Aug 31

Today’s News 31st August 2017

  • Armed Man Protects Flood Stricken Neighborhood From Looters

    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

    The good news gleaned from this amateur footage taken by a woman who was afflicted by Hurricane Harvey was that someone had the heart to stand up to savage looters. The man featured below is self-described former law enforcement, holding down his neighborhood from these vile creatures.

    About midway through the video, the same woman made a claim that criminals were posing as rescue boat operators and robbing people. She said she was afraid to call for a rescue boar because of the robberies being reported. If true, this is one of the lowest form of thievery I’ve ever heard of — utterly disgraceful.

  • The Fake News Media Of Sweden

    Authored by Nima Gholam Ali Pour via The Gatestone Institute,

    • In most democratic countries, the media should be critical of those who hold power. In Sweden, however, the media criticize those who criticize the authorities. Criticism is not aimed at the people who hold power, but against private citizens who, according to the journalists, have the "wrong" ideas.
    • TV4 and all other media refused to report that it was Muslims who interrupted the prime minister because they wanted to force Islamic values on Swedish workplaces. When the Swedish media reported on the event, the public were not told that these "hijab activists" had links with Islamist organizations. Rather, it was reported as if they were completely unknown Muslim girls who only wanted to wear their veils.
    • The Swedish media are politicized to the extent that they act as a propaganda machine. Through their lies, they have created possibilities for "post-truth politics". Instead of being neutral, the mainstream Swedish media have lied to uphold certain "politically correct" values. One wonders what lifestyle and political stability Sweden will have when no one can know the truth about what is really going on.

    In February 2017, after U.S. President Donald Trump's statements about events in Sweden, the journalist Tim Pool travelled to Sweden to report on their accuracy. What Tim Pool concluded is now available for everyone to watch on YouTube, but what is really interesting is how the Swedish public broadcasting media described him.

    On Radio Sweden's website, one of the station's employees, Ann Törnkvist, wrote an op-ed in which Pool and the style of journalism he represents are described as "a threat to democracy".

    Why is Pool "a threat to democracy" in Sweden? He reported negatively about an urban area in Stockholm, Rinkeby, where more than 90% of the population has a foreign background. When Pool visited Rinkeby, he had to be escorted out by police. Journalists are often threatened in Rinkeby. Before this incident, in an interview with Radio Sweden, Pool had described Rosengård, an area in the Swedish city of Malmö heavily populated by immigrants, as "nice, beautiful, safe". After Pool's negative but accurate report about Rinkeby, however, he began to be described as an unserious journalist by many in the Swedish media, and finally was labeled the "threat to democracy."

    One might think that this was a one-time event in a country whose journalists were defensive. But the fact is that Swedish journalists are deeply politicized.

    In most democratic countries, media are, or should be, critical of those who hold power. In Sweden, the media criticize those who criticizes those who hold power.

    In March 2017, the public broadcasting company Sveriges Television revealed the name of a person who runs the Facebook page Rädda vården ("Save Healthcare"). The person turned out to be an assistant nurse, and was posting anonymously only because he had been critical of the hospital where he worked. Swedish hospitals are run by the local county councils, and thus when someone criticizes the healthcare system in Sweden, it is primarily politicians who are criticized. Sveriges Television explained on its website why it revealed the identity of the private individuals behind Facebook:

    "These hidden powers of influence abandon and break the open public debate and free conversation. Who are they? What do they want and why? As their impact increases, the need to examine them also grows."

    It is strange that Sveriges Television believes that an assistant nurse who wants to tell how politicians neglect public hospitals, is breaking "the open public debate and free conversation". This was not the only time that the mainstream Swedish media exposed private citizens who were criticizing those who hold power. In December 2013, one of Sweden's largest and most established newspapers, Expressen, announced that it intended to disclose the names of people who commented on various Swedish blogs:

    "Expressen has partnered with Researchgruppen. The group has found a way, according to their own description, without any kind of unlawful intrusion, to associate the usernames that the anonymous commentators on the hate websites are using to the email addresses from which comments were sent. After that, the email addresses have been cross-checked with registries and authorities to identify the persons behind them."

    The term "hate websites" (hatsajterna) is what that the mainstream media uses to describe some of the blogs that are critical of Islam or migration.

    It is one thing to be critical of bloggers who you may consider have racist opinions. But exposing the people who have written in comments sections of various blogs in one of Sweden's biggest newspapers is strange and terrifying.

    Researchgruppen has clear links to Antifascistisk Aktion (Antifascist Action), a group which, according to the Swedish government, consists of violent left-wing extremists. For their efforts to expose private individuals in the comments section, Researchgruppen received the Guldspaden, a prestigious journalistic award in Sweden.

    Jim Olsson was one individual exposed in Expressen simply because he wrote something in a blog's comments section. A 67-year-old docent in physical chemistry, Olsson received a home-visit from Expressen with a camera and microphone present. A private citizen with no connection to any political party or organization, he exposed by Sweden's media because he had written the following in the comments section:

    "The Swedish asylum system rewards swindlers with a permanent residence permit. There are, of course, swindlers flooding Sweden."

    The Swedish newspaper Expressen accessed databases of website commenters, targeted critics of immigration, and confronted them at home. The above screenshot is taken from a video on the Expressen website, published under the headline "Jim Olsson writes on hate sites."

    Another private individual, Patrik Gillsvik, with no political links, was exposed and fired from his job because, in a blog's comments section, he wrote:

    "I would like to join the structural prejudices of the majority in society and state that gypsies are inventive and witty entrepreneurs who can enrich our culture — yes, and then they steal like ravens, of course!"

