- "My First Day As CIA Director"
Former CIA analyst and founder of ‘Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity’ Ray McGovern, in this tongue-in-cheek article, outlines steps he would take on Day One as CIA Director to get to the bottom of Russiagate.
Now that I have been nominated again – this time by author Paul Craig Roberts – to be CIA director, I am preparing to hit the ground running.
Ray McGovern
Last time my name was offered in nomination for the position – by The Nation publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel – I did not hold my breath waiting for a call from the White House. Her nomination came in the afterglow of my fortuitous, four-minute debate with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when I confronted him on his lies about the attack on Iraq, on May 4, 2006 on national TV. Since it was abundantly clear that Rumsfeld and I would not get along, I felt confident I had royally disqualified myself.
This time around, on the off-chance I do get the nod, I have taken the time to prepare the agenda for my first few days as CIA director.
Here’s how Day One looks so far:
Get former National Security Agency Technical Director William Binney back to CIA to join me and the “handpicked” CIA analysts who, with other “handpicked” analysts (as described by former National Intelligence Director James Clapper on May 8, 2017) from the FBI and NSA, prepared the so-called Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of Jan. 6, 2017. That evidence-impoverished assessment argued the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his minions “to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.”
When my predecessor, CIA Director Mike Pompeo invited Binney to his office on Oct. 24, 2017 to discuss cyber-attacks, he told Pompeo that he had been fed a pack of lies on “Russian hacking” and that he could prove it. Why Pompeo left that hanging is puzzling, but I believe this is the kind of low-hanging fruit we should pick pronto.
The low-calorie Jan. 6 ICA was clumsily cobbled together:
“We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence … used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.”
Binney and other highly experienced NSA alumni, as well as other members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), drawing on their intimate familiarity with how the technical systems and hacking work, have been saying for a year and a half that this CIA/FBI/NSA conclusion is a red herring, so to speak. Last summer, the results of forensic investigation enabled VIPS to apply the principles of physics and the known capacity of the internet to confirm that conclusion.
Oddly, the FBI chose not to do forensics on the so-called “Russian hack” of the Democratic National Committee computers and, by all appearances, neither did the drafters of the ICA.
Again, Binney says that the main conclusions he and his VIPS colleagues reached are based largely on principles of physics – simple ones like fluid dynamics. I want to hear what that’s all about, how that applies to the “Russian hack,” and hear what my own CIA analysts have to say about that.
I will have Binney’s clearances updated to remove any unnecessary barriers to a no-holds-barred discussion at a highly classified level. After which I shall have a transcript prepared, sanitized to protect sources and methods, and promptly released to the media.
Like Sisyphus Up the Media Mountain
At that point things are bound to get very interesting. Far too few people realize that they get a very warped view on such issues from the New York Times. And, no doubt, it would take some time, for the Times and other outlets to get used to some candor from the CIA, instead of the far more common tendentious leaks. In any event, we will try to speak truth to the media – as well as to power.
I happen to share the view of the handful of my predecessor directors who believed we have an important secondary obligation to do what we possibly can to inform/educate the public as well as the rest of the government – especially on such volatile and contentious issues like “Russian hacking.”
What troubles me greatly is that the NYT and other mainstream print and TV media seem to be bloated with the thin gruel-cum-Kool-Aid they have been slurping at our CIA trough for a year and a half; and then treating the meager fare consumed as some sort of holy sacrament. That goes in spades for media handling of the celebrated ICA of Jan. 6, 2017 cobbled together by those “handpicked” analysts from CIA, FBI, and NSA. It is, in all candor, an embarrassment to the profession of intelligence analysis and yet, for political reasons, it has attained the status of Holy Writ.
The Paper of (Dubious) Record
I recall the banner headline spanning the top of the entire front page of the NYT on Jan. 7, 2017: “Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says;” and the electronic version headed “Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds.” I said to myself sarcastically, “Well there you go! That’s exactly what Mrs. Clinton – not to mention the NY Times, the Washington Post and The Establishment – have been saying for many months.”
Buried in that same edition of the Times was a short paragraph by Scott Shane: “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission.”
Omission? No hard evidence? No problem. The publication of the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment got the ball rolling. And Democrats like Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, were kicking the ball hard down the streets of Washington. On Jan. 25, 2017, I had a chance to confront Schiff personally about the lack of evidence — something that even Obama had acknowledged just before slipping out the door. I think our two-minute conversation speaks volumes.
Now I absolutely look forward to dealing with Adam Schiff from my new position as CIA director. I will ask him to show me the evidence of “Russian hacking” that he said he could not show me on Jan. 25, 2017 – on the chance his evidence includes more than reports from the New York Times.
Sources
Intelligence analysts put great weight, of course, on sources. The authors of the lede, banner-headlined NYT article of Jan. 7, 2017 were Michael D. Shear and David E. Sanger; Sanger has had a particularly checkered career, while always landing on his feet. Despite his record of parroting CIA handouts (or perhaps partly because of it), Sanger is now the NYT’s chief Washington correspondent.
