- German Minister Wants To Fine Anti-Vax Parents Up To $2,800, Mandate Compulsory Shots
Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn wants to fine parents who refuse to vaccinate their children €2,500 ($2,800) in a bid to “eradicate measles,” according to an interview Spahn gave to Bild am Sonntag.
“Anyone going to a kindergarten or school should be vaccinated against measles,” he said, adding “Whoever does not get their child vaccinated, faces up to 2,500 euros in fines.”
A draft law put forward by Spahn would also throw unvaccinated children out of kindergarten, which he says would help protect children too young to receive immunizations.
“Kindergartens have children under 10 months of age, who are too young for vaccinations and are therefore especially threatened,” he said.
According to the Robert Koch Institute of Germany, 93% of children are immunized, however this falls short of the recommended rate of 95% to maintain herd immunity.
Spahn believes he has broad support for his draft law in the ruling coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, to which he belongs, and the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD).
SPD health policy expert Karl Lauterbach spoke of a “very good basis” for a joint discussion. “It will not work without fines,” he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. –Reuters
Spahn’s bill has a different solution for parents of older schoolchildren, which are required by law to receive an elementary school education. So instead of removing the children from school, parents would just pay a fine.
For children with health conditions preventing them from getting vaccinated, such as organ recipients or people suffering from leukemia, parents would be required to provide proof of the medical condition.
By July 2020, all parents who attempt to sign their kids up for kindergartens or schools would be required top provide evidence that their children have been vaccinated.
Vaccinations would also become mandatory for hospital and other healthcare workers under the new law – which is currently being discussed in the Cabinet and is expected to be adopted this year, with a March 2020 enforcement date.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations have repeatedly called for action over a recent increase in measles outbreaks across the world. Measles killed 136,000 people last year, and the number of people infected with the disease surged by 50% compared to 2017.
Developed countries have also seen a rise in measles infections, partly due to a debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. Germany, which has seen large outbreaks in several of its states, registered 170 measles cases in the first two months of 2019. –DW
Opposition parties in Germany have been split over the proposal, particularly among the Greens, who say that while they support vaccinations, they are skeptical about requiring them.
Greens health policy spokeswoman Kordula Schulz-Asche told public broadcaster ZDF that instead of punishing parents, the government should educate them, and remind to get follow-up vaccines.
“Compulsory vaccinations are therefore counter-productive,” she said, suggesting that instead “We need a better public health service.”
- China Invests In Game-Changing Arctic LNG Project
Authored by Tim Daiss via Oilprice.com,
Russia’s second largest natural gas producer, independent player Novatek, has signed up key participation from two state-owned Chinese oil majors in its massive Arctic LNG 2 project. The deals were inked last week at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Co-operationheld in China. This cements Novatek’s position as Russia’s leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) developer, moving it a step ahead of the country’s two state-backed companies, Rosneft and Gazprom. China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) and China National Oil and Gas Development Co. (CNODC), a unit of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), signed up to acquire 10 percent each in the project. CNOOC is also China’s largest offshore oil and gas producer and developer.
Novatek’s chairman, Leonid Mikhelson, welcomed CNOOC’s involvement, saying China was “one of the key consuming markets for our LNG sales.” He added that Arctic LNG 2 would be a “game-changer” in the global gas market and noted the company’s experience from its Yamal LNG project as a demonstration of its ability to carry out operations in the Arctic.
The entry of the CNPC unit, meanwhile, was described by Mikhelson as an “important milestone” for Arctic LNG 2, while he noted the Chinese company’s participation in Yamal LNG. “The accumulated experience of working together is a solid basis for the successful implementation of our new LNG project,” he said. No details have been given yet for the price the Chinese companies paid. French oil major Total also invested in Arctic LNG 2 in March. Novatek, in its first-quarter results, said the sale of a 10 percent stake in the project had resulted in a net gain of $4.8 billion.
Experience
China was instrumental in making the Yamal LNG work. In addition to the participation of CNPC, which acquired a 20 percent stake in 2013, the Silk Road Fund (SRF) purchased a 9.9 percent stake for $1.21 billion in March 2016. SRF also provided a 15-year loan worth some $813 million. Additionally, CNPC signed up to a 20-year off-take agreement, covering 3 million tons per annum (mtpa) of Yamal LNG’s production, indexed to the Japanese Crude Cocktail (JCC) price, the leading LNG pricing benchmark in Asia. The Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank) and the China Development Bank (CDB) also provided loans, of $10.4 billion and $151 million in 2016. This came on top of a $4 billion loan from Russian funding.
Massive gas project
The Arctic LNG 2 project will cover three production trains, each with 6.6 mtpa worth of capacity. An all-important final investment decision (FID) on the project is anticipated later this year, with the first LNG delivery slated for the end of 2023, around the time when most analysts forecast that global LNG markets will pivot from its current overhang to a possible shortage of the super-cooled fuel.
Insatiable gas demand
Chinese LNG demand could reach 80-100 mtpa by 2025, according to various industry forecasts, up from 53.7 million tonnes in 2018. Rising demand for the fuel is part of Beijing’s drive to clean up the air quality of the country’s largest cities, which have been plagued by high air pollution levels for years. This drive has seen an explosion of demand in recent years that has been increasingly met by imports, including U.S.-sourced geopolitically charged gas imports that have also been embroiled in the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. Overall demand for gas is expected to climb to 620 bcm by 2035, according to CNPC, up from at 280.3 bcm in 2018. The oil major has also predicted that domestic production will amount to 300 bcm by 2035, up from 161 bcm last year. This will mean an expansion in imports from 124.7 bcm in 2018 to 320 bcm in 2035.