    Although the statement can be criticized for being unacceptably racist, what is unique is that the mainstream media in a Western democracy can expose private individuals because they wrote something in a blog's comments section. Criticism is not aimed at the people who hold power, but against private citizens who according to the journalists have the "wrong" ideas.

    Moreover, each of these private citizens, who have had their lives ruined because they wrote something distasteful in a comments section, serves as a warning, so that others will not dare to make the mistake of posting something politically incorrect on a blog.

    It is shocking that in a democracy, the media acts this way, but that is how Swedish — and, increasingly, other Western media — operate these days.

    In addition to punishing private individuals who, according to the them, communicate "wrong" ideas, the media celebrate and support people who have the "right" ideas. On May 1, 2017, Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven was interrupted by a number of hijab-wearing activists who were protesting a verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union that employers are entitled to prohibit staff from wearing a hijab. Given that Sweden's prime minister cannot directly influence the Court, and that one should not interrupt the country's prime minister when he speaks, one would think that these "hijab activists" might be criticized in the media.

    TV4, a national TV-channel and one of the first media outlets to report this incident, refused to say that those who interrupted the prime minister were wearing the Islamic veil. The title of TV4's clip was "Demonstrators Interrupted Löfven speech". The sub-headline read as follows: "Female protesters screamed out their anger against the prime minister and wondered where the feminist government was."

    From the text, it is not clear that these activists demonstrated against the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union; that all activists wore a hijab, or that they screamed, "Stand up for Muslim women's rights!" However, information that these activists were wearing hijabs and protesting the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union was on their Facebook page and YouTube. Nevertheless, TV4 and all other media refused to report that those who interrupted the prime minister were Muslims who were interrupting the prime minister because they seemingly wanted to force Islamic values on the Swedish workplace.

    The day after their protest, in an interview with Radio Sweden, these activists had the opportunity to explain why they protested — but were not asked any critical questions. The next day, an Expressen columnist, Maria Rydhagen, compared one of the hijab-activists glowingly with one of the founders of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Axel Danielsson. Rydhagen wrote the following about Jasmin Nur Ismail:

    "Then, on Monday, the protest of the girls was perceived as only an incident. But imagine if it was the start of something big? Perhaps history was being written, there and then? Imagine if Jasmin Nur is the Axel Danielsson of 2017. Hero and rebel. In that case: Was it not a pity to remove her with the help of the police?"

    As the media refused to write anything negative about the protest against the prime minister, this author began to investigate the matter. It took half an hour to find out several important things which were never mentioned by the Swedish mainstream media. Jasmin Nur Ismail had written about the incident on her Facebook page shortly after the protest. Who was behind the protest was not a secret.

    The demonstration had been organized by the Hayat Women's Movement and a network called, "The Right to Our Bodies". The Hayat Women's Movement was founded by Aftab Soltani, who in March 2017 was one of the speakers at a much-criticized annual Islamic event in Sweden, Muslimska Familjedagarna (Muslim Family Days). The event was blamed by both the left and the right for inviting hate preachers, anti-Semites and Muslim radicals as speakers. Another speaker at this Islamic event in March 2017 was Jasmin Nur Ismail, a heroine of the Swedish media. Muslimska Familjedagarna was organized by the Islamist Ibn Rushd Educational Association, the Islamic Association of Sweden (Islamiska Förbundet i Sverige) and Sweden's Young Muslims (Sveriges Unga Muslimer).

    Jasmin Nur Ismail, hailed as a heroine in Expressen, is a public figure. Southern Sweden's largest newspaper, Sydsvenskan, described her in an October 2016 article as an "activist, anti-racist and writer". According to Sydsvenskan, Jasmin Nur Ismail's political role-model is Malcolm X. During the Swedish Forum for Human Rights in 2016, Jasmin Nur Ismail was, in a panel discussion, the representative for Malmö's Young Muslims — in turn, a subdivision of an Islamist organization, Sweden's Young Muslims.

    Swedish newspapers did not write a single word that the person and organizations behind the protest against Sweden's prime minister had links with Islamist organizations. When the Swedish media reported about the event, the public were told that these hijab-activists were completely unknown Muslim girls who only wanted to wear their veils.

    Mainstream Swedish media outlets simply do not report some things. When the largest mosque in Scandinavia was opened in Sweden's third largest city, Malmö, the news about this was first published in the Qatar News Agency and The Peninsula on May 3, 2017. The reason that Qatar's media wrote about it was because Qatar financed a large part of the mosque. On May 5, an article about this mosque was published in Breitbart. On May 6, one day after Breitbart reported the news and three days after the Qatari media reported the news, the Swedish terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp sent a tweet about this mosque, but he linked it to the Qatari media. At this time, there are still no Swedish media outlets that have reported anything about the largest mosque in Scandinavia.

    On May 8, the Swedish blog Jihad i Malmö wrote about the mosque and its Qatari financing. On May 9, the Swedish blog Pettersson gör skillnad wrote about the mosque. At the same time, the Norwegian author and activist Hege Storhaug, who is critical of Islam, wrote about the mosque and noted that the Swedish media had not yet written about it:

    "I had expected that the Swedish media at the very least would mention the opening of Scandinavia's largest mosque with positive words. But no, not a word in Swedish mainstream media, as far as I have noticed. You have to go to the English version of Arabic media to get some limited information, like Qatar News Agency."

    By the time I tweeted about it on May 10, the mainstream Swedish media still had not widely reported it. On May 15, I wrote an article on it for the news website Situation Malmö, run by the Sweden Democrats party branch in Malmö. With one hour's research, I managed, through what the mosque had published on Facebook, to discover that one of the leading Social Democrat politicians in Malmö, Frida Trollmyr, a municipal commissioner with responsibility for culture, recreation and health, had been at the mosque's opening. Representatives of the Qatari government also attended, but the mainstream Swedish media still had not reported anything about it.