Those whose memories go back more than 15 years may recall his promoting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as flat fact. In a July 29, 2002 article co-written with Them Shanker, for example, Iraq’s (non-existent) “weapons of mass destruction” appear no fewer than seven times as flat fact.
More instructive still, in May 2005, when first-hand documentary evidence from the now-famous “Downing Street Memorandum” showed that President George W. Bush had decided by early summer 2002 to attack Iraq, the NYT ignored it for six weeks until David Sanger rose to the occasion with a tortured report claiming just the opposite. The title given his article of June 13 2005 was “Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn’t Made.”
Against this peculiar reporting record, I was not inclined to take at face value the Jan. 7, 2017 report he co-authored with Michael D. Shear – “Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds.”
Nor am I inclined to take seriously former National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s stated views on the proclivity of Russians to be, well, just really bad people — like it’s in their genes. I plan to avail myself of the opportunity to discover whether intelligence analysts who labored under his “aegis” were infected by his quaint view of the Russians.
I shall ask any of the “handpicked” analysts who specialize in analysis of Russia (and, hopefully, there are at least a few): Do you share Clapper’s view, as he explained it to NBC’s Meet the Press on May 30, 2017, that Russians are “typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever”? I truly do not know what to expect by way of reply.
End of Day One
In sum, my priority for Day One is to hear both sides of the story regarding “Russian hacking” with all cards on the table. All cards. That means no questions are out of order, including what, if any, role the “Steele dossier” may have played in the preparation of the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment.
I may decide to seek some independent, disinterested technical input, as well. But it should not take me very long to figure out which of the two interpretations of alleged “Russian hacking” is more straight-up fact-based and unbiased.
That done, in the following days I shall brief both the Chair, Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and ranking member Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee, as well as the Chair and ranking member of its counterpart in the Senate. I will then personally brief the NYT’s David Sanger and follow closely what he and his masters decide to do with the facts I present.
On the chance that the Times and other media might decide to play it straight, and that the “straight” diverges from the prevailing, Clapperesque narrative of Russian perfidy, the various mainstream outlets will face a formidable problem of their own making.
Mark Twain put it this way: “It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled.”
And that will probably be enough for Day One.
- These 35 Minerals Are Absolutely Critical To U.S. Security
What do cobalt, uranium, helium, titanium, and fluorspar have in common?
As Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins points out, according to the U.S. government, these are all minerals that are deemed critical to both the economic and national security of the country.
The draft list of 35 critical minerals was released on February 16, 2018 as the result of President Trump’s Executive Order 13817, which asked the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Secretary of Defense to publish a list of mineral commodities that are vital to U.S. interests.
Under the Executive Order, a critical mineral is defined as:
A non-fuel mineral or mineral material essential to the economic and national security of the United States, the supply chain of which is vulnerable to disruption…
The list includes minerals that are important for defense, economic, and industrial purposes – and it keys in especially on minerals that are not produced in substantial quantities domestically.
Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist
WHY THESE CRITICAL MINERALS?
We sorted the list based on some of the key uses of these minerals.
Of course, some of these minerals could belong in multiple categories: for example, vanadium is used as a steel and titanium alloy strengthener, but also in rechargeable vanadium flow batteries.
That said, the important commonality to note for all of these minerals is their crucial link to the U.S. economy and national security.
PREPARING FOR THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO
Imagine the hypothetical impact of a lack of uranium for nuclear plants, a hampered ability to create high-strength steel and superalloys for the U.S. military, or if U.S. auto manufacturers had limited access to aluminum, steel, PGMs, and battery metals.
The challenge, as U.S. federal authorities realize, is that many of these raw materials are produced in limited amounts domestically. In fact, according to the USGS, the country sources at least 31 of the aforementioned materials chiefly through imports.
While it is unlikely that these supply chains would ever be disrupted, it’s never a bad idea to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
- The Xi Silk Road Is Here To Stay
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,
Xi’s extended tenure could embody the guarantee China needs to continue its anti-corruption purge and guide the ongoing economic reorientation....
It took only two sentences for Xinhua to make the historical announcement; the Central Committee of the CCCP “proposed to remove the expression that ‘the president and vice-president of the People’s Republic of China shall serve no more than two consecutive terms’ from the country’s constitution.”
That will be all but confirmed at the end of the annual National People’s Congress session starting next week in Beijing.
A Made in the West geopolitical storm duly ensued; forceful condemnations of the “regime” and its “authoritarian revival,” across-the-spectrum demonization of the “dictator for life” and “the new Mao.” It’s as if the New Emperor was about to concoct the imminent launch of a Great Famine, Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen combo.
Now compare the hysteria with renowned Renmin University professor of International Relations Shi Yinhong, who attempted to introduce a measure of realpolitik: “For a long time into the future, China will continue to move forward according to Xi’s thoughts, his route, his guiding principles and his absolute leadership.”
The global economy’s captains of industry, old and new, have better shark fin to consume than to be constrained by the lowly Western Politician game of demonizing China. Turbo-capitalism – with or without “Chinese characteristics” – has absolutely nothing to do with Western liberal democracy. The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping introduced a real “third way”: economic proficiency coupled with political control. Deng, by the way, learned the ropes from Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew – a darling of the West.
