Aug 07

Today’s News 7th August 2018

  • Migrant Urges Germans, Austrians To Give Refugees "Their Homes and Money"

    A Syrian refugee living in Austria, Aras Bacho, has suggested in an open letter published in the daily newspaper OE24 that ordinary Austrians and Germans should participate in the integration process of migrants. According to him, integration requires “both sides to work,” meaning that Germans and Austrians should take refugees into their homes, as well as to live and go out with them.

    “Austrians have to take refugees into their own homes — this benefits both sides. [Integration] works when refugees live with Austrians. They can talk, or an Austrian can read an official letter to a refugee and then explain it in simpler language. They can go outdoors or to a swimming pool together,” Bacho wrote, adding that the same goes for Germans.

    The man added that communication like that helps refugees to “get smarter” and learn the language. However, in his opinion, communication is not the only thing that Germans and Austrians can help migrants with.

    He notes that taxes paid by citizens to support refugees are not donations, as they are mandatory. Bacho believes that Germans and Austrians should pay voluntary donations to be truly humane. He goes on to cite Jesus from the Bible to underscore his point.

    “All Christians should naturally know that Jesus said ‘give men in need your home and all your money.’ As you can see, not all Christians adhere to this guideline,” he said.

    Bacho explained in his letter that money helped him a lot during his initial period as a migrant, buying not only clothes, but also books to learn German.

    Needless to say, his ideas have found little support on social media, with responses ranging from flatly disagreeing with his views on integration to suggesting that Bacho should go and buy his own home back in Syria.

    “Integration is not a one-way street. Both sides must contribute. To take someone is unilateral action and sends a wrong sign. Anyone who fails to integrate or assimilate within an existing framework does not belong here,” a Twitter user named Henricvs wrote.

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    “Every European should send such ‘refugees’ back to their own home,” a user under the name of Frodilon wrote.

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    “As always so demanding, so outrageous, so ungrateful…” a user called snow crash wrote.

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    There were a few who supported Aras Bacho’s suggestions: “Unfortunately, this isn’t going to work as many Germans are afraid of strangers. But every German should think about how well we’re doing, how refugees have lost everything to live in safety, and help. It doesn’t cost much,” a user called Sisi61 wrote.

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    Germany, Austria and a number of other European countries faced a significant influx of migrants from the Middle East in 2015, which has led to public discontent and a rise in popularity of right-wing parties Europe-wide. A number of such parties have criticized their governments for their inability to halt the wave of migrants at the borders and for spending tax money to support refugees who do not work, do not pay taxes and sometimes don’t learn the country’s language.

    The wave of uncontrolled migration has also led to public concern over the safety of ordinary citizens, as many of the states that accepted refugees have suffered from rising levels of crime, including rape, committed by some migrants. One of the more recent high-profile cases was the murder of 14-year-old Jewish girl Susanna Feldmann by 20-year-old migrant Ali Bashar from Iraq, who entered Germany in 2015.

    Following a New Year’s Eve celebration in Germany in December 2015, Cologne police received a total of 561 reports of robbery, threats and sexual assaults — largely committed by groups of people from Arabic and North African countries. Almost half of the reports had to do with sexual harassment. Information about the true scale of the problem during the festivities was revealed only after massive public pressure on authorities.

  • UK: Discrimination Against Christian Refugees

    Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

    The British government appears recently to have decided that it would like to give the impression that it cares about persecuted Christians. Prime Minister Theresa May said in Parliament on July 18:

    “As a Government we stand with persecuted Christians all over the world and will continue to support them. It is hard to comprehend that today we still see people being attacked and murdered because of their Christianity, but we must reaffirm our determination to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions and beliefs and for them to be able to practise their beliefs in peace and security.”

    The British Government even recently appointed its first Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief with Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, a former minister, filling the post. According to the government, the role “will promote the UK’s firm stance on religious tolerance abroad, helping to tackle religious discrimination in countries where minority faith groups face persecution”.