- Ending The Pentagon's Long Con
Authored by William Astore via TomDispatch.com,
Six Ways to Curb America’s Military Machine
Donald Trump is a con man. Think of Trump University or a juicy Trump steak or can’t-lose casinos (that never won). But as president, one crew he hasn’t conned is the Pentagon. Quite the opposite, they’ve conned him because they’ve been at the game a lot longer and lie (in Trump-speak) in far biglier ways.
People condemn President Trump for his incessant lying and his con games — and rightly so. But few Americans condemn the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state, even though we’ve been the victims of their long con for decades now. As it happens, from the beginning of the Cold War to late last night, they’ve remained remarkably skilled at exaggerating the threats the U.S. faces and, believe me, that represents the longest con of all. It’s kept the military-industrial complex humming along, thanks to countless trillions of taxpayer dollars, while attempts to focus a spotlight on that scam have been largely discredited or ignored.
One thing should have, but hasn’t, cut through all the lies: the grimly downbeat results of America’s actual wars. War by its nature tells harsh truths — in this case, that the U.S. military is anything but “the finest fighting forcethat the world has ever known.” Why? Because of its almost unblemished record of losing, or at least never winning, the wars it engages in. Consider the disasters that make up its record from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s to, in the twenty-first century, the Iraq War that began with the invasion of 2003 and the nearly 18-year debacle in Afghanistan — and that’s just to start down a list. You could easily add Korea (a 70-year stalemate/truce that remains troublesome to this day), a disastrous eight-year-old intervention in Libya, a quarter century in (and out and in) Somalia, and the devastating U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, among so many other failed interventions.
In short, the U.S. spends staggering sums annually, essentially stolen from a domestic economy and infrastructure that’s fraying at the seams, on what still passes for “defense.” The result: botched wars in distant lands that have little, if anything, to do with true defense, but which the Pentagon uses to justify yet more funding, often in the name of “rebuilding” a “depleted” military. Instead of a three-pointed pyramid scheme, you might think of this as a five-pointed Pentagon scheme, where losing only wins you ever more, abetted by lies that just grow and grow. When it comes to raising money based on false claims, this president has nothing on the Pentagon. And worse yet, like America’s wars, the Pentagon’s long con shows no sign of ending. Eat your heart out, Donald Trump!
Eternal MADness
“So many lies, so little time” is a phrase that comes to mind when I think of the 40 years I’ve spent up close and personal with the U.S. military, half on active duty as an Air Force officer. Where to begin? How about with those bomber and missile “gaps,” those alleged shortfalls vis-à-vis the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s? They amounted to Chicken Little-style sky-is-falling hoaxes, but they brought in countless billions of dollars in military funding. In fact, the “gaps” then were all in our favor, as this country held a decisive edge in both strategic bombers and nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.
Or consider the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that served to authorize horrific attacks on Vietnam in retaliation for a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. Navy destroyers that never happened. Or think about the consistent exaggeration of Soviet weapons capabilities in the 1970s (the hype surrounding its MiG-25 Foxbat fighter jet, for example) that was used to justify a new generation of ultra-expensive American weaponry. Or the justifications for the Reagan military buildup of the 1980s — remember the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “Star Wars”) or the MX ICBM and Pershing II missiles, not to speak of the neutron bomb and alarming military exercises that nearly brought us to nuclear war with the “Evil Empire” in 1983. Or think of another military miracle: the “peace dividend” that never arrived after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 and the last superpower (you know which one) was left alone on a planet of minor “rogue states.” And don’t forget that calamitous “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq in 2003 in the name of neutralizing weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist or the endless global war on terror that still ignores the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11th terrorist hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.
And this endless long con of the Pentagon’s was all the more effective because so many of its lies were sold by self-serving politicians. Exhibit one was, of course, John F. Kennedy’s embrace of that false missile gap in winning the 1960 presidential election. Still, the Pentagon was never shy in its claims. Take the demand of the Air Force then for 10,000 — yes, you read that right! — new ICBMs to counter a Soviet threat that then numbered no more than a few dozen such missiles (as Daniel Ellsberg reminds us in his recent book, The Doomsday Machine).
To keep the Air Force happy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara settled on a mere 1,000 land-based Minuteman missiles to augment the 54 older Titan II ICBMs in that service’s arsenal, a figure I committed to memory as a teenager in the 1970s. And don’t forget that some of those missiles were MIRVed, meaning they had multiple nuclear warheads that could hit many targets. It all added up to the threat of what, in those years, came to be called “mutually assured destruction,” better known by its all-too-apt acronym, MAD.
And the Pentagon’s version of madness never ends. Think, for instance, of the planned three-decade $1.7 trillion “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear triad now underway, justified in the name of “overmatching” China and Russia, “near-peer” rivals in Pentagon-speak. No matter that America’s current triad of land-based, submarine-based, and air-deployed nukes already leave the arsenals of those two countries in the shade.
