold of 0.08 (Grotenhermen et al. 2005). This discrepancy can be partially explained by the relatively limited impact of cannabis on higher cognitive functions associated with driving, such as divided attention tasks. This means that complex tasks requiring conscious control, such as interpreting and anticipating traffic, are less affected by cannabis (Grotenhermen et al. 2005).
Further, drivers subjectively under the influence of cannabis are generally aware that they are impaired and adjust their driving accordingly by taking fewer risks and acting less aggressively–indeed, there is evidence they may overestimate their impairment, which is the opposite reaction of those under the influence of alcohol (Sexton et al. 2000; 2009). This heightened awareness of impairment may account for the ability of cannabis impaired drivers to correctly respond to a driving situation if given a warning; however, “where events are unexpected, such compensation is not always possible” –JDPA
Driving drunk and stoned
Bad idea. The report notes that driving while stoned and drunk produces a greater level of impairment than simply combining the risk factors of each method of intoxication alone.
“Experimental studies that evaluated the impact of cannabis and alcohol on driving skills determined that standard deviation of lateral position, time driven out of lane, reaction time, and standard deviation of headway were all more-than-additively impaired by the combination of the two drugs (Ramaekers, Robbe, and O’Hanlon 2000). The substantial impairment and high vehicle crash risk from simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use suggests a synergistically deleterious effect on driving ability (Asbridge 2014).”
Problems with detection
One of the more frustrating issues with establishing safe levels of marijuana consumption is the difficulty in accurately detecting cannabis levels in the system.
There is no breath test for cannabis, although research is underway. Blood tests cannot be conducted by law enforcement officers roadside, and the very rapid but not perfectly predictable decrease in THC concentration means that a blood test conducted one or two hours after the initial stop is likely to be inconclusive. The long half-lives of cannabinoid metabolites mean that positive urinalysis results demonstrate some use of cannabis in the several days (or, for frequent heavy users, weeks) before the test, but not that the person tested had used recently enough to be still impaired. A breath test or a cheek swab might be designed to give a positive result for about as long as actual impairment lasts, but there are to date no such tests whose results have been accepted as valid in court.
That said, the report’s authors suggest that should a reliable test level of marijuana intoxication emerge – driving under the influence of pot alone “should be treated as a traffic infraction rather than a crime, unless aggravated by recklessness, aggressiveness, or high speed,” while drivers who combine marijuana and alcohol “are large enough to justify criminalization.”
Read the report below:
- Hitler's Economics: The Hazards Of Praising Keynesian Policies In The Wrong Context
Authored by Lew Rockwell via The Mises Institute,
[Originally published August 02, 2003.]
For today’s generation, Hitler is the most hated man in history, and his regime the archetype of political evil. This view does not extend to his economic policies, however. Far from it. They are embraced by governments all around the world. The Glenview State Bank of Chicago, for example, recently praised Hitler’s economics in its monthly newsletter. In doing so, the bank discovered the hazards of praising Keynesian policies in the wrong context.
The issue of the newsletter (July 2003) is not online, but the content can be discerned via the letter of protest from the Anti-Defamation League.
“Regardless of the economic arguments” the letter said, “Hitler’s economic policies cannot be divorced from his great policies of virulent anti-Semitism, racism and genocide.… Analyzing his actions through any other lens severely misses the point.”
The same could be said about all forms of central planning. It is wrong to attempt to examine the economic policies of any leviathan state apart from the political violence that characterizes all central planning, whether in Germany, the Soviet Union, or the United States. The controversy highlights the ways in which the connection between violence and central planning is still not understood, not even by the ADL. The tendency of economists to admire Hitler’s economic program is a case in point.
In the 1930s, Hitler was widely viewed as just another protectionist central planner who recognized the supposed failure of the free market and the need for nationally guided economic development. Proto-Keynesian socialist economist Joan Robinson wrote that “Hitler found a cure against unemployment before Keynes was finished explaining it.”
What were those economic policies?
He suspended the gold standard, embarked on huge public-works programs like autobahns, protected industry from foreign competition, expanded credit, instituted jobs programs, bullied the private sector on prices and production decisions, vastly expanded the military, enforced capital controls, instituted family planning, penalized smoking, brought about national healthcare and unemployment insurance, imposed education standards, and eventually ran huge deficits. The Nazi interventionist program was essential to the regime’s rejection of the market economy and its embrace of socialism in one country.
Such programs remain widely praised today, even given their failures. They are features of every “capitalist” democracy. Keynes himself admired the Nazi economic program, writing in the foreword to the German edition to the General Theory:
“[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.”
Keynes’s comment, which may shock many, did not come out of the blue. Hitler’s economists rejected laissez-faire, and admired Keynes, even foreshadowing him in many ways. Similarly, the Keynesians admired Hitler (see George Garvy, “Keynes and the Economic Activists of Pre-Hitler Germany,” The Journal of Political Economy, Volume 83, Issue 2, April 1975, pp. 391–405).