    Prime Minister May said she looked “forward to supporting [Lord Ahmad] in this new role as he works with faith groups and governments across the world to raise understanding of religious persecution and what we can do to eliminate it.”

    Perhaps the UK should not be so quick to preach to others, when it does not appear to be doing much at home to help Syrian Christians, who have been among the most persecuted for their faith since the civil war in Syria began seven years ago:

    According to information obtained from the UK Home Office by the Barnabas Fund, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), during the first quarter of 2018, recommended 1,358 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the UK, of which only four refugees were Christians (no Yazidis were recommended). The Home Office agreed to resettle 1,112 of these refugees, all of whom were Muslims, and refused to accept the Christians.

    This decision was made despite the fact that approximately 10% of the pre-2011 population of Syria was Christian – a number that has reportedly fallen to 5%. There were also an estimated 70,000 Yazidis in Syria. Yazidis, with Christians, were among the groups most viciously targeted by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In 2017, moreover, according to the Barnabas Fund, the UNHCR recommended 7,060 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the UK, of whom only 25 were Christians and seven were Yazidis. The Home Office ended up accepting 4,850 Syrian refugees – of whom only 11 were Christians.

    While the UK appears to favor Muslim refugees over Christian ones, the fault does not lie with the UK alone. Lord David Alton of Liverpool, a life peer in the House of Lords, wrote in a letter to Home Secretary Sajid Javid:

    “There is widespread belief, justified or not, among the religious minorities of Syria that the UNHCR is biased against them. The UK has a legal obligation to ensure it does not turn a blind eye to either direct or indirect perceived discrimination by the UN.

    “It is widely accepted that Christians, who constituted around 10 per cent of Syria’s pre-war population, were specifically targeted by jihadi rebels and continue to be at risk.

    “…As last year’s statistics more than amply demonstrate, this is not a statistical blip. It shows a pattern of discrimination that the Government has a legal duty to take concrete steps to address.”

    There certainly does appear to be “a pattern of discrimination” that has been ongoing since at least 2015. According to the Barnabas Fund, the UNHCR, in 2016, recommended 7,499 refugees to the UK, of whom only 27 were Christians and five were Yazidis. In 2015, out of 2,637 recommended refugees, 43 were Christians and 13 were Yazidis.

    In December 2016, Nina Shea, Director of the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, asked the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees at the time, António Guterres, to explain the disproportionately low number of Syrian Christians resettled abroad by the UN. “Mr. Guterres said that generally Syria’s Christians should not be resettled, because they are part of the ‘DNA of the Middle East,'” writes Shea.

    Guterres’ statement was a blunt admission of the UN’s apparent disregard for Christian lives, not least because only 9 months earlier, in March 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry had said, “(ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims”. The UN itself stated in September 2005:

    “[A]t the United Nations World Summit, all Member States formally accepted the responsibility of each State to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. that all member states had accepted “the responsibility of each State to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity… world leaders also agreed that when any State fails to meet that responsibility, all States (the “international community”) are responsible for helping to protect people threatened with such crimes.”.

    The apparent discrimination against Christians by the United Kingdom and the UNHCR is all the more disturbing in light of studies that find Christians to be the most persecuted faith in the world. Christians are “the most widely targeted religious community, suffering terrible persecution globally”, according to a 2017 study by the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture, the Religious Freedom Institute and Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Research Project. In June, the ninth annual Pew Research Center report on global religious restrictions also found that Christianity was still the world’s most persecuted faith, with Christians being harassed in more countries (144) than any other group.

    In light of these facts, it would certainly appear, as Lord Alton states in his letter, that the UK has indeed been “turning a blind eye” to the plight of Christian (and Yazidi) refugees for several years. Now that May has announced that her government stands with persecuted Christians all over the world, the question remains: What specific initiatives, other than empty words, does the UK government aim to take to rectify the damage that has already been done and to prevent further damage?

