Nov 06

Today’s News 6th November 2016

  • MOST Voters Now Think Clinton Broke the Law

    McClatchy reports:

    A total of 83 percent of likely voters believe that Clinton did something wrong – 51 percent saying she did something illegal and 32 percent saying she something unethical but not illegal.  Just 14 percent said she’s done nothing wrong.

     

    By comparison, 79 percent think Donald Trump did something wrong, though not nearly as many think he did something illegal. Just 26 percent think he’s done something illegal, while 53 percent think he’s dome something unethical but not illegal. Just 17 percent think he’s done nothing wrong.

    The difference between 17% and 14% thinking that Trump and Clinton, respectively, did nothing wrong is trivial.

    The real difference is that twice as many voters think Clinton broke the law as think that Trump did.

  • Trump Rushed Off Stage In Nevada By Secret Service

    Details surrounding the event are few – according to initial unconfirmed reports, a person in the crowd allegedly pulled a gun –  but shortly after appearing on stage at a Nevada rally, Donald Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service agents.

     

     

    While many have donned their tin foil hats over the past few months, the big question everyone is asking is – will the establishment use the ultimate tool to stop Trump winning the election? Initial unconfirmed reports suggest that a man in the crowd pulled a gun:

    According to The Hill, the Republican presidential nominee noticed a protestor in the crowd and told event security to remove him. But as Trump looked out over the crowd to spot the protestor, two men in suits ran to the stage, grabbed him by the shoulders, and rushed him behind the curtain. 

    A group of security officials jumped over the barricade, protecting the stage and looking into the crowd, backing up shocked attendees who tried to take video of the protestor. 

    Security led a bald man out of the convention hall as the crowd cheered and also booed the protestor.

    And moments later:

    Trump returned to the stage moments later to continue his speech. “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped. Never ever be stopped,” Trump said. “I want to thank the Secret Service. These guys are fantastic – they don’t get enough credit,” he said.:

    A few minutes later, the businessman paused to thank his supporters for helping to protect him as the man rushed the stage.

    “I want to thank all these people,” he said, pointing to the area where the man was stopped.

    “I saw what you were doing – that’s a tough group of people right there. I saw that, that was pretty amazing. Nobody messes with our people,” he said.

    Below is a photo of the alleged gunman:

    ABC News reported no weapon was found on the man, according to sources. However, shouts from the crowd about a gun elevated the Secret Service’s response.

    Trump’s campaign released a brief statement that echoed the candidate’s appreciation for Secret Service, but did not provide any additional information as to what had occurred. The tense situation came during a slew of Trump rallies three days before the election, as the businessman and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton criss-cross the country before Election Day.

    Trump did not appear to cut his rally short Saturday, despite the interruption. The incident took place about 35 minutes into his speech and he spoke for another 10 minutes after returning to the stage. NBC reported that no weapon was ultimately found on the alleged attacker. 

    According to the latest update, the man detained by SWAT has been released:

  • Can The Oligarchy Still Steal The Presidential Election?

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts via Strategic-Culture.org,

    The election was set up to be stolen from Trump. That was the purpose of the polls rigged by overweighting Hillary supporters in the samples. After weeks of hearing poll results that Hillary was in the lead, the public would discount a theft claim. Electronic voting makes elections easy to steal, and I have posted explanations by election fraud experts of how it is done.

    Clearly the Oligarchy does not want Donald Trump in the White House as they are unsure that they could control him, and Hillary is their agent.

    With the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary and related scandals exploding all around her, election theft is not only more risky but also less likely to serve the Oligarchy’s own interests.

    Image as well as money is part of Oligarchic power. The image of America takes a big hit if the American people elect a president who is currently under felony investigation.

    Moreover, a President Hillary would be under investigation for years. With so much spotlight on her, she would not be able to serve the Oligarchy’s interests. She would be worthless to them, and, indeed, investigations that unearthed various connections between Hillary and oligarchs could damage the oligarchs.

    In other words, for the Oligarchy Hillary has moved from an asset to a liability.

    A Hillary presidency could put our country into chaos. I doubt the oligarchs are sufficiently stupid to think that once she is sworn in, Hillary can fire FBI Director Comey and shut down the investigation. The last president that tried that was Richard Nixon, and look where that got him.

    Moreover, the Republicans in the House and Senate would not stand for it. House Committee on oversight and Government Reform chairman Jason Chaffetz has already declared Hillary to be “a target-rich environment. Even before we get to day one, we’ve got two years worth of material already lined up.” House Speaker Paul Ryan said investigation will follow the evidence.