Reason doesn’t matter when the idea of a new cold war with those two former enemies couldn’t be more useful in justifying the through-the-ceiling $750 billion defense budget requested by President Trump for 2020. The Democrats have pushed back with a still-soaring budget of $733 billion that accepts without question the “baseline” minimum demanded by Pentagon officials, a level of spending Trump once called “crazy.” Talk about resistance being futile!
In other words, when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars, the Washington establishment of both parties has essentially been assimilated into the Pentagon collective. The national security state, that (unacknowledged) fourth branch of government, has in many ways become the most powerful of all, siphoning off more than 60% of federal discretionary spending, while failing to pass a single audit of how it uses such colossal sums.
All of this is in service to what’s known as a National Defense Strategy (NDS) whose main purpose is to justify yet more prodigious Pentagon spending. As Vietnam War veteran and professor at National Defense University Gregory Foster wrote of the latest version of that document:
“In the final analysis, the NDS is an unadulterated call for a new Cold War, with all its attendant appurtenances: more gluttonous defense spending to support escalatory arms races in all those ‘contested domains’ of warfare; reliance on bean-counting input measures (weapons, forces, spending) for determining comparative ‘competitiveness’; reinforcement and reaffirmation of the sacrosanct American way of war; and the reassuring comfort of superimposing an artificially simplistic Manichean worldview on the world’s inherent complexity and thereby continuing to ignore and marginalize actors, places, and circumstances that don’t coincide with our established preconceptions.”
Such a critique is largely lost on Donald Trump, a man who models himself on perceived tough guys like Andrew Jackson and Winston Churchill. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he did, at least, rail against the folly and cost of America’s wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He said he wanted better relations with Russia. He talked about reinvesting in the United States rather than engaging in new wars. He even attacked costly weapons systems like the sky’s-the-limit $1.4 trillion Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter.
Suffice it to say that, after two-plus years of posing as commander-in-chief, strong man Trump is now essentially owned by the Pentagon. America’s wars continue unabated. U.S. troops remain in Syria and Afghanistan (despite the president’s stated desire to remove them). Relations with Russia are tense as his administration tears up the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiated by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
What to make of the president’s visible capitulation to the Pentagon? Sure, he’s playing to his conservative base, which is generally up for more spending on weaponry and war, but like so many presidents before him, he’s been conned as well. The con-man-in-chief has finally met his match: a national security state that, when you consider its record, has had far greater success at lying its way to power than Donald J. Trump.
The Biggest Lie of All
Now, let’s take a hard look at ourselves when it comes to weaponry and those wars of “ours.” Because the most significant lies aren’t the ones the president tells us, but those we tell ourselves. The biggest of all: that we can continue to send young men and women off to war without those wars ever coming home.
Think again. America’s shock-and-awe conflicts have indeed come home, big time — with shocking and awful results. On some level, many Americans recognize this. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is now a well-known acronym. A smaller percentage of Americans know something about TBI, the traumatic brain injuries that already afflict an estimated 314,000 troops, often caused by IEDs (improvised explosive devices), another acronym it would have been better never to have to learn. Wounded Warrior projects remind us that veterans continue to suffer long after they’ve come home, with roughly 20 of them a day taking their own lives in a tragic epidemic of suicides. Meanwhile, surplus military equipment — from automatic weapons to tank-like MRAPs — made for the mean streets of Iraq are now deployed on Main Street, USA, by increasingly militarized police forces. Even the campus cops at Ohio State University have an MRAP!
Here, Americans would do well to ponder the words of Megan Stack, a war correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who drew on her own “education in war” when she wrote: “You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.” She was undoubtedly thinking about subjects like the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, torture at the CIA’s “black sites,” cities rubblized in the Greater Middle East, and refugees produced by the tens of millions. Somehow, sooner or later, it all comes home, whether we as Americans admit it, or even realize it, or not.
“Here is the truth,” Stack notes:
“It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don’t die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do… All of that poison seeps back into our soil.”
And so indeed it has. How else to explain the way Americans have come to tolerate, even celebrate, convenient lies: that, for instance, Tomahawk missile strikes in Syria could make a feckless figure like Donald Trump presidentialor even that such missiles are beautiful, as former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams once claimed. Imagine if leading media and political figures boasted instead of taking on the Pentagon, reining in its ambitions, and saving taxpayers trillions of dollars, as well as countless lives here and overseas.
Ending the Pentagon’s Long Con
War is the ultimate audit and, as any American should know, the Pentagon is incapable of passing an audit. Sadly, even when Congress acts to end U.S. support for a near-genocidal war that has nothing to do with any imaginable definition of national defense, in this case in Yemen, President Trump vetoes it. Remember when Candidate Trump was against dumb and wasteful wars? Not anymore. Not, at least, if it involves the Saudis.
The best course for this country, unimaginable as it might seem today, is to fight wars only as a last resort and when genuinely threatened (a sentiment that 86% of Americans agree with). In other words, the U.S. should end every conflict it’s currently engaged in, while bringing most of its troops home and downsizing its imperial deployments globally.
What’s stopping us? Mainly our own fears, our own pride, our own readiness to believe lies. So let me list six things Americans could do that would curb our military mania:
1. Our nuclear forces remain the best in the world, which is hardly something to brag about. They need to be downsized, not modernized, with the goal of eliminating them — before they eliminate us.
2. The notion that this country is suddenly engaged in a new cold war with China and Russia needs to be tossed in the trash can of history — and fast.