    The UN recommended 1,358 Syrian refugees for resettlement in Britain during the first quarter of 2018, of whom only four were Christians. The UK Home Office agreed to resettle 1,112 of these refugees, all of whom were Muslims, and refused to accept the Christians. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

  • 'PetroYuan' Futures Surge Limit-Up To Record High As US Sanctions Hit Iran

    China’s ‘petroyuan’ oil futures contract spiked tonight by 5% (their daily limit) to a new record high, coinciding with the re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran.

    The first of two rounds of US sanctions kicked in at 12:01 am (0431 GMT), targeting Iran’s access to US banknotes and key industries, including cars and carpets.

    This is the biggest daily move in China’s oil futures since the contract’s inception in March to a new high of CNY537.2…

    Notably decoupling from Brent and WTI futures, suggesting a sudden burst of contract-specific buying demand in the ‘petroyuan’…

    As Ritesh Jain notes, via Valuewalk.com, the Petroyuan… Tiny, Irrelevant, Nothing. Right? But who would have thought oil will start getting priced in yuan.

    China can just bypass Iran sanctions by pricing oil traded in Chinese currency known as Petroyuan…

  • West Hollywood Passes Resolution To Remove Trump's Star On Walk Of Fame

    The West Hollywood City Council unanimously voted to formally seek the removal of President Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to  mayor John Duran who tweeted: “West Hollywood City council unanimously passes resolution asking the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove the Donald Trump star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.” Duran then compared President Trump to a dark wizard from Harry Potter known as a horcrux. 

    Unfortunately for Duran, the vote was largely symbolic – as it means West Hollywood will ask the Los Angeles City Council and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove the star, which was added in 2007. The Monday night resolution against Trump’s star was “due to his disturbing treatment of women and other actions that do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood, the region, state, and country.” 

    Similar demands to remove the stars of disgraced celebrities Kevin Spacey and Bill Cosby were refused by the Chamber, which said that stars are never removed since the Walk is a historical landmark. 

    “Once a star has been added to the walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” said former chamber president Leron Gubler. “Because of this, we have never removed a star from the walk.”

    Former Hollywood Walk of Fame Committee Chair Johnny Grant said prior to his death; “Stars are awarded for professional achievement to the world of entertainment and contributions to the community. A celebrity’s politics, philosophy, irrational behavior, or outrageous remarks have never been cause to remove a Walk of Fame star.”

    Seemingly weekly pick-axings and political skirmishes between Trump supporters and his detractors may test the resolve of officials, however, as the star has been vandalized numerous times and destroyed twice. 

    In full Trump-defiance, West Hollywood gave porn star Stormy Daniels the keys to the city. 

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  • Krieger: "Stop Complaining And Just Delete Facebook"

    Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    I wrote just one post last week and it centered around the dangers posed to society by U.S. tech giants. I specifically called out Facebook, pointing out how company executives are currently groveling to politicians in order to prevent legislation that might deem it a monopoly and curtail its power.

    I explained how U.S. politicians prefer to use the power and reach of tech giants for their own ends rather than take them down a notch. Politicians aren’t at all concerned about the outsized influence of centralized tech behemoths engineering society using secret algorithms, they just want to be in control of how this power is abused.

    Meanwhile, today’s biggest news is the uniform move by three U.S. tech giants to de-platform Alex Jones and his Infowars website. The main companies involved are Apple, Facebook and Google (via YouTube), as reported in The Guardian:

    All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.

    Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”…

    Facebook’s and YouTube’s enforcement action against Jones came hours after Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The timing of Facebook’s announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.

    Put aside what you think of Alex Jones for a moment. If they can do this to him and not fear the repercussions, they can do it to anybody. This is about power, and these platforms together account for a massive share of content distribution in the U.S. Ultimately, this is just a particularly muscular and in your face example of what’s known as Silicon Valley’s cultural imperialism.

    I know a lot of people think the answer is to get Congress to do something, as if those monumentally corrupt donor puppets have any interest in helping the public.