    If you were an oligarch, would you want your agent under this kind of scrutiny? If you were Hillary, would you want to be under this kind of pressure?

    What happens if the FBI recommends the indictment of the president? Even insouciant Americans would see the cover-up if the attorney general refused to prosecute the case. Americans would lose all confidence in the government. Chaos would rule. Chaos can be revolutionary, and that is not good for oligarchs.

    Moreover, if reports can be believed, salacious scandals appear to be waiting their time on stage. For example, last May Fox News reported:

    “Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” — even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.

     

    “Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.” The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.”

    Fox News reports that Epstein served time in prison for “solicitation and procurement of minors for prostitution. He allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on ‘Orgy Island,’ an estate on Epstein’s 72-acre island, called Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

    Some Internet sites, the credibility of which is unknown to me, have linked Hillary to these flights.

    This kind of behavior seems reckless even for Bill and Hillary, who are accustomed to getting away with everything. Nevertheless, if you are an oligarch already worried about the reopened Hillary email case and additional FBI investigations, such as the one into the Clinton Foundation, and concerned about what else might emerge from the 650,000 emails on former US Rep. Weiner’s computer and the NYPD pedophile investigation, putting Hillary in the Oval Office doesn’t look like a good decision.

    At this point, I would think that the Oligarchy would prefer to steal the election for Trump, instead of from him, rather than allow insouciant Americans to destroy America’s reputation by choosing a person under felony investigations for president of the United States.

    Being the “exceptional nation” takes on new meaning when there is a criminal at the helm.

  • Julian Assange's Most Incendiary Interview: "Hillary Clinton Is The Central Cog Of The Establishment"

    In what may be his most provocative and incendiary interview ever given, Wikileaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange – who realizes that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency his prospects turn even more bleak – spoke to Australian journalist and documentary maker John Pilger, and summaraized what he has gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year in the following interview courtesy of RT and Dartmouth films.

    John Pilger, another Australian émigré, conducted the 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has been trapped since 2012 for fear of extradition to the US. Last month, Assange had his internet access cut off for alleged “interference” in the American presidential election through the work of his website. 

    Full interview transcript below:

    ‘Clinton made FBI look weak, now there is anger’ 

    John Pilger: What’s the significance of the FBI’s intervention in these last days of the U.S. election campaign, in the case against Hillary Clinton? 

    Julian Assange: If you look at the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America’s political police. The FBI demonstrated this by taking down the former head of the CIA [General David Petraeus] over classified information given to his mistress. Almost no-one is untouchable.  The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that no-one can resist us.  But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI’s investigation, so there’s anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak.  We’ve published about 33,000 of Clinton’s emails when she was Secretary of State.  They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails, [of which] Clinton has kept about half – 30,000 — to herself, and we’ve published about half.

    Then there are the Podesta emails we’ve been publishing.  [John] Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign manager, so there’s a thread that runs through all these emails; there are quite a lot of pay-for-play, as they call it, giving access in exchange for money to states, individuals and corporations. [These emails are] combined with the cover up of the Hillary Clinton emails when she was Secretary of State, [which] has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases. 

    * * *

    ‘Russian government not the source of Clinton leaks’

    JP: The Clinton campaign has said that Russia is behind all of this, that Russia has manipulated the campaign and is the source for WikiLeaks and its emails. 

    JA: The Clinton camp has been able to project that kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria: that Russia is responsible for everything.  Hilary Clinton stated multiple times, falsely, that seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That is false; we can say that the Russian government is not the source.

    WikiLeaks has been publishing for ten years, and in those ten years, we have published ten million documents, several thousand individual publications, several thousand different sources, and we have never got it wrong. 

    * * *

    ‘Saudi Arabia & Qatar funding ISIS and Clinton’

    JP: The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she is benefitting politically, are quite extraordinary. I’m thinking of  when the Qatari representative was given five minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.

    JA: And twelve million dollars from Morocco …

    JP: Twelve million from Morocco yeah.

    JA: For Hillary Clinton to attend [a party].

    JP: In terms of the foreign policy of the United States, that’s where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIL, in the Middle East.  Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate the connection between those who are meant to be fighting the jihadists of ISIL, are actually those who have helped create it.

    JA: There’s an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton, not so long after she left the State Department, to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIL is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.  Now this is the most significant email in the whole collection, and perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation.  Even the U.S. government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIL, or ISIS. But the dodge has always been that, well it’s just some rogue Princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves.

    But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi and  Qatar that have been funding ISIS.

    JP: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the Saudis and the Qataris, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hilary Clinton is Secretary of State and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia.