    On May 17, two weeks after the Qatari media had written about the opening of Scandinavia's largest mosque in Malmö, 12 days after Breitbart had written about the event, and two days after my article, the Sydsvenskan newspaper wrote about the mosque opening. You could not read the article, however, if you had not paid for "premium membership" to this newspaper.

    One can see this omission as an unfortunate coincidence, but it is strange when Breitbart succeeds in communicating more information about Malmö than southern Sweden's largest newspaper, which is headquartered in Malmö. Why would the Swedish media not write about the mosque? It was certainly not a secret. There was no explanation from the Swedish media or anyone else. Yet, these same media outlets did not hesitate to expose the names of private citizens who wrote inappropriate opinions on a public comments page.

    There are journalists in Sweden who change their views as soon as the government changes its opinion. Göran Greider, a journalist and editor, active in the public debate in Sweden for more than 30 years, wrote the following in August 2015, about migration policy:

    "The European governments who say no to increasing the number of refugees received not only show a shameful lack of solidarity. They are also silent when they decline to rejuvenate their populations."

    In November 2015, only three months later, when the Swedish government was forced to change its migration policy because of the migration crisis, Göran Greider wrote:

    "But even the left, including many Social Democrats and members of the Green Party, have sometimes been characterized by an unwillingness to discuss the great challenges that receiving refugees, in the quantity we have seen lately, implies for a society. No one wants to be a nationalist. No one wants to be accused of running the errands of Sweden Democrats, or racism. But in this way, people on the left, who are so broadly for bringing in refugees, have often locked themselves out of a realistic discussion."

    There is nothing wrong in reconsidering one's opinion. But it has become common for Swedish journalists frequently to have opinions that favor certain political parties — often the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Green Party. The issue is not even about values. People who work for the mainstream Swedish media are ready to reconsider their values so long as it helps certain parties to stay in power. This is far from what is presumably the media's main task in a democracy.

    How is it that no newspaper is rebelling against this order? It would be a good business proposition; such a media outlet could gain financial benefits. Sweden's political establishment is, after all, not popular. Well, we can look at the example of someone who tried. In February 2017, a financier, Mats Qviberg, bought a free daily newspaper, Metro, usually distributed in subways and buses in Sweden. In May, he gave an interview to the newspaper Nyheter Idag, considered by the Swedish establishment to be "right-wing" or "populist". In his interview, Qviberg gave a slight playful hint that Metro might in some way cooperate with Nyheter Idag.

    The consequence of the playful statement was that the Green Party in Stockholm County Council threatened that Stockholm County would stop handing out Metro in Stockholm's subways. A columnist stopped writing for the paper. Other media outlets started to wonder out loud if Metro were becoming a racist platform. Before the month of May was over, Qviberg had sold his shares in Metro. That politicians would punish a newspaper owner who had "wrong" views did not surprise anyone in Sweden; the situation was not worth mentioning. In Sweden, even owners of newspapers are supposed to follow the political order.

    In June 2017, the leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD), Jimmie Åkesson, spoke in Järva, a district in Stockholm dominated by immigrants. The Sweden Democrats is a social-conservative party in the Swedish parliament; it supports, among other matters, a restrictive migration policy. While Åkesson was speaking, there were protests against him; and among the protesters were various placards. A photograph of Radio Sweden's van showed an anti-SD placard inside it. On it, one could read "Jimmie = Racist". The explanation from Radio Sweden was:

    "Someone put a sign on Ekot's (a Radio Sweden news program) car in Järva on Sunday evening. It was taken down and put into the car and then thrown away on the way from there."

    You can have a discussion about why Radio Sweden spends its time discarding placards that left-wing protesters use. Is that what journalist are supposed to do when they are covering a story? In the end, however, it does not matter. The people's confidence in the mainstream media in Sweden is being eroded as we write.

    A new study from Institutet för Mediestudier shows that 54% agree, or partly agree, that the Swedish media are not telling the whole truth about problems in society linked to migration. Instead of the media accepting that they are biased and starting to change their ways, the media continue to attack citizens who appear critical.

    In June 2017, the editorial writer of the daily Aftonbladet, Anders Lindberg, wrote an editorial titled, "Hitler Did Not Trust the Media Either," in which he equated the critics of the Swedish media with Nazis. Anders Lindberg, after working 10 years for the Social Democrats, resigned as the Communications Ombudsman for the Social Democrats in 2010, to start working as an editorial writer for Aftonbladet. He is so well-known for what his critics view as unusual versions of the truth that he has the privilege of writing for Sweden's largest newspaper. In 2015, he described the issue of organized begging, a visible problem in northern Europe, as "legends and folklore". Today there is no party that denies that organized begging is a real problem.

    I often have difficulty explaining to many of my American friends and colleagues how the Swedish media work. Often, there may be clear examples of anti-Semitism and other unsavory behavior. The first question I always get is: Why is the media not writing about this? The answer is simple. The Swedish media are politicized to the extent that they act as a propaganda machine. It is not a propaganda machine in the traditional sense of the word, with an official Ministry of Propaganda. But in Sweden, many journalists and editors are either old established political party employees, as Anders Lindberg, or simply ideologically indoctrinated and therefore extremely biased. The Swedish propaganda machine punishes those who have the "wrong" opinions and celebrates those who have the "right" opinions.

    What happened to Tim Pool was a part of how media works in Sweden. As long as he said the "right" things, the Swedish media gave a positive picture of him. When he started to have the "wrong" opinion, the propaganda machine started doing its work and Pool became "a threat to democracy".