Xi may embody the guarantee China needs to carry out, as smoothly as possible, a much-needed anti-corruption purge sidelining the many rotten branches of the CCP while steering a much needed economic reorientation that should benefit, most of all, the rural proletariat.
Besides, Xi is already leading internationally in climate change, nuclear proliferation, not to mention realigning global trade as globalization 2.0.
And that brings us to childish Western attempts to deride the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as “overblown,” coupled with claims that BRI is facing a “global backlash.” That barely qualifies as wishful thinking.
What’s happening in the real world is that the Trump administration is trying to engineer an anti-BRI via the Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia) – but without BRI’s transnational and transcontinental appeal, not to mention funding.
Japan is making noises about a $200 billion Afro-Asian counterpunch. India centers its offensive on a deal with Iran to have Chabahar port compete with Gwadar. The Turnbull administration in Australia, in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, bets on engaging the US against China. And Admiral Kurt Titt, the head of Southcom, carps, among other military officers, that BRI is a threat to US influence.
Xi, as well as Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has identified very clearly which way the wind is blowing, with Washington treating both China and Russia as “revisionist powers” and a certified strategic threat.
The Tang dynasty meets Plato
Xi may now turn into a post-modern version of an enlightened Tang emperor. But he also performs as the embodiment of Plato – a philosopher-king ruling with help of the best and the brightest (think Liu He, director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and Xi’s top man on economic policy).
The CCP as Plato’s Republic has concluded that yes, it’s all about management. China’s titanic tweaking of its economic model simply cannot be accomplished at least before 2030. Challenges include managing the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs); the move towards added value GDP growth; how to organize China as a major consumer society; and how to contain the spread of financial risks.
For all these, consistency and continuity is key.
Xi has all but announced his major moves. The Chinese Dream – or China as a stable, middle-income nation. BRI as a connectivity vector integrating not only Eurasia but also Africa and Latin America. The increasing influence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Securing the South China Sea as well as increasing a presence not only across the Indian Ocean but all the way to the Third Island – a matter of protecting China’s connectivity/supply lines.
And last but not least, China configured as the top power in either Asia-Pacific or “Indo-Pacific.”
History will judge Xi by his deeds. The rest is mere Sinophobia.
- After Day Of Bizarre, Possibly Drunken Interviews , Nunberg Says He'll "Probably" Cooperate
After a day of bizarre interviews – possibly while under the influence of one or more substances – Trump campaign associate Sam Nunberg says he will “probably end up cooperating” with special counsel Robert Mueller after previously stating he would not comply. “Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday,” Nunberg told the Washington Post.
Nunberg, who was fired from the Trump campaign in 2015 over offensive Facebook posts, was subpoenaed by Mueller to appear before a grand jury investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
“I’m not going to cooperate with Mueller. It’s a fishing expedition,” Nunberg told Bloomberg News. “They want me in there for a grand jury for testimony about Roger Stone. He didn’t do anything. What is he going to do? His investigation is BS. Trump did not collude with Putin. It’s a joke.”
“Let him arrest me,” said Nunberg.
* * *
After an awkward appearance on CNN, host Erin Burnett wrapped up the interview by suggesting Nunberg had been drinking.
“We talked earlier about what people in the White House were saying about you ― talking about whether you were drinking or on drugs or whatever had happened today,” said Burnett. “Talking to you, I have smelled alcohol on your breath.”
Here’s CNN’s Erin Burnett telling former Trump aide Sam Nunberg that she can smell alcohol on his breath. He says he hasn’t been drinking. pic.twitter.com/tryye9AiqA
— Jim Dalrymple II (@Dalrymple) March 6, 2018
Nunberg claimed he had not had a drink and had only taken antidepressants earlier in the day – however the Daily Beast reported on Monday evening that Nunberg had been acting strangely in reaction to Mueller’s subpoena, and that they were worried he had been “drinking again,” and was about to enter into a tailspin.
Starting Monday morning, Nunberg began calling several close associates that he was flatly refusing, at this time, to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Three Nunberg friends said they walked away from those conversations fearful that he was “drinking again” and was about to embark on a personal tailspin. They didn’t know it would play out on daytime TV. –Daily Beast
Fellow former campaign aide Carter Page said that Nunberg’s claim he colluded with the Kremlin was bogus, and implied that Nunberg had a drinking problem. “There’s been a lot of people that have been quite intoxicated for over a year and a half now, so nothing new here,” Page told Sean Hannity on the Fox News.
After admitting to host Katy Tur that he’d been interviewed by Mueller’s investigators, Nunberg was then asked if he believes the special counsel “has anything” on Trump. “I think they may,” the ex-aide responded. “I think he may have done something during the election. But I don’t know that for sure.”
That was enough for both the CBS Evening News and ABC’s World News Tonight – which kicked off their programs with the possibly drunk, possibly high Nunberg’s bumbling admission:
“The former Trump campaign aide believes investigators have evidence that the Trump campaign may have colluded with the Russians, but Nunberg refuses to appear before a federal grand jury,” hyped CBS Justice reporter Paula Reid. She also played audio of Nunberg suggesting “Trump may have very well done something during the election with the Russians.”