    JA: Under Hillary Clinton, the world’s largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, [worth] more than $80 billion.  In fact, during her tenure as Secretary of State, total arms exports from the United States in terms of the dollar value, doubled.

    JP: Of course the consequence of that is that the notorious terrorist group called ISIl or ISIS is created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation.

    JA: Yes.

    JP:That’s extraordinary. 

    * * *

    ‘Clinton has been eaten alive by her ambition’

    JA: I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions,  tormented literally to the point where they become sick; they faint as a result of [the reaction] to their ambitions. She represents a whole network of people and a network of relationships with particular states.  The question is how does Hilary Clinton fit in this broader network?  She’s a centralising cog. You’ve got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs and major elements of Wall Street, and Intelligence and people in the State Department and the Saudis.

    She’s the centraliser that inter-connects all these different cogs.  She’s the smooth central representation of all that, and ‘all that’ is more or less what is in power now in the United States. It’s what we call the establishment or the DC consensus. One of the more significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed and how half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from Citi Bank. This is quite amazing. 

    JP: Didn’t Citibank supply a list …. ?

    JA: Yes.

    JP: … which turned out to be most of the Obama cabinet.

    JA: Yes.

    JP: So Wall Street decides the cabinet of the President of the United States?

    JA: If you were following the Obama campaign back then, closely, you could see it had become very close to banking interests. So I think you can’t properly understand Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy without understanding Saudi Arabia.  The connections with Saudi Arabia are so intimate.

    * * *

    ‘Libya is Hillary Clinton’s war’

    JP: Why was she so demonstrably enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? Can you talk a little about just what the emails have told us – told you – about what happened there? Because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria: the ISIL, jihadism, and so on. And it was almost Hillary Clinton’s invasion. What do the emails tell us about that?

    JA: Libya, more than anyone else’s war, was Hillary Clinton’s war. Barak Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person championing it?  Hillary Clinton.  That’s documented throughout her emails. She had put her favoured agent, Sidney Blumenthal, on to that; there’s more than 1700 emails out of the thirty three thousand Hillary Clinton emails that we’ve published, just about Libya. It’s not that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state — something that she would use in her run-up to the general election for President.

    So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it’s the chronological description of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee and migrant crisis.

    Not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people fleeing Syria, the destabilisation of other African countries as a result of arms flows, but the Libyan state itself err was no longer able to control the movement of people through it. Libya faces along to the Mediterranean and had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So all problems, economic problems and civil war in Africa — previously people fleeing those problems didn’t end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. That was said explicitly at the time, back in early 2011 by Gaddafi:  ‘What do these Europeans think they’re doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan State? There’s going to be floods of migrants out of Africa and jihadists into Europe, and this is exactly what happened.

    * * *

    ‘Trump won’t be permitted to win’

    JP: You get complaints from people saying, ‘What is WikiLeaks doing?  Are they trying to put Trump in the Whitehouse?’

    JA: My answer is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that?  Because he’s had every establishment off side; Trump doesn’t have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment, but banks, intelligence [agencies], arms companies… big foreign money … are all united behind Hillary Clinton, and the media as well, media owners and even journalists themselves.

    JP: There is the accusation that WikiLeaks is in league with the Russians. Some people say, ‘Well, why doesn’t WikiLeaks investigate and publish emails on Russia?’

    JA: We have published about 800,000 documents of various kinds that relate to Russia. Most of those are critical; and a great many books have come out of our publications about Russia, most of which are critical. Our [Russia]documents have gone on to be used in quite a number of court cases: refugee cases of people fleeing some kind of claimed political persecution in Russia, which they use our documents to back up.

    JP: Do you yourself take a view of the U.S. election?  Do you have a preference for Clinton or Trump?

    JA: [Let’s talk about] Donald Trump. What does he represent in the American mind and in the European mind?  He represents American white trash, [which Hillary Clinton called] ‘deplorable and irredeemable’.  It means from an establishment or educated cosmopolitan, urbane perspective, these people are like the red necks, and you can never deal with them.  Because he so clearly — through his words and actions and the type of people that turn up at his rallies — represents people who are not the middle, not the upper middle educated class, there is a fear of seeming to be associated in any way with them, a social fear that lowers the class status of anyone who can be accused of somehow assisting Trump in any way, including any criticism of Hillary Clinton. If you look at how the middle class gains its economic and social power, that makes absolute sense.

    * * *

    ‘US attempting to squeeze WikiLeaks through my refugee status’

    JP: I’d like to talk about Ecuador, the small country that has given you refuge and [political asylum] in this embassy in London.  Now Ecuador has cut off the internet from here where we’re doing this interview, in the Embassy, for the clearly obvious reason that they are concerned about appearing to intervene in the U.S. election campaign.  Can you talk about why they would take that action and your own views on Ecuador’s support for you?