    There are, of course, more examples that show how sick the Swedish debate- and media-climate has become. In such a negative environment, there are many casualties. The first casualty is, obviously, the truth. When people start to understand that the mainstream media are lying, they turn to alternative media. Alternative media outlets, however, also usually have political agendas. A democracy cannot survive well only on biased media. A democracy desperately needs mainstream media outlets that inform its citizens and criticize people who hold power. That is something Sweden does not have today.

    A large portion of the Swedish population are apparently aware of this and do not trust the media. Through its lies, the Swedish media have created possibilities for "post-truth politics" in Sweden. Instead of being a neutral party, the mainstream Swedish media have lied to uphold certain "politically correct" values. The result is an atmosphere where many people believe that everything that the media says has a political agenda. When the mainstream media in Sweden lie shamelessly, where can one go to find the truth? One wonders what lifestyle and political stability Sweden will have when no one can know the truth about what is really going on.

  • Cyber-Criminals Abandon Bitcoin; Homeland Admits "It's A Lot More Legitimate Than People Think"

    Regulators in the US, Europe and Asia who’ve sought to crack down on bitcoin – many of these regulators are also proponents of a “cashless society” – have been dealt a stunning setback by an unlikely defender of the pioneering digital currency: The US Department of Homeland Security.

    To wit, one anonymous DHS source told CNBC that bitcoin has become “a lot more legitimate” than many believe.

    "We're getting a lot better through law enforcement tracking those [criminals] and holding the exchanges more accountable," the Homeland Security official said. "I think [bitcoin]'s a lot more legitimate than people give it credit for."

    Another source told CNBC that criminals have backed away from using the digital currency as bitcoin transactions have become much easier for authorities to trace. Earlier this month, the IRS announced that it had developed, with the help of bitcoin security firm Chainalysis, a tool to unmask the owners of bitcoin wallets.

    “Although hard numbers on criminal activity in digital currencies are difficult to pin down, Shone Anstey, co-founder and president of Blockchain Intelligence Group, estimates that illegal transactions in bitcoin have fallen from about half of total volume to about 20 percent last year.

     

    "Now it's significantly less than that," he told CNBC earlier this month, noting that overall transaction volume has grown globally.”

    Bitcoin is vulnerable to law enforcement because each user must display a public ID, a complex cryptographic combination of numbers and letters, in order to tansact in bitcoin. By tracing the movement of coins between accounts, CNBC explains, intelligence and security agencies can follow the money and arrest the criminals when they try to withdraw their ill-gotten games in US dollars, or another fiat currency.

    Last month, US authorities partnering with Interpol and local law enforcement shut down AlphaBay and Hansa, two of the largest dark-web marketplaces for drugs and illegal goods. Before that, they took down BTC-E, a shadowy digital-currency exchange, arrested its Russian-born founder and seized the company’s website.

    Another cybersecurity expert who spoke with CNBC noted that, when a user tries to convert bitcoin into cash, the digital-currency’s veneer of anonymity disappears.

    "Bitcoin basically introduced a situation where we could bypass the money mules," said Rickey Gevers, cybercrime specialist at RedSocks Security, which detects and fights against malware.

     

    But, Gevers said, "in the beginning [bitcoin] looks very anonymous, and in the end it doesn't look very anonymous."

    Paul Triolo, a consultant at Eurasia Group, said bitcoin has “changed quite a bit” since it was first launched in early 2009. It’s now primarily used by legitimate investors, not dark-web criminals.

    "The whole use issue of digital currencies has become a big industry. Bitcoin isn't this weird, odd currency that's being used on the dark web," said Paul Triolo, practice head of geotechnology at consulting firm Eurasia Group.

     

    "Since the early days of bitcoin on some [levels], the world has changed quite a bit."

    Instead of bitcoin, the DHS told CNBC it’s focusing on other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Monero. For those who are unfamiliar with the latter, it’s one of a handful of digital currencies featuring enhanced privacy controls. For example, Monero scrambles a user’s public ID, making it more difficult for authorities to trace transactions.

    Even the European Union admitted that bitcoin was never popular with organized crime groups, which overwhelmingly prefer payment in large-denomination bills like the 500-euro note, production of which has been discontinued by the ECB, part of the European elites' war on cash.

    Still, global authorities remain skeptical. Earlier this week, Russia signaled an about-face when the country’s deputy finance minister told local media that the ministry of finance and central bank were seeking to “regulate” digital currencies by forcing users to execute trades on the country’s public stock exchange, allowing the government to monitor transactions.

    In the US, the SEC decreed last month that digital currencies are financial securities that must be registered with the agency. However, the ultimate significance of the agency's ruling remains unclear.

  • Brandon Smith: "Sorry, Joe Biden – The 'Soul' Of America Is Conservative"

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    Some political figures truly embody the classic role of the divider; their purpose seems to be to agitate and provoke, to instigate conflict rather than mediate peace. Al Sharpton and Nancy Pelosi come to mind. Let's not forget John McCain or Lindsay Graham. Barack Obama was known as the "great divider" for much of his presidency. While many leftists would argue that Donald Trump is the "most divisive" president in generations, I think the mainstream media has proven far more provoking than he has. In the case of Charlottesville, we see a whole host of individuals and institutions seeking to promulgate continued social tensions well beyond anything Trump has done. One of these individuals is Joe Biden.

