- Turkey's Gunboat Gambit In The Mediterranean
Turkey’s Gunboat Gambit In The Mediterranean
Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,
Turkey, since 2011, has been waging a pro-Sunni proxy war in Syria, in the hope of one day establishing in Damascus a pro-Turkey, Islamist regime. This ambition has failed, costing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey violent political turmoil on both sides of Turkey’s 911-km border with Syria and billions of dollars spent on more than 4 million Syrian refugees scattered across the Turkish soil.
In Egypt, in 2011-2012, Erdoğan aggressively supported the failed Muslim Brotherhood government and deeply antagonized the incumbent — then-general but now president — Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Since Erdoğan’s efforts in Syria and Egypt failed, his Sunni Islamist ambitions have found a new proxy-war theater: Libya.
On December 10, Erdoğan said he could deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli (which Turkey supports) requested it. Erdoğan’s talks with GNA’s head, Fayez al-Sarraj, who is fighting a war against the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Khalifa Haftar, produced two ostensibly strategic agreements: a memorandum of understanding on providing the GNA with arms, military training and personnel; and a maritime agreement delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters.
Greece and Egypt protested immediately while the European Council unequivocally condemned the controversial accords. Meanwhile, the deals apparently escalated a proxy competition between Turkey’s old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) rivals.
With the al-Sarraj handshake, Erdoğan is apparently aiming to:
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minimize Turkey’s isolation in the Mediterranean, one which has gradually worsened since 2010, following one diplomatic crisis after another with Israel;
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counter strategic cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel, including joint diplomatic, energy and military initiatives;
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cut into the emerging Cypriot-Greek-Egyptian-Israeli maritime bloc;
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push back against Arab (Egyptian and UAE) pressure on al-Sarraj;
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fill the European vacuum in Libya; and
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emerge as a deal-breaker in the Mediterranean rather than a deal-maker.
All that ambition requires military hardware as well as diplomatic software. Since 2011, a year after the Mavi Marmara incident ruptured relations with Israel, Turkey has been investing billions of dollars in naval technologies, in an apparent effort to build up the hardware it would one day require.
In the eight years since then, Turkey has built four Ada-class corvettes; two Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels; eight fast Landing Craft Tank (LCT) vessels; 16 military patrol ships; two deep-sea rescue ships; one submarine rescue ship; and four assault boats.
The jewel in the naval treasury box is a $1 billion Landing Platform Dock (LPD), now being built under license from Spain’s Navantia shipyards, to be operational in 2021. The TCG Anadolu, Turkey’s first amphibious assault ship, will carry a battalion-sized unit of 1,200 troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles; it also will transport 150 vehicles, including battle tanks. It also may be able to deploy short takeoff and vertical landing STOVL F-35 fighter jets. Turkey will be the third operator in the world of this ship type, after Spain and Australia.
Erdoğan’s naval ambitions, however, are not limited just to an emerging fleet of conventional vessels. In 2016, he said that the LPD program would hopefully be the first step toward producing a “most elite” aircraft carrier. He also said he “sees it as a major deficiency that we still do not have a nuclear vessel.”
On December 22, Turkey’s first Type 214 class submarine, the TCG Piri Reis, hit the seas with a ceremony attended by Erdoğan. “Today,” he said, “we gathered here for the docking of Piri Reis. As of 2020, a submarine will go into service each year. By 2027, all six of our submarines will be at our seas for service.”
Unsurprisingly the docking ceremony reminded Erdoğan of his Libyan gambit: “We will evaluate every opportunity in land, sea and air. If needed, we will increase military support in Libya.”
Erdoğan seems to think that his best defense in the Mediterranean power game is an offense. On December 15, Turkish Naval Forces intercepted an Israeli research ship, the Bat Galim, in Cypriot waters and escorted it away, as tension over natural resource exploration continued to rise in the region.
On December 16, Turkey dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus. A week before the drone deployment, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara could use its military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.
Libya is another risky proxy war theater for Turkey. Its deals with the al-Sarraj government over troop deployment and maritime borders will become null and void if the Libyan civil war, begun in 2014, ends with Gen. Haftar’s victory. The chief of staff of the LNA, Farag Al-Mahdawi, announced that his forces would sink any Turkish ship approaching the Libyan coast. “I have an order; as soon as the Turkish research vessels arrive, I will have a solution. I will sink them myself,” Al-Mahdawi warned, noting that the order was coming from Haftar. On December 21, Haftar’s forces seized a Grenada-flagged ship with Turkish crew aboard, on the suspicion that it was carrying arms. The ship was later released.
The European Union is another factor why Erdoğan, once again, is probably betting on the wrong horse. Technically speaking, Turkey is a candidate for full EU membership, but it is an open secret that accession talks have not moved an inch during the past several years, and with no prospects of progress in sight. Making membership prospects even gloomier, EU foreign ministers in November agreed on economic sanctions for Ankara for violating Cyprus’ maritime economic zone by drilling off the island.
The Mediterranean chess game leaves Turkey in alliance with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet and one of the warring factions in Libya, versus a strategic grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt (and the UAE), Israel, and the other warring Libyan group.
One emerging power in Libya, however, is not a Western state actor. After controlling Syria in favor of President Bashar al-Assad and establishing permanent military bases inside and off the coast of the country, Russia has the potential to step into the Libyan theater with a bigger proxy and direct force, to establish its second permanent Mediterranean military presence. As in Syria, where divergent interests did not stop Turkey from becoming a remote-controlled Russian player, Moscow can once again make use of the Turkish card to undermine Western interests in Libya.
Also as in Syria, Turkey’s Islamist agenda will probably fail in Libya, but by the time Erdoğan understands that, it might be too late to get out of Moscow’s orbit.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/31/2019 – 02:00 -
- Nullify Government Tyranny: In 2020, Harness The Power Of Your Discontent
Nullify Government Tyranny: In 2020, Harness The Power Of Your Discontent
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“The people have the power, all we have to do is awaken that power in the people. The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government.” – John Lennon
Twenty years into the 21st century, and what do we have to show for it?
Government corruption, tyranny and abuse have propelled us at warp speed towards a full-blown police state in which egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, and pay-to-play politicians have become the new normal.
Here’s just a small sampling of the laundry list of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government over the past two decades.
The government failed to protect our lives, liberty and happiness. The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government didn’t listen to the citizenry, refused to abide by the Constitution, and treated the citizenry as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—were armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies were allowed to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors made a killing by waging endless wars abroad.
The American President became more imperial. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers that have been amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.
Militarized police became a power unto themselves, 911 calls turned deadly, and traffic stops took a turn for the worse. Lacking in transparency and accountability, protected by the courts and legislators, and rife with misconduct, America’s police forces became a growing menace to the citizenry and the rule of law. Despite concerns about the government’s steady transformation of local police into a standing military army, local police agencies acquired even more weaponry, training and equipment suited for the battlefield. Police officers were also given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons and subject them to forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases.
The courts failed to uphold justice. With every ruling handed down, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts more concerned with protecting government agents than upholding the rights of “we the people.” This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution. A review of critical court rulings over the past two decades, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
The Surveillance State rendered Americans vulnerable to threats from government spies, police, hackers and power failures. Thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Americans have become sitting ducks for hackers and government spies alike. Billions of people have been affected by data breaches and cyberattacks. On a daily basis, Americans have been made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.
Mass shootings claimed more lives. Mass shootings have taken place in virtually every venue, including at churches, in nightclubs, on college campuses, on military bases, in elementary schools, in government offices, and at concerts. However, studies make clear that the government’s gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—poses a greater threat to the safety and security of the nation than any mass shooter.
Debtors’ prisons made a comeback. Not content to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant, state courts were given the green light to resume their practice of jailing individuals who are unable to pay the hefty fines imposed by the American police state. These debtors’ prisons play right into the hands of the corporations that make a profit by jailing Americans. This is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It has become a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power has been predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a debtors’ prison guarded by a phalanx of politicians, bureaucrats and militarized police with no hope of parole and no chance for escape.
The cost of endless wars drove the nation deeper into debt. America’s war spending has already bankrupted the nation to the tune of more than $20 trillion dollars. Policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad hasn’t made America—or the rest of the world—any safer, but it has made the military industrial complex rich at taxpayer expense. Approximately 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world, including Africa, where troops reportedly carry out an average of 10 military exercises and engagements daily. Meanwhile, America’s infrastructure is falling apart. The interest on the money America has borrowed to wage its wars will cost an estimated $8 trillion.
“Show your papers” incidents skyrocketed. We are not supposed to be living in a “show me your papers” society. Despite this, the U.S. government has introduced measures allowing police and other law enforcement officials to stop individuals (citizens and noncitizens alike), demand they identify themselves, and subject them to patdowns, warrantless searches, and interrogations. These actions fly in the face of longstanding constitutional safeguards forbidding such police state tactics.
The government waged war on military veterans. The government has done a pitiful job of respecting the freedoms of military veterans and caring for their needs once out of uniform. Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today is America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices, and increasingly treated like criminals—targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights—for daring to speak out against government misconduct.
Free speech was dealt one knock-out punch after another. Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, shadow banning on the Internet, and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors (and championed by those who want to suppress speech with which they might disagree) conspired to corrode our core freedoms, purportedly for our own good. On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak. In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—may allow. The reasons for such censorship varied widely from political correctness, so-called safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of free speech.
The government waged a renewed war on private property. The battle to protect our private property has become the final constitutional frontier, the last holdout against our freedoms being usurped. We no longer have any real property rights. That house you live in, the car you drive, the small (or not so small) acreage of land that has been passed down through your family or that you scrimped and saved to acquire, whatever money you manage to keep in your bank account after the government and its cronies have taken their first and second and third cut…none of it is safe from the government’s greedy grasp. At no point do you ever have any real ownership in anything other than the clothes on your back. Everything else can be seized by the government under one pretext or another (civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, public interest, etc.).
Schools became even more like prisons. So-called school “safety” policies—which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers—have turned schools into prisons and young people into prisoners. From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
The Deep State took over. The American system of representative government was overthrown by the Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military/corporate industrial complex—a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished. In its place is a shadow government, a corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House. Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law. This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry. This shadow government, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.
The takeaway: Everything the founders of this country feared has come to dominate in modern America. “We the people” have been saddled with a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.