3. From its first days, the war on terror has been the definition of a forever war. Isn’t it finally time to end that series of conflicts? International terrorism is a threat best met by the determined efforts of international police and intelligence agencies.
4. It’s finally time to stop believing that the U.S. military is all about deterrence and democracy, when all too often it’s all about exploitation and dominance.
5. It’s finally time to stop funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state at levels that outpace most of the other major military powers on this planet put together and instead invest such funds where they might actually count for Americans. With an appropriate change in strategy, notes defense analyst Nicolas Davies, the U.S. could reduce its annual Pentagon budget by 50%.
6. Finally, it’s time to stop boasting endlessly of our military strength as themeasure of our national strength. What are we, Sparta?
The Pentagon will never be forced to make significant reforms until Americans stop believing in (and consenting to) its comforting lies.
- Visualizing The Potential Of Smart Mining
Mining has traditionally been depicted with pack mules, pickaxes, and rugged prospectors.
However, as Visual Capitalist’s Nicholas LePan points out, it may surprise you to learn that today’s mining industry is precisely the opposite in almost every respect. It’s high-tech, efficient, and safe.
This is partially because modern mining companies are deploying the latest in sensor and cloud technology. These connected mines are improving the extraction process and workers’ safety while also boosting productivity.
Today’s infographic comes to us from Natural Resources Canada and discusses how this sensor and cloud technology can be integrated into the extractive process.
What is Smart Mining?
A connected mine uses data from sensor technology to effectively manage underground and pit mining operations.
“Any mining operation today will have in the thousands or hundreds of thousands of sensors capturing in real time a vast swath of data.”
– Mukani Moyo, McKinsey Senior Expert (Source)
From a single application on a mobile device, supervisors at mine sites can now receive alerts via SMS, email or in-app notifications. This helps them react to critical problems in real-time and maximize productivity.
In addition, advanced data analytics can be applied to the raw data to create insights, visualizations, and recommendations. This information is delivered to mine managers and employees in real-time on their mobile devices.
Case Study: Smart Solutions in Practice
Dundee Precious Metals was one of the first companies to bring wireless networks into an underground mine. The company used RFID and Wi-Fi to monitor the location of equipment and people. The networks also allowed personnel to stay connected to the surface.
Once the networks were installed, communication was reliable and instantaneous – even almost 2,000 feet underground at the bottom of the mine. Workers could bring laptops and smartphones into the mine to stay connected to personnel and software on the surface.
With an RFID chip on every vehicle, machine, and person, managers can see the location of everyone and everything in the mine. This helps prevent accidents and breakdowns, and streamlines operations in real-time.
There are also environmental and cost-saving benefits. Using location data, an automated ventilation system can respond and minimize energy consumption.
Fans turn on and off as miners enter or leave an area. In addition, fan speeds adjust when machines or vehicles are running nearby to ensure that emissions are properly vented. This could drastically reduce a mine’s energy requirements.
Changing the Nature of Work: Remote Working
These smart mining solutions are reducing the risks miners face and creating new opportunities for a tech-savvy generation.
Remote mine locations that revolve around shift work can place stress on workers and their families. With a connected infrastructure, mine employees and managers can monitor operations at a distant office.
There will always be a need for workers on site, but connected technology can create some town-based career opportunities and help stabilize families.
A Sustainable Future for Mining
This is just the beginning.
Over time, data from sensor technology and cloud software, will reveal insights that could help develop sustainable mining operations.
By minimizing their negative impacts, mining companies will be able to responsibly deliver the materials the modern world needs.
- How The 'Real' America Is In Harmony With China's Belt And Road Initiative
Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The new rules proposed by Xi Jinping and expressed by the BRI’s political economic practices are exactly what the best American patriots fought for…
Since Donald Trump’s 2016 election, waves of strange paradoxes have presented themselves to the world. With the blatant collaboration of nominally “American” forces from the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Pentagon, and MSM who conspired directly with international agencies such as the Five Eyes and MI6 to overthrow Trump, it has become evident that there isn’t one single America, but rather two opposing forces within America acting against each other. So what really is the “real” America? When Donald Trump calls for US-China-Russia collaboration, is that just an anomaly or is something truly American being expressed?
In reviewing some history, you might be shocked to discover that the Belt and Road Initiative is more American than the America which the world has come to know over the past 50 years.
The American Revolution as an International Struggle
The fact that the American Revolution was an international affair is made evident by the fact that without the collaboration of the leadership of Russia, France, as well as many powerful forces in Poland, Spain, Germany the revolution could never have succeeded. Catherine the Great led the League of Armed Neutrality ensuring arms and funding to the rebelling colonies while the great Polish general Kosciusko working with German and French military officers were organized to help train and lead the American farmers during this battle.
American support was not limited to Europe however, as the South Indian Mysore rebellion against the British East India Company was organized by pro-American Muslim leader Hyder Ali which tied up British troops from being deployed to America. Ali was so admired that American poems were written about him and in 1780 a sixteen gun war ship was set from Philadelphia to do battle with the British Navy named the Haidar Ali. In Africa, under Emperor Sidi Mohammed’s direction, Morocco was the first nation to recognize American independence in 1777. The nation also harbored American ships, protecting them from British-controlled Barbary pirates with George Washington later writing letters of thanks to the Sultan of Morocco.