    In a short essay for The Atlantic, Joe Biden was quick to capitalize on the death of a protester in Charlottesville at the hands of an apparent white nationalist, spewing forth a host of cliches on "dark forces" creeping out from the hidden corners of America to smother the light and happiness of the silent Kumbaya majority like some kind of J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

    This narrative is nothing new. It is the narrative that was promoted throughout the 2016 presidential election cycle as well as the Brexit debate in the U.K. – the notion that dangerous and "ignorant" portions of the citizenry in western society (labeled "populists") are quietly organizing for a last stand against the "inevitable evolution" of progressive multiculturalism and globalism. They are presented as the throwbacks, the cave people, the Cro-Magnons, the people who refuse to get with the times and embrace the social justice revolution.  They are, according to gatekeepers like Biden, in the way.

    While a host of names and labels are used to define this group of malcontents preventing society from achieving full-blown Utopia, we all know who establishment snake oil peddlers are really referring to: conservatives.

    The racism subplot to this scripted conflict has always been present. When the vote on the U.K. exit from the European Union proved successful, the automatic accusation in the media was that this was driven by "hidden racism," along with the consistent idea that older generations were trying to live off the backs of younger generations while interfering with "natural" shifts in cultural consciousness. These claims were greatly amplified during the rise of the Trump administration.

    I have to say, these assertions are fascinating to me. The amount of propaganda and projection involved is truly staggering.

    Biden's hope along with other establishment con-men, I believe, is that he can continue to simplify the narrative down to a series of false associations. White nationalists were present at Charlottesville? Indeed. White nationalists were standing in defense of the confederate statue issue? Yes. White nationalists faced off against Antifa counter-protesters? Certainly. A white nationalist drove his car into a group of counter-protesters and killed one of them? It would seem so, though I still think the man deserves a fair trial before being convicted in the media. But here is where Biden and his ilk deliberately go off the rails in order to incite wider tensions…

    At this point, the narrative moves from facts to wild assumptions and misconceptions. White nationalists were present in Charlottesville, but does this mean everyone (or even most people) in Charlottesville protesting in defense against the removal of confederate statues was a racist? No. Does this mean that people who support the existence of confederate statues are automatically racists? No. Does this mean that anyone that stands in opposition to groups like Antifa is a racist or a fascist? No. Just because one man acted violently in response to Antifa and other leftists groups, does this mean that Antifa represents the "good guys" in Biden's little screenplay? No.

    But this is the story we are being sold. Not just by Biden, but by many other political interests.

    I would specifically reference a recent panel of Trump supporters by CNN, during which the "journalist" was dismayed to discover that none of the people involved was willing to play along with the message that Donald Trump's response to Charlottesville was anything other than logical.

    I want readers to take note of a specific assertion made by CNN, as well as Biden, here – the assertion that it is the job of leftist groups like Antifa to "fight" or even destroy "hate groups" or "fascist groups." CNN outright compares Charlottesville to World War II, claiming that because the allies were justified in going to war with Nazis back then, that Antifa is justified in going to war with "Nazis" today. But again, when you consider the reality that Antifa and similar groups associate all conservatives with fascism, this narrative opens the door to a level of intolerance and violence that is unacceptable and also misplaced.

    Beyond that, it seems to me that CNN, Biden and others are happily supporting the false assumption that "hate speech" is not protected speech in America. I don't personally care for the white nationalist platform, being that skin color and genetic background is ultimately irrelevant, and as I noted in my last article, some of these groups end up being led by government paid provocateurs. But these groups still have the Constitutional right to protest grievances in public spaces. It does not matter how distasteful one person or another finds them to be.

    Laughably, Biden spends the majority of his diatribe in The Atlantic admonishing the very existence of these groups as if they are a threat to the constitution. Stating:

    "The giant forward steps we have taken in recent years on civil liberties and civil rights and human rights are being met by a ferocious pushback from the oldest and darkest forces in America. Are we really surprised they rose up? Are we really surprised they lashed back? Did we really think they would be extinguished with a whimper rather than a fight?

     

    …Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.

     

    We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support

     

    ….This is a moment for this nation to declare what the president can't with any clarity, consistency or conviction: There is no place for these hate groups in America. Hatred of blacks, Jews, immigrants – all who are seen as "the other" – won't be accepted or tolerated or given safe harbor anywhere in this nation."

    Biden has the audacity to concoct this fallacy and then associate it with the "defense of the constitution" at the end of the article.  I guess the "medal of freedom" he received as a surprise gift from Barack Obama was just a meaningless trinket after all.

    I don't know that anyone claimed a "moral equivalency" between racists and people opposed to racism. That is not what the confederate statue issue is about anyway. What I do know, though, is that under the law every group present at Charlottesville had a Constitutional right to be there, regardless of how Biden or others view their "morals."

    I would point out that many people, myself included, actually find the communistic fanaticism of Antifa and other social justice groups to be a much greater threat to the freedom and stability of our nation than anything white nationalist groups promote. But many conservatives, myself included, still defend Antifa's right to free speech in public places as long as they do not interfere in the free speech rights of others. This is something leftist groups are not willing to do. These groups should be thanking their lucky stars for conservatives and conservative principles, otherwise they might have been stomped out of existence a long time ago. It is conservative thought that defends the rights of any group or individual, acting in accordance with the law, to speak freely in public forums.

    It is conservative thought that defends the speech of Antifa. It is conservative thought that defends the existence of confederate statues. And yes, it is conservative thought that defends the speech of white nationalists and many others. This does not mean we necessarily agree with any particular group's position.  The nature of the speech is irrelevant. In this kind of open social environment, ideas can do battle, rather than people. When one group begins to assert preeminence and says the speech of others is now unprotected, the door is opened wide to battles between people, rather than ideas.

    If a person does not agree with certain views, they can always go back home, or back to their own private websites and forums. But, as soon as they enter the public sphere, they are not entitled to insulation from the ideas of other people.