So how do you balance the scales of justice at a time when Americans are being tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, hit with batons, shot with rubber bullets and real bullets, blasted with sound cannons, detained in cages and kennels, sicced by police dogs, arrested and jailed for challenging the government’s excesses, abuses and power-grabs?
No matter who sits in the White House, politics won’t fix a system that is broken beyond repair.
For that matter, protests and populist movements also haven’t done much to push back against an authoritarian regime that is deaf to our cries, dumb to our troubles, blind to our needs, and accountable to no one.
So how do you not only push back against the police state’s bureaucracy, corruption and cruelty but also launch a counterrevolution aimed at reclaiming control over the government using nonviolent means?
You start by changing the rules and engaging in some (nonviolent) guerilla tactics.
Take part in grassroots activism, which takes a trickle-up approach to governmental reform by implementing change at the local level (in other words, think nationally, but act locally).
And then, nullify everything the government does that flies in the face of the principles on which this nation was founded.
If there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it may rest with the power of juries and local governments to invalidate governmental laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.
In an age in which government officials accused of wrongdoing—police officers, elected officials, etc.—are treated with general leniency, while the average citizen is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, nullification is a powerful reminder that, as the Constitution tells us, “we the people” are the government.
For too long we’ve allowed our so-called “representatives” to call the shots. Now it’s time to restore the citizenry to their rightful place in the republic: as the masters, not the servants.
Nullification is one way of doing so.
Various cities and states have been using this historic doctrine with mixed results on issues as wide ranging as gun control and healthcare to “claim freedom from federal laws they find onerous or wrongheaded.” Most recently, a growing number of communities—including more than a 100 counties, cities and towns in Virginia—have declared themselves to be Second Amendment sanctuaries and adopted resolutions opposing any “unconstitutional restrictions” on the right to keep and bear arms. It is mass movements such as these that the government fears most.
Indeed, any hope of freeing ourselves rests—as it always has—at the local level, with “we the people.” One of the most important contributions an individual citizen can make is to become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think globally, act locally.”
America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Yet if our freedoms are to be restored, understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard—in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council—and taking action at that local level must be the starting point.
Responding to unmet local needs and reacting to injustices is what grassroots activism is all about. Attend local city council meetings, speak up at town hall meetings, organize protests and letter-writing campaigns, employ “militant nonviolent resistance” and civil disobedience, which Martin Luther King Jr. used to great effect through the use of sit-ins, boycotts and marches.
Let’s not take the mistakes, carnage, toxicity and abuse of this past decade into 2020.
As long as we continue to allow callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, racism, militarism, materialism, meanness and injustice—magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality—to trump justice, fairness and equality, there can be no hope of prevailing against the police state.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we could transform this nation if only Americans would work together to harness the power of their discontent and push back against the government’s overreach, excesses and abuse.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 23:45 - Despite Star Wars "Success", U.S. Movie Ticket Sales Plunged 4.6% In 2019
Despite Star Wars “Success”, U.S. Movie Ticket Sales Plunged 4.6% In 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker led at the box office again last week, but while it has helped catalyze a great 2019 for Disney, pretty much everyone else in the movie industry has sputtered and struggled.
The new “Star Wars” film brought in $72 million this weekend, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, easily beating out Sony Corp.’s “Little Women” and “Spies in Disguise,” from Disney’s Fox studio.
But the film’s gross take, which was expected to be as much as $100 million, was down 59% from last week.
But this shouldn’t be much of a surprise: the industry has fallen apart in 2019, with U.S. ticket sales declining 4.6.% from the year prior. 2020 is expected to also be a “challenge”.
Another film that opened this past weekend, “Little Women”, was expected to gross $18 million but only brought in $16.5 million. The animated “Spies in Disguise” raked in $13.2 million after projections of $11 million. “Uncut Gems”, starring Adam Sandler, expanded to more theaters and brought in $9.6 million, in the middle of its forecasted $8.5 million to $10 million range.
Recall, just days ago, we reported on movie theater stocks plunging after continued weak ticket sales for Star Wars were announced for the weekend of December 20 to December 22. AMC Entertainment Holdings, Cinemark Holdings Inc., and Cineworld Group Plc all fell in response.
As we noted then, theater stocks have exhibited declines throughout most of the year.
The movie generated $176 million last weekend weekend, making it the third-largest December debut ever – but it still tracked below estimates of $183 million.
“Hollywood was banking on a strong showing to boost receipts,” Geetha Ranganathan, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote.
“The reception, far below predecessors, may have been partly due to mixed critical reviews.”
North America’s movie theater industry remains in limbo since the emergence of streaming services. A consolidation wave among movie theaters continues despite Hollywood’s softer domestic performance in 2019. Operators have been hunting for additional growth channels, including expansion in Asia.
U.K.-based Cineworld is expected to become North America’s largest movie theater operator as it acquires Canada’s Cineplex in a $1.86 billion deal.
Netflix has undoubtedly disrupted the industry by releasing its content on television screens and mobile devices instead of at the box office. Netflix released 371 new movies and TV shows in 2019, over 50 percent more than they did last year, according to data compiled by Variety Insight.
The movie theater consolidation wave began in 2012 when China’s Dalian Wanda Group purchased AMC Entertainment.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 23:25 - How Chemists, Chinese Factories, & "Dark Web" Dealers Spread Fentanyl Across America
How Chemists, Chinese Factories, & “Dark Web” Dealers Spread Fentanyl Across America
Authored by Daniel Kolitz via TheNation.com,
The Wizard of OxyContin – where is he now? That nickname, revealed in leaked documents, belonged to an employee of Abbott Laboratories, which partnered with Purdue Pharmaceuticals to sell the drug. Starting in the late 1990s, he and his colleagues canvassed clinics around the country, hard-selling doctors on their flagship product. Purdue wooed doctors taught to distrust pain medications with steaks, vacations, and a stunning range of swag: Oxy-branded clocks, pens, beach hats, even swing music compilations. They were told that, unlike other opioids, OxyContin was addiction-proof; its time-release coating assured a steady, measured dose and would thwart attempts at abuse.
Unmentioned by those reps – but known by their bosses from day one – was the ease with which this coating could be removed. As doctors began prescribing the drug in ever-larger numbers and Oxy’s sales soared into the billions, this glitch would devastate families, ravage towns, and before long spark the worst drug crisis in US history.
Purdue eventually gestured toward fixing this problem, after 14 years of lucrative dithering. In 2010, a few years before its patent was set to expire, the company prolonged it with a new formula. This revamped Oxy was harder to abuse, and while its effectiveness has been debated, rates of prescription drug abuse have declined, aided by “pill mill” raids and stricter prescribing guidelines. But the wreckage that Oxy left behind is still being felt: In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses, the highest number on record. That same year, fentanyl became a household name, surfacing in local news segments, policy-website explainers, and thousands of toxicology reports. When the original Oxy vanished from the streets, many of the people addicted to it turned to heroin—and now it emerged that much of the heroin available in the United States (along with fast-rising quantities of cocaine) was laced with fentanyl. The advantage, for dealers, was price: Fentanyl costs less than heroin and is easier to acquire. It also happens to be 50 times more potent.
Often lost in the early news reports was the fact that fentanyl alone wasn’t killing people; many different kinds of fentanyl were. Since its invention in 1959 by the Belgian chemist and doctor Paul Janssen, fentanyl has seen more than 1,400 analogues: twists on the original formula whose origins and effects vary widely. Carfentanil, for instance—100 times stronger than fentanyl—was until 2018 FDA-approved for use as an elephant tranquilizer. It is here that the opioid crisis intersects with (and amplifies) a newer scourge: NPS, or new psychoactive substances, molecularly tweaked stand-ins for traditional street drugs. The best-known of these is probably K2, or Spice, the ostensible marijuana substitute whose high bears little resemblance to the real thing and whose side effects include blood-clotting, kidney failure, and instant death. But there are hundreds more, and likely thousands in development. Mini-pandemics have erupted across the country, as when, in the course of a single week last year, over 100 people in New Haven overdosed on what was later determined to be AB-FUBINACA, yet another synthetic cannabinoid.
Ben Westhoff, in Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic, charts this progression in harrowing detail. We are now dealing, he writes, with “the harshest drug challenge in our history.” His book is one of the first to address what the Centers for Disease Control has called the “third wave” of the opioid crisis: first OxyContin, then heroin, and now fentanyl and its analogues. Earlier accounts of this crisis – Sam Quinones’s Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic or Beth Macy’s Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America – had in Purdue Pharma the benefit, structural and dramatic, of a villain. More or less everyone can agree that pharmaceutical companies should refrain from wantonly pursuing profit at the expense of public health. Dopesick is rarely a pleasant read, but Macy’s account of Purdue’s first major court battle – which culminated in criminal convictions for three executives and $600 million in fines—provided at least some measure of catharsis.
Westhoff, reporting from the flayed, despairing center of this crisis, can’t offer any comparable relief. Purdue Pharma is now dead, and responsibility has devolved, in this third wave, to thousands of loosely affiliated actors: Dark Web distributors, small-time dealers, chemists whose skills and moral scruples vary widely. Like the cryptocurrencies that mask countless NPS transactions, these networks are decentralized: Members taken down are just as quickly replaced. But there is consolation in clarity, and the achievement of Westhoff’s book is to press this sprawling cast and the forces that gave rise to it into something like a coherent narrative, forming legible patterns out of widespread chaos.
Glassine pouches of confirmed fentanyl are displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration Northeast Regional Laboratory in New York, 2019. (AFP via Getty / Photo by Don Emmert)
As Westhoff points out, many of the most dangerous NPS were developed under completely legal circumstances, by tenured professors at prestigious universities. These experimental compounds—as well as the steps taken to produce them—were written up in small, peer-reviewed science journals and more or less forgotten, until the underworld began to repurpose these articles as recipes for recreational drugs. David Nichols, the utopian chemist who once dreamed of a drug that would end all war, now finds himself faced with the grief of parents like Eric Brown, whose son Montana overdosed on 251-NBOMe, which was brought into the mainstream through his research.
If Fentanyl, Inc. does have a primary antagonist, it’s the Chinese government. Virtually all of the fentanyls that have flooded the United States in recent years have been manufactured in China, where many NPS are legal, an arrangement that allows legitimate businesses to churn them out on a scale inconceivable to illicit drug makers in North America. This process has been heavily underwritten, as Westhoff demonstrates, by “lucrative tax incentives, subsidies, and direct financial support” from the Chinese government, as part of its breakneck bid to expand the country’s biotechnology sector.
