Sep 06

Today’s News 6th September 2019

  • UK Suicide Rates Spike To Highest Level In 16 Years

    The suicide rate in Britain jumped 11.8% in 2018 vs. 2017 to levels not seen since 2002 – according to The Guardian. Among those aged 10 to 24, the rate was even worse at a 19-year high. 

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    A total of 6,507 suicides were recorded by UK coroners last year – largely driven by an increase in men, who took their own lives at a rate of 17.2 per 100,000 vs. 15.5 in 2017. 

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    “It is extremely worrying that, for the first time in five years, the suicide rate in the UK has increased, with 686 more deaths than in 2017,” said Ruth Sutherland, CEO of Samaritans. 

    “Every single one of these deaths is a tragedy that devastates families, friends and communities. Whilst the overall rise has only been seen this year – and we hope it is not the start of a longer-term trend – it’s crucial to have a better understanding of why there has been such an increase. 

    “We know that suicide is not inevitable; it is preventable, and encouraging steps have been made to prevent suicide, but we need to look at suicide as a serious public health issue.” 

    According to Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at ONS, the overall spike in suicides is statistically significant, and reversed a continuous decline seen since 2013. 

    People aged 45 to 59 had the highest rates of suicide, at 27.1 per 100,000 for men and 9.2 per 100,000 for women. Stripe also pointed to big increases in the rate of suicide among young people. In 2018, 730 people aged 10 to 24 killed themselves, the highest number since 2000, when 749 took their own lives.

    The rate among 20- to 24-year-old males leaped 31% to 16.9 per 100,000, from 12.9 a year earlier. Among females aged 10 to 24, despite a low number of suicides overall, the rate rose to its highest level, 3.3 per 100,000. –The Guardian

    With 16.1 deaths per 100,000, Scotland had the highest suicide rate in Britain at 16.1 deaths per 100,000, followed by Wales at 12.8 per 100,000.  

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    “Looking at the overall trend since the early 80s, we are still witnessing a gradual decline in the rate of suicide for the population as a whole. We will continue to monitor the recent increase, to help inform decision makers and others that are working to protect vulnerable people at risk,” said Stripe. 

  • Bayer Woes Deepen As Germany To Ban Glyphosate Weedkiller By 2023

    Authored by Andrea Germanos via CommonDreams.org,

    The German government announced Wednesday it had agreed on a plan to phase out the use of glyphosate — the key chemical in the weedkiller Roundup — with a total ban set to begin by the end of 2023.

    “Way to go, Germany!” tweeted the U.S.-based advocacy group Organic Consumers Association. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed to the plan Wednesday. The proposal, reported Bloomberg, also says that the “government intends to oppose any request for the E.U. to renew the license to produce the weedkiller, according to a release by the environment ministry.”

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    AFP file photo

    The European Commission, the E.U.’s rules and regulations body, in 2017 renewed the license for glyphosate in the bloc through the end of 2022.

    Germany’s environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, framed the new move as necessary to protect biodiversity, and said that “a world without insects is not worth living in”.

    “What harms insects also harms people,” Schulze said at a press conference. “What we need is more humming and buzzing.”

    Glyphosate is no longer exclusive to Monsanto’s Roundup, as it “is now off-patent and marketed worldwide by dozens of other chemical groups including Dow Agrosciences and Germany’s BASF,” as Reuters noted. 

    That’s despite the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s 2015 designation of glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen,” increasing concerns over its health effects, and mounting legal woes for Bayer, which acquiredMonsanto last year, as multiple juries have found Roundup to have been a factor in plaintiffs’ cancers.

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    Protesters hold balloons on January 20, 2018 in Berlin during a demonstration under the slogan “We are fed up” against agricultural politics and the use of glyphosate, dumping exports and for sustainable agriculture. (Photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images).

    Such concerns prompted Austria to become the first E.U. country to ban glyphosate, a step it took in July.

    Erwin Preiner, a member of the Austrian parliament who worked on the ban, said at the time, “We want to be a role model for other countries in the E.U. and the world.”

  • Meet The Army Of Chinese Crop-Protecting-Drones With A 98% Kill-Rate

    China has deployed an “army of drones” to help protect its crops from a “monster” pest in South China, according to Bloomberg. The drones have recorded a mortality rate as high as 98%, according to its manufacturer. 

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    The drone manufacturer, XAG, who is based in Guangzhou, has teamed up with Germany’s Bayer Crop Science in a collaborative effort to rid China of the fall armyworm. The drone devices are sporting low-toxicity insecticide and have also successfully managed the pests in a government-led initiative in the southwest province of Yunnan. Drones have also “effectively controlled” the spread of pests in cornfields in Henan province. 

    XAG said of the armyworm:

    “It is the ‘crop-devouring monster’ that attacks over 80 crop varieties. Most farmers resort to traditional insecticide sprayers, which not only fail to move fast enough against the ravenous, fast-moving fall armyworm that can fly up to 100 kilometers in one night, but also expose them to dangerous chemicals.”

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    The drones can operate after sunset, which is beneficial since the armyworm feeds actively at night. 

    The armyworm, known for devouring crops, has spread from the Americas to Africa and Asia, eating corn, rice, vegetables and cotton along the way. Since its unceremonious arrival in China, it has affected 950,000 hectares of crops spanning 24 provinces, including Hebei, Shaanxi and Shandong. Outbreaks at 90% of the affected areas are now under control.