Many of these international forces were organized over decades by the brilliant planning of Benjamin Franklin who wrote extensively that America should model itself on the best principles of Confucianism and even argued for the modelling of America’s civil service upon China’s meritocracy. Franklin’s discoveries in electricity were directly tied to his concept of natural law and statecraft earning him the reputation of the “Prometheus of America”. Even the greatest artists of Europe such as Mozart, Schiller, and Beethoven were inspired by the idea that the American experience was merely the precursor to a new age of reason that would soon liberate Europe from the shackles of oligarchism. Not only was Schiller’s great poem Ode to Joy an homage to this hope for a brotherhood of mankind, but so was Beethoven’s later musical expression of it in his 9th Symphony.
The Sabotage of the New Paradigm
While some United Empire Loyalists left the USA to set up English-speaking Canada (creating a British-controlled beachhead in the Americas ever since), some traitors such as Aaron Burr (VP under Jefferson) chose to stay behind and work to undermine America from within by killing American System founder Alexander Hamilton and setting up Wall Street as a Junior partner to the City of London. These networks are the roots of today’s anglophile Deep State.
As the spirit of American republicanism in Europe was crushed under the British-sponsored Jacobin Terror, Napoleonic wars and then the iron fist of monarchism with the 1815 Congress of Vienna, British-Deep State puppets increasingly dominated America, advancing a program of imperial thinking and slavery throughout the 1830s-1850s leading into the Civil War. A leading proponent of the true American spirit was Lincoln’s bodyguard William Gilpin, who played an instrumental role as Governor of Colorado during the Civil War. With a vision of Lincoln’s transcontinental railway extended to Asia, Gilpin famously said:
“Salvation must come to America from China, and this consists in the introduction of the “Chinese constitution” viz. the “patriarchal democracy of the Celestial Empire”. The political life of the United States is through European influences, in a state of complete demoralization, and the Chinese Constitution alone contains elements of regeneration. For this reason, a railroad to the Pacific is of such vast importance, since by its means the Chinese trade will be conducted straight across the North American continent. This trade must bring in its train Chinese civilization. All that is usually alleged against China is mere calumny spread purposefully, just like those calumnies which are circulated in Europe about the United States”.
China’s “founding father” Sun Yat-sen, an avowed follower of Abraham Lincoln composed his International Development of China (1920) calling for international construction of rail, ports and resources from China throughout Eurasia connecting to Europe and Russia (a precursor to today’s BRI). In his work he echoed Gilpin’s vision by saying “The nations which will take part in this development will reap immense advantages. Furthermore, international cooperation of this kind cannot but help to strengthen the Brotherhood of Man.”
The Spirit of the New Paradigm Sabotaged Again and Again and Again…
In the wake of the Civil War, (and British orchestrated murder of Lincoln from Montreal Canada), Gilpin and other Lincoln allies such as William Sumner, and Ulysses S. Grant fought to spread the “American System of Political Economy” across the world and nearly succeeded in fulfilling what the American Revolution failed to do with Russia’s Alexander II applying this system to build the Trans-Siberian rail, American statesmen helping to build rail and national credit under the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and pro-American forces in Germany, France and beyond industrializing themselves with rail, national credit, protective tariffs and industrial growth programs. Gilpin went the furthest in illustrating this grand design with his 1890 book “The Cosmopolitan Railway” uniting all continents in railways and calling for something which looks a lot like the Belt and Road Initiative today.
Envisioning this new just world order of sovereign republics cooperating on the common aims of humanity, Gilpin wrote: “The civilized masses of the world meet; they are mutually enlightened, and fraternize to reconstitute human relations in harmony with nature and with God. The world ceases to be a military camp, incubated only by the military principles of arbitrary force and abject submission. A new and grand order in human affairs inaugurates itself out of these immense concurrent discoveries and events”
British-orchestrated assassinations and wars aborted the birth of this new era however. The 20th century was shaped by a battle between opposing forces within America. On the one side were true patriots fighting to return to the global vision of win-win cooperation and on the other side, anglophile traitors of the Deep State.
Although valiant efforts to end the cold war and usher in this new paradigm were made by John F. Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle and later Robert Kennedy, the Anglo-American alliance grew over their dead bodies and a hellish growth of empire unfolded from 1968 onward. While bold opposition to this New World Disorder occasionally arose from nationalist leaders in Africa, Asia and Latin America, very little was done to keep this torch alive from within America itself aside from the considerable efforts of American economist Lyndon LaRouche. As the British-Deep State gained dominance of the Trans-Atlantic during the NAFTA-1990s and Post-911 world, a new system had been quietly forming to finalize what the American Revolution had sought to do in 1776.
A New Opportunity with the BRI
Surprisingly, it was at one of the darkest hours in humanity’s experience that this new hope began to show its full power. As the collapsing bubble of a banking system was compelling a desperate elite to risk nuclear war with the newly formed alliance of Russia and China, the New Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative) was announced presenting an incredible opportunity to avoid thermonuclear extinction by changing the “rules of the game”. Echoing the spirit of William Gilpin and Sun Yat-sen, China’s President Xi Jinping recently said:
“To respond to the call of the times, China takes it its mission to make new and even greater contribution to mankind. China will work with other countries to build a community with a shared future for mankind, forge partnerships across the world, enhance friendship and cooperation, and explore a new path of growing state-to-state relations based on mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation. Our goal is to make the world a place of peace and stability and life happier and more fulfilling for all.”