    JA: Let’s let go back four years.  I made an asylum application to Ecuador in this embassy, because of the U.S. extradition case, and the result was that after a month, I was successful in my asylum application. The embassy since then has been surrounded by police: quite an expensive police operation which the British government admits to spending more than £12.6 million. They admitted that over a year ago.  Now there’s undercover police and there are robot surveillance cameras of various kinds — so that there has been quite a serious conflict right here in the heart of London between Ecuador, a country of sixteen million people, and the United Kingdom, and the Americans who have been helping on the side.  So that was a brave and principled thing for Ecuador to do. Now we have the U.S. election [campaign], the Ecuadorian election is in February next year, and you have the White House feeling the political heat as a result of the true information that we have been publishing.

    WikiLeaks does not publish from the jurisdiction of Ecuador, from this embassy or in the territory of Ecuador; we publish from France, we publish from, from Germany, we publish from The Netherlands and from a number of other countries, so that the attempted squeeze on WikiLeaks is through my refugee status; and this is, this is really intolerable. [It means] that [they] are trying to get at a publishing organisation; [they] try and prevent it from publishing true information that is of intense interest to the American people and others about an election.

    JP: Tell us what would happen if you walked out of this embassy.

    JA: I would be immediately arrested by the British police and I would then be extradited either immediately to the United States or to Sweden. In Sweden I am not charged, I have already been previously cleared [by the Senior Stockholm Prosecutor Eva Finne]. We were not certain exactly what would happen there, but then we know that the Swedish government has refused to say that they will not extradite me to the United States we know they have extradited 100 per cent of people whom the U.S. has requested since at least 2000.  So over the last fifteen years, every single person the U.S. has tried to extradite from Sweden has been extradited, and they refuse to provide a guarantee [that won’t happen].

    JP: People often ask me how you cope with the isolation in here. 

    JA: Look, one of the best attributes of human beings is that they’re adaptable; one of the worst attributes of human beings is they are adaptable.  They adapt and start to tolerate abuses, they adapt to being involved themselves in abuses, they adapt to adversity and they continue on. So in my situation, frankly, I’m a bit institutionalised — this [the embassy] is the world .. it’s visually the world [for me].

    JP: It’s the world without sunlight, for one thing, isn’t it?

    JA: It’s the world without sunlight, but I haven’t seen sunlight in so long, I don’t remember it.

    JP: Yes.

    JA: So , yes, you adapt.  The one real irritant is that my young children — they also adapt. They adapt to being without their father. That’s a hard, hard adaption which they didn’t ask for.

    JP: Do you worry about them?

    JA: Yes, I worry about them; I worry about their mother.

    * * *

    ‘I am innocent and in arbitrary detention’

    JP: Some people would say, ‘Well, why don’t you end it and simply walk out the door and allow yourself to be extradited to Sweden?’

    JA: The U.N. [the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention] has looked into this whole situation. They spent eighteen months in formal, adversarial litigation. [So it’s] me and the U.N. verses Sweden and the U.K.  Who’s right?  The U.N. made a conclusion that I am being arbitrarily detained illegally, deprived of my freedom and that what has occurred has not occurred within the laws that the United Kingdom and Sweden, and that [those countries] must obey. It is an illegal abuse.  It is the United Nations formally asking, ‘What’s going on here?  What is your legal explanation for this? [Assange] says that you should recognise his asylum.’ [And here is]

    Sweden formally writing back to the United Nations to say, ‘No, we’re not going to [recognise the UN ruling], so leaving open their ability to extradite.

    I just find it absolutely amazing that the narrative about this situation is not put out publically in the press, because it doesn’t suit the Western establishment narrative — that yes, the West has political prisoners, it’s a reality, it’s not just me, there’s a bunch of other people as well.  The West has political prisoners. Of course, no state accepts [that it should call] the people it is imprisoning or detaining for political reasons, political prisoners. They don’t call them political prisoners in China, they don’t call them political prisoners in Azerbaijan and they don’t call them political prisoners in the United States, U.K. or Sweden; it is absolutely intolerable to have that kind of self-perception.

    JA: Here we have a case, the Swedish case, where I have never been charged with a crime, where I have already been cleared [by the Stockholm prosecutor] and found to be innocent, where the woman herself said that the police made it up, where the United Nations formally said the whole thing is illegal, where the State of Ecuador also investigated and found that I should be given asylum.  Those are the facts, but what is the rhetoric? 