  • Major University Study Finds "Fire Did Not Bring Down Tower 7 On 9/11"

    Authored by Matt Agorist via The Free Thought Project,

    On September 11, 2001, at 5:20 p.m., World Trade Center Building 7 suddenly collapsed into its own footprint, falling at free fall speed for 2.5 seconds of its seven-second complete destruction. WTC 7 was not hit by a plane. After it collapsed, Americans were told that office fires caused a unique — never before seen — complete architectural failure leading to the building collapsing into its own footprint at the rate of gravity.

    Despite calls for the evidence to be preserved, New York City officials had the building’s debris removed and destroyed in the ensuing weeks and months, preventing a proper forensic investigation from ever taking place. Seven years later, federal investigators concluded that WTC 7 was the first steel-framed high-rise ever to have collapsed solely as a result of normal office fires.

    Naturally, skeptics have been questioning the official story for some time and after moving from the realm of conspiracy theory into the realm of science, an extensive university study has found that the official story of fire causing the collapse is simply not true.

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    This week, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth announced their partnership with the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in releasing a draft report of an in depth four-year study on what actually brought down WTC 7. According to the press release, the release of the draft report begins a two-month period during which the public is invited to submit comments. The final report will be published later this year.

    According to the study’s authors:

    The UAF research team utilized three approaches for examining the structural response of WTC 7 to the conditions that may have occurred on September 11, 2001. First, we simulated the local structural response to fire loading that may have occurred below Floor 13, where most of the fires in WTC 7 are reported to have occurred. Second, we supplemented our own simulation by examining the collapse initiation hypothesis developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Third, we simulated a number of scenarios within the overall structural system in order to determine what types of local failures and their locations may have caused the total collapse to occur as observed.

    After conducting comprehensive modeling and studying countless scenarios, the study’s authors, J. Leroy Hulsey, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., UAF, Zhili Quan, Ph.D., Bridge Engineer South Carolina Department of Transportation, and Feng Xiao, Ph.D., Associate Professor Nanjing University of Science and Technology Department of Civil Engineering, concluded the following:

    Fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.

    The results of this study cannot be dismissed. It completely destroys the narrative that has been shoved down the throats of Americans for nearly two decades. What’s more, this study backs up thousands of other researchers, scientists, and engineers who have been pointing this out for years.

    In fact, as TFTP reported in July, history was made in regard to 9/11 as New York area fire commissioners called for a new investigation into the tragic events that unfolded that day. The resolution called for a new investigation due to the “overwhelming evidence” that “pre-planted explosives . . . caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings.”

    On July 24, 2019, the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which oversees a volunteer fire department serving a hamlet of 30,000 residents just outside of Queens, New York, became the first legislative body in the country to officially support a new investigation into the events of 9/11, according to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

    The resolution calling for a new investigation was drafted by Commissioner Christopher Gioia and it was immediately and unanimously approved by the five commissioners.

    “We’re a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board, we will be an unstoppable force,” said Commissioner Christopher Gioia, adding, “We were the first fire district to pass this resolution. We won’t be the last.”

    According to the report:

    The impact of 9/11 on the community extends well beyond the victims and their grieving families. On September 12, 2001, the Franklin Square Fire Department was called in to assist with the massive rescue and recovery effort that was just getting underway. Countless members of the department, including Gioia and Commissioner Philip Malloy (then rank-and-file firefighters), spent weeks on the pile searching in vain for civilians and fellow responders who might still be alive. Today, Malloy is one of thousands suffering chronic health effects.

    The department also lost one of its own in Thomas J. Hetzel, affectionately referred to as “Tommy” by the commissioners. Hetzel was a full-time member of the New York Fire Department in addition to serving as a volunteer firefighter in Franklin Square. A touching memorial to Hetzel was on display during the meeting, and Hetzel’s widow, parents, and sister were all in attendance.

    “The Hetzel and Evans families were very appreciative of the proceedings,” Gioia commented the day after the meeting. “They know it’s an uphill struggle. But at least they have hope, which is something they haven’t had in a long time.”

    The importance of this resolution — especially coming from a legislative body of fire fighters — is immense. The impact of first responders calling for a new investigation over the use of explosives is massive. The naysayers who call those who question the official narrative “kooks” will have a hard time going after fire commissioners.

    This move and the study above are yet another blow to the highly questionable and hole-filled official narrative. As TFTP reported earlier this year, in another major move from the great folks over at the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and 9/11 victim family members Robert McIlvaine and Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, a joint federal lawsuit has been filed to assess any evidence the FBI may have known about that contributed to the destruction of the towers on 9/11 which they may have kept from Congress.

    The complaint cites the failure of the FBI and its 9/11 Review Commission to assess key 9/11-related evidence that the FBI can be shown to have had, or been aware of, regarding:

    1. the use of pre-placed explosives to destroy World Trade Center Buildings, 1, 2, and 7;

    2. the arrest and investigation of the “High Fivers” observed photographing and celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11;

    3. terrorist financing related the reported Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers;

    4. recovered plane parts, including serial numbers from all three crash locations;

    5. video from cameras mounted inside and outside the Pentagon; and

    6. cell phone communications from passengers aboard airplanes.

    According to the press release on Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, this is evidence relevant to the 9/11 Review Commission’s and the FBI’s compliance with the mandate from Congress, which should have been assessed by the FBI and the 9/11 Review Commission and reported to Congress. The complaint also cites the destruction by the FBI of evidence related to the “High Fivers.” Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has joined in bringing the counts that involve the evidence of the World Trade Center’s explosive demolition and evidence related to the “High Fivers,” while the other plaintiffs are party to all counts.

    Also, as TFTP previously reported, a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11 truth took place last December when a United States Attorney agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Centers. Then, in March, the group behind the submission, the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, announced the filing of a “petition supplement” naming persons who may have information related to the use of said explosives.