The extent to which Chinese officials are aware of what they’re funding is unclear – some of these companies produce hundreds of products, churning out fentanyls alongside collagen, pesticides, and erectile-dysfunction meds – but the blind eye they’ve turned toward the export of these chemicals has yielded a number of complaints from the United States. The companies, meanwhile, know exactly what they’re doing: Fentanyls and NPS that are legal in China but banned in the US are often shipped in disguise, packaged as dog food or high-gluten wheat flour bread. In addition to an urgent public health crisis, this is an issue of international trade, which means that President Donald Trump seems authentically to care about it. In April, under pressure from his administration, China instituted a blanket ban on the production of all fentanyl variants. The majority of Westhoff’s reporting was conducted before this announcement was made, but, as he argues and as recent developments have borne out, it is “far from clear” if these new regulations have had any impact.
To illuminate this deadly, improbable cycle—in which drugs developed at American universities are mass-produced in Chinese factories and then sold to North American dealers, occasionally winding up, as party drugs, on the very same campuses whose endowments funded their creation—Westhoff ranges widely, logging time with each link in the chain of production. Eventually, in the book’s intrepid centerpiece, he manages to infiltrate two Chinese chemical manufacturers. At one of them, undercover as a cautious buyer, he encounters a roomful of cheerful twentysomethings blithely Skyping with potential customers to organize deals. It’s an uncanny moment: With fentanyl components swapped for cheap razors or custom-made mattresses, this could be any number of US start-ups, right down to the strained cheer and punishing work hours (though with the further difference that all of these people live together, in a motel adjacent to their office). But the book’s most revealing encounter takes place back home, when Westhoff, still posing as a buyer, is asked via Skype by one of these young sales reps why exactly people buy a chemical called NPP. Westhoff explains that it’s used to make fentanyl.
“I know Fentanyl,” she continued, “but why [do] people use it?”
“It’s highly addictive,” I said.
“Yes, I know it is a bad ,” the saleswoman admitted, “but I still sell it, so sometimes I feel guilt. NPP is not forbidden in China, so we can sell. I sell it, because I want to earn money, earn a living.”
Westhoff lets this exchange stand on its own, but a whole world throbs beneath it. Like many Chinese companies, the one this woman works for—called Yuancheng—began exporting its products to the United States only after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. That development cost millions of Americans their factory jobs and helped speed along the opioid crisis, as thousands of newly unemployed workers started selling their surplus Oxy to make the rent or maintain their own supply. Asked to justify themselves, they might have said something similar. Neither party—the laid-off factory worker selling Oxy out of his foreclosed home; the Yuancheng saleswoman working six-day weeks to keep the room she shares with six coworkers—can really be blamed. That the latter has progressed to killing the former suggests a failure, or an apotheosis, of two miserably enmeshed systems.
Stemming the flow of drugs from China is important, as is working, somehow, to curb the spread of NPS. But this problem isn’t disappearing soon, and there are people who urgently need our help. The relative whiteness of those affected by the opioid crisis has softened the old approach—jail the dealers, jail the addicts, remind young children that drugs are bad—but as Westhoff demonstrates, we have a long way to go. If we are to treat opioid-use disorder as a disease like any other, then here-and-now treatment must be our first priority, and Fentanyl, Inc. closes with a tour of some organizations taking that imperative seriously. Most of them are located outside the United States, a country whose fervent commitment to prolonged and needless suffering largely precludes the safe-injection sites and drug-testing operations that have saved countless lives in Europe. There have been some signs of progress—Westhoff highlights Grand Forks, North Dakota, a small conservative city that has liberalized access to Narcan, clean needles, and medication-assisted treatment—but harm reduction has yet to take hold as a national strategy. Which is unfortunate, because no other strategy works.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 23:05 - In "Stunning Twist", Carlos Ghosn Flees Japanese House Arrest, Arrives In Lebanon To Escape "Rigged" Justice System
In “Stunning Twist”, Carlos Ghosn Flees Japanese House Arrest, Arrives In Lebanon To Escape “Rigged” Justice System
Update: Confirming earlier speculation, Nissan’s former Chairman Carlos Ghosn who was facing criminal trial in Japan, said he fled for Lebanon and has left Japan, which Bloomberg called a “stunning twist” in a saga that began over a year ago with this shocking arrest in Tokyo. Ghosn said in a statement through his representatives Tuesday that he was not fleeing justice, but instead seeking to avoid “injustice and political persecution.”
“I am now in Lebanon and will no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant, and basic human rights are denied,” the former Nissane and Renault head said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday. “I have not fled justice – I have escaped injustice and political persecution.”
Ghosn, now a global fugitive from the law, picked Lebanon as it has no extradition agreement with Japan. The 65-year-old has said he’s the victim of a conspiracy between Nissan executives, prosecutors and government officials to prevent him from further integrating the company with Renault.
Ghosn did not provide details on how he got out but promised to talk to reporters soon. He was awaiting trial for what prosecutors called a pervasive pattern of financial misconduct and raiding of corporate resources for personal gain — allegations that Ghosn has denied. Ghosn fled Japan because he doesn’t believe he will get a fair trial in the country, a person familiar with the matter said earlier.
Ghosn was released on bail in April under the condition that he live at a registered address and not leave Japan. As Bloomberg notes, the strict terms of his release were designed to prevent him from fleeing. He wasn’t permitted to spend more than one night away from his house without a judge’s permission. A video camera was trained on his front door, and at the end of each month, Ghosn was required to provide a list of everyone he’d met. Ghosn’s overseas travel ban was still in place when he fled to Lebanon, according to Kyodo.
The mystery of how Ghosn left Japan deepens as his passport was confiscated as part of the conditions of bail. According to Lebanese media, he arrived on a private jet from Turkey. Neither is it clear how Japan might get Ghosn back: The country has extradition treaties with the U.S. and South Korea, according to the foreign ministry’s website.
Ghosn was born in Brazil and raised in Lebanon, where he has investments in real estate and vineyards and continues to be viewed as a business icon and wunderkind. His image has been used for national postal stamps. Since the early days of his incarceration, Ghosn won support from Lebanon.
And so, just as Jeffrey Epstein managed to “suicide” himself despite constant surveillance and suicide watch, so too Carlos Ghosn, arguably the highest profile alleged criminals under house arrest currently, somehow managed to evade his overseers and flee to one of the few countries that has no extradition treaty with Japan…
* * *
Earlier:
Just over 13 months after his arrest in Japan, The FT reports that former Nissan-Renault Chairman Carlos Ghosn is no longer under house arrest in Japan and has arrived in his parents’ native Lebanon, according to a source close to the Nissan-Renault chairman’s family and a professional associate.
Ghosn had been out on bail, under house arrest, for alleged financial wrongdoing in Japan. Ghosn holds Lebanese, French and Brazilian citizenship.
Local media reported that, according to an associate of Mr Ghosn, he arrived in a private jet at Beirut’s Rafic al-Hariri international airport late on Sunday.
For now, it is unclear whether the former carmaker’s chairman has escaped house arrest in Japan or whether a deal has been struck for his release.
Dow Jones also reported Ghosn arrived in Lebanon, said he plans to hold a press conference in the coming days.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 22:55 - Chinese Scientist Who Created First Gene-Edited Babies Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison
Chinese Scientist Who Created First Gene-Edited Babies Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison
A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a scientist responsible for creating the world’s first genetically modified children to a three-year stretch in prison after his experiments elicited a massive backlash over what some described as a blatant abuse of bioethics, according to reports in the Chinese press that were picked up by WSJ.
The court accused Dr. He Jiankui of forging documents to conceal what he was doing from both the patients he recruited for the trial and the doctors who performed the work alongside him. Both Dr. He and two alleged “accomplices” pleaded guilty, according to the court.
“In order to pursue fame and profit, they deliberately violated the relevant national regulations, and crossed the bottom lines of scientific and medical ethics,” the court said.
Dr. He (the son of rice farmers) graduated with a degree in physics in China before getting a doctorate from Rice University in the US. Eventually, he switched to studying biology, which led to his interest in gene-editing technology.
Dr. He
People who knew the doctor said he wanted to make history, and also ameliorate what he saw as an injustice against HIV-positive people in China, who are barred from receiving fertility treatments. It’s believed that the doctor expected a reward from Beijing for helping China reach its goal of becoming a leader in genetic science.
Instead, Dr. He stunned the global scientific community last year when he revealed that he had successfully edited the genes of two twin babies from HIV+ parents. Dr. He said he had engineered the twin girls using a gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9 to be resistant to HIV. The girls were born of a healthy mother and an HIV+ father, which can sometimes lead to the virus being passed down to the children.
He also admitted to creating a third genetically modified baby. Chinese authorities said they will monitor all three children into adulthood.
Unfortunately for Dr. He, the accolades he had anticipated never materialized.
Instead, his revelation elicited condemnation from bioethicists and other doctors in China, including the inventors of the gene-editing technology he used. Dr. He was soon fired from his post at Southern University of Science and Technology (based in the southern city of Shenzhen).
And on Monday, he was convicted by a court in Shenzhen of illegally practicing medicine.
Bioethics contend that editing the genes of embryos is a much more sensitive area because those children will eventually grow up and risk passing on the edited genes to the next generation, creating room for unintended consequences to surface decades down the road.
In the US, gene-editing technology has mostly been applied to terminally ill patients who likely won’t pass on the changes to the next generation.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 22:45 - Seattle Company Used Secret Drain To Dump Toxic Waste Directly Into Sewer System
Seattle Company Used Secret Drain To Dump Toxic Waste Directly Into Sewer System
Authored by Emma Fiala via TheMindUnleashed.com,
According to a 36-count grand jury indictment, a Seattle company used a hidden drain to dump a highly-corrosive chemical solution directly into the sewer system.
The King County sewer system eventually reaches the Duwamish Waterway and the Puget Sound.
After “a sensitive sewer flow meter tipped them off to something strange,” agents sent a robot into the sewer to investigate, the Seattle Times reports.
Inside the sewer, the robot’s camera recorded a white stain of unknown origin and, according to a federal indictment handed down earlier this month, federal agents executed a search warrant after real-time monitoring equipment they installed indicated an unusual spike in the water’s pH.
During the search, a portable pump covered in a high-pH liquid and a hidden drain that had never been disclosed were both discovered.