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    I’d also like to point out that Facebook’s stock was up over 4% today, completely shrugging off any potential backlash from users. Executives assume its users are all addled junkies unwilling to give up convenience and their addiction no matter what the company does. Are they right?

    Speaking of which, on the same day the move against Jones was announced we learn Facebook is in talks with mega banks to get your financial information.

    From The Wall Street Journal:

    Facebook Inc.wants your financial data.

    The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.

    Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the matter.

    Facebook executives don’t actually care about anything besides their profits and power, so the only way you can take any individual action against the company is to delete your account. I haven’t engaged with Facebook since 2012, so permanently deleting it wasn’t a personal sacrifice, but I did it anyway earlier today.

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    Don’t wait for other people to change things for you, stop whining and take some individual responsibility. If you agree that Facebook’s primarily a nefarious narcissism-factory wasteland masquerading as a platform just delete it… before it deletes you.

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  • The Death Of US And UK Neo-Colonialism

    Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The colossal project to re-colonialize the world started with United States President Ronald Reagan eagerly backed by United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981 and over the next 20 years seemed to sweep all before it.

    But we can now see that the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 marked the turn of the tide.

     Since then one super-ambitious project of nation destruction and rebuilding after another generated by Washington and eagerly embraced by its main Western European allies has collapsed spectacularly.

    As if living out one of Aesop’s Fables, the hammer of US kinetic power so eagerly embraced at the urging of neo-conservatives and neoliberals alike following the collapse of communism exhausted the Western welders of the weapon instead of their targets.

    The reckless resort to indiscriminate military power in the US-dominated invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the following campaigns to topple the governments of Syria and Libya created unexpected consequences comparable to Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion – Every Action has an Equal and Opposite Reaction.

    Nevertheless, US and Western confidence in the triumph of liberal, free trade and democratic ideals around the world has remained almost totally impervious to the sobering lessons of recalcitrant global realities. The great reawakening of Western imperial and capitalist resolve heralded by Reagan and championed by his loyal spear carriers, Thatcher and her successors as prime ministers of the United Kingdom continued unabated: Until 2016.

    Two epochal events happened that year:

    The British people, to the astonishment most of all of their own leaders, pundits and self-selected Platonic guides and “betters’ voted for Brexit: They opted by a narrow but decisive vote of 48 percent to 52 percent to leave the 28-nation European Union. The disruptions and chaos set in motion by that fateful outcome have still only begun to work their way through the political and economic systems of Europe.

    Second, Donald Trump, even more amazingly was elected president of the United States to the limitless fury of the American “Deep State” which continues unabated in its relentless and frantic efforts to topple him.

    However, the motives of the scores of millions of Americans who voted for Trump were perfectly clear: They were opting for American nationalism instead of American Empire. They were sickened by the clear results of 70 years of post-World War II global imperium that had arrogantly and casually allowed US domestic industry and society to wither on the vine for the supposed Greater Good of Global Leadership.

    A decade and a half of endless, fruitless, ultra-expensive global wars entered into by the feckless and stupid George W. Bush and continued by the complacent and superficial Barack Obama advanced this process of weariness and rejection.

    Two years after the election of Trump and the British people’s vote for Brexit, the great surge of the West that outlasted the Soviet Union is clearly on the ebb: Now the United States is exhausted, the EU is falling apart and NATO is an empty shell – a paper tiger if you will. Why is this happening and can it be reversed?

    Free Trade was never the universal panacea it has been ludicrously claimed to be now for more than 240 years since Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations. On the contrary, the cold, remorseless facts of economic history clearly show that protective tariffs to safeguard domestic manufactures and advantageous export-driven balance of payment surpluses are the true path to economic growth and sustainable, lasting national power and wealth.

    The idea that democracy – at least in the narrow, highly structured, manipulative and patchy form practiced in the United States is some sort of universal guarantee for happiness, national stability and growth has also been repeatedly confounded.