These new rules proposed by Xi Jinping and expressed by the BRI’s political economic practices are exactly what the best American patriots fought for, and so the question becomes: will America finalize the intention of the American Revolution by work by joining the New Silk Road or fail to recognize its own destiny?
- Brunei Backs Off Buggery Ban, Won't Murder Homosexuals After All
The southeast Asian country of Brunei has extended a moratorium on the death penalty for violations of sharia law prohibiting gay sex, after a massive backlash by celebrities which included a boycott of luxury hotels and other businesses owned by the Kingdom.
[I]n a rare response to criticism aimed at the oil-rich state, the sultan said the death penalty would not be imposed in the implementation of the Syariah Penal Code Order (SPCO).
Some crimes already command the death penalty in Brunei, including premeditated murder and drug trafficking, but no executions have been carried out since the 1990s. –Reuters
The reversal comes after Brunei fired off an angry letter to the European parliament last month defending its decision to begin enforcing the laws on April 3 in accordance with sharia customs the country adopted in 2014. Parliament had considered imposing asset freezes, visa bans and the blacklisting of nine hotels owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, including the Beverly Hills hotel, Hotel Bel-Air and the Dorchester in London.
“I am aware that there are many questions and misperceptions with regard to the implementation of the SPCO. However, we believe that once these have been cleared, the merit of the law will be evident,” said the sultan during a speech ahead of the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
“As evident for more than two decades, we have practiced a de facto moratorium on the execution of death penalty for cases under the common law. This will also be applied to cases under the SPCO which provides a wider scope for remission.“
While it appears that those who engage in same-sex sodomy will be spared their lives, no indication has been given as to what will be done to them. There is also no word on what will be done to those who commit other crimes, as the new laws allow for the amputation of thieves and whipping of crossdressers wearing clothes associated with the opposite sex.
In regard to whipping, if that is deemed by sharia courts to be the appropriate punishment, the kingdom said this will be administered only by those of the same gender as those convicted.
“The offender must be clothed, whipping must be with moderate force without lifting his hand over his head, shall not result in the laceration of the skin nor the breaking of bones, and shall not be inflicted on the face, head, stomach, chest or private parts,” it stated. -The Guardian
In late March a boycott led by George Clooney was joined by the likes of Sharon Stone, Elton John, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Takei and others, who refuse to patronize the Brunei-owned establishments.
- 15 Questions Robert Mueller Must Answer
Authored by Peter van Buren via The American Conservative,
Why the cryptic wording on the Steele Dossier? Why wasn’t Trump given an opportunity to defend himself in court?
You know that movie with Bruce Willis and the kid who says “I see dead people”? In the end, it turns out everyone is already dead. Now imagine there are people who don’t believe that. They insist the story ends some other way. Spoiler alert: the Mueller Report ends with no collusion. No one is going to prosecute anyone for obstruction. That stuff is all dead. We all saw the same movie.
Yet there seem to still be questions from those who don’t get it. And while it’s doubtful that the stoic Robert Mueller will ever write a tell-all book, or sit next to Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah to dish, he may be called in front of Congress. If he is, here’s some of what he should be asked.
1) You didn’t charge President Donald Trump with “collusion,” obstruction, or any other new crime. Tell us why. If the answer is “the evidence did not support it,” please say so.
2) Your Report did not refer any crimes to Congress, the SDNY, or anyone else. Again, tell us why. If the answer is “the evidence did not support it,” please say so again.
3) Despite making no specific referrals, the Report does state, “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of the office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.” Why did you include such a restating of a known fact? Many have read that line to mean you could not indict a sitting president and so you wanted to leave a clue to Congress. Yet you could have just spelled it out—”this is beyond my and the attorney general’s constitutional roles and must/can only be resolved by Congress.” Why didn’t you?
4) Similarly, many believe they see clues (a footnote looms as the grassy knoll of your work) that the only reason you did not indict Trump was because of Department of Justice and Office of Legal Counsel guidance against indicting a sitting president. Absent that, would you have indicted? If so, why didn’t you say so unambiguously and trigger what would be the obvious next steps?
5) When did you conclude there was no collusion, conspiracy, or coordination between Trump and the Russians such that you would make no indictments? You must have closed at least some of the subplots—the Trump Tower meeting, the Moscow Hotel project—months ago. Did you consider announcing key findings as they occurred? You were clearly aware that there was inaccurate reporting, damaging to the public trust. Yet you allowed that to happen. Why?
6) But before you answer that question, answer this one. You made a pre-Report public statement saying Buzzfeed’s story that claimed Trump ordered Michael Cohen to lie to Congress was false. You restated that in the Report, where you also mentioned that you privately told Jeff Sessions’ lawyer in March 2018 that Sessions would not be charged. Since your work confirmed that nearly all bombshell reporting on Russiagate was wrong (Cohen was never in Prague, nothing criminal happened in the Seychelles, and so on), why was it only that single instance that caused you to speak out publicly? And as with Sessions, did you privately inform any others prior to the release of the Report that they would not be charged? What standard did you apply to those decisions?