Even as late as 1962, in a report written for President Kennedy, Paul Samuelson had implicit praise for Hitler:
“History reminds us that even in the worst days of the great depression there was never a shortage of experts to warn against all curative public actions.… Had this counsel prevailed here, as it did in the pre-Hitler Germany, the existence of our form of government could be at stake. No modern government will make that mistake again.”
On one level, this is not surprising. Hitler instituted a New Deal for Germany, different from FDR and Mussolini only in the details. And it worked only on paper in the sense that the GDP figures from the era reflect a growth path. Unemployment stayed low because Hitler, though he intervened in labor markets, never attempted to boost wages beyond their market level. But underneath it all, grave distortions were taking place, just as they occur in any non-market economy. They may boost GDP in the short run (see how government spending boosted the US Q2 2003 growth rate from 0.7 to 2.4 percent), but they do not work in the long run.
“To write of Hitler without the context of the millions of innocents brutally murdered and the tens of millions who died fighting against him is an insult to all of their memories,” wrote the ADL in protest of the analysis published by the Glenview State Bank. Indeed it is.
But being cavalier about the moral implications of economic policies is the stock-in-trade of the profession. When economists call for boosting “aggregate demand,” they do not spell out what this really means. It means forcibly overriding the voluntary decisions of consumers and savers, violating their property rights and their freedom of association in order to realize the national government’s economic ambitions. Even if such programs worked in some technical economic sense, they should be rejected on grounds that they are incompatible with liberty.
So it is with protectionism. It was the major ambition of Hitler’s economic program to expand the borders of Germany to make autarky viable, which meant building huge protectionist barriers to imports. The goal was to make Germany a self-sufficient producer so that it did not have to risk foreign influence and would not have the fate of its economy bound up with the goings-on in other countries. It was a classic case of economically counterproductive xenophobia.
And yet even in the United States today, protectionist policies are making a tragic comeback. Under the Bush administration alone, a huge range of products from lumber to microchips are being protected from low-priced foreign competition. These policies are being combined with attempts to stimulate supply and demand through large-scale military expenditure, foreign-policy adventurism, welfare, deficits, and the promotion of nationalist fervor. Such policies can create the illusion of growing prosperity, but the reality is that they divert scarce resources away from productive employment.
Perhaps the worst part of these policies is that they are inconceivable without a leviathan state, exactly as Keynes said. A government big enough and powerful enough to manipulate aggregate demand is big and powerful enough to violate people’s civil liberties and attack their rights in every other way. Keynesian (or Hitlerian) policies unleash the sword of the state on the whole population. Central planning, even in its most petty variety, and freedom are incompatible.
Ever since 9/11 and the authoritarian, militarist response, the political left has warned that Bush [in 2018: Trump] is the new Hitler, while the right decries this kind of rhetoric as irresponsible hyperbole. The truth is that the left, in making these claims, is more correct than it knows. Hitler, like FDR, left his mark on Germany and the world by smashing the taboos against central planning and making big government a seemingly permanent feature of Western economies.
David Raub, the author of the article for Glenview, was being naïve in thinking he could look at the facts as the mainstream sees them and come up with what he thought would be a conventional answer. The ADL is right in this case: central planning should never be praised. We must always consider its historical context and inevitable political results.
- The Auction Starts Today: $250 Million Superyacht Linked To 1MBD Scandal Put Up For Sale
Burgess, a yacht brokerage firm, was appointed as the exclusive worldwide Central Agent by the High Courts in Malaysia to assist with the judicial sale of the 300ft yacht Equanimity, linked to the multi-billion dollar scandal at Malaysia’s state fund 1MDB.
Bidding on the superyacht starts Monday and will end on November 28, said Ong Chee Kwan from law firm Christopher & Lee Ong, who is representing the government and 1MDB in the sale of the vessel, reported Bloomberg.
The Equanimity is among $1.7 billion in assets bought by fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho with funds that were siphoned off from 1MDB, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.
Malaysia and U.S. officials have also said some of the money was used to buy private jets, Picasso paintings, fine jewelry, and real estate.
A Malaysian court in August approved the sale of the 300ft Cayman Islands-flagged Equanimity that they said was costing “substantial and escalating expenses” to maintain.
Equanimity Cayman Ltd., the holding company that owns the vessel, said the sale of the yacht would be a “violation of due process and international legal comity, and would call into question the actual ownership of the yacht for any buyer,” said Bloomberg.
Ong said Monday that exchange of ownership of the vessel would take place immediately after bidding ends.
The Equanimity’s interior was designed by Winch Design using a variety of exotic materials. The vessel can accommodate up to 22 guests and 31 crew, with amenities that include a beach club, health center with gym, massage room, sauna, hammam, plunge pool and beauty salon. Other amenities and equipment include a hospital, a helipad (certified for an Airbus EC-135 or equivalent), and a circular swimming pool.
Law enforcement in Malaysia have issued an arrest warrant and filed criminal charges against Low, but his whereabouts are still unknown.
In about 30 days, Malaysian officials will announce the new owner of the $250 million luxury yacht
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...