    According to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, the 33-page document contains 15 different categories of persons who may have information material to the investigation, including contractors and security companies that had access to the WTC Towers before 9/11, persons and entities who benefited financially from the WTC demolitions, and persons arrested after being observed celebrating the WTC attacks.

    A names-redacted version of the petition supplement, which was filed with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York on February 14, 2019, has been made available to the public. The un-redacted version filed with the U.S. Attorney today will remain undisclosed in the interest of maintaining the secrecy, security, and integrity of the grand jury proceeding.

    As TFTP reported in December, for the first time since 9/11 the federal government is taking steps to hear evidence that explosives may have been used to destroy the world trade centers.

    The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry successfully submitted a petition to the federal government demanding that the U.S. Attorney present to a Special Grand Jury extensive evidence of yet-to-be-prosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7).

    After waiting months for the reply, the U.S. Attorney responded in a letter, noting that they will comply with the law.

    “We have received and reviewed The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Inc.’s submissions of April 10 and July 30, 2018. We will comply with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3332 as they relate to your submissions,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman stated.

    According to the petition, dozens of exhibits were presented as evidence that explosives were used to destroy all three world trade centers.

    The Lawyers’ Committee’s April 10th 52-page original Petition was accompanied by 57 exhibits and presented extensive evidence that explosives were used to destroy three WTC Towers on 9/11.That evidence included independent scientific laboratory analysis of WTC dust samples showing the presence of high-tech explosives and/or incendiaries; numerous first-hand reports by First Responders of seeing and hearing explosions at the World Trade Center on 9/11; expert analysis of seismic evidence that explosions occurred at the WTC towers on 9/11 both prior to the airplane impacts and prior to the building collapses; and expert analysis and testimony by architects, engineers, and scientists concluding that the rapid onset symmetrical near-free-fall acceleration collapse of these three WTC high rise buildings on 9/11 exhibited the key characteristics of controlled demolition. The July 30th Amended Petition included the same evidence but also addressed several additional federal crimes beyond the federal bombing crime addressed in the original Petition.

    The Lawyers’ Committee concluded in the petitions that explosive and incendiary devices that had been preplaced at the WTC were detonated causing the complete collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7 on 9/11, and the resulting tragic loss of life, and that “the evidence permits no other conclusion — as a matter of science, as a matter of logic, and as a matter of law.”

    “This Petition Supplement is intended to assist the Special Grand Jury by providing a roadmap for a meaningful investigation into the yet-to-be-prosecuted 9/11 WTC crimesthat the Lawyers’ Committee has reported and documented in our Petitions,” Attorney David Meiswinkle, President of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Board of Directors, said.

    Finally, after nearly two decades of ridicule, dismissal, and outright intolerance of information contrary to the “official story” of what happened on 9/11, the public may finally learn the truth of what happened and who was behind it.

  • Quantifying The 2020 Dems With The Biggest Trump Fixation

    Analysis of Facebook advertising data by Newsweek has revealed the 2020 candidates that may have a bit of a Trump fixation.

    For one Democratic hopeful, this is much more the case than for all others.

    Infographic: The 2020 Dems With A Trump Fixation | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic above, Kamala Harris has mentioned the president in no less than 29,000 ads on the social media platform since May 2018- almost more than all other candidates combined.

    At the other end of the scale, Pete Buttigieg’s ad campaigns, for example, only had 11 mentions.

  • Whitehead: Is The US Government The Enemy Of The People? America's Post-9/11 Lost Liberties

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “These are the times that try men’s souls.” – Thomas Paine, The American Crisis

    Take heed, America.

    Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

    What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act  has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

    The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

    Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, police violence and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

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    The rights embodied in the Constitution, if not already eviscerated, are on life support.

    Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.

    Indeed, since the towers fell on 9/11, the U.S. government has posed a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could.

    While nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11 through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations (which too often fall into the hands of terrorists), and foment civil unrest in order to keep the military industrial complex gainfully employed.

    The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due process, and killed.

    In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, underwear bombers and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the U.S. government – the government that was supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” – has become the enemy of the people.

    This is a government that has grown so corrupt, greedy, power-hungry and tyrannical over the course of the past 240-plus years that our constitutional republic has since given way to idiocracy, and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).

    This is a government that, in conjunction with its corporate partners, views the citizenry as consumers and bits of data to be bought, sold and traded

    This is a government that spies on and treats its people as if they have no right to privacy, especially in their own homes.

    This is a government that is laying the groundwork to weaponize the public’s biomedical data as a convenient means by which to penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors. Incredibly, as part of a proposal being considered by the Trump Administration, a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

    This is a government that routinely engages in taxation without representation, whose elected officials lobby for our votes only to ignore us once elected.

    This is a government comprised of petty bureaucrats, vigilantes masquerading as cops, and faceless technicians.

    This is a government that railroads taxpayers into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite.

    This is a government—a warring empire—that forces its taxpayers to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.

    This is a government that subjects its people to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA and VIPR raids on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes.

    This is a government that uses fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, to track the citizenry’s movements, record their conversations, and catalogue their transactions.

    This is a government whose wall-to-wall surveillance has given rise to a suspect society in which the burden of proof has been reversed such that Americans are now assumed guilty until or unless they can prove their innocence.

    This is a government that treats its people like second-class citizens who have no rights, and is working overtime to stigmatize and dehumanize any and all who do not fit with the government’s plans for this country.

    This is a government that uses free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws to silence, censor and marginalize Americans and restrict their First Amendment right to speak truth to power. The kinds of speech the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation, prosecution and outright elimination include: hate speech, bullying speech, intolerant speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, incendiary speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, right-wing speech, left-wing speech, extremist speech, politically incorrect speech, etc.