    JP: Yes, it’s different.

    JA: The rhetoric is pretending, constantly pretending that I have been charged with a crime, and never mentioning that I have been already previously cleared, never mentioning that the woman herself says that the police made it up.

    [The rhetoric] is trying to avoid [the truth that ] the U.N. formally found that the whole thing is illegal, never even mentioning that Ecuador made a formal assessment through its formal processes and found that yes, I am subject to persecution by the United States.

  • California Secessionists To Meet At Capitol Day After Presidential Election

    Submitted by Joseph Jankowki via PlanetFreeWill.com,

    An organization which has the aims out separating the state of California from the Union of the United States is set to hold a meeting at the state capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, the day after the presidential election.

    The Yes California Independence Campaign, which is based in San Diego, describes itself as a “nonviolent campaign to establish the country of California using any and all legal and constitutional means to do so.”

    The group is currently trying to qualify a citizen’s initiative in 2018 to get a referendum for secession on the ballot in 2019, reports SF Gate. They will be in Sacramento in hopes to gather support for the state’s exit, or the “Calexit”, as they call it.

    “In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children,” reads Yes California’s official website.

    The group’s page reads on:

    Although charity is part of our culture, when you consider that California’s infrastructure is falling apart, our public schools are ranked among the worst in the entire country, we have the highest number of homeless persons living without shelter and other basic necessities, poverty rates remain high, income inequality continues to expand, and we must often borrow money from the future to provide services for today, now is not the time for charity.

     

    However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country. It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law.

     

    It is about California taking its place in the world, standing as an equal among nations. We believe in two fundamental truths: (1) California exerts a positive influence on the rest of the world, and (2) California could do more good as an independent country than it is able to do as a just a U.S. state.

    Yes California’s website lays out 9 different points covering topics the group believes will benefit from a California exit from the US, including education, peace and security, debt and taxes and immigration…

    THE CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE IN 9 SIMPLE POINTS
    Being a U.S. state is no longer serving California’s best interests. On issues ranging from peace and security to natural resources and the environment, it has become increasingly true that California would be better off as an independent country. Here’s a summary of why we think so.

     

    1. PEACE AND SECURITY
    The U.S. Government spends more on its military than the next several countries combined. Not only is California forced to subsidize this massive military budget with our taxes, but Californians are sent off to fight in wars that often do more to perpetuate terrorism than to abate it. The only reason terrorists might want to attack us is because we are part of the United States and are guilty by association. Not being a part of that country will make California a less likely target of retaliation by its enemies.

     

    2. ELECTIONS AND GOVERNMENT
    California’s electoral votes haven’t affected a presidential election since 1876. On top of that, presidential election results are often known before our votes are even counted. So, why should we keep subjecting ourselves to presidents we play no role in electing, to 382 representatives and 98 senators we can’t vote for, and all the government officials and federal judges appointed by those very same people we don’t elect.

     

    3. TRADE AND REGULATION
    The U.S. Government maintains a burdensome trade system that hurts California’s economy by making trade more difficult and more expensive for California’s businesses. As long as California remains within this burdensome trade system, we will never be able to capitalize on the trade and investment opportunities that would be available to us as an independent country. On top of that, the United States is dragging California into the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement which conflicts with our values.

     

    4. DEBT AND TAXES
    Since 1987, California has been subsidizing the other states at a loss of tens and sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars in a single fiscal year. As a result, we are often forced to raise taxes and charge fees in California, and borrow money from the future to make up the difference. This is partly why California presently has some of the highest taxes in the country, and so much debt. Independence means that all of our taxes will be kept in California based on the priorities we set, and we will be able to do so while repaying our debts and phasing out the current state income tax.

     

    5. IMMIGRATION
    California is the most diverse state in the United States and that is something we are proud of. This diversity is a central part of our culture and an indispensable part of our economy. As a U.S. state, our immigration system was largely designed by the 49 other states thirty years ago. This immigration system has since neglected the needs of the California economy and has hurt too many California families. Independence means California will be able to decide what immigration policies make sense for our diverse and unique population, culture, and economy, and that we’ll be able to build an immigration system that is consistent with our values.

     

    6. NATURAL RESOURCES
    Certain minerals and other natural resources like coal, oil, and natural gas are being extracted from California at below market value rates by private corporations with the permission of the U.S. Government. While a small portion of the revenue is shared with us, our share has been withheld during times of sequestration. That means the U.S. Government is paying their debts with royalties collected from selling off California’s natural resources. Independence means we will gain control of the 46% of California that is currently owned by the U.S. Government and its agencies. We will therefore take control of our natural resources and be the sole beneficiary of royalties collected if and when they are extracted from our lands.