The [ABC] network’s Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas also hyped Nunberg’s “stunning suggestion” about Trump and collusion. “Nunberg suggesting on yet another cable show that he believes the President knew about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians,” the ABC reporter added before playing a clip of his phone interview on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.
Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt described the off the wall interviews and phone calls as “a fascinating twist in the Russia investigation.” And NBC White House Correspondent Kristen Welker touted Nunberg’s antics: “Tonight, defiant and digging in. Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide turned Trump antagonist dropping this bombshell, becoming the first former adviser to publically suggest candidate Trump may have done something wrong.” –Newsbusters.org
The Subpoena
Mueller has requested all emails, text messages, work papers, telephone logs and other documents pertaining to a list of individuals dating back to November 1, 2015 – approximately four-and-a-half months after Trump launched his campaign.
NBC News reported last week that Mueller’s team is asking pointed questions about whether Trump knew about hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign before the public found out. The subpoena indicates that Mueller may be focused not just on what Trump campaign aides knew and when they knew it, but also on what Trump himself knew.
The list (via NBC):
- Steve Bannon, who left the White House as chief strategist in August.
- Michael Cohen, a personal lawyer for Trump who testified before congressional investigators in October.
- Rick Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, who pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
- Hope Hicks, who resigned last week as Trump’s communications director.
- Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager until June 2016.
- Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager and Gates’ business partner, who pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy and making false statements last week.
- Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide.
- Keith Schiller, a former bodyguard for Trump who left as director of Oval Office operations in September.
- Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political operative and Trump campaign adviser who sources have told NBC News is the focus of investigators interested in his contacts with WikiLeaks during the campaign.
In response to the laundry list of deliverables, Nunberg told Bloomberg News “They want me in there for grand jury on Friday. I’m not paying the money to go down there,” Nunberg said. “What’s he going to do? He’s so tough – let’s see what they do. I’m not going to spend 40 hours going over emails. I have a life.”
- Kelly Has No Idea What Jared And Ivanka Do All Day: Report
Chief of staff John Kelly has reportedly grown frustrated with White House advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and has been asking people what the couple does all day, according to a report by the Associated Press.
“I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception,” Kushner told congressional investigators last July.
But it is not immediately obvious what he’s achieved. There has been little progress on Mideast peace and relations with Mexico, another top Kushner priority, remain contentious over Trump’s proposed border wall. Kushner’s much ballyhooed project to reinvent the federal government has gained little traction. And questions persist about his family business’s global hunt for cash just a year before a $1.2 billion mortgage on a Manhattan skyscraper must be paid off by the company. -AP
Kushner has come under fire of late, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing his family’s Real Estate dealings – including whether foreign nationals sought to manipulate him over his family’s financial position.
The Kushner Co. says it is financially sound, however skeptics point to the company scrambling to raise funds from investors whose country of origin may present a conflict of interest. The Intercept reported that Kushner supported a blockade against Qatar after his father, Charles Kushner, sought and failed to obtain financial support from the Qatari financial minister for the family’s troublesome 666 Fifth Avenue property.
“If it’s true it’s damning,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC on “This Week” Sunday. “If it’s true he’s got to go.”
Kushner also lost his ability to access top-secret intelligence last week, as President Trump – who could have granted Jared a permanent clearance – left the decision to Chief of Staff John Kelly.
“I will let General Kelly make that decision,” Trump told reporters. “I have no doubt he’ll make the right decision.”
The couple perceives Kelly’s crackdown on security clearances as a direct shot at them, according to White House aides and outside advisers. But one White House official disputed that account, suggesting that Kushner welcomed Kelly’s efforts to organize the West Wing, allowing him to more singularly focus on his portfolio.
Kelly, in turn, has been angered by what he views as the couple’s freelancing. He blames them for changing Trump’s mind at the last minute and questions what exactly they do all day, according to one White House official and an outside ally. –AP
Kushner’s clearance was downgraded from “Top Secret/SCI-level” to “secret” – walling them off from the most sensitive information. The decision was the first major shakeup since the dismissal of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who was exposed for abusing both of his ex-wives. The FBI insinuated that it had informed the White House of Porter’s conduct, appearing to contradict a timeline of events initially offered by Kelly.
“Only a son-in-law could withstand this sort of exposure and not be fired,” said former Obama communications director, Jennifer Palmieri “Kushner’s vulnerable and in an accelerated fall from grace. Even though his departure would leave Trump even more isolated, a decision could be made that it’s just not worth it for him to stay.”
That said, Trump has reportedly grown frustrated with both Kelly and over negative press surrounding Jared and Ivanka, according to the New York Times – and has been quietly seeking a solution to remove them from the White House.
Trump denied reports that he was displeased. “As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli–Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,” said Trump. “Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering the president’s agenda. There is no truth to any suggestion otherwise.”
The AP reports that Jared and Ivanka have no plans on leaving Washington anytime soon.
- These 5 Cities Are The Amazon HQ2 Finalists, According To BofA
Two weeks ago, a surge in web queries emanating from an internal Amazon.com page devoted to the company’s HQ2 search, and focused on Arlington, VA hinted that the winner for the company’s HQ2 location was already familiar to at least a small group of Amazon employees.