    This is a government that adopts laws that criminalize Americans for otherwise lawful activities such as holding religious studies at home, growing vegetables in their yard, and collecting rainwater.

    This is a government that persists in renewing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely.

    This is a government that saddled us with the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.

    This is a government that, in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country, has allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a standing army by way of programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police.

    This is a government that has militarized American’s domestic police, equipping them with military weapons such as “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft,” in addition to armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like.

    This is a government that has provided cover to police when they shoot and kill unarmed individuals just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

    This is a government that has allowed private corporations to get rich at taxpayer expense by locking people up for life for non-violent crimes. There are thousands of people in America serving life sentences for non-violent crimes, including theft of a jacket, siphoning gasoline from a truck, stealing tools, and attempting to cash a stolen check. It costs roughly $29,000 a year per inmate just to keep these nonviolent offenders in prison. Meanwhile, American prisons have become the source of cheap labor for Corporate America.

    This is a government that has created a Constitution-free zone within 100 miles inland of the border around the United States, paving the way for Border Patrol agents to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant. Nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, 197.4 million people) now live within that 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.

    This is a government that treats public school students as if they were prison inmates, enforcing zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, and indoctrinating them with teaching that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.

    This is a government that is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad. Meanwhile, the nation’s sorely neglected infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—is rapidly deteriorating.

    This is a government that has empowered police departments to make a profit at the expense of those they have sworn to protect through the use of asset forfeiture laws, speed traps, and red light cameras.

    This is a government whose gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—poses a greater threat to the safety and security of the nation than any mass shooter. There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.

    This is a government that has allowed the presidency to become a dictatorship operating above and beyond the law, regardless of which party is in power.

    This is a government that treats dissidents, whistleblowers and freedom fighters as enemies of the state.

    This is a government that has in recent decades unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.

    This is a government that allows its agents to break laws with immunity while average Americans get the book thrown at them.

    This is a government that speaks in a language of force. What is this language of force? Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Contempt of cop charges.

    This is a government that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security, national crises and national emergencies.

    This is a government that exports violence worldwide, with one of this country’s most profitable exports being weapons. Indeed, the United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, has been selling violence to the world in order to prop up the military industrial complex and maintain its endless wars abroad.

    This is a government that is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

    This is a government that routinely undermines the Constitution and rides roughshod over the rights of the citizenry, eviscerating individual freedoms so that its own powers can be expanded.

    This is a government that believes it has the authority to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation, the Constitution be damned.

    In other words, this is not a government that believes in, let alone upholds, freedom.

    So where does that leave us?

    As always, the first step begins with “we the people.”

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, our power as a citizenry comes from our ability to agree and stand united on certain freedom principles that should be non-negotiable.

  • Payrolls Preview: Will Census And Seasonality Derail The Fed's Plans

    With the US-China trade war getting thrust to the backburner – if only briefly – following news that trade negotiations will resume in October, leading to an explosion of global optimism, traders will now focus on tomorrow’s payrolls report for an indication of any unexpected reversals in the Fed’s widely priced in 25bps rate cut on Sept 18.

    And although analysts look for an above-trend 160k nonfarm payrolls to be added to the US economy in August with a whisper number of over 200K the underlying indicators, as RanSquawk notes, are mixed: On the one hand, there is the upside (temporary) boost from census hiring; on the other, there is downside drag from August residual seasonality as payrolls have exhibited a tendency toward weak August first prints; then there was the ADP private payrolls report which surprised to the upside; however, Challenger job cuts ticked higher, and the employment sub-indices within the ISM surveys also declined (though remain expansionary). At the same time, consumer confidence data showed the differential between jobs ‘plentiful’ and ‘jobs hard to get’ rising, auguring well for the NFP data, but the outlook on the labor market was less positive, while consumers are also becoming less optimistic about the prospects for wage growth. Overall, a mixed picture as we head to the most important economic datapoint ahead of the September FOMC meeting.

    Here is a summary of what Wall Street expects:

    • Non-farm Payrolls: Exp. 160k, Prev. 164k.
      • Private Payrolls: Exp. 150k, Prev. 148k.
      • Manufacturing Payrolls: Exp. 8k, Prev. 16k.
      • Government Payrolls: Prev. 16k.
    • Unemployment Rate: Exp. 3.7%, Prev. 3.7%. (FOMC currently projects 3.6% unemployment by the end of 2019, and 4.2% in the longer-run).
      • U6 Unemployment Rate: Prev. 7.0%.
      • Labour Force Participation: Prev. 63.0%.
    • Avg. Earnings Y/Y: Exp. 3.1%, Prev. 3.2%; Avg. Earnings M/M: Exp. +0.3%, Prev. +0.3%.
      • Avg. Work Week Hours: Exp. 34.4hrs, Prev. 34.3 hrs.

    More details on what to expect tomorrow, courtesy of RanSquawk

    TREND RATE OF PAYROLL GROWTH:

    Whether one looks at the consensus expectations for the NFP print of 160K, or Goldman’s forecast of 150K, the pattern is clear: the trend-rate of payroll growth is easing. The one-year average sits at 187k, the six-month is at 141k, and the three-month is 140k. However, the latest ADP employment report bodes well for the August headline, after an upside surprise, printing 195k against 148k expected. The strength within the survey was broad, and researchers noted that the August data was the first time in the last 12 months that we have seen balanced job growth across small, medium and large-sized companies. Moody’s economist Mark Zandi said, “Businesses are holding firm on their payrolls despite the slowing economy; hiring has moderated, but layoffs remain low,” adding that “as long as this continues, US recession will remain at bay.”