     

    7. THE ENVIRONMENT
    California is a global leader on environmental issues. However, as long as the other states continue debating whether or not climate change is real, they will continue holding up real efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The truth is this country accounts for less than five percent of the world’s population yet consumes one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 27 percent of the aluminum, 23 percent of the coal, and 19 percent of the copper. Independence means California will be able to negotiate treaties to not only reduce the human impact on our climate but also to help build global resource sustainability.

     

    8. HEALTH AND MEDICINE
    The Affordable Care Act was enacted by the U.S. Government to lower the cost of health care and expand health insurance coverage to the uninsured, yet millions of Californians still lack access to quality health care because they can’t afford it. For many, access to hospitals and medicine is a life or death issue. Independence means we can fund the health care programs we want and ensure everyone has access to the medicines they need because our taxes will no longer be subsidizing other states. Finally, California can join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteeing health care as a universal right for all of our people.

     

    9. EDUCATION
    California has some of the best universities but in various ways, our schools are among the worst in the country. Not only does this deprive our children of the education they deserve, but it also costs taxpayers billions in social services and law enforcement expenses linked to lacking opportunities resulting from poor education. Independence means we will be able to fully fund public education, rebuild and modernize public schools, and pay public school teachers the salaries they deserve. On top of that, independence means freedom from federal education policies and one-size-fits-all standards set by political appointees on the other side of the continent.

    One blog post on their page draws parallels with a “Calexit” and the recent referendum known as “Brexit” that passed in the UK in June which showed that most British people are ready for their country to leave the EU.

    The push for secession is nothing new to California. In 1941 the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, Gilbert Gable, proposed the idea to push the Oregon counties of Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath to join with the California counties of Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Modoc to form a new state, later named Jefferson.

    Modoc County of Northern California voted in 2013 to join neighboring Siskiyou County in a push to secede from the State of California.

    In 2014, two counties in northern California petitioned for the right to form a 51st State of America, which they also wanted to name Jefferson.

  • Shocked CNN Admits Clinton Has Dropped Below 270 On Electoral Map

    Despite the very recently increasing lead of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the "polls", even CNN has been forced to admit today that "this race has tightened."

    In a shocking turn of events for the Clinton campaign's propaganda arm, the latest snapshot of the Electoral College map heading into the final days shows Hillary Clinton has dropped below 270 electoral votes for the first time in CNN's electoral map when adding up the states that are either solidly Democratic or leaning in her direction.

     

    CNN made four moves in the map since their last update and all of them are in Donald Trump's direction.

    Maine's 2nd Congressional District moves from "battleground" to "lean Republican"

     

    New Hampshire moves from "lean Democrat" to "battleground"

     

    Ohio moves from from "battleground" to "lean Republican"

     

    Utah from "battleground" to "lean Republican"

    Leaving the scorecard as follows…

     

    As The Hill notes, Trump has been closing in on Clinton's lead both nationally and in several battleground states. Although the Democratic nominee still holds an advantage, CNN's map now shows more opportunity for the GOP nominee to reach the required number of electoral votes to secure the presidency.

    * * *

    Ironically, given our earlier comment, CNN has now folded again and admit their latest national poll shows Trump and Clinton deadlocked.

    Another national survey shows a near-even race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the final weekend before Election Day.

     

    The former secretary of state has 44% of support among likely voters in a McClatchy-Marist poll released Saturday while the businessman has 43%, within the poll's margin of error.

     

    Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has 6% of the vote while Green Party nominee Jill Stein garners 2%.

     

    "Although Clinton and Trump are separated by the slimmest of margins, the Electoral College can present a very different picture," said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "Close popular votes can, but do not necessarily, translate into tight battles for 270 electoral votes."

     

    The poll included voters who are undecided but leaning toward a candidate or who have already voted.

     

    When the McClatchy-Marist poll last reported these results in September, Clinton was ahead of Trump by 6 points among likely voters nationally.

  • Preppers Stockpile Survival Food On Fears Of Post-Election Chaos

    The 2016 election year is bringing out the worst among some elements of society. From vandalism to physical assaults to large scale race riots to terrorist bombings and mall stabbings, STHFPlan's Stefan Gleason notes that social disorder has become a more prominent feature of life in a polarized America.

    It’s easy (and politically convenient) for the establishment media to blame Donald Trump for inflaming the political divide. In reality, Trump supporters have far more often been the victims rather than the instigators of political violence.