7) A cardinal rule for prosecutors is to not publicize negative information that does not lead them to indict someone—”the decision does the talking.” James Comey was criticized for doing this to Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Yet most of your Report’s Volume II is just that, descriptions of actions by Trump that contain elements of obstruction but that you ultimately did not charge. Why did you include this information so prominently? Some say it was because you wanted to draw a “road map” for impeachment. Why didn’t you just say that? You had no reason to speak in riddles.
8) There is a lot of lying documented in the Report. But you seemed to only charge people with perjury (traps) early in your investigation. Was that aimed more at pressuring them to “flip” than at justice per se? Is one of the reasons several of the people in the Report who lied did not get charged with perjury later in the investigation because by then you knew they had nothing to flip on?
9) In regard to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, where derogatory information on Hillary Clinton was offered (but never given), you declined prosecution. You cited in part questions over whether such information constituted the necessary “thing of value” that would have to exist, inter alia, to make its proffering a campaign finance violation. You don’t answer the question in the Report, but you do believe information could be a “thing of value” (the thing of value must exceed $2,000 for a misdemeanor and $25,000 for a felony). What about withholding information? Could someone saying they would not offer information publicly be a “thing of value” and thus potentially part of a campaign finance law violation? Of course I’m talking about Stormy Daniels, who received money not to offer information. Would you make the claim that silence itself, non-information, is a “thing” of value?
10) You spend the entire first half of your Report, Volume I, explaining that “the Russians” sought to manipulate our 2016 election via social media and by hacking the Democratic National Committee. Though there is a lot of redacted material, at no point in the clear text is there information on whether the Russians actually did influence the election. Even trying was a crime, but given the importance of all this (some still claim the president is illegitimate) and the potential impact on future elections, did you look into the actual effects of Russian meddling? If not, why not?
11) Everything the Russians did, according to Volume I, they did on Obama’s watch. Did you investigate anyone in the Obama administration in regard to Russian meddling? Did you look at what they did, what was missed, whether it could have been stopped, and how the response was formed? Given that Trump’s actions towards Russia followed on steps Obama took, this seems relevant. Did you look? If not, why not?
12) Some of the information gathered about Michael Flynn was picked up inadvertently under existing surveillance of the Russian ambassador. As an American, Flynn’s name would have been routinely masked in the reporting on those intercepts in order to protect his privacy. The number of people with access to those intercepts is small, and the number inside the Obama White House with the authority to unmask names is even smaller. Yet details were leaked to the press and ended Flynn’s career. Given that the leak may have exposed U.S. intelligence methods, that it had to have been done at a very high level inside the Obama White House, and that the leak violated Flynn’s constitutional rights, did you investigate? If not, why not?
13) The New York Times wrote that “some of the most sensational claims in the [Steele] dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove. Your report contained over a dozen passing references to the document’s claims but no overall assessment of why so much did not check out.” Given the central role the Steele Dossier played in your work, and certainly in the investigation that commenced as Crossfire Hurricane in summer 2016, why did you not include any overall assessment of why so much did not check out inside such a key document?
14) Prosecutors do not issue certificates of exoneration. The job is to charge or drop a case. That’s what constitutes exoneration in any practical sense. Yet you have as your final line that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Why did you include that, and so prominently?
15) You also wrote, “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” You argue elsewhere in the Report that because Trump is a sitting president, he cannot be indicted, so therefore it would be unjust to accuse him of something he could not go to court and defend himself over. But didn’t you do just that? Why did you leave the taint of guilt without giving Trump the means of defending himself in court? You must have understood that such wording would be raw meat to Democrats, and would force Trump to defend himself not in a court with legal protections, but in an often hostile media. Was that your intention?
- Bolton Announces Carrier Strike Group Deployed In "Message" To Iran
After weeks of heated rhetoric and the exchange of threats related to US oil export sanctions on Iran, and with both sides eyeing the enforcement of its rights over the vital Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the White House has just announced what will be looked on by Tehran as a major and potentially dangerous escalation.
White House national security advisor John Bolton announced Sunday night the immediate deployment of a full aircraft carrier strike group and bomber task force to the Persian Gulf region.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, via The National Interest The official statement cites that CENTCOM is responding to multiple “troubling and escalatory” Iranian actions, and reads as follows:
In response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, the United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack.
Iran has within the past week vowed to keep exporting oil even as the White House vowed to take it down to “zero” – this after ending the waiver program which allowed up to eight nations to continue Iranian crude purchases on a conditional and limited basis.
Iran has also vowed to continue patrolling the key narrow Strait of Hormuz passageway, through which some on-third of the world’s oil passes.
However, after the US formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, the question remains over whether the US military will actually engage IRGC fast boats known to routinely patrol the same region over which CENCOM naval assets operate.
The White House’s sending the USS Abraham Lincoln to the region, likely first near Qatar, makes the potential for a major incident leading to direct exchange of fire between the US and Iran now much more likely.
- S&P Futures Plummet As China Said To Cancel Washington Trade Trip, All Eyes On S&P 2,890
It’s only appropriate that the S&P may be about to suffer its biggest drop of the year one day after hitting a new all time high.
For those who are only now catching up, the reason why futures are tumbling is that just after 12pm ET, Trump tweeted that trade talks – which according to the White House, media leaks and Larry Kudlow would be basically concluded by next week – are instead effectively dead, as the current 10% tariff will spike to 25% on Friday, while an additional $325BN in goods will be subject to new trade tariffs.