    Instead, the Western democratic states have fallen into exactly the same intellectual pit that trapped and eventually wrecked the Soviet Union. They have launched a worldwide ideological crusade and poured wealth and resources into it to ignoring the well-being and advancement of their own domestic economies and populations.

    Far from bringing eternal and universal world peace – the alluring Holy Grail of every dangerous idealistic idiot since Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant – these policies only brought failure, frustration and rising military death lists for the countries that pursued them instead.

    This year, new hammer blows are following on the Reagan-Thatcher-spawned era of revived Anglo-American global leadership and domination.

    The British themselves have palpably failed to cave out any secure or even plausible economic prospects for themselves in the world once they leave the EU. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya all remain wrecked societies shattered by the repeated air strikes that Western compassion and reverence for human rights and democracy have visited upon them.

    Now India and Pakistan – two English-speaking democracies and members of the once British-led Commonwealth of Nations, still so dear to Queen Elizabeth II’s aging heart – have opted to bury their existential rivalry and jointly join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – confirming it as the premier and by far the most powerful security alliance on the planet.

    These developments, to echo US President Thomas Jefferson’s telling phrase nearly 200 years ago, are grave warnings. They are firebells in the night. They serve notice to Washington and London that their facilely optimistic “ever onward and upwards” drive to reshape the entire human race in their own image must be abandoned.

    Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom is a remotely united society any more. Both of them need to turn inward to resolve their own problems and abandon the fantastic quest to reassert global dominance that Reagan and Thatcher launched nearly 40 years ago.

    And they had better move fast. Jefferson’s firebell is tolling and the sands of time are running out.

  • Here Are 410 Movies Made Under The Direct Influence And Supervision Of The Pentagon

    A year ago we featured a detailed report by authors Tom Secker and Matthew Alford exposing just how vast the Pentagon and CIA programs for partnering with Hollywood actually are, based on some 4,000 new pages of formerly classified archived documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

    The report noted at the time that “These documents for the first time demonstrate that the US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles.”

    Reviewing the ever expanding list, the average movie watcher might be in for a shock at what films are actually included — there are the more predictable ones like Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, and Lone Survivor; but also entirely unexpected ones that apparently needed the military-industrial complex’s propaganda touch like Earnest Saves Christmas, Karate Kid 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Twister, the Iron Man movies, and more recently Pitch Perfect 3.

    When a Hollywood writer or producer approaches the Pentagon and asks for access to military assets to help make their film, they have to submit their script to the entertainment liaison offices for vetting. Ultimately, the man with the final say is Phil Strub, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) chief Hollywood liaison, who has been at the helm of this formerly semi-secret department going all the way back to 1989.

    If there are characters, action or dialogue that the DOD doesn’t approve of then the film-maker has to make changes to accommodate the military’s demands. If they refuse then the Pentagon packs up its toys and goes home. To obtain full cooperation the producers have to sign contracts, called Production Assistance Agreements, which lock them into using a military-approved version of the script.

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    Months ago, Strub was again profiled in a report called Elisting an Audience: How Hollywood Peddles Propaganda, which quoted him trying to push back against the growing media exposure over the past year: “We’re not trying to brainwash people! We’re out to present the clearest, truest view,” Strub told The Outline.

    The report rightly noted that while Americans generally pride themselves on living in a free speech anti-censorship society, while simultaneously mocking the propaganda examples in places like Russia or China, the US public is subject to more homegrown state-run propaganda than it thinks:

    Military pageantry in Russia, massive rallies in North Korea, blunt messaging from China. We cluck at shameless self-aggrandizing when we see it overseas. But it doesn’t take much effort to see that American propaganda is everywhere, too. It’s not government-made, and it’s not quite as brazen as its counterpart from abroad. But it’s here, and to ignore that a piece of content is, at its core, propaganda — especially these days, while Trump openly pines for grand army parades — is a mistake. “There’s all kinds of ways to make an ideological point,” Harris added. “Sometimes I do think we’re not attuned enough. We do not look hard enough for propaganda.”