     

    Moreover, the forces driving social unrest have been building for years. Surveys show that large numbers of Americans – including Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites – agree that race relations have worsened under President Obama’s watch. The nation’s first half-African president has repeatedly sided with racial agitators and refused to denounce antipolice riots. His attorney general, Loretta Lynch, has given legal legitimacy to vicious racial narratives that have little to no basis in fact.

     

    In addition to leaving the country with fresh new racial wounds, the outgoing Obama administration will leave America with a doubling of the national debt to nearly $20 trillion, a historically low rate of workforce participation, 20 million more people on food stamps, and a shrinking middle class whose earnings aren’t keeping up with surging costs of things like health insurance.

     

    People are frustrated, restless, angry. And officially, we aren’t even in a recession yet. Officially, the inflation rate remains below 2%.

     

    What happens when the economy and stock market start tanking? Or when costs for fuel, food, and other consumer goods start taking off again?

    Well, it appears the answer – as so many have already realized – is finally being recognized by the mainstream media as NBC News reports, preppers are running up sales of emergency survival food due to election night doomsday concerns…

    While sales for "long term food" typically see an increase around natural disasters and elections, "this is more intense than what we saw in 2012," said Keith Bansemer, VP of marketing for My Patriot Supply, a manufacturer and seller of survival food. During the previous election his company saw sales double. This time it's triple.

     

    "We have everyone we can on the phones," he said. "We are overwhelmed."

     

    Purchases at other long term food supply companies are up as well. Emergency preparedness online store TheEpicenter reports a 6 percent uptick in year over year sales.

     

    What's feeding this new urgency?

     

    Survivalist consumers says they're preparing for post-election unrest that could involve everything from massive riots, to power grid outages, to the total collapse of the financial system where a can of food becomes currency.

     

    And it's not just guys digging a hole on their farm and filling it with MRE's who are driving sales, companies say, but schoolteachers, moms, and successful financial planners. Nor is it limited to just rural areas.

    For $2,000 spent at Legacy Foods, you could eat three square meals a day for an entire year. That's 1,080 servings. TheEpicenter has a 14-day supply kit for $235 that's recently been "selling really well," said owner Bryan Nelson. The most popular entry-level seller at My Patriot Supply is a 3-month supply for $497. It comes a in nondescript gray slim line totes bin designed to be easy to stack in the back of a closet or slip under your bed. Big name retailers are in on the game. Costco sells a 1-month supply of 390 servings in plastic gallon buckets for $114.99. Wal-Mart has a bucket deal, too.

    As one 41-year-old "urban prepper" from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania predicts, a Trump win will see the urban poor revolting across the nation and the imposition of martial law to quell riots and the burning of businesses.

    But he's also getting ready for the possibility of a Clinton victory that he says could lead to conflict with Russia and "World War 3 in 2017."

     

    Either way, Freddy's ready – with both supplies and a word of advice.

     

    "At minimum stock up your cabinets as if you knew a hurricane was coming," he said. "It'll be like a hurricane that could touch every city in America."

     

    "You hear them saying, no matter who wins, I know I could take a positive step myself and secure what's important," he said. "They're securing their food supply."

    Simply put, as SHTFPlan.com's Mac Slavo writes, there will come a time when it's too late and you'll be begging to have your old life back…

    With the things heating up just days before what is arguably the craziest Presidential election in American history, Joe Joseph weighs in on the latest leaks, the potential for post-election unrest, and looming crisis.

    They’re so worried about… ‘maybe at the end of the day I might not be able to sit in my Barca lounger at the end of the night’ or ‘I might not be able to watch that football game on Sunday’… Let me tell you… If things go the way that The Powers That Shouldn’t Be want them, there will be no Barca lounges and there will be no NFL.

     

    So it’s either we do things now while we have the chance… because there will come a time when it’s too late.. and you will be begging to  have your old life back.

    And the answer’s going to be, ‘you had the opportunity and now it’s gone.’

     

    There’s a lot of things here in the United States, in the western world and in society that we used to have and used to enjoy… quality of life… the ability to earn a liveable wage… fast evoparting… those used to be a lot more present… people used to be a lot more comfortable..

     

    And it’s just not the case anymore… And it’s only going to get worse…

     

    Unless we the people draw the line in the sand and we stick with it.

    …

  • Class 8 Truck Orders Continue To Plummet Posting 20th Consecutive Monthly YoY Decline

    For months now we have been writing about the massive collapse of class 8 truck orders.  Just a few days ago we pointed out that order declines are coming just as large public trucking companies around the country are being forced to slash fleets amid slumping demand and slack capacity.  According to the Wall Street Journal, several U.S. trucking companies, including Swift, Werner and Covenant, have all been forced to cut 1,000s of trucks from their fleets as “overcapacity has driven down pricing.”  Of course, all this means that class 8 truck manufactures are unlikely to see an uptick in new orders anytime in the near future with Werner promising it won’t add trucks “until they see meaningful improvement in the freight and rate markets.”