It turns out, both the company’s owner and the manager of the plant, who happen to be cousins, have been lying to regulators since at least 2009, according to the indictment. The scheme was discovered in 2018.
The Seattle Barrel and Cooperage Company collects used 55-gallon industrial drums and resells them after undergoing a reconditioning process that involves washing them in a tank full of highly-corrosive chemical solution. The family-owned company is legally obligated to dispose of the caustic solution properly.
Louie Sanft and John Sanft have both charged with criminal conspiracy as well as 29 counts of violating the Clean Water Act—one for each of the 29 times that investigators documented the waste being discharged into the sewer system in 2018 and 2019—and are expected to appear in court next month.
The century-old company is laying the blame on a former employee whose employment was terminated earlier this year, according to Seattle Barrel’s lawyer, Harold Malkin. That employee hasn’t been named or charged.
Louie Sanft’s lawyer, Angelo Calfo, blames the former employee as well and says that the Justice Department and the EPA both made a “serious error” in charging his client.
Calfo explained:
“Louie had no motive to do this. Company practice and policy was to have the tank water boiled down and evaporated. Any sludge from the tank would be transported for proper disposal. This case is about a former employee who cut corners for his own gain.”
The county began monitoring Seattle Barrel’s activities via “cover monitoring” after a King County Industrial Waste employee observed the plant manager dump an oily substance directly into a sewer. The company was fined $55,250 in 2013 after the county discovered violations of its wastewater discharge permit. After various improvements, the company claimed to be a “zero discharge” facility but, according to the indictment, those improvements didn’t involve the caustic solution that the company has been dumping directly into the sewer system.
Seattle Barrel was also required to pay $30,000 in fines after the Washington Department of Ecology discovered the company was “failing to identify caustic wastewater as a hazardous waste, missing labels on hazardous waste containers and lacking measures to prevent the escape of hazardous liquids.”
U.S. Attorney Brian Moran said:
“At a time when we are searching for strategies to protect Puget Sound and improve water quality for fish and wildlife, we need companies to do their share—not scheme for ways to pollute in private.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 22:25 - A Major Bank Admits QE4 Has Started, And That Stocks Are Rising Because Of The Fed's Soaring Balance Sheet
A Major Bank Admits QE4 Has Started, And That Stocks Are Rising Because Of The Fed’s Soaring Balance Sheet
There was a period of about two months when some of the more confused, Fed sycophantic elements, would parrot everything Powell would say regarding the recently launched $60 billion in monthly purchases of T-Bills, and which according to this rather vocal, if always wrong, subsegment of financial experts, did not constitute QE. Perhaps one can’t really blame them: after all, unable to think for themselves, they merely repeated what Powell said, namely that “growth of our balance sheet for reserve management purposes should in no way be confused with the large-scale asset purchase programs that we deployed after the financial crisis. Neither the recent technical issues nor the purchases of Treasury bills we are contemplating to resolve them should materially affect the stance of monetary policy. In no sense, is this QE.“
As it turned out, it was QE from the perspective of the market, which saw the Fed boosting its balance sheet by $60BN per month, and together with another $20BN or so in TSY and MBS maturity reinvestments, as well as tens of billions in overnight and term repos, and soared roughly around the time the Fed announced “not QE.”
And so, as the Fed’s balance sheet exploded by over $400 billion in under four months, a rate of balance sheet expansion that surpassed QE1, QE2 and Qe3…
… stocks blasted off higher roughly at the same time as the Fed’s QE returned, and are now up every single week since the start of the Fed’s QE4 announcement when the Fed’s balance sheet rose, and are down just one week since then: the week when the Fed’s balance sheet shrank.
The result of this unprecedented correlation between the market’s response to the Fed’s actions – and the Fed’s growing balance sheet – has meant that it gradually became impossible to deny that what the Fed is doing is no longer QE. It started with Bank of America in mid-November (as described in “One Bank Finally Admits The Fed’s “NOT QE” Is Indeed QE… And Could Lead To Financial Collapse“), and then after several other banks also joined in, and even Fed fanboy David Zervos admitted on CNBC that the Fed is indeed doing QE, the tipping point finally arrived, and it was no longer blasphemy (or tinfoil hat conspiracy theory) to call out the naked emperor, and overnight none other than Deutsche Bank joined the “truther” chorus, when in a report by the bank’s chief economist Torsten Slok, he writes what we pointed out several weeks back, namely that “since QE4 started in October, a 1% increase in the Fed balance sheet has been associated with a 1% increase in the S&P500, see chart below.” Not that DB has absolutely no qualms about calling what the Fed is doing QE4 for the simple reason that… it is QE4.
The chart in question, which is effectively the same as the one we created above, shows the weekly change in the Fed’s balance sheet and the S&P500 as a scatterplot, and concludes that all it takes to push the S&P higher by 1% is to grow the Fed’s balance sheet by 1%.
And just to underscore this point, the strategist points out that such a finding is “consistent with this new working paper, which finds that QE boosts stock markets even when controlling for improving macro fundamentals.” Which, of course, is hardly rocket science – after all when you inject hundreds of billions into the market in months, and this money can’t enter the economy, it will enter the market. The result: the S&P trading at an all time high in a year in which corporate profits actually decreased and the entire rise in the stock market was due to multiple expansion.
In short: the Kool Aid is flowing, the party is in full force and everyone has to dance, because the Fed will continue to perform QE4 at least until Q2 2020. Which reminds us of what we wrote last week, namely that another big bank, Morgan Stanley, has already seen through the current meltup phase, and predicts the “Melt-Up Lasting Until April, After Which Markets Will “Confront World With No Fed Support“.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 22:05 - Jonathan Turley: The 11th Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Testify For Republicans
Jonathan Turley: The 11th Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Testify For Republicans
American journalist H.L. Mencken once observed, “Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.” Despite an unending respect for Mencken, this is an occasion in which I found him mistaken, after I violated the Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not testify for Republicans.”
Worse yet, I am a recidivist sinner, after testifying as a constitutional expert in both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings. Like all mortal sins, the violation of the Eleventh Commandment comes with not just eternal but immediate damnation. What is most striking about this commandment is that it does not matter if your testimony is made in good faith. For example, under the Ninth Commandment, you are only guilty if you give false evidence against your neighbor. Under the Eleventh Commandment, it does not matter if your testimony is true or false. A law-fearing academic must not give any testimony for Republicans.
In my recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding President Trump’s impeachment, I opposed the position of my fellow witnesses that the definition of actual crimes is immaterial to their use as the basis for impeachment – and I specifically opposed impeachment articles based on bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations or obstruction of justice. The committee ultimately rejected those articles and adopted the only two articles I felt could be legitimately advanced: abuse of power, obstruction of Congress. Chairman Jerrold Nadler even ended the hearing by quoting my position on abuse of power. Our only disagreement was that I opposed impeachment on this record as incomplete and insufficient for submission to the Senate.
None of that matters under the Eleventh Commandment, however. It is the act of testifying for Republicans that is a sin against the legal academy. Indeed, what followed was a series of false stories attacking not my testimony but me, personally. The falsity of these stories is a warning to any academic who considers straying from the Democratic path.
Turley flipped his testimony from the Clinton impeachment.
One of the most bizarre false stories was that I testified differently on my views of impeachment during the Clinton and Trump impeachments. Given the 21-year gap, it might not be strange for views to change. However, my views in the two cases were the same.
In both hearings, I said a president could be impeached for noncriminal conduct, including abuse of public office. Yet stories on CNN and other outlets objected that, in the Clinton case, I warned Congress, “If you decide that certain acts do not rise to impeachable offenses, you will expand the space for executive conduct.” Somehow this was portrayed as a “flip-flop” since I was arguing against impeachment in the Trump hearings on this record. It doesn’t matter that the Judiciary Committee did precisely what I suggested in dropping the four criminal theories for the articles or going forward with the two I said would be legitimate. I was not arguing against impeaching on the two articles adopted — only that a completed record was absent.
More importantly, the statement in the Clinton case referred to perjury. Democrats argued back then that a president could commit perjury on some subjects, such as sexual relations, and not face impeachment; they argued that an impeachment crime must be tied to the office, not to personal interests. That was ridiculous and would allow a president to kill a lover but not face impeachment. Indeed, the Democratic position would allow a presidential Harvey Weinstein to abuse countless interns and then pressure them to lie to an independent counsel.
Turley thought Justice Sotomayor wasn’t smart enough.
Perhaps the most vile false story can be traced to a tweet sent out by a University of Baltimore law professor asking, “Does anybody else remember @JonathanTurley appearing on MSNBC to explain that Sonia Sotomayor didn’t have the intellect to serve on the Supreme Court?” I certainly didn’t remember that — because I never said anything like that. No matter: Soon, from MSNBC to liberal websites, the story was all the rage, with titles such as “Jonathan Turley thought Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t smart enough to be on the Supreme Court.”
When then-Judge Sotomayor was nominated, I was asked as a legal commentator to review her opinions and give my view of what that body of work suggested about her potential on the Supreme Court. The issue at the time was whether President Obama was appointing an intellectual counterweight to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. I noted that her opinions were narrow and offered few insights into her potential as an intellectual force on the court. My comments were directed to her opinions, not her intellect. And I was not alone in this conclusion: Adam Liptak in The New York Times noted that her opinions were “narrow” and “reveal no larger vision, seldom appeal to history and consistently avoid quotable language.”
In the interview cited by the Baltimore professor, I gave my view of 30 of Sotomayor’s opinions, which did not contain anything particularly deep or profound in judging her possible impact on the court. However, I immediately stated that this is not unique and that other justices have had similarly short, unremarkable appellate opinions yet proved to be profound on the Supreme Court. I expressly compared Sotomayor to Justice John Paul Stevens, whom I have long praised; I also said that Sotomayor could prove to be a truly great justice but that her opinions did not offer any glimpse into how she might emerge in such a role.
In my analysis of Justice Sotomayor’s nomination, I returned to these points and specifically objected to those who said her narrow decisions were evidence of a lack of intellectual depth. I wrote, “This is demonstrably absurd. These opinions are little different from those of [Justices] Alito, Souter, or the limited writings of [Justice] Thomas. Clearly, Sotomayor is quite intelligent. This record is little different from records of Republican nominees who enthralled these same critics.” And I repeatedly stressed that she could prove to be a great nominee in finding voice and depth in her opinions on the court.