    What Biden and others are championing is at bottom the ideology of "futurism," a movement launched in Europe and Russia in the early 20th Century driven by violent change or extermination of traditional principles. Futurism is often credited as being a precursor to both fascist and Bolshevist political movements (as well as globalism), and its core mantra is that all "new" ideas and systems must take precedence over old ideas and systems. New generations must advance the dominance of their ideologies over older generations. Heritage must die out. Traditions must be abandoned. Progress must be pursued.

    The problem is, there are very few "new" ideas in the world. In cultural terms, society is cyclical. The same ideas come and go over the centuries; rehashed and rebranded, but certainly not new. What Antifa represents is classic communism and cultural Marxism. These are old ideals. The destruction of a nation's history and heritage in the name of expedient political progress and "social justice" is a classic strategy turned into a science by the likes of Lenin and Mao. And this strategy is merely an extension of one of the oldest ideas ever — collectivist tyranny.

    If we are to be honest here, the conservative philosophy of individual freedom and Constitutional liberty as a foundation of political life is the newest of ideas to be adopted by any culture in human history.

    When we examine the mindset of the average American, there is definitely a sizable division.  But, one thing the vast majority of us agree on is that government power is not to be trusted.  Only 20% of Americans today believe the government will "do what is right" most of the time.  The largest ideological group in the US according to recent polls continues to be conservatives.  Conservative principles of limited government and individual liberty are the bedrock upon which America was founded.  While many Democrats (and some Republicans) will insist upon larger government as the solution to all our societal ills, this is predicated on the notion that THEY are in control of that government.  Place a host of Republicans in seats of power in Washington and the liberals become just as distrustful of the establishment as any hardcore libertarian (aka – true conservative).

    You see, the fact is that most people are really conservative at heart until they think they have the reins of government in their hands.  What Biden and other establishment elites want is to use government power as a temptation; a prize that will corrupt anyone that attains it and alienate anyone that doesn't.  In the case of his Atlantic article, Biden is luring leftists into stupidity and ruin.  Biden WANTS domestic strife and conflict.  He wants the left to believe they are fighting a righteous fight when they on the wrong side of history not to mention nothing more than cannon fodder.  And they think he is actually on their side…

    Biden claims that today we are in a battle "for America's soul," but the reality is that establishment elites and the useful idiots they employ are seeking to suffocate the soul of our nation so that they can build their own vision on top of the ashes. This is what futurists do. This is what communists and fascists do. This is what globalists do. America has survived as long as it has because some ideas never become outdated. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself are merely the legal embodiment of the eternal principles of natural law and individual liberty. What is new is the idea that these principles must be protected by government, that they actually RESTRICT government, and that, in fact, the only job government should really be concerned with is to ensure the continuation of these restrictions on leadership and these freedoms for citizens.

    This is conservative. This is the soul of America. You cannot call for the exact opposite and still claim you are a champion of America's soul.

  • If Korean War Breaks Out, Seoul Will Send Special Forces To Assassinate Kim Jong-Un

    Confirming reports that first floated several months ago, the Telegraph reports that South Korea is preparing to send special forces units into Pyongyang to conduct a “clinical strike” – searching for, and taking out Kim Jong-un and his closest advisers, in the event that North Korea should start a conventional war. The plan is among the revisions being made to South Korea’s latest strategy for dealing with an attack from the North.

    Senior officials briefed South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, about revisions to the present defence of the nation on Monday, one day before North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan. Moon told the ministry to implement reforms to the military to meet the challenges that are increasingly being posed by North Korea. He added that the military should be ready to “quickly switch to an offensive posture in case North Korea stages a provocation that crosses the line or attacks the capital region”, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. The prime minister also requested that the military “increase its mobility as well as its ability to carry out airborne and sea landings” and upgrade air defences.


    South Korean army soldiers during the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise

    Meanwhile, this is what a “hot” war attack by Pyongyang could look like from the South Korean perspective:

    • In the event of a conventional conflict breaking out on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean artillery is expected to bombard the South’s defences along the Demilitarised Zone as well as shelling Seoul, which is less than 50 miles south of the border.
    • Massed tanks and infantry units, assisted by saboteurs and agents already in the South, would attempt to swiftly seize Seoul and other key cities and facilities in South Korea before the United States and, potentially, other allied nations could land reinforcements.

    In retaliation, under the existing US-South Korean plan for the defence of the South, known as OPLAN 5015, the two nations would aim to bring their overwhelming air and naval superiority to bear from bases in South Korea and Japan, as well as aircraft carriers in the western Pacific, although it would take weeks before large-scale reinforcements, including heavy tanks and other equipment, could be landed.

    Furthermore,as the following naval map as of August 24 shows, in practical terms there is no carrier support around the Korea penninsula, so at least one aspect of the theoretical plan is currently impossible.

    The new South Korean plan will identify more than 1,000 primary targets in North Korea to be eliminated by missiles and laser-guided munitions – including nuclear weapons and missile launch facilities – at the same time as the conventional attack is halted.


    South Korea’s F-15K jets drop bombs during training at Taebaek Pilsung Range

    Additionally, the military has been tasked with training special forces units that could be infiltrated into Pyongyang in order to target key members of the regime, including Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, in order to bring about a more rapid conclusion to the fighting. While on paper such a “decapitation” move appears enticing, in reality the retaliation by the crippled NKorean regime against its southern neighbor, especially once it has lost its leader, would likely result in countless casualties and serve as the start of a gruesome regional, if not world, war.

  • What Happened To Making America Great Again?

    Authored by Curt Mills via The National Interest,

    With Steve Bannon out of the White House, regrets are abounding in some corners of the right over how President Trump staffed his administration.

    As a candidate Donald Trump excoriated his party’s reigning orthodoxies. As president, however, he is running a fairly conventional administration in his first seven months, at least in the policy realm. What happened to making America great again?