    In justifying its 150K forecast, Goldman’s economists note that this reflects a 15-20k boost from hiring related to the 2020 Census whereas the private payrolls forecast is somewhat softer at +130k (consensus +150k). This slower expected pace of private job gains is consistent with the August deterioration of employer surveys, and Goldman adds that job growth had slowed meaningfully even before the early-August trade war escalation (to +140k and +141k over the last three and six months, respectively). However, it is likely that job growth remains above potential, which is now well below 100K, as initial jobless claims fell further and employer surveys remained in positive territory on net.

    WAGES:

    The Street is expecting wage growth to rise by +0.3% M/M, matching the pace of the July report, though the Y/Y rate is seen moderating to 3.1% from 3.2%, which Bank of America says is a result of base effects. Within the conference Board’s gauge of consumer confidence, the percentage of consumers expecting an improvement in short-term income prospects decreased from 24.9% to 23.8%, however, the proportion expecting a decrease declined, from 6.6% to 5.8%. Some analysts will also be keeping a sharp eye on hours worked, given the recent decline, which some has taken as a sign that the labour market is losing momentum.

    JOBLESS CLAIMS:

    Initial jobless claims have been bumping along cyclical lows; in the August nonfarm payroll survey week, jobless claims came in at 211k versus July’s 216k,; the four-week average has been chugging around 215k. With the distortions effects fading (as a result of automakers annual shutdowns), analysts see the trend rate continuing around 215k. Over the coming weeks, the trend rate may tick higher due to Hurricane Dorian.

    CHALLENGER JOB CUTS:

    Data from Challenger showed US employers ramping up the pace of downsizing in August; companies have announced plans to cut 53,480 jobs, up 37.7% from July’s total of 38,845, and 39% higher than the 38,472 cuts announced in August 2018. Challenger said August’s total was the fourth highest for job cuts this year, marking the eighth consecutive time job cuts were higher than the corresponding month one year earlier. “Employers are beginning to feel the effects of the trade war and imposed tariffs by the US and China,” researchers said, “in fact, trade difficulties were cited as the reason for over 10,000 job cuts in August.” The consultancy said it is continuing to see investor concerns shaking confidence in the market, and employers appear to be cutting workers in response to a slowdown in demand for their products and services.”

    BUSINESS SURVEYS:

    The employment sub-component in the ISM manufacturing survey fell by 4.3 points to 47.4, now in contraction after 34 months of being in expansion. An ISM Manufacturing Employment Index above 50.8, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on manufacturing employment. “Employment contracted for the first time since September 2016,” ISM said, “August ended an expansion cycle in which the index averaged 55.8.” ISM noted that comments were generally neutral concerning hiring for attrition. “Force reduction comments were minimal, but 25% of general comments were negative regarding employment expansion,” it said. Meanwhile, the only stand-out weakness in the non-manufacturing ISM survey, which was generally pretty solid in August, was the employment sub-component, which fell by 3.1 points to 53.1; the qualitative comments were more encouraging, however, and responses included “new jobs added to compensate for the growth of business” and “we are working on recruiting individuals.”

    CONSUMER SURVEYS:

    Within the conference Board’s gauge of consumer confidence, the differential between jobs “plentiful” and jobs “hard to get” rose to 39.4 in August, from 33.4 in July, auguring well for the labour market data. However, the CB noted that consumers’ outlook for the labour market was also slightly less positive, over the month, since the proportion expecting more jobs in the months ahead decreased marginally from 19.9% to 19.7%, while those anticipating fewer jobs increased from 11.1% to 13.6%.

    ARGUING FOR A WEAKER REPORT:

    • Employer surveys. Business activity business surveys were mixed in August (with moderate gains in the manufacturing sector and little change on net in the services sector), but the employment components of those surveys underperformed (-2.6pt to 49.7 for manufacturing, -0.2pt to 53.4 for services). As shown in Exhibit 1, however, the level of the labor-market components still suggests job growth running at a healthy pace (of around 175k per month). Service-sector job growth rose 133k in July and averaged 120k over the last six months, while manufacturing payroll employment rose 16k in July and has increased by 6k on average over the last six months.
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    • Residual seasonality. Payrolls have exhibited a tendency toward weak August first prints, which may reflect a recurring seasonal bias in the first vintages of the data. In Exhibit 2, Goldman shows first-print payroll growth in August relative to consensus estimates and relative to the previously published three-month moving average (i.e. the average in May, June, and July, as published in the July employment report). August job growth has decelerated in each of the last ten years, and it has missed consensus in 8 of those instances. Softness in the first vintage also tends to manifest in many of the same industries—including manufacturing, professional services, retail, and information. Taken together, the bank assumes a 30k drag from residual seasonality in tomorrow’s report.
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    • Job cuts. Announced layoffs reported by Challenger, Gray & Christmas rose in August to 57k (SA by GS), and are somewhat above their August 2018 level (+15k yoy). The sequential increase in announced layoffs primarily reflects increases in the technology industry (+11k mom sa) and government (+4k).

    ARGUING FOR A STRONGER REPORT:

    • Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims declined further from already very low levels during the five weeks between the payroll reference periods (-6k to 213k on average). Continuing claims rose by 24k from survey week to survey week, but remained unchanged on average between months (at 1,698k).
    • ADP. The payroll-processing firm ADP reported a 195k increase in August private employment, 47k above consensus and a sizeable pickup from the 98k average pace over the three prior months. The ADP report was slightly firmer than our previous assumptions—and in our view suggests that the underlying pace of job growth remains solid.
    • Census hiring. Temporary employment related to the 2020 Census has significantly lagged that of 1999 and 2009. However, address canvassing is now underway, and the Census announced that hiring picked up during and ahead of the August payroll reference week. Given this and given that the 200+ regional Census offices were opened in late July, Goldman expects a visible boost from Census hiring in the report (it assumes 15-20k workers).