Some articles objected that, in an “unprompted” comment, I raised Sotomayor’s gender and race. I did so to praise the selection of the first Latina to the court, a nomination that I said was “rightfully” a point of pride. Moreover, the vast majority of news stories also referenced that historic aspect of her nomination. However, that was separate from the analysis of her opinions and the question of her intellectual legacy. What also was omitted is that, before Sotomayor’s nomination, I wrote a column on intellectual leaders on the courts and pushed for the nomination of Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, a liberal powerhouse.
None of that matters, however, because heresy demands condemnation — whether or not it is based in reality. After all, this is all meant to get people not to seriously consider the flaws in the impeachment, including the proposed articles that ultimately were dropped. So, for any academic tempted to testify for Republicans in an impeachment proceeding, I can only caution that Romans 12:19 may say that “vengeance is mine … sayeth the Lord” – but judgment will be more immediate for anyone who strays from the chosen professorial path.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law for George Washington University and served as the last lead counsel during a Senate impeachment trial. He testified as a witness expert in the House Judiciary Committee hearing during the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 21:45 - China Approves New GMO Crops From The US For Imports
China Approves New GMO Crops From The US For Imports
China’s agriculture ministry said Monday that it had approved two new genetically modified crops for import from the U.S., reported Reuters.
The announcement comes ahead of a potential Phase 1 trade deal signing between Beijing and Washington next month. The U.S. has long demanded that China imports more genetically modified crops.
According to Reuters, the new crops approved for import were Corteva AgriScience’s DAS-81419-2 soybean and 55-1 papaya, developed by the USDA and Hawaii University.
“This further expands channels for imports of U.S. agricultural products, and helps pave the way for buying more U.S. soybeans,” said Li Qiang, chief analyst with Shanghai J.C. Intelligence Co. Ltd.
Reuters also said China renewed import licenses for ten other genetically modified crops, including BASF developed T25 corn, A5547-127 soybean, T45 canola, Oxy-235 canola, and Ms8Rf3 canola.
Bayer-owned Monsanto Far East Ltd’s MON89788 soybean, 15985 cotton, and H7-1 beet were also reapproved for import, along with DuPont subsidiary Pioneer’s 305423 soybean and 305423×GTS40-3-2 soybean.
With the signing of the Phase 1 trade deal expected next month, China’s Customs Administration reported last week that inbound agriculture shipments from the U.S. more than doubled to 2.6 million tons, the highest since March 2018, and up from about 1.1 million tons in October.
While China is unlikely to order less soybean from either Brazil or Argentina any time soon as the two nations have emerged as the two key supply chain alternatives to the U.S., the continued push to reopen the U.S. market to Chinese importers comes as China food inflation is soaring.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 21:25 - Schlichter: Here's What's Going To Happen In 2020
Schlichter: Here’s What’s Going To Happen In 2020
Authored by Kurt Schlichter, op-ed via Townhall.com,
If you thought you can’t top the stupidity we experienced in 2019, brace yourself for 2020 because it’s going to be a pronoun-fueled weather cult pinko freakshow. But it won’t be all amusing antics – the left hates us and its ugly mask is coming off, revealing the even uglier fascist visage lurking beneath. If you listen to them, and if you aren’t an insufferable goo goo wimp who refuses to hear them, you will know that they intend to silence you, even imprison you, and deprive you of the ability to participate in your own governance. So, if you want to live as a free man or woman – if they have their way, they’ll destroy you for recognizing that unalterable binary – best be ready.
Be motivated to engage in the cultural melee.
Vote.
And buy guns and ammo. As my favorite literary creation famously says, no one has ever regretted being too well armed.
With that in mind, here are my predictions for 2020:
10. Trump Will Be Impeached…Yawn: Poor, flailing Nancy Pelosi will eventually transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate, thereby actually impeaching the President. Now, whether Pelosi’s current antics constitute “impeachment” or not is irrelevant, except denying it due to her gamesmanship is fun because it owns the libs. No one cares, and to the limited extent we normal people do, this alleged impeachment is a badge of honor for the President. Her fringe-driven delay tactics make the Dems look dumber, and eventually she will send it to the Senate where Cocaine Mitch will kill it. Sure, some of the useless GOP caucus will make noises about how this clusterfark must be taken seriously because principles and honor and stuff. Saps. They just better take seriously that we in the base will electorally eviscerate them if they vote to convict. Maybe Mitt the Gimp will vote for it because he’s weak and stupid. Maybe Senator Iglookowski (RINO-AK) will too. But in the end, Trump will triumph and yet again humiliate his opponents.
9. The Economy Will Stay Strong, Disappointing Democrats: The party of the workin’ man is already in mourning because the Trump economy has finally brought some prosperity back to the workin’ man instead of concentrating wealth among the globalist liberal gentry that Obama served. The media will cheerlead for a recession; the Democrats will try to ignore the new Roaring 20s, but America’s success will remain a nightmare for liberals during 2020.
8. Virginia Will Declare War on Its Citizens: The liberals recently elected as moderates in the Old Dominion will reveal their true colors as they attempt to crush dissent wherever voters were stupid enough to elect them. The Virginia left will not back down – it will attempt to criminalize vast numbers of citizens and bend them to its will using violence and legal terrorism if need be. This will provoke a counterreaction that will make it clear to moderates that electing liberals means voting for conflict, not just center-left business as usual like with old school Democrats. Look for it to get ugly. They think they can break our will, and they will learn they can’t. This will energize conservatives across the country.
7. Replacing Justice Ginsburg: She’s had a good run but the opponent conservatives tend to most respect for being tough is playing a losing game against statistics. It is not to wish ill upon her to say that time is not on her side; in 2020, it is very, very likely Donald Trump will be replacing her. Count on the Murder Turtle not to buy into an interpretation of the Garland Rule that ties his hands – it’s confirmation time. The Democrats will go even nuttier than usual, but too bad. Just get ready for future Justice Amy Coney Barrett to have to explain that, yes, she likes beer, and no, she didn’t run a rape gang in elementary school.
6. Trans Fascism Backlash: Normal people are getting tired of being told they have to lie and say there are 631 sexes, and they are tired of militant jerks wanting boys hanging out in their girls’ locker room, and they are getting sick of boys winning girls’ sports championships. J.K. Rowling, who is otherwise a leftist doofus, recently survived social media cancelation for telling the truth that sex is real. The rest of us will be roused to action – people were trying to be polite, but now it’s all too stupid and obnoxious to tolerate. There is a big difference between being kind and not adding to the pain of people with real issues, and with being forced by drag bullies and their allies to publicly affirm what everyone knows is false. Look for more and more people, prominent and not prominent, to be told that they must agree that men can get pregnant and that women can have penises, and to answer, “No.”
5. Pardon This: We will see the President pardon the victims of Deep State vendettas designed to overturn the election of 2016. General Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, and Paul Manafort will all be cleared, probably right after the election. Which is good, because we will need the cells for…
4. Durham’s Indictments: The investigation into the soft coup is going to turn up wrongdoing that the entrenched leftist bureaucracy can’t shove under the rug anymore. John Durham telegraphed his righteous retribution when he publicly rejected IG Horowitz’s pathetic shrug over the Deep State’s shenanigans. We’re going to see some folks finally held to account. Not all of them – not Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit, not that Looming Doofus Comey, but others. It’s an important first step in defeating the cancer on our government that is having these Democrat partisans in positions of power in the bureaucracy.
3. Foreign Policy Success: With the National Security Council under the properly low-key and sober guidance of Robert O’Brien (I know him – great guy and perfect for this job), America will continue to rebuild its strength, wind down open-ended military commitments, force allies to do their part, and avoid unnecessary conflicts. Iran will continue to destabilize, but we will not go to war – we will neuter the mullahs economically and let the Persian people deal with their oppressors. China has some strengths but many weaknesses – we will exploit those and build a trade relationship based on reciprocity instead of American submission. NATO countries will reluctantly fork over their dues, and our relationship with the UK will become even more special now that it is free of the EU’s yoke. Foreigners finally understand – America will use every element of its power to defend American interests, so behave. Also, we will get the Space Force going (long overdue) and move toward a 355-ship Navy (very long overdue). Finally, look for a promotion for America’s most effective diplomat (and future GOP presidential contender) Richard Grenell.
2. Democrats Will Lose the House: They took the House back promising to be pragmatic do-gooders who would work across party lines to do the people’s business blah blah blah blah blah. It was all garbage. The ones that weren’t actively defiling hotel room furniture via naked hair brushing grossness with underlings were obediently obeying Pelosi’s commands. “Impeach? Yes, ma’am, right away, ma’am.” And what were they doing that was useful to their voters? Nothing – America’s biggest problem is not that Democrats have too little control.
1. Trump Will Get Reelected: There are a number of reasons, many recited above. But the most important is that God looks out for the United States. Oh, and the Dems will nominate Biden, who will choose Sitting Bolshevik as his VP (He’s gotta choose a girl and Willie Brown’s Ex is out for dissing him and he can’t choose Amy Tantrum Gal Klobuchar because he needs to nail down the Dem’s commie wing). A fake Indian and a fake competent leader – great combo. Once nominated, Gropey J will continue to commit gaffes, only his slobbering media buddies won’t be able to keep hiding them. Plus, there’s the Lil’ Crackpipe factor. Hoover Biden, the nominee’s Snortunate Son, will have another crack issue, or another paternity suit, or maybe both – which the garbage media will tell us is none of our business and is not important. But it is. In the end, Trump will improve on his 2016 Electoral College numbers and win the popular vote too, at which point the liberals will turn against the entire concept of voting.
* * *
I also predict that my newest novel Collapse will continue to be an Amazon bestseller, and that there will be another action-packed, hilarious novel coming next year once I finish my traditional non-fiction book for Regnery that is also due out in 2020. Go ahead and use that gift card you got at Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa to get the other entries in the series, People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Remember, every time you read one of my books, the Never Trump weenies who called them “appalling” sob and rend their sissy bow ties.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 21:05 - Fox Crushes Cable News With Record High Viewership As CNN Implodes
Fox Crushes Cable News With Record High Viewership As CNN Implodes
Fox News dominated the basic cable news industry in 2019, according to a new report, which specifies the network has hit record high viewership.
Nielsen Media Research said Fox News averaged 2.5 million viewers during primetime in 2019, far outpacing any other news network. The network’s viewership hit a 23-year high this year, blowing out its competitors, CNN and MSNBC, by a long shot.