    The truth is that the new movement had troubling signs from the beginning. “People who went all-in for Trump were engaged in total wishful thinking,” complains one former Trump campaign policy adviser. According to him, “I think that in his gut Trump isn’t wedded to the establishment. But the idea that Trump’s sort-of vague intuition about this stuff would translate into any serious effort to cultivate the kind-of ideological team that could really catalyze a shift . . . there’s just no evidence of that. I didn’t see it on the campaign. And I don’t think—from what I know of how they’ve done hires—I don’t think ideology is a factor.”

    Prominent backers of the New York mogul who were there with him from the early days—Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and even former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski—did not get senior roles in the administration. At the Cabinet level, only Jeff Sessions and perhaps Michael Flynn seemed dyed-in-the-wool ideological national-populists. Instead, his White House was staffed with business titans and generals with whom he had limited previous association—Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, Steven Mnuchin, Gary Cohn and Wilbur Ross. He seemed to largely eschew bomb-throwers or the politicians who most robustly voiced support for Trumpism the ideology, such as Duncan Hunter or Kris Kobach. As early as January, one Washington conservative political professional (who refused to vote for Trump) boasted to me that he was both thrilled and stunned with the cabinet selections.

    Roger Stone Jr., the controversial political consultant who sometimes has the ear of the president, has been saying in the press for months that Steve Bannon and his ilk made a mistake by not using more of their “political capital” on staffing choices, leaving them isolated when their mercurial boss had a change of mood.

    Flash forward to this month and the editor of the magazine charged with defending Trumpism—trade protectionism, noninterventionism in foreign affairs, and skepticism of immigration and globalization—has renounced the president. Julius Krein of American Affairs is now on the warpath. “Bannon’s vision,” he says, “of nationalist populism is completely idiotic.” He blames the president for messing this up: “The core problem is at the top. It was always going to be such a weird administration . . . It had to be very nimble, and unite all these different strands. And, when that’s missing at the top. It obviously doesn’t work.” Krein singles out Mattis and Ross as excellent choices, but says that their influence is constrained by a wholly undisciplined president.

    Are Neocons Better at Playing the D.C. Game?

    In the first days following Trump’s election, establishment, even neoconservative, personnel were considered for roles. Nikki Haley, now UN ambassador, has been reported to have been offered the job of secretary of state before Rex Tillerson. In April in New York, she denied the offer, but confirmed the consideration. “The original call that I received to go to Trump Tower was to discuss Secretary of State,” Haley said. “No, he did not offer it.” Haley is firmly associated with the neoconservatives Trump has claimed to loathe, and during the primary she attacked Trump and endorsed his rival, Marco Rubio.

    One reason the likes of Haley rose to the top is that many realists shunned Trump. “There is also the problem that few credentialed realists were eager to work with [Trump],” Scott McConnell, founding editor of The American Conservative, told me. “None were willing to play the game of looking for entry points—as the neocons did early on, with at least some success. . . . [Trump] seemed to have made most initial choices based on whom he might have seen on TV, and relied heavily, and probably overly, on the military, where top people were willing to work with him. He never really had connections to either nationalists/populists or realists—though neither group is that well entrenched in the D.C. think tank world.”

    Haley likely came right up to the line of the only hard-and-fast rule of Trump world: no prior explicit and total renunciations of the man himself.

    “I do think if you’re on the record saying nasty things about Trump, or the Trump family, that stuff can really hurt you,” the former campaign aide told me, in line with a longstanding rumor about Trump’s hiring.

    Elliot Abrams, the former Reagan official nixed as the State Department’s number-two man, was one victim of this policy. Abrams declined comment to the National Interest for this story. And Haley’s position clashes and own personal ambition have had very real policy implications already. Widely thought to be a future presidential candidate, Haley has often stepped out ahead of the State Department with far-more hawkish language in her statements and public appearances as ambassador.

    John Bolton is another example. Though Trump is an outspoken Iraq War critic, he considered the George W. Bush administration’s colorful cheerleader for secretary of state, national security adviser and deputy secretary of state. Bolton also declined comment for this story. Krein protested to me that Bolton is misunderstood, and actually would have been a great choice. McConnell ferociously disagrees: “The problem with Bolton is simple. If you liked George W. Bush’s foreign policy, especially the Iraq War and the idea of regime change carried out by the American military on a multi-country, pan-regional scale, and you want get that kind of policy going again, the search is over: he’s definitely the guy,” he wrote in December.

    Could Things Have Been Different?

    McConnell, a prominent ally of the Pat Buchanan movement that many contend augered the age of Trumpism, has argued that with Bannon gone, there effectively is no White House agenda, only a day-to-day quest for survival. And with Bannon’s exodus, along with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer (establishment professionals who nonetheless helped sell Trump to the party elite), it’s worth asking what sort of questions were asked of job applicants on the campaign and during the transition and afterward, if any.

    One political professional who has advised Republican campaigns, including during 2016, finds the hiring of H. R. McMaster as national security adviser particularly curious, remarking “I don’t know how they could of” asked him any serious ideological questions, “given what they got.”

    “When H.R. McMaster at his first staff meeting tells the collected staff that he does not agree with the use of the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ one would have thought would have come up in the job interview.”

    That sentiment—and the sense of absolute obliteration of the Bannon wing in the administration—was seemingly confirmed by the resignation letter of Sebastian Gorka on Friday.

    “Regrettably, outside of yourself,” he wrote to the president. “The individuals who most embodied and represented the policies that will ‘Make America Great Again,’ have been internally countered, systematically removed, or undermined in recent months. This was made patently obvious as I read the text of your speech on Afghanistan. . . . The fact that those who drafted and approved the speech removed any mention of Radical Islam or radical Islamic terrorism proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.”