    NEUTRAL FACTORS:

    • Job availability. The Conference Board labor market differential—the difference between the percent of respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those saying jobs are hard to get—surged by 6.3pt to +39.4, a new cycle high in August. Other job availability readings were somewhat softer on a sequential basis: JOLTS job openings declined but remained high (-36k to 7,348k in June) and the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online index edged lower (-1.2pt to 102.3 in July).

  • The Ugly Truth About The Trade War

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    This past week was an interesting exercise in false expectations and assumptions. Once again, trade war theatrics were used to stall a stock market plunge as insinuations of a possible “deal” were made by Donald Trump, followed by China’s claim that maybe, just maybe, they would not immediately issue a new round of tariffs right now, but possibly tomorrow, or in a month…

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    Then, all hell broke loose again when only a few days later both sides jumped into a new round of tariffs leaving markets confused and algo trading computers bewildered, so much so that sometimes they even buy on bad news thinking it’s good news. This is the problem with the Pavlovian response mechanism – You train a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell because he thinks he’s going to get a treat, but then what if you change the bell, or the treat, or the entire dynamic of the process? The dog’s whole world is turned upside down and he curls up in a ball in the corner of the room to make the mental anguish stop.

    This is exactly the kind of reaction the globalists are looking for, hence the stop/start insanity of trade discussions, not to mention the dove/hawk behavior of the Federal Reserve. Everything people once thought predictable is being deliberately discombobulated.

    Ultimately the circus and the confusion are only products of peoples biases. They want to believe they will get a treat if they act a certain way when certain indicators signal. They want to believe the trade war can be won, or at least that Trump is trying to win. They want to believe that the Fed will save them with a surge of QE. They want to believe that the instability will be smoothed away by the hands of the political and banking elites. But what if the elites have no intention of doing this? What if they WANT an economic crisis?

    In terms of the trade war, there are some facts that do not support some of the assumptions out there on either side of the debate. These facts run contrary to the mainstream narrative, as well some narratives within the alternative media. On the conservative side I ‘m seeing a kind of artificial patriotic fervor; an organized attempt using memes and propaganda to convince conservatives that the trade war requires mindless fealty to the anti-China message.

    First, to be clear, I think China is a despicable communist regime with a record of human rights abuses, but that’s what makes it a rather perfect distraction for Americans on the political right.  I’m reminded of the war fever against Iraq after 9/11, and how so many conservatives bought into the very thin claim of Iraqi involvement and the lies about WMDs. We don’t like dictators, and we don’t like China, but conservatives are being duped into thinking the trade war against China is an ideological crusade that will lead to a better America, or a better world. This is not what the trade war is intended to do.

    Let’s start with the assumptions (as well as lies and disinformation) surrounding the trade war and then look at the evidence that debunks them…

    Fallacy #1: China Is Dependent On The US Consumer

    I’m not sure where this idea comes from specifically, but it’s not based on anything tangible. I sometimes wonder if the notion that the world depends on the American consumer for its bread and butter is perhaps a kind of appeal to people’s narcissism? Making the average American feel superior, or feel special, simply by telling them that their steady debt based consumption keeps the engine of the global economy running.

    In the case of China, here are the facts:

    The US only comprises around 18% of Chinese exports. While this is a nice piece of the pie, it’s hardly enough leverage to bring down China’s economy. China would suffer profit losses in certain sectors as well as a recession, but not the kind of crisis that some in the alternative media are predicting.

    Around 40% of China’s GDP is generated domestically, and 80% of its GDP growth comes from private consumption. For quite some time I have warned that China was shifting its economic model from an export based system to a more self reliant domestic based system, and that this might be an indication of a coming economic war with the US. As it turns out, this is exactly what has happened. Since 2010, China’s domestic market has grown dramatically, indicating that China has no intention of relying on the US consumer as an economic pillar.

    The US consumer is almost tapped out. While retail sales in certain areas remain steady and this has been used by the mainstream media and the Fed to promote the idea that the economy is still “going strong”, this is not the big picture. The reality is that US consumption is driven by historic levels of debt. Household debt is now FAR above levels last seen after the last financial crisis, with total debt at $1.2 trillion higher today than its last peak in 2008.

    The downturn in retail is more obvious in the steady closings of thousands of outlets in 2019 alone. This year has seen a 29% increase in store closings compared to 2018, even though 2018 saw a considerable spike in store shutdowns. Around 12,000 stores are slated to close this year.

    So the question is, with the US consumer stretched thin by debt and US retail on the verge of a recessionary plunge, why would China feel threatened by the loss of the American consumer market?  They are losing it already by attrition. The truth is they aren’t threatened, which is why, as I predicted last year, the trade war continues unabated despite the fact that so many people argued that China would “quickly fold” to Trump’s demands.

    I realize this is not what many people want to hear, but it is foolish to get caught up in a farcical mob mentality and ignore the fundamentals in the trade war. If you think that the US is going to “win” based on leverage, you are sorely mistaken.  The US is in no better shape economically than China; in many ways we are much worse off.

    Fallacy #2: Manufacturing Will Come Back To The US

    This is perhaps the most persistent and fraudulent “carrot” that has been held out to the American people over the years to get them to go along with certain destructive fiscal policies. Whether it be dollar devaluation or a trade war that goes nowhere, the American people are always being told that manufacturing jobs are “right around the corner”.  People buy into it because they desire a return to the golden years of American economic expansion, and there are a number of reasons why this is an absurd fantasy.