Fox News even beat out ESPN with its 1.78 million viewers during primetime. It seems the American people under a Trump administration are more concerned about politics and the economy than sports. MSNBC trailed ESPN for the third spot at 1.75 viewers during primetime. This is the fourth consecutive year Fox News has blown out its competitors.
Nielsen said CNN came in 22nd place, recorded just 972,000 viewers during primetime.
The gap in viewership between Fox News and CNN on a nightly basis is nearly 1.5 million viewers daily during primetime.
Fox News’ “Hannity” was the most popular news show with 3.3 million viewers during primetime. The second was “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with 3.1 million, and MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” was third with 2.78 million.
To sum up, CNN is suffering a credibility crisis as viewership is in a mass exodus, fleeing the fake news network to more conservative networks, such as Fox News. There appears to be no plan of action by CNN or liberal media to fix the hemorrhaging of viewership, indicating the trend will persist through 2020.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 20:45 - Did Pompeo Go Off Reservation In Iraq Attack?
Did Pompeo Go Off Reservation In Iraq Attack?
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,
I have to wonder who Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is actually loyal to. Because, the U.S. strike of Kata’ib Hizbullah forces near the Al Qaim border crossing with Syria in Iraq is a dangerous escalation there.
And it’s completely at odds with Trump’s goals of wanting us out of the Middle East. The Al Qaim border crossing is a particular red line for Israel and their allies in the U.S. State and Defense Departments.
It represents the normalization of commerce between Syria, Iraq and Iran over time. This is the so-called Shia Crescent which is the stuff of nightmares for Benjamin Netanyahu.
And the U.S. has been hopping mad for months since now caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi opened the border because it undermines U.S. presence in Syria.
The entire point of U.S. occupation of the Al-Tanf border crossing into Jordan and the oil fields in Deir Ezzor province is about starving the Syrian government of any reliable energy and revenue.
When Al Qaim/Al Bukamai was opened it was only a matter of time before a major skirmish would occur over it. Israel staged a series of air attacks previously using U.S. assets and air bases to launch them back in September.
Now, we have the convenient excuse for attacking these forces which are part of the Popular Mobiliztion Units, PMU, which Pompeo despises by ‘retaliating’ for a rocket attack on the K1 base near Kirkuk where one U.S. mercenary was killed and a handful of others injured.
The response from the U.S. Air Force was completely out of line with the initial attack and occurred without any attempt by Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to justify it.
They just invoked the phrase, “Iran-backed forces” and then bombed troops over 200 miles away where they wanted to strike anyway.
And what’s important is what both Elijah Magnier and Moon of Alabama pointed out immediately, the U.S. struck member of Shia militias who were made official part of the Iraqi defense forces.
In other words the U.S. just attacked and killed dozens of Iraqi military personnel.
32 killed and 45 wounded the count of #US violent aggression on #Iraq security forces brigades 45 and 46 last night on a military position established to counter-attack and raid #ISIS remnant at al-Qaem, the borders between Iraq and Syria.https://t.co/pmBZ3fJu9e
— Elijah J. Magnier (@ejmalrai) December 30, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
And the U.S. can get away with this because the Iraqi government is in a total state of flux, thanks to a President, Barham Salih, refusing to honor the constitution, obstructing the selection of a new Prime Minister.
His actions remind me of Italy’s Sergio Mattarella who inserts himself into the process of government formation there to suit his EU partners-in-crime.
In Iraq the U.S. has been officially silent on the government turmoil there but the circumstances are pretty clear that the chaos works as a cover for what was an egregious violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.
Remember, the U.S. forces there are at the invitation of the Iraqi government and with Salih keeping the Shia political forces from uniting to choose a Prime Minister, the likelihood of that invitation being rescinded now is remote.
Color me not shocked that this attack on PMU forces occurred. Pompeo has been itching for an excuse to attack them for months. He tried his version of diplomacy with Prime Minister Mahdi to rescind their official status and was unsuccessful.
Mahdi was livid after Israel’s air attack and made noises about rescinding the U.S. invitation. No shock then that protests against his government spun up quickly after that.
So at some point this attack was going to happen. Netanyahu in serious political trouble facing a third election in a year, unable to form a government.
Pompeo coming to his rescue to keep the dream of warring with Iran should be obvious to all.
The question is whether President Trump is engaged with this policy at all or did Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper go off on their own, pull this trigger and then inform Trump and get him to accept this post hoc?
Everywhere Pompeo goes one week winds up in flames the next anymore. When he visits a trouble spot which Israel and the neoconservatives he represents want destabilized, a miracle occurs the next week.
Before this it was Lebanon and Iraq. This week it’s Ukraine. There is the threat of peace breaking out there with Russia and Ukraine agreeing to terms on both a gas and oil transit contract into Europe which Pompeo is dead set against.
Will we see some attack on Ukrainian forces which break the peace and can be blamed on Russia?
Trump has to know that escalation from here ends with U.S. forces coming home in body bags as PMU forces themselves, go off the reservation during this power vacuum in Baghdad and attack U.S. troops directly.
But I think this is exactly what Bibi and Pompeo want. This attack was a clear provocation to escalate and give Israel and the neocons all the ammunition they need to force Trump into the wider conflict with Iran they’ve been angry about not getting for six months now.
They failed with the Global Hawk incident back in June. That operation got John Bolton fired as National Security Director. Now we have a clearly disproportionate strike designed to inflame passions of Iran-backed Shia forces.
The entirety of Iraq’s leadership seems to be of the same mind, and even rejected the US plan to strike when they were tipped off immediately before it happened, per NBC:
In a statement, [former PM] Abdul-Mahdi said Secretary of Defense Mark Esper had called him about a half-hour before the U.S. strikes Sunday to tell him of U.S. intentions to hit the bases of the militia suspected of being behind Friday’s rocket attack. Abdul-Mahdi said he asked Esper to call off the U.S. plan.
One byproduct of the major US strikes on Sunday is sure to be that more and more of the Iraqi population will view the Americans, and not the Iranians, as the foreign occupiers.
This dramatic escalation by Washington is only likely to push more popular support toward the Shia PMF, and strengthen the movement in parliament to have US forces legally expelled, especially with the demise of the ISIS threat.
Any strike by the PMU here on U.S. forces will be music to Pompeo’s and Netanyhahu’s ears. And it will put Trump in a real bind with his base during an election year and an impeachment process Speaker Nancy Pelosi is purposefully dragging out to build a stronger case.
What stronger case could there be at this point if Trump were to not declare war or fire back on our troops getting attacked in Iraq or Syria? He’s derelict as Commander-in-Chief. It’s part of their stupid Ukraine narrative that Trump withheld aid weakens our national security.
I speculated in the past that Trump was getting ready to fire Pompeo.
As Secretary of State Pompeo has been nothing short of a disaster, undermining President Trump’s strong instincts to get the U.S. out of the Middle East and solve the myriad of open geopolitical wounds around the world.
Unlike his former-partner-in-neoconservatism, John Bolton, Pompeo is more adept at playing at being loyal to Trump while always seeming to move U.S. diplomacy in a more belligerent direction in the wake of any of Trump’s ‘impulses’ to act on his conscience and/or instincts.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking Iran (Pompeo’s demands of Iran are off-the-charts insane), Lebanon (outright blackmail of the Lebanese government) or North Korea (making demands in negotiations which overstep Trump’s promises to Kim Jong-un) Pompeo is always there doing his thinly-veiled Israeli loyalty dance with the subtlety of a freight-train but somehow always framing it as making it Trump’s policy.
This move by Pompeo looks like a classic pre-emptive move to bind Trump down force him into a war which will be unpopular back home. The only one who wins with this attack is Israel.
U.S. troops are now less safe, effective forces fighting ISIS have been neutered and the Iraqi government is in shambles. Good job Mike.
Mike wants his golden parachute back to the Senate where he can continue doing god’s work for the Israelis, one more voice in a U.S. Senate seemingly without a limit on its thirst for power and the blood of the world.
This won’t end well and Trump better get his Flying Monkeys under control quick or he won’t be President much longer. Because when the body bags start, he’ll be the one who gets blamed.
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Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 20:25 - China Non-Manufacturing PMI Slides Back Near Multi-Year Lows
China Non-Manufacturing PMI Slides Back Near Multi-Year Lows
Following a big, surprise jump in November, China’s official PMIs were expected to fall back a little in December (but remain – handily – above 50 and the ‘expansion/contraction’ divide), helped by an improvement in industrial production and hopes after the ‘phase one’ trade deal was (allegedly) completed.
A mixed bag though with manufacturing PMI flat at 50.2 (better than the expected 50.1) and non-manufacturing PMI lower at 53.5 (from 54.4) and below expectations of 54.2.
Source: Bloomberg
New manufacturing orders picked up (the last time the reading was above 50 was May 2018), but the improvement in manufacturing was concentrated in large- and medium-sized enterprises with small enterprises plunging deeper into contraction (at 47.2).
New non-manufacturing orders slowed as prices (selling and buying fell), pushing employment further into contraction (48.3).
The slide in Services dragged the composite PMI for China overall lower (but still well above the rest of the major world economies)…
Source: Bloomberg
We wonder how long this re-excitement of hope about Chinese economic growth will last given the massive amount of stimulus has produced a very meager credit impulse…
Source: Bloomberg
“The potential de-escalation of China-U.S. trade tension, improved global manufacturing demand, inventory restocking driven by lessening demand headwinds, and accelerated infrastructure investment growth in China may continue to support a moderate cyclical recovery,” China International Capital Corp. economist Eva Yiwrote in a note.
“Gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter may pick up on a sequential basis compared with the third quarter.”
The government is also reportedly rolling out a range of policies to support the economy in 2020.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 20:11 - Trump The Terrible: The Left's Boogeyman
Trump The Terrible: The Left’s Boogeyman
Authored by James Fite via LibertyNation.com,
The Trump Derangement Syndrome fevers ran high last week, as the media chattered on about their new favorite boogeyman. He’s a madman. He’s a gangster. He’s the most dangerous man on the planet. He’s Trump the Terrible – and we must get rid of him at any cost lest he win another term in the White House.
Donald The Delusional
Donald Trump is clearly insane – as in, 25th Amendment, let’s get him out of office insane. Or that’s the professional opinion of the completely ethical and uninterested in politics Dr. Bandy X. Lee. Back in January of 2018, Dr. Lee generously examined President Trump – without actually meeting with him – and declared him dangerously nuts. There is one problem with her diagnosis, however. As Liberty Nation’s Mark Angelides explained at the time:
“The American Psychiatric Association (APA) actually bans psychiatrists from making a diagnosis without a direct examination. Not only is this rule in place because the APA believes without a face to face examination, all information is worthless, but they also see it as highly unethical.”