That said, Washington D.C. (and surrounding areas) winning the great HQ2 race would hardly be a major surprise: recently researchers at Hamilton Place Strategies, an analytic PR consultancy, crunched the numbers and tabulated that Washington, D.C. would be the most likely city to land Amazon’s massive second headquarters.
To be sure, for now Jeff Bezos has been tight lipped about his thought process, and all the 20 original cities listed by Amazon remain viable candidates… although Bank of America begs to differ.
In a report from cross-sector analyst, John Lovallo, the BofA strategist writes that the bank’s Data Analytics team “has developed a dynamic model to narrow Amazon’s current selection of 20 potential cities for its planned second headquarters (HQ2) to a short-list of five finalist prospective locations.”
BofA explains that Amazon has listed certain requirements in choosing a second headquarters, which broadly encompass the city’s financial strength, labor pool (size and education), cost of doing business, cost of living, transportation infrastructure and source of innovation. He then caveats that “Without specific guidance from Amazon, we have chosen to equally weight these factors (with the exception of source of innovation, due to limited input factors), but our selection could change if we were to weight certain criteria more highly.”
Naturally, he then hedges:
While Amazon has stated requirements, weighting of these factors remains unclear, introducing a degree of art in our selection of possible HQ2 cities. Our analysis also focuses exclusively on the relative attractiveness of each potential market and thus does not contemplate availability or viability of specific sites for the actual headquarters
And with that disclaimer in place, BofA predicts that top five contender cities, listed alphabetically are:
- Atlanta, GA,
- Boston, MA,
- Denver, CO,
- Raleigh, NC
- Washington D.C. (incl. Montgomery County, MD and Northern VA).
Somewhat redundantly, BofA also shows a map with the five cities on it.
More notable is the detailed methodology of how BofA thinks Amazon will approach the selection process, and how it narrowed down the list to just 5 finalist cities. This is what BofA disclosed:
Our analysis assumes Amazon will build its next headquarters in a city that is similar to Seattle, while incorporating additional considerations such as affordable and reliable housing, business cost and commute. We utilize the results of two, equally-weighted methodologies to create a composite score.
Methodology #1
Our first approach isolated the cities that were most similar to Seattle. All parameters were normalized. A Euclidean distance* was calculated for each of the 17 cities relative to Seattle. These distances quantify the similarity between two cities by taking into account all the parameters like housing, business cost, commute etc. The smaller the Euclidean distance, the more similar a city was considered to be to Seattle. This approach resulted in the following top five candidates for Amazon’s HQ2 (listed alphabetically):
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Denver, CO
Los Angeles, CA
Washington D.C.**Methodology #2
The second approach ranked the cities by each parameter/factor, determined by BofAML, in the model. The ranks were summarized within seven broader categories (financial, employment, education, business cost, housing, commute and innovation). For example, the sum of Tech occupation and Non-tech occupation’s weighted ranks equates to the employment score. The score of each broad category was normalized and weighted*** to compute the final score. Lower scores in this approach imply less overall costs to Amazon for their second headquarters and are thus more favorable (listed alphabetically):
Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Washington D.C.**
Finally, assuming BofA’s list of 5 companies is correct, here are the public stocks that stand to benefit the most from the potential pick:
Amazon estimates that the city of choice for its HQ2 will reap $5bn of investment from the company and experience roughly 50K new job openings. This would clearly be a boon to the local economy of the winning city and provide a tailwind for numerous companies within the surrounding area. We highlight the following potential stock beneficiaries (alphabetically) in Table 1 for each of the five cities in our Amazon HQ2 short-list.
- Retired Green Beret Warns, Prepare For War: 'Globalism, Socialism, And Communism' Versus 'Freedom'
“Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying?” – Megadeath
“SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLVM.” (If you wish peace, prepare for war) PVBLIVS FLAVIVS VEGETIVS RENATVS (aka: “Vegetius”)
“Peace through superior firepower.” – former President Ronald Reagan
***
History: It repeats itself and is consistently ignored before it does so.
Ignored are the elements that lead up to the repeated event, although they blossom akin to flowers right before the eyes. One of the problems is doubting it, the “doubting” that the event is happening…is really happening. One of the elements that leads to that doubt is the event transpires almost imperceptibly, with such incremental slowness that it is not recognized as a single event that is happening.
In this case we are talking about the conversion of our society in the United States to full-blown dictatorship or a complete loss of rights guaranteed under the Constitution… such a loss that eventually leads to a dictatorship or a tyrannical, oppressive government. History shows us, and we ignore it.
The Founding Fathers have been degraded and ridiculed by the new society the media and their Communist masters are creating. Their mortal weaknesses are upheld at every chance in substitution for the enormity of the sacrifices they made to form the basis for our nation’s government. The Constitution of the United States of America took more than 11 years to create.
These Communists would have you believe that the Founding Fathers were a pack of illiterate morons who could not control their own lascivious appetites… who owned slaves and were elitists. These Communists have been infiltrating the United States for a hundred years… destroying the moral fabric of our society by destroying the family. The Communists infiltrated our government and camouflaged themselves with the names “Liberal” or “Progressive,” or some (such as Bernie Sanders) declaring softly, “I’m a Socialist.”