    First, as it stands now manufacturing in the US makes up only 11% of total economic output. I don’t think that many people understand the consequences of this. We have a 70% retail and service based economy, meaning the majority of US citizens in the job market have no experience whatsoever in the manufacturing sector, and the average US company has no guidelines for how to establish a manufacturing base using the American labor pool.

    Second, American labor expects a certain level of wage compensation as well as union organization that makes manufacturing far more expensive here than in China or in other parts of the world. The average factory worker in China makes around $3.60 per hour – how exactly would the American market ever compete with this? Tariff’s alone are not enough to force corporations to spend the billions necessary to rebuild factories in the US and hire American workers at $15+ an hour. It’s just not going to happen.

    Third, there are many places besides China to build a manufacturing base. No company is going to bring its factories to the US when they can build in Vietnam, or Taiwan etc. In many cases, it is cheaper to ship raw materials and products to these countries, have them finished by workers in Asia, and then have the items shipped back, than it is to build the product from start to finish in the US.

    Fourth, we can talk all day about patriotism, but in the end the average American is not going to buy “Made in USA” for most goods out of a sense of patriotic duty if the price is twice as much or more. Walmart and Amazon dominate the retail market for a reason – they sell things cheap.

    Fifth, raising tariffs on foreign exporters would only work to encourage consumption of domestically manufactured goods if the US already had a large manufacturing base and produced all the items other nations produce. Entering into a trade war without a resilient manufacturing sector is backwards. You don’t fight a trade war to get manufacturing to come back, you fight a trade war to promote the goods you already manufacture.

    If Trump had really intended to bring factories back to the US, he should have given corporations tax break incentives in exchange for creating manufacturing jobs on US soil. Instead, he gave corporations tax break incentives for nothing.

    Fallacy #3: China Will Starve Without American Agricultural Products

    Uh, no. This is a very weird argument. It’s as if some people assume that the US is China’s only potential source for food. China buys agricultural products from all over the world, and has alternative sources for foods like soybeans and pork, including Brazil, Mexico and Russia.

    Prices will rise in China, sure, but nowhere near the point of collapse. Again, the Chinese are not reliant on the US for anything, so, the idea that the US has overt leverage in the trade war is simply not true.

    Fallacy #4: The World Will Side With The US Over China

    This is a prime question – would the world choose the US consumer base or China’s cheap export market if they had to pick only one? As noted earlier, the US consumer is nearly tapped out. China has the largest import/export market in the world. The US has little manufacturing to speak of. I also question the validity of the idea that Europe or most other nations have loyalty to American markets.

    Think about it; do they really? Do they see us as indispensable? Or is the rest of the world being sent on a path towards globalism while the US is being made to look like a barbaric and archaic throwback, a Neanderthal man that is desperately clinging to power and is willing to drag everyone else down with him if he doesn’t get his way?

    Many in the liberty movement understand that this is not the case. We know that the globalists have sabotaged this country from within, and we know that they are using Trump as controlled opposition and a useful puppet in this task. But the majority of the rest of the world does NOT understand this. If there is an economic crash which sends shockwaves through multiple economies, the trade war will most likely be blamed along with Trump and his “populist” supporters. The rest of the world will see us as the villains, because they do not understand the nature of 4th Generation Warfare, nor do they understand the globalists strategy of “order out of chaos”.

    The narrative that has been pushed in the mainstream is that China is the victim of US aggression, and that the trade war and the economic crisis are purely a product of Trump’s madness. Who do you honestly think the world will eventually side with?

    Fallacy #5:  The Trade War Will Be Over Soon

    We’ve been hearing this for well over a year and a half now.  Trade wars are “easy to win”, right?  Every couple of months the trade war deal hype is recycled and every couple of months the markets are hit with renewed disappointment.  The latest trade talks are set for October and if they happen at all, it is unlikely they will result in anything of significance.  At most, they will be heralded as the “start of a great deal” and both sides will claim “progress was made”, and then, once again, nothing will happen and the conflict will accelerate.  You would think people would have figured it out by now, but the investment world learns very slowly and functions solely on blind hope.  At the very least, economic analysts are starting to realize that no deal is coming and that the situation is only going to get more tense.  In fact, it is designed to get more tense.

    Fallacy #6: The US Dollar Is Untouchable

    This claim revolves mainly around the idea that because the US dollar is the world reserve currency, the US has the upper hand in trade negotiations and the rest of the world will follow the currency leader because there “is no other option”. I disagree.

    As Bank of England governor Mark Carney has openly admitted, the plan is to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency anyway. How? Well with a global cryptocurrency, of course, just as I warned about in my article ‘The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin’.

    Carney’s mention of Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra as models for this currency system seems to have confused some people. Carney did NOT say that Libra should be the next world reserve currency. He said that the next world reserve currency will look LIKE Libra. But how do the elites plan to institute such a monetary system and force people to go along with a cashless society?

    They need a massive crash event, and they need the US dollar to go the way of the dodo. It seems rather convenient to me that China has been preparing for just such an event. While many analysts point out that China has generated intense amounts of debt over the past decade, they seem to forget that this was a requirement in order for China to attach the Yuan to the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket, which is the foundation for a global currency mechanism.  Chinese economic officials and the globalist both argue that the current monetary system, based on a single national currency (the dollar) as the world reserve is inherently unstable.

    Their solution?  A basket of currencies monitored by the IMF, followed by a single digital currency mechanism.  I would note that China and the globalists have consistently hinted that a major economic crisis event will act as a catalyst for this “reset” in the world monetary order, and that the dollar must be replaced in the process.

    China has also been stockpiling large amounts of gold for the past decade. This would indicate they are expecting a monetary devaluation event, most specifically in the dollar.  It’s as if they know something the rest of us only suspect.