And as for not being politically motivated, at the time of her so-called diagnosis, Dr. Lee was promoting a book titled – of all things – The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.
Thankfully, her plan to have the president declared unfit and removed from office based on her clearly biased opinion failed and she faded out of the public eye. But just as the Herpes virus lurks beneath the surface only to pop up from time to time with surprise outbreaks, Dr. Lee has not and will not leave us be. She erupted back into the spotlight in June of 2019, leading a group of other anti-Trump mental health professionals at Capitol Hill as they tried to spread awareness of the Delusional Don.
Dr. Bandy Lee
It seems as true now as it was back in June when LN wrote, “if you thought you had heard the last of Dr. Bandy X. Lee, you’re as crazy as anyone who thinks her plan could actually work. That’s right, she’s back.” And back she is. This time, the good doctor is calling on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to demand Trump receive an evaluation.
Leave it to Salon to dig up the doctor for her opinion on Trump’s mental health. Their title says it all: “Pelosi ‘has the right’ to submit Trump to an ‘involuntary evaluation’: Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee.” Never mind impeachment – Speaker Pelosi, it seems, is falling behind in her duty to protect the nation from this dangerous madman.
“As a coworker, she has the right to have him submit to an involuntary evaluation, but she has not,” Lee told Salon. “Anyone can call 911 to report someone who seems dangerous, and family members are the most typical ones to do so. But so can coworkers, and even passersby on the street. The law dictates who can determine right to treatment, or civil commitment, and in all 50 U.S. states this includes a psychiatrist.”
Dr. Lee goes on to say that a mental health hold seems inevitable, but her opinion here is once again suspect. “I am beginning to believe that a mental health hold, which we have tried to avoid, will become inevitable,” Lee said. Avoid? She has actively campaigned to have him declared unfit to lead and removed from office! It makes you wonder which of the two, Donald Trump or Bandy Lee, has a mental health issue. She’s bound to fail and fade away as she always does, but when will she pop back up and what will her scheme be then? All we can really say with any certainty is that she will be back, eventually.
Trump The Thug
“Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule, even after he has been caught.” So reads the conclusion of a Saturday article in The Atlantic, titled “A Gangster in the White House.” So what has Teflon Don – admittedly, a rather gangster sounding nickname – done this time? He retweeted a follower’s post revealing the name of the person believed to be the whistleblower behind the Ukraine call reveal.
Tweeter in Chief Donald Trump
That’s right – the president shared a tweet revealing a name that has been circulating in the media for weeks. By late October, a bevy of articles offering “everything you need to know about Eric Ciaramella the whistleblower” had flooded the media. But Trump’s a gangster because he retweeted a story using the name.
“Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his reelection,” the author wrote before declaring the act “more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past lawbreaking.”
But there are a few problems with this argument even if we pretend Trump’s call was criminal. First, there is some debate as to who is forbidden from outing a whistleblower. Even if Trump isn’t allowed to reveal the name, his retweeting of a news story two months after the man was first exposed by the media as the most likely candidate is hardly leaking top-secret information.
And then there’s the question of the whistleblower’s protected status. Of course, the government that has had the whistle blown on it never wants to admit it – just ask Edward Snowden, who would still face prosecution for leaking should he return to the U.S.
This so-called whistleblower, on the other hand, certainly seems to have some powerful friends protecting him. Did he discover some wrongdoing and blow the whistle, or was he sent to Adam Schiff by a deep state that wants Trump gone? He wouldn’t have a chance if it weren’t for a last-minute rule change removing the requirement that a whistleblower’s complaint be based on first-hand knowledge. LN’s Tim Donner hit the nail on the head when he said, “Common sense can lead you to only one conclusion when rules that would have disallowed the explosive complaint were changed just in time to allow it.”
Democrats In Denial
Despite trying to brand President Trump as a mafia-style criminal, a madman, and the most dangerous world leader today, the left has failed to erode his support. But still, they hurl their attacks. Surely, if they just keep fighting on, they can do enough damage to cost him the 2020 election. The left, of course, is simply in denial. Filmmaker and rabid anti-Trumper Michael Moore declared that if the next presidential election were held right now, Trump would win re-election – and he was probably right. But even he suffers from the delusion that Trump is nigh-universally hated. He explained that 70% of the 2020 electorate will be women and racial minorities, all of whom are on the side of the Democrats. Never mind the large number of conservative women who voted for Trump in 2016, and never mind the many blacks and Hispanics who have walked away from the Democratic Party since the last election, who now enjoy the lowest unemployment rates in the nation’s history. To the Democrats in denial, they don’t exist.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 19:45 - Tesla Plunges After Cowen Note Predicts Missed 2019 Delivery Targets
Tesla Plunges After Cowen Note Predicts Missed 2019 Delivery Targets
Tesla stock fell as much as 5% in trading on Monday, suffering its biggest drop in nearly a month after Cowen released a note suggesting that the company could miss its delivery target for the year.
The note suggested that Tesla could deliver 356,000 vehicles for the year, which is slightly below the company’s target of 360,000 to 400,000, according to Bloomberg.
Cowen’s note said: “Excluding the Netherlands and China, we expect Model 3 deliveries to be down compared to the prior quarter and year-ago period.”
Analyst Jeffrey Osborne’s estimate “highlights the demand saturation we are seeing across most mature markets as we shift from pent-up demand to steady flow demand.”
Cowen also raised its fourth quarter delivery estimate to 101,000 from 95,000 to reflect better expectations for the Netherlands and China. Osborne sees the company missing expectations for Model S/X and posting in-line numbers for Model 3.
At the same time, Wedbush’s Dan Ives released a note that predicted “Tesla will find success in China with Giga 3 and potentially hit the key 100,000 delivery number quicker than the U.S./Europe trajectory and be a demand tailwind.”
But the market seemed to agree with Cowen on Monday at least, as Tesla stock was clipped 3.7% on the day, closing at $414.60.
Starting to catch down to bonds’ reality?
Osborne believes there are many issues facing the company, including “pricing and mix issues that we believe will affect margins and profitability in the fourth quarter”. He’s also skeptical about long-term demand in China, where we have noted an electric vehicle supply glut is likely in the midst of taking place.
Cowen notes that the best selling EV in China this year “has sold less than 2,000 vehicles per week and the top 5 models (all local brands) combined for less than 6,000 vehicles per week.” These models cost about 25% to 75% less than what the China made Model 3 will cost.
“While Tesla has built a very dedicated fan base that has been willing to excuse poor build quality, customer service, and service infrastructure, we continue to be skeptical around broader adoption,” Osborne concluded, slapping a price target of $210 on the stock.
Will Osborne be the trend setter for analysts now that Tesla stock has hit the stratosphere, or will the company continue to elude reality? As the year wraps up, it won’t be long before we know whether or not their prognostication holds water. Tick tock, Elon.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 19:25 - Caution: Government May Be Hazardous To Your Liberty
Caution: Government May Be Hazardous To Your Liberty
Authored by Laurence Vance via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required a health warning to be placed on packs of cigarettes sold in the United States. The original warning, which appeared on cigarette packs from January 1, 1966, through October 31, 1970, was
Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health
There are more dangerous things that Americans should be on the lookout for.
Just before Christmas, Donald Trump signed two bills into law to fund all the departments and agencies of the federal government and avert a government shutdown. According to the White House, the bills are:
H.R. 1158, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” which provides full-year funding through September 30, 2020, for projects and activities of certain agencies of the Federal Government; and
H.R. 1865, the “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” which provides full-year funding through September 30, 2020, for projects and activities of the remaining agencies of the Federal Government.
The bills do some other things as well.
They expand paid family leave. Said President Trump, “I am proud to report after that, after decades of empty promises and inaction, the legislation I have signed into law provides 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal employees. This ensures parents are not forced to choose between their jobs and spending precious time with their children.”
They give U.S. military personnel and most federal workers a 3.1 percent pay raise. Said President Trump, to federal workers, “This pay raise reflects the excellent work of our federal workforce.” And to service members, “Your selfless service, noble sacrifice, and unfailing allegiance to duty and country is what keeps America safe, strong, proud, and free.”
They repeal three taxes in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare): the so-called “Cadillac tax” on generous employer health plans, taxes on health insurance companies, and taxes on medical-device makers.
They reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
And they raise the federal age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21 years old. Specifically, in the “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” under Division N, “Health and Human Services Extenders,” in Title I, “Health and Human Service Extenders,” Subtitle F, “Miscellaneous Provisions,” Sec. 603, “Minimum age of sale of tobacco products,” it states,
(a) In General. — Section 906(d) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 387f(d)) is amended —
(1) in paragraph (3)(A)(ii), by striking “18 years’” and inserting “21 years”; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
“(5) Minimum age of sale. — It shall be unlawful for any retailer to sell a tobacco product to any person younger than 21 years of age.”
This is something that has been in the works all year.
Back in May, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced a bill, the “Tobacco-Free Youth Act” (S.1541), to raise the federal minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21. “We’re in the middle of a national health epidemic,” said McConnell in a speech on the Senate floor. Kaine said in a statement, “Today, we are coming together to side with young people’s health. With this bipartisan legislation, Senator McConnell and I are working to address one of the most significant public-health issues facing our nation today.” American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said she supports the bill, saying in a statement, “We commend Majority Leader McConnell and Senator Kaine for prioritizing the health of teens and young adults with a bill to raise the national sales age for tobacco products to 21. We urge strong bipartisan support for this bill as written, and we call on lawmakers to reject any effort to add language that would weaken its impact or benefit tobacco companies.”
At the same time, but in the House, Rep. Donna E. Shalala (D-Fla.), sometime secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under Bill Clinton, and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), current Energy and Commerce Chairman, introduced a similar bill, the Reversing the Youth Tobacco Epidemic Act of 2019 (H.R.2339). “We’re trying to protect children,” said Shalala in an interview with CQ Magazine.
With the passage of the “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” those bills are now irrelevant.
Anyone with half a brain in the United States knows that smoking cigarettes is dangerous, destructive, and deadly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
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Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
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Smoking causes more deaths each year than the following causes combined: HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, firearm-related incidents.
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More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died prematurely from cigarette smoking as have died in all the wars fought by the United States.