The government is infested with Communists, plain and simple, and these Communist/Socialist traitors have denigrated our nation and sunk it into an abyss. Aided by their lackeys, such as the Cloward and Piven, Abbie Hoffman, Saul Alinsky, the Trumka’s and other union leaders… they further destroyed it by what they allowed. These Senators, Congressmen, Justices, and those in successive Presidential Administrations, bolstered by oligarchs and other magnates…what they did not foster or create, they allowed in the media and in Hollywood to be rammed into our eyes and ears.
These Communists have destroyed the family structure, the borders, the culture, the religious and social traditions, and the history that has given us identity and solidarity with one another.
The bottom line: J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy had it right…100% right.
“Globalism” is not simply international trade or commerce. Globalism is global governance. Governance is rule. Government is supposed to derive its powers from the consent of the governed… not by chicanery, lying, theft, or by bypassing the Constitution of the United States. Globalism is a “nice” way to phrase it… akin to a happy Kumbaya-singing globe of each different genotype holding hands with a smile in a conga line.
Hoover and McCarthy would have called globalism what it is: socialism on the “soft” side, and Communism on the concrete, reality side.
The aim of these Communists is to have one world government. To do this, they must first destroy the United States. In order to do this, it must be “deep” battle, in every echelon…from the Pastoral Initiative teams (religious collaborators and snitches who sell out their congregations for the scraps from the government table), to the illegal aliens crossing our borders, to the planned siphoning and sale of our natural resources to the Chinese, Russians, and other foreigners, to the crafting of laws that enable the UN and the rest of the globe to gain more ground in the U.S. (such as the transfer of Internet control to ICANN, a foreign-owned corporation with a Beijing headquarters).
Militarily we’ve been downsized, with the quality of our service-members “diluted” with behaviors such as homosexuality and lesbianism being permitted, as well as “transgender” service-members and women placed into combat roles. Our combat-seasoned officers and non-commissioned officers in command positions have been replaced with politicians. The most effective weapons in our arsenals (such as the SR-71, the A-10, and the Tomahawk, for example) have been halted in production and/or mothballed, as well as rendered ineffective with a lack of parts or maintenance. The Air Force is severely short of pilots. We are overfunded but without enough return on our investment.
Economically, the Petrodollar has been on its last breath for years, and the breathing is agonal. We are being eclipsed by newer markets and new alliances. Cryptocurrencies are a scam that will eventually be used to control and keep track of everyone’s wealth when all the governments nationalize it. Even worse than Fiat currency, it doesn’t even exist except electronically and with nothing to back it whatsoever.
Akin to “Quatloos” out of the Star Trek Episode, “The Gamesters of Triskelion.”
To complete the “fundamental transformation,” as it was termed by Obama, there must be mass unrest...civil unrest and potential racial strife and riots. The perceived differences between people are being exacerbated by the media, by the politicians, and by the socially-constructed brain patterns of the youth…dissenting for no reason except to disagree. With no motive other than the “causes” they have been herded and manipulated to uphold.
The greatest example of this was the NFL kneeling initiated by Colin Kaepernick…to protest injustice that did not even exist. The “test program” backfired, because the NFL and the powers that back them underestimated the populace…that still has enough nationalistic pride and care for the country that they wouldn’t tolerate it. Yes, every avenue is being tested…crafted to see how they will handle the population when the big goal is finally attempted…the most necessary item in the plans to destroy the United States.
They must have the guns.
They must. They cannot collapse the United States and subjugate her to the rest of the world…make her a part of the Communist One-World government until they have the guns. We are seeing this materialize. Look at what the President of the United States has said! That guns can be confiscated without due process of law, and in complete violation of the Constitution. The states are already doing it: with legislation, and by executive order…they’re going after the guns.
Read these, to learn what is happening, and what will happen again…from what has already happened before:
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“None Dare Call It Conspiracy,” by Gary Allen.
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“The Gulag Archipelago,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
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“Vietnam Under Communism: 1975-1982,” by Nguyen Van Canh.
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“Masters of Deceit,” by J. Edgar Hoover.
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“None Dare Call It Treason,” by John A. Stormer.
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“The Insiders: Architects of the New World Order,” by John F. McManus
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“Why Not Victory?” by (then Senator) Barry M. Goldwater
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“The New World Order” by Pat Robertson Incidentally: Not being a fan of Robertson, I must state that this book outlines things in a non-didactic and factual manner that is amazingly detailed and well-organized.
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“Empire of Illusion,” by Chris Hedges
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“Rules for Radicals,” by Saul Alinsky [Know the Communist enemy by knowing his “playbook” and strategies]
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“1984,” by George Orwell [The only work of fiction on the list, and yet the “blueprint” for the Communist Global Government]
A war within the United States is coming. When this occurs, we will be attacked by a foreign nation or nations. Consider how far we went in the 8 years under Obama, and how fast it all occurred. When war comes internally (domestically) and with other nations, it will occur just as swiftly. Those who survive the initial onslaughts will have to decide and take a side. The works just mentioned can give you the information you may need to help you with that decision now, if you have not already made it. And the guns?