    The trade war is the perfect cover for the collapse of the US dollar that the globalists desire. While some people suggest that China’s dumping of US treasuries is the “nuclear option” in the trade war, this is not exactly true. The REAL nuclear option is for China to dump the US dollar as the reserve trade mechanism and go to a basket of currencies, which the IMF will happily aid them with. As the largest exporter/importer in the world, China can drop the dollar and most of their trading partners will follow their lead. The US economy would crumble in response, as the dollar is the only thread holding our system together.

    This is the ugly truth behind the trade war. It is nothing more than a farce, a smoke and mirrors distraction leading up the the dismantling of the US dollar and paving the way for the globalist one world digital currency system. Whether or not the plan succeeds relies on ample resistance from people who see the danger ahead, but make no mistake, the globalists are not afraid of an economic crash or the decline of the dollar; they WANT these things to happen so they can establish even more centralized control.

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  • US Army Awards Two Key Hypersonic Missile Contracts

    The race for hypersonic missiles heated up last week when the US Army awarded two key contracts to catch up to Russia and China. After a decade of experimental prototypes, the Army is expected to get its hands on hypersonic missiles that will be fielded in the next four years, reported Breaking Defense. 

    Dynetics won the first contract to produce 20 Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) for both the Army and the Navy. 

    Lockheed Martin won the second, with a $347 million contract to upgrade eight of the C-HGBs with guidance systems, rocket boosters, protective canisters, and a missile battery that can house four Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) launchers.

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    Due to the urgency of developing hypersonic technologies, both contracts used Other Transaction Authority (OTA) to bypass the usual procurement process to field the weapons faster. 

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    The Army’s rapid acquisition chief, Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, recently said the hypersonic missile battery would become operational after a series of field tests. Deployment of the new hypersonic missile could be as soon as 2023, Thurgood said. 

    Although the Dynetics contract is for the Army, the Navy and Air Force will receive weapon components from the defense firm for their hypersonic missiles.

    The Marine Corps doesn’t have a hypersonic missile acquisition program but could acquire the Army’s land-based version in 2023. 

    Dynetics is building the C-HGB, a hypersonic glider that is deployed from the missile after launch and can travel Mach 5 or higher. The glider can outmaneuver the world’s advanced missile defense shields. 

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    The Army and Navy will use the same missile with a C-HGB warhead. Other services will integrate different booster rockets and a slightly different C-HGB design to met various demands of launching from planes, vessels, and even submarines, the report said. 

    The Air Force version of the C-HGB, has to be mounted on a strategic bomber, and or a fifth-generation fighter jet, needs a slightly different glide body but uses 70% of the same components from the Amry’s Dynetics contract. 

    Last month, the Air Force awarded a $480 million hypersonic missile contract to Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control to develop a hypersonic weapon prototype. 

    And Lockheed received an even larger contract in April, totaling more than $900 million to build a Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) for the service.

    “Lockheed Martin is driving rapid technical development for these national priority programs,” said Eric Scherff, vice president for Hypersonic Strike Programs for Lockheed Martin Space.

    “There are natural synergies with our industry teammates. We believe our relationships offer the Army unmatched expertise and put us in the best position to deliver this critical capability to the nation.”

    While all three services are racing to field hypersonic weapons, the Army hasn’t had a long-range weapon since the Pershing II missile of the Cold War. Russia and China are years ahead in hypersonic development versus the US. 

    The Pentagon has recently sounded the alarm on the proliferation of hypersonic technological advances that are being made around the world [mainly in China and Russia]. 

    “Although hypersonic glide vehicles and missiles flying non-ballistic trajectories were first proposed as far back as World War II, technological advances are only now making these systems practicable,” Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the US Missile Defense Agency, said in June, during testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee.

    Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Paul Selva told reporters in January of last year that “We have lost our technical advantage in hypersonics; we haven’t lost the hypersonics fight. China has made it a national program, so China’s willing to spend tens to up to hundreds of billions to solve the problem of hypersonic flight, hypersonic target designation, and then ultimately engagement.”

    In March 2018, the US Strategic Commander told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the US is vulnerable to future attack via hypersonic missiles and is quickly falling behind the technological curve for hypersonic technologies.

    “We [US] don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon [hypersonic missiles] against us,” warned Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of Us Strategic Command.

    Hyten further said, “both Russia and China are aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities. We have watched them test those capabilities.”

    “I think we have stability with Russia on the nuclear side,” he added. “We have an advantage with China on the nuclear side. But they are gaining ground quickly, especially when you look at space and cyber.”

    In March 2018,  Russia test-fired a high-precision Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missile from a MiG-31 supersonic interceptor jet in the South Military District in Russia’s southwest.

    “The launch went according to plan, the hypersonic missile hit its target,” the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation declared.

    The defense ministry released exclusive video showing the hypersonic missile air launch from the underbelly of the MiG-31.

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    In June 2019, Russia successful test-fired a new hypersonic interceptor missile with capabilities that are so advanced, no other country has a similar weapon.

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    In late 2017, China conducted several tests of a hypersonic glide vehicle that could be used to defeat US missile defense systems.

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    In August 2018, China claimed to have successfully tested a new hypersonic missile that would be capable of penetrating any missile defense system in the world. The Starry Sky-2, which is an experimental design known as “waverider,” rides the shock waves generated during flight. The missile could one day carry conventional and or nuclear warheads undetected through US missile defense shields.

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    It should be increasingly clear why the Pentagon is racing to field hypersonic missiles in various services in the next four years, that’s because of a rising China and Russia appear to be outgunning the US in hypersonic technology.

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