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Cigarette smoking increases the risk for death from all causes in men and women.
But none of that means that the federal government should raise the federal age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21.
Consider the following:
First of all, the Constitution. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal government to set a minimum age for anyone to purchase tobacco products. And not only that, neither does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have anything to do with smoking tobacco or anything else. Tobacco was a plentiful commodity at the time the Constitution was written. If the Framers wanted to mention tobacco in the Constitution, they certainly could have done so.
Second, unnecessary legislation. Sixteen states, the District of Columbia, and more than 500 localities have already raised their minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21. These states are: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia. The minimum age increases to 21 next year in Pennsylvania and Washington, and in Utah in 2021. Some other states have a legal age between 18 and 21. The new federal tobacco legislation is an assault on federalism and the Tenth Amendment.
Third, the proper role of government. Is it the proper role of government to keep the peace and punish those who violate the personal or property rights of others, or is it the proper role of government to be a nanny state that micromanages the behavior of its citizens? The federal government not only shouldn’t have a minimum age of 21 to purchase tobacco products, it shouldn’t even have a minimum age of 18.
Fourth, consistency. There are many dangerous activities that Americans engage in every day. And sometimes they lead to serious injury or death. Here are ten of them:
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Skydiving
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Bungee jumping
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Operating a chainsaw
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Climbing a ladder
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Riding a motorcycle
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Working as a roofer, fisherman, logger, or miner
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Taking prescription drugs
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Driving a car
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Taking a bath
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Crossing the street
If the government is going to have a minimum age for tobacco purchases to “protect children,” then why not a minimum age to engage in those other dangerous activities to protect even more children? And why not a maximum age to protect the elderly?
Fifth, second-class citizens. At the age of 18, Americans have the legal right to marry, enter into contracts, adopt children, vote in elections, and join the military and possibly die for their country. Yet, with this new tobacco legislation, the federal government is instituting a second class of citizens who can do all of those things but not buy a pack of cigarettes.
And sixth, the nature of government. Government has always been the greatest violator of personal freedom and property rights. As former Foundation for Economic Education president Richard Ebeling put it, “There has been no greater threat to life, liberty, and property throughout the ages than government. Even the most violent and brutal private individuals have been able to inflict only a mere fraction of the harm and destruction that have been caused by the use of power by political authorities.”
Regardless of how dangerous, destructive, or deadly the use of tobacco might be, the government hazard to the individual liberty and personal freedom of Americans is infinitely more dangerous, destructive, and deadly.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 19:05 -
- Greta Thunberg: "I Wouldn't Have Wasted My Time" Meeting With Trump
Greta Thunberg: “I Wouldn’t Have Wasted My Time” Meeting With Trump
During a Monday interview with BBC radio’s “Today” program, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said that she wouldn’t have met with President Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, even if she had the opportunity.
She wouldn’t meet with him, Thunberg said, because she doubts that he would take her seriously: if Trump won’t acknowledge the work of the world’s leading climate scientists, then what hope would Thunberg have?
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything [to Donald Trump] because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?” Thunberg said. “So I probably wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t have wasted my time”.
Back in September, a video of Thunberg giving Trump the “death stare” – as left-leaning outlets like the Guardian, Buzzfeed and Huffington Post described it – during her visit to the UN General Assembly went viral, earning the 16-year-old climate activist more plaudits from her peers and supporters.
Donald Trump earned the enmity of climate activists when he decided to pull the US out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord back in 2017. So far, Trump has directed his administration to relax or rescind dozens of Obama-era environmental rules. And if he wins another term (an outcome that is looking more likely by the day), it’s almost guaranteed that he will continue to gut the EPA while relaxing restrictions on the American energy industry – coal in particular.
Since Thunberg’s rise to fame earlier this year, Trump has repeatedly criticized the teenager, once joking that she should “work on her anger management problem.”
And he’s not the only world leader to criticize young Greta. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro once called her “a brat” and complained that she receives too much attention from the media.
Australian Prime Minister Morrison told Thunberg that he was “not here to impress people overseas” after she accused his administration of not doing enough to protect the environment.
During Monday’s interview, Thunberg accused Bolsonaro, Morrison and her other critics of being “terrified of young people” and their insistence that their countries do more to protect the environment.
“Those attacks are just funny because they obviously don’t mean anything,” Thunberg said during the interview. “I guess of course it means something – they are terrified of young people bringing change which they don’t want – but that is just proof that we are actually doing something and that they see us as some kind of threat”.
Her father, who also chimed in during the interview, praised his daughter for handling the criticism “incredibly well” consider his daughter’s autism.
Thunberg rejoined the activists camping outside Sweden’s Parliament in December after four months of traveling overseas, starting with her trip to New York for the UN General Assembly back in September.
“I hope I won’t have to sit outside the Swedish parliament for long. I hope I don’t have to be a climate activist any more,” she said on Monday, adding she was looking forward to returning to school in August.
“I just want to be just as everyone else. I want to educate myself and be just like a normal teenager.”
Unfortunately for Thunberg, the young activist will likely find that there’s no going back. But fortunately, she has a good sense of humor, as Reuters pointed out.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know how she does it, but she laughs most of the time. She finds it hilarious,” said Thunberg’s father, Svante Thunberg, who also participated in the interview.
Don’t take criticism from strangers on the Internet so seriously: now that’s a lesson that could benefit thousands, if not millions, of Americans.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 18:45 - Snyder: No House Of Worship In America Is Safe
Snyder: No House Of Worship In America Is Safe
Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
The events of the past couple of days should be a major wake up call for all of us. The number of mass shootings in the United States hit a record high in 2019 as the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis continues to disappear. And these mass shooters seem particularly attracted to soft targets such as schools and churches. When I was growing up, I never even imagined that a gunman might storm into my school or church and start shooting. And as far as I knew, neither my school nor my church had any sort of armed security. But now if you are attending a church or sending your kids to a school that does not have armed security, you are literally gambling with the lives of your family members. The world that we live in has dramatically changed, and if we choose to ignore the harsh realities that now confront us, we do so at our own peril.
On Sunday, a gunman opened fire at a Church of Christ in Texas about eight miles away from Fort Worth, and it immediately made headlines all over the nation…
A gunman killed two people during a Sunday morning service at a church in White Settlement before members of the congregation fatally shot him, authorities say.
Police in White Settlement, about eight miles west of Fort Worth, were called before 11 a.m. to the West Freeway Church of Christ at 1900 South Las Vegas Trail after two members who are part of the church’s security team opened fire on the gunman.
What do you think would have happened if nobody in that church had been armed?
The gunman could have just run around the congregation shooting people at his leisure.
I have seen video of the shooting and it is harrowing. We don’t know what the dark-hooded man wanted, but once he made his move it didn’t take long for him to start shooting…
In the video, the gunman, who is wearing what seems to be a dark-colored hood, gets up from a pew in the back of the room and walks up to a man in a suit who is standing in the corner.
As the two speak and the man points to his right, the gunman reaches into his jacket and pulls out a shotgun.
Of course this kind of thing seems to be happening every few days now, and as a result many of us have become desensitized to this sort of violence.
I just did a Google search for church gunman and I got 23,800,000 results. The unthinkable has suddenly become a reality that every church in America must deal with.
If you are holding services that are open to the public, you must have armed security. There is simply no other safe alternative.
And this rise in violence here in the U.S. is happening in the context of rising persecution all over the globe.
On Christmas Day, 11 Christians were brutally martyred by Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, but it barely made a blip in the U.S. news cycle…
Bloodthirsty ISIS terrorists have reportedly beheaded 11 Christian hostages on Christmas Day in Nigeria. The militants said in a sickening video that the mass killing was in revenge for the deaths “of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”. Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which includes supporters from Boko Haram, released a shocking 56-second video. Claiming to show their captives’ execution, the clip was produced by ISIS’s media arm, Amaq, reports the BBC.
Sadly, what we have seen so far is just the beginning. Thousands of Christians were martyred for their faith in 2019, and the persecution just continues to intensify with each passing year.
Meanwhile, anti-Semitic violence just continues to escalate as well. On Saturday night, a horrific anti-Semitic attack in New York shocked the entire nation…
Authorities say an Orange County man stabbed five people at a rabbi’s home late Saturday night in Monsey, New York — the latest and most violent in a string of anti-Semitic attacks in the greater New York City area in the last few days.
Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said the suspected attacker, identified as Grafton Thomas, 37, of Greenwood Lake, entered the residence around 10 p.m. armed with a knife. Saturday was the seventh night of Hanukkah and was being widely observed in Monsey, a hamlet that is home to thousands of Orthodox Jews. There were as many as 70 people in the rabbi’s home at the time of the attack.
These precious people were not even meeting in a synagogue.
This gathering was being held in a private home, and you would think that would be safer.
Unfortunately, that was not the case, and the attacker moved from one target to another with brutal efficiency…
“He took out his knife, sword from a holder and started hitting people back and forth. Nothing, he didn’t say anything. He screamed after me when I came out here, he screamed after me, ‘Hey you, I’ll get you,’” one witness told CBS2’s Marc Liverman. “He moved to the front door. He could go straight into the kitchen and the dining room’s the first thing. First, he went into the dining room and hit a few people there. Then he went into the kitchen and hit one guy there, and then he came back to the dining room.”
We live at a time when anti-Semitic violence is on the rise all over the nation. Leading up to the attack on Saturday night, there were anti-Semitic incidents in New York state on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Many in the Jewish community in New York are living in fear at this point, and according to the Washington Post the number of anti-Semitic crimes in New York City alone has “jumped 21 percent in the past year”…
Anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise around the country, leaving members of the Jewish community feeling frightened and unsafe. In New York City, anti-Semitic crimes have jumped 21 percent in the past year. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were 1,879 incidents of anti-Semitism in the United States in 2018, including more than 1,000 instances of harassment.
But of course this epidemic of anti-Semitism is not just isolated to New York. Hatred for Israel and hatred for the Jewish people is rising all over the nation, and it is being fueled by extremely evil people that are absolutely seething with hatred.
Have nothing to do with such people.
As global events accelerate and our society becomes even more unstable, attacks on Christians and Jews will become even more common.
We can certainly wish that the world would go back to the way it once was, but meanwhile we have to take the steps that are necessary to protect our families and our communities.
From now on every house of worship in America should have armed security, and if your house of worship does not, I would find somewhere else to go.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/30/2019 – 18:25
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