Better hang on to yours: if you don’t have them, then others will make the decision for you.
“Those who beat their rifles into plowshares will plow for those who do not.” – Benjamin Franklin
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- Israeli Firm Can Now Hack Into Virtually Any Cellphone, Tablet
An Israeli firm claims it can now unlock virtually any phone or tablet on the market – including iPhones and Google Android devices, reports Forbes.
Digital forensics firm Cellebrite – which helped the FBI crack iPhone used by the terrorist in the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, offers “Unlocking & Extraction Services” for several devices, including iPhones, iPads and iPods running iOS 5 through 11 – and Android devices including the Samsung Galaxy, Galaxy Note, and other devices running the Google OS such as Alcatel, Nexus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Motorola, ZTE and more. The service costs as low as $1,500 per device.
Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that’s become the U.S. government’s company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11 (right up to 11.2.6). That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology. –Forbes
Founded in 1999 with a headcount of around 500 employees, Cellebrite offers “Advanced Unlocking Services,” and “Advanced Extraction Services” to law enforcement agencies through a network of “secure Cellebrite Forensic Labs (CBFLs) located around the world.” In 2007 the firm was bought for $17.5 million by Japanese manufacturing giant Sun Corp.
“Cellebrite Advanced Unlocking Services is the industry’s only solution for overcoming many types of complex locks on market-leading devices. This can determine or disable the PIN, pattern, password screen locks or passcodes on the latest Apple iOS and Google Android devices,” reads a document published by the firm.
Their Advanced Extraction claims to be “the world’s first and only decrypted physical extraction capability possible for leading Apple iOS and Google Android Services.”
These new capabilities enable forensic practitioners to retrieve the full file system to recover downloaded emails, third-party application data, geolocation data and system logs, without needing to jailbreak or root the device. This eliminates any risk in compromising data integrity and the forensic soundness of the process. This enables access to more and richer digital data for the investigative team. –Cellebrite
Once a “pre-qualified” phone or tablet is selected for unlocking, “the locked and/or encrypted device is sent by trusted courier or hand carried to one of our secure global Cellebrite Forensic Labs where trained specialists perform the unlocking and/or extraction service using carefully controlled techniques that ensure the forensic integrity of the data,” writes the company.
From there, it takes around 10 business days to process a device and deliver it back to the “originating agency,” while all electronics are handled using “court-tested chain-of-custody procedures.”
After Apple refused a 2015 FBI request to unlock an iPhone 5C belonging to San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook, who murdered 14 people in San Bernardino and injured 22, Cellebrite stepped in to crack the phone. Since then, the company has been engaged by several law enforcement agencies around the world – such as Australia’s Immigration Department and the Great Barrier Reer Marine Park Authority.
And according to a Michigan warrant unearthed by Forbes, Cellebrite cracked an iPhone X owned by Abdulmajid Saidi – an arms trafficking suspect. Saidi’s phone was nabbed as he was about to leave America for Beirut, Lebanon on November 20, sent to a Cellebrite specialist at the DHS Security Investigations Lab in Grand Rapids, after which data was extracted on December 5. Saidi’s trial is set for July 31.
From the warrant, it wasn’t clear just how the police got into the iPhone X in the first place, nor does it reveal much about what data was inside. Back when the iPhone X was launched, some fears were raised about the possibility for investigators to simply lift the device to a suspect’s face to unlock it via Apple’s Face ID facial recognition. Researchers also claimed to have found ways to dupe the Face ID tech into unlocking with a mask. The DoJ prosecutor on the case declined to comment, whilst the DHS didn’t respond to requests for comment. –Forbes
“I’d be zero-percent surprised if Cellebrite had a zero-day [exploit] that allowed them to unlock iPhones with physical access,” Patrick Wardle, chief research officer at Digita Security, told cybersecurity news site Threatpost. “These guys clearly have the skills, and there is also a huge financial motivation to find such bugs.”
In response to Cellebrite’s claims, Apple has urged customers to upgrade to the latest version of iOS 11 – which contains several patches for several of the exploits potentially used by the Israeli firm.
Apple has said publicly a recent version of iOS 11.2 does address several serious vulnerabilities found by Google Project Zero. In December, Project Zero researcher Ian Beer published details of an “async_wake” exploit and proof-of-concept local kernel debugging tool for iOS 11.1.2. The vulnerability exploited two patched flaws in iOS 11.1.2 that made it possible to jailbreak iPhones running earlier versions of the OS. –Threatpost.com
“Cellebrite’s techniques clearly pose privacy concerns for Apple customers, but there are also underlying issues around the private forensics contractors doing business with them,” said David Pearson, Principal Threat Researcher at Awake Security. “We’ve already seen what happens when governments weaponize undisclosed exploits and fail to protect them, such as Eternal Blue, Doublepulsar and other tools and exploits alleged to belong to the NSA. This iOS technique may bring more of the same, not to mention the added scrutiny of many security researchers and criminals alike being on the lookout for such information.”