    “We haven’t seen any difficulty in finding trucks,” said Ken Forster, chief executive of logistics company Sunteck Transport Group, a broker based in Jacksonville, Fla., that finds and books trucks for freight shippers. “It’s clear that overcapacity has driven down pricing.”

     

    In quarterly earnings reports this month, Swift Transportation Co., Werner Enterprises Inc. and Covenant Transportation Group Inc. said they have pulled a combined hundreds of trucks from service since the second quarter.

     

    Idling trucks is a way large fleets can quickly reduce capacity to match demand, which has stagnated this year amid uneven retail imports and sluggish growth for manufacturers.

     

    Swift, the country’s largest truckload carrier, counted 581 fewer trucks in the third quarter than it did this time last year, and plans to cut an additional 200 trucks in the fourth quarter. The company’s fleet tops 19,000 big rigs.

     

    Werner, the fifth-largest U.S. truckload carrier, according to SJ Consulting Group, said it cut its fleet by 240 trucks in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier. The company posted a 41% drop in third-quarter net profit, to $18.9 million, and said in its earnings statement that it won’t add trucks “until we see meaningful improvement in the freight and rate markets.”

    Warnings like the one above from Werner do seem to be playing out the monthly net class 8 truck order data.  Net orders for the month of October 2016 were down 46% compared to last year.  In fact, the level of trailing 12-month net orders is the lowest since January 2011 and down 49% from there February peak.

    July Class 8 Truck Orders

     

    Moreover, monthly truck orders have now declined YoY for 20 consecutive months.

    Class 8 Net Orders

     

    Unfortunately, as BMO’s Joel Tiss points out, things are likely to get worse for the class 8 truck OEM’s before they get better.  With October net orders “much worse than expected” and build rates at 17-18k units, Tiss expects the total backlog to increase to 81-82k units later this month.  Moreover, Tiss points out that increasing backlog and softening 2016 orders are likely to put further downward pressure on 2017 and 2018 forecasts for the OEMs.

    With October builds probably in the 17–18K range, we expect total backlog of 81–82K units when reported later this month. October is a closely watched month for truck demand—historically accounting for about 9% of full-year intake—as OEMs roll out next year’s models, and big fleets set budgets and start placing orders. Based on this, and combined with an average 26% increase from September (13.9K units last month) and where levels have been running this year, October’s tally is much worse than expected.

     

    ACT’s 2016 North American Class-8 outlook calls for a 30% YoY drop in production (227K units vs. 323K in 2015) and 19% lower retail sales (251K vs. 310K in 2015). The 2017 forecast assumes another down year for production and retail sales (-11% and -17%, respectively), with particular weakness in the U.S. For 2018 and 2019, ACT believes the 2017 electronic logging device (ELD) mandate will reduce capacity (5–10% expected) and drive overall industry profits higher, resulting in a solid rebound in truck builds. For 2020, ACT sees a strong pre-buy ahead of the second phase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards starting in 2021, causing another big drop in production that year (-39% forecast).

     

    With U.S. Class-8-truck demand set to decline another 17% or so in 2017 following a 19% drop this year, we expect to see production cuts that began in 1H16 continue into 2H. Also, we have heard from some large dealers that used-truck inventories remain above optimal levels, weighing on used prices and affecting new trucks as well. The combination of lower production and weaker prices could put more pressure on 2017 and 2018 forecasts.

    But, it’s probably nothing.

  • Saturday Humor? Are Americans Too Scared To Consider What Drove Trump's Resurgence In The Polls?

    Are the non-deplorable Americans about to reach the fifth and final “acceptance” stage of Kubler-Ross grieving for a return to the old normal?

    WASHINGTON – Claiming it felt queasy just thinking about what the cause could be, the nation’s populace said Monday it was too terrified to look at what Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s recent rise in the polls was attributed to.

     

    “I know that he just got a pretty big bounce, but frankly, I don’t think I can handle any more information than that,” said Salem, OR resident Tina Redmond, one of the millions of Americans who had learned of Trump’s 2.5-point increase over the previous week’s polling and were too frightened to find out why.

     

    “Once I heard that number, I just couldn’t bear even one more detail. I know if I see a single word of explanation, I won’t sleep for a week – it’s just too horrifying.”

     

    At press time, the nation had learned that support for third-party candidates remained high among millennials and was scared to death of hearing anything further.

    Source: The Onion

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