Some saw in Trump’s tweet a retaliation for Friday’s North Korea ballistic missile launch, the first since 2017, and one which would not have happened without the explicit blessing of Beijing.
Others were more nuanced, and Nomura’s Charlie McElligott writing late on Sunday that “either this is an epic act “rope-a-dope” posturing and poker-playing from POTUS to collect a (self-perceived) “better” deal “win” thereafter…as the 500-handle rally in Spooz has given Trump enough confidence to absorb a market drawdown and again “lean-into” what some in the administration believe is Chinese “slow-playing”—all in an attempt from to extract additional last-minute deal concessions, after last week’s reported negotiation setbacks—OR a raging ‘miscalculation’ with “vigilante” markets.”
For now it is looking like it’s the latter, with futures tumbling and the Emini down a whopping 55 points on Sunday night, shaping up as the third biggest intraday drop of the year so far.
But Nasdaq is worst for now (down over 2%) as Dow is down 500 points.
Meanwhile, the (non-USD) FX markes is getting absolutely crushed, with China proxies such as the Aussie and Kiwi tumbling, because, as McElligott adds, the key risk is that the offshore Yuan (CNH) may tumble – which it is currently, plunging over 1.3%, or the biggest move since Jan 2016, “as market forces anticipate that China may allow the Yuan to weaken considerably IF they choose to retaliate (a big “IF”), following their prior perceived ‘goodwill’ controlling of the exchange rate within a tight band the past three months for trade negotiation purposes.”
Treasury futures are dramatically bid (implying a 7.5bps drop in 10Y yields).
Meanwhile, in an attempt to prevent a Sunday rout, Goldman published a note after 6pm Eastern, in which the bank’s chief political economist, Alec Phillips, comments on Trump’s announcement that the tariff rate on $200bn of imports from China will rise from 10% to 25%, noting that it “lowers the odds of a successful conclusion to US-China trade talks and raises the odds of further tariff escalation. However, we think it is more likely that the increase will be narrowly avoided and believe the odds of tariffs increasing on Friday are 40%.”
Well, it may be time for Goldman to rename itself Gartman Sachs, because the digital ink wasn’t even dry yet on that note when the WSJ reported that China is considering canceling trade talks with the U.S. After Trump’s sudden, unexplained threats, adding that:
- Trump’s Tweets Threatening New Tariffs Surprised Chinese Officials
- Decision Weighs on Whether Vice Premier Liu He Goes to Washington as Planned
- Canceling Talks Conform to China’s Strategy Not to Negotiate Under Threat
And while the WSJ was somewhat tentative in its reporting, reporter Edwards Lawrence was far more convinced that it’s pretty much game over: “Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has cancelled his trip to Washington this week for trade talks following a tweet by President Donald Trump threatening more tariffs because the talks have moved too slowly. “
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He has cancelled his trip to Washington this week for trade talks following a tweet by President Donald Trump threatening more tariffs because the talks have moved too slowly. #China #Trade #Breaking
— Edward Lawrence (@EdwardLawrence) May 6, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
So it looks like it is indeed likely that US-China trade talks may be about to implode (especially with Goldman’s “kiss”). Meanwhile, going back to McElligott’s note, this “unexpected” negative development couldn’t come at a worse time for investors, as after avoiding rushing into the meltup for over 4 months, “it was leveraged funds who were finally “forced in” last week (through start of week), covering $9B of SPX futures short positioning, while we also saw Macro Funds take up their “Beta to SPX” WoW, going from 11th %ile to now 51st %ile into the start of the week. Tough timing.” Tough indeed, and here are some other “tough” observations:
- There is a very large Asset Mgr ‘net long’ in US Eq Futs, as they currently hold a total $123B net long notional position across US Equities Futures (SPX, NDX, Russell)—with $62.4B / half of the overall position bought YTD alone
- As half of this position then is deeply ‘in the money,’ it would make sense that an extreme ‘risk-negative’ reaction to this news by the market tonight / tomorrow could elicit AM profit-taking to monetize some of this performance YTD
Finally, with the Emini back under 2,900 all eyes are now back on 2,890 – that’s both where dealer gamma turns negative again, selling begets more selling…
Source: Nomura … and is also where the CTAs start dumping in earnest, as per these latest updated market triggers, according to McElligott:
- S&P 500, currently 100.0% long, as of tomorrow would be selling under 2878.76 to get to +57%, more selling under 2635.85 to get to -100% , flip to short under 2636.14 max short under 2635.85 —deleveraging triggers moves up to 2894.26 in a week and 2900 in 2 weeks, in 3 weeks 2932
- Russell 2000, currently 100.0% long, as of tomorrow would be selling under 1565.7 to get to +57%, more selling under 1557.82 to get to -100% , flip to short under 1557.98 max short under 1557.82–deleveraging levels move up to 1600 in a week, 1617.52 in 2 weeks, in 3m weeks 1616
- NASDAQ 100, currently 100.0% long, as of tomorrow would be selling under 7578.15 to get to +57%, more selling under 6657.92 to get to -100% , flip to short under 6658.7, max short under 6657.92–deleveraging levels move up to 7641 in a week, 7687.84 in 2 weeks, in 3m weeks 7842.53
For the TL/DR crowd: Steven Mnuchin better have the PPT on speed dial.
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