- The Tyranny Of Algos Is Here
Authored by John Harris, op-ed via TheGuardian.com,
Credit scores already control our finances. With personal data being increasingly trawled, our politics and our friendships will be next…
For the past couple of years a big story about the future of China has been the focus of both fascination and horror. It is all about what the authorities in Beijing call “social credit”, and the kind of surveillance that is now within governments’ grasp. The official rhetoric is poetic. According to the documents, what is being developed will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step”.
As China moves into the newly solidified President Xi Jinping era, the basic plan is intended to be in place by 2020. Some of it will apply to businesses and officials, so as to address corruption and tackle such high-profile issues as poor food hygiene. But other elements will be focused on ordinary individuals, so that transgressions such as dodging transport fares and not caring sufficiently for your parents will mean penalties, while living the life of a good citizen will bring benefits and opportunities.
Online behaviour will inevitably be a big part of what is monitored, and algorithms will be key to everything, though there remain doubts about whether something so ambitious will ever come to full fruition. One of the scheme’s basic aims is to use a vast amount of data to create individual ratings, which will decide people’s access – or lack of it – to everything from travel to jobs.
The Chinese notion of credit – or xinyong – has a cultural meaning that relates to moral ideas of honesty and trust. There are up to 30 local social credit pilots run by local authorities, in huge cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou and much smaller towns. Meanwhile, eight ostensibly private companies have been trialling a different set of rating systems, which seem to chime with the government’s controlling objectives.
The most high-profile system is Sesame Credit – created by Ant Financial, an offshoot of the Chinese online retail giant Alibaba. Superficially, it reflects the western definition of credit, and looks like a version of the credit scores used all over the world, invented to belatedly allow Chinese consumers the pleasures of buying things on tick, and manage the transition to an economy in which huge numbers of people pay via smartphones. But its reach runs wider.
Using a secret algorithm, Sesame credit constantly scores people from 350 to 950, and its ratings are based on factors including considerations of “interpersonal relationships” and consumer habits.
Bluntly put, being friends with low-rated people is bad news. Buying video games, for example, gets you marked down. Participation is voluntary but easily secured, thanks to an array of enticements. High scores unlock privileges such as being able to rent a car without a deposit, and fast-tracked European visa applications. There are also more romantic benefits: the online dating service Baihe gives people with good scores prominence on its platforms.
Exactly how all this will relate to the version of social credit eventually implemented is unclear: licences that might have enabled the systems to be rolled out further ran out last year. There again, Ant Financial has stated that it wants to “help build a social integrity system” – and the existing public and private pilots have a similar sense of social control, and look set to feed the same social divisions. If you are mouldering away towards the bottom of the hierarchies, life will clearly be unpleasant. But if you manage to be a high-flyer, the pleasures of fast-tracking and open doors will be all yours, though even the most fleeting human interaction will give off the crackle of status anxiety.
It would be easy to assume none of this could happen here in the west. But the 21st century is not going to work like that. These days credit reports and scores – put together by agencies whose reach into our lives is mind-boggling – are used to judge job applications, thereby threatening to lock people into financial problems. And in the midst of the great deluge of personal data that comes from our online lives, there is every sign of these methods being massively extended.
Three years ago Facebook patented a system of credit rating that would consider the financial histories of people’s friends. Opaque innovations known as e-scores are used by increasing numbers of companies to target their marketing, while such outfits as the already infamous Cambridge Analytica trawl people’s online activities so as to precisely target political messaging. The tyranny of algorithms is now an inbuilt part of our lives.
These systems are sprawling, often randomly connected, and often beyond logic. But viewed from another angle, they are also the potential constituent parts of comprehensive social credit systems, awaiting the moment at which they will be glued together.
That point may yet come, thanks to the ever-expanding reach of the internet. If our phones and debit cards already leave a huge trail of data, the so-called internet of things is now increasing our informational footprint at speed.
In the short term, the biggest consequences will arrive in the field of insurance, where the collective pooling of risk is set to be supplanted by models that focus tightly on individuals. Thanks to connected devices, insurers could soon know how much television you watch, whether you always obey traffic signals, and how well your household plumbing works. Already, car insurance schemes offer lower premiums if people install tracking devices that monitor their driving habits; and health insurance companies such as the British firm Vitality offer deals based on access to data from fitness trackers. In the near future, as with Sesame Credit, people will presumably sign up for surveillance-based insurance in their droves because of such simple incentives, and those squeamish about privacy may simply have to pay more. Many people, of course, will simply be deemed impossible to protect.
Personal data and its endless uses form one of the most fundamental issues of our time, which boils down to the relationship between the individual and power, whether exercised by government or private organisations. It speaks volumes that in Whitehall responsibility for such things falls uncertainly between the culture secretary, Matt Hancock, whose “digital” brief includes what the official blurb limply calls “telecommunications and online”, the Treasury and an under-secretary of state in the business department, Andrew Griffiths, whose portfolio takes in “consumers”.
That is absurd, and it may yet play its part in our rapid passage into a future that could materialise in both east and west, in which we do what we’re told, avoid the company of undesirables – and endlessly panic about how the algorithms will rate us tomorrow.
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