    The former campaign aide says he spoke with Stephen Miller, now White House senior advisor, and nothing of the sort came up, at least during the hiring phase.

    “I did have one conversation on ideology,” the former aide tells me.

    “After I was hired and everything, I got a call from Steve Miller. . . . Steve calls me and tells me: ‘The biggest contrast we want to draw is ‘Globalist Hillary’ versus ‘Nationalist Trump.’”

    If anyone has the profile in the West Wing to directly ideologically succeed Bannon, it is Miller. But should he have such ambition, he might argue for a more scrupulous, even rigid system for hiring, lest the administration lets more globalists in around the president.

    “I was a little surprised by that” conversation, the former aide tells me.

    “And I probably discerned around that time that it probably wasn’t going to be a good ideological fit. But, again, it wasn’t like he and I talked about this or he asked for my views or anything. He just sort of said this is what we’re doing. . . . He had every reason to know that I wasn’t a Trumpian ideologue. . . . But it never really came up directly.”

    A Silver Lining For Trumpists?

    If there is a counterview, it’s that the so-called establishment forces now around the president—particularly the troika of Tillerson, Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly—aren’t really moderates, at all.

    Mattis has been labeled by some as a stealth agitator for regime change in Iran, and an opponent of the nuclear deal, having developed a uniformly negative impression of that country’s government from his days in Iraq, where units under his command warred with the Shia militias.

    Tillerson, of course, has been called a Russophile by critics—like his boss, too chummy with Vladimir Putin. And his efforts to pull the State Department away from global democratization efforts have been roundly criticized in the establishment.

    Least commented on has been General John Kelly, now chief of staff. He’s a confirmed hardliner from his days heading up U.S. Southern Command—a portfolio of Central and South America. Not just anyone with that kind of knowledge of the situation and professional background would sign up to be the Homeland Security chief for a president who vowed to deport millions of people and build a wall on the Southern border, but Kelly readily did.

    And who knows? Bannon might not be permanently out of the fold, if he even is at all. Trump is known to take late-night calls from a wide-range of actors, including from chums like Stone. Bannon has also argued that he is going to war “for” the president outside of the White House. His battlecry is clear, but whether he will win that war remains unclear.

     

  • Here's The Cartoon Mocking Harvey Survivors That Politico Deleted

    Under pressure from an avalanche of social media backlash, Politico has deleted a tweet containing a cartoon appearing to mock the survivors of Hurrican Harvey…

    Drawn by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, the cartoon shows a person in a Confederate flag shirt, thanking god for being rescued from a flooded house bearing a secessionist sign (and a Gadsden flag). The cartoonist’s irony appears to be that the federal government sent the helicopter to rescue him.

    As Wuerker tried to explain…

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    This did not sit well with many conservatives… and Politico deleted the tweet soon after.

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    Similarly, even The Washington Post described the cartoon as “tone-deaf” and “unhelpful,” saying it was a “needlessly vast oversimplification of a very complex issue at a very sensitive time.”

    “It’s almost a caricature of what you’d expect a liberal cartoonist to draw in response to conservative Texans relying upon the government in their time of crisis,” said Aaron Blake, a Post blogger.

     

    “The Confederate flag T-shirt. The Gadsden Flag. The reference to being saved by God (which seems extremely dismissive of Christianity). The Texas secession banner. It’s all kind of … predictable?”

    Just luck that President Trump didn’t retweet it before they deleted it.

  • Gold Flash-Crashes Below $1300

    After the shenanigans in US mega-tech stocks over the last two days and the seemingly well orchestrated melt-up to pre-J-Hole levels in the dollar, why should anyone be surprised that 'someone' decided to try to sell $1.1 billion notional into the Asian open…

     

    Sending Spot Gold back below the Maginot Line of $1300…

     

    Silver followed suit… with 1300 contracts ($115 million notional) dumped at 21:43:30ET

     

    The Dollar Index spiked as precious metals were 'handled' – note that in the last 48 hours, no dips in the dollar have been allowed…

     

    Was The Bank of Japan at work again?

     

    The flash crash lows coincided with the oddly-timed spike from Monday (that really had very little in the way of specific catalyst)…

    One witty Twitterer asked mischieviously, "Was Kim buying Gold futures ahead of his launch?"

  • Katrina Commander Slams Harvey Response: 'Stop Patting Yourselves on the Back'; This is 'Amateur Hour'

    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

    Lt. Gen. Honore was in charge of the Katrina response in New Orleans 12 years ago and warned CNN’s Eric Burnett that ‘night is coming’ — saying it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.

    Honore carefully crafted his words and slammed the response in Houston as being grossly inadequate, disgusted by the fact that they didn’t even have 100 helicopters in the city to do search and rescues. He harkened back to the Katrina rescue plan where the 5th army (engineers) used a ‘significant grid system’ for search and rescue. Now, according to Honore, ‘it looks like no one in Texas ever read the plan.’

    “You have to come in big and you’ve got to be there right at the edge of the storm so you can come in as soon as possible and go in and rescue people.

    Back during Katrina, Honore said they had 240 helicopters and 40,000 national guard within the first 4 days, orders of magnitude more than what’s on the ground in Texas now.

    “They just got 100 helicopters here. Something is significantly wrong with command and control and they need to stop patting each other on the back who are waiting to get rescued.”

    “I know I’m sounding critical,” Honore acknowledged as he called for an “Army response to local civil disasters.

    “They’ve come upon a time when their mission is too big for the state National Guard — and they need to get the hell over it and bring them in when they have a big mission.”

    Watch.

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