    And what’s more, unlike in authoritarian systems, in the West it is the consumers that are actually willing, if perhaps unwitting, participants in state propaganda. The Outline report continues:

    Certainly, the content has alternative, sincere agendas, too, but it’s the giant, amorphous market of consumers that has called it forth. That’s the difference between our propaganda and everyone else’s. In autocratic regimes, a government-backed entity pushes it onto indifferent or unwilling consumers. In America, we, the consumers, happily demand it.

    Want to see what Hollywood films — some recent and some going back decades — that you’ve seen but were unaware had the US Department of Defense’s official imprimatur?

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    Below is a merely partial list of films in alphabetical order that had Pentagon involvement either during the script or production phase, according to declassified US government documents. Amazingly the list of 410 movies is but half of the total number (for example, Zero Dark Thirty and some other prominent ones are not on there) and was compiled by the FOIA investigative website Spy Culture. 

     

  • Retired Green Beret Explains How The Coming 'Global State' Is Being Reached

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces ) via SHTFplan.com,

    It is important to review concepts I detailed in previous articles in order to present the topic in this one. A Global State will be almost identical to Orwell’s “1984” when it is realized (“metastasized” is a more appropriate term for the cancer of globalism), in these details:

    1. The entire surface of the globe cannot be conquered by a single entity/nation, but spheres of influence can be established that will “offset” one another: “Super-states”

    2. The Super-states will be almost identical to “1984’s” of Oceania (America, England, and the English-speaking nations), Eurasia (Russia and Europe), and Eastasia (the Orient).

    3. The impossibility of global conquest by one nation-grouping is due to the need for a region ruled to be comprised of ethnically “homogenous” peoples with a leader of that genotype. This serves to “congeal” groups of people while isolating them from the other spheres and creating “enemies” needed by the State to maintain a continuous threat, war production, and a population with one accord.

    4. Each nation-group/Super-state will have a totalitarian system in place that parallels the other states and is mutually supportive either through cooperation or through their existences providing “enemies” to maintain a directed, driven population as outlined in #3.

    5. A contested area of the globe with natural resources changing hands constantly (the Middle East, Africa, and the Polar regions), with populations relegated to slavery or servitude by whichever Super-state is in charge at the moment.

    The UN has been a “paper tiger” for many years, but it is such only from a military perspective. In terms of finances, it has been corralling in the world’s financiers (such as the BIS, the Bank of International Settlements), and establishing a world court (in the Hague) slowly but effectively. From a “dogmatic” perspective, the UN is fostering its phony narratives throughout the world: illegal aliens are termed “refugees,” and Al Gore’s nonsense about climate change has been incorporated into “biodiversity projects” such as Agenda 21 and others that not even the “REMF” (look it up) Senator’s son could foresee.

    The UN is globalism, and more: the UN is the vehicle… the convening body of approval, the face, and the administrative apparatus of the coming global state.

    These plans have been in existence for more than a century. From the moment the United States was formed, the efforts have been unrelenting both domestically and internationally to control the banking and return administration of the “province” to England, a European power we fought against twice and subsequently rescued twice from two world wars.

    Oligarchs in all nations have sold their countries out in favor of an “Elysium” style society on earth, a “1984,” where laws are inflicted upon the peoples as their leaders violate every one of them. A global society where the only words for a citizen are conformity, obedience, and productivity: a planetary “Gulag” broken down into several regions for administrative purposes and where each region is mutually self-supportive.

    The concept of the United States as a sovereign nation is a mirage: the reality is a miasma resulting from the stench of decades of controlled dysfunction and destabilization to bring the nation to the brink of collapse while giving the taxpayers the illusion they’re still free and that their votes in the rigged elections still count. All throughout the United States the quality of life – employment, family structure, faith, and true communities of neighborhoods and neighbors that help one another when needed and still mind their own business…these qualities have almost completely vanished.

    The votes are only to provide the color of authenticity and approval of the citizenry as the politicians ply their trades: the business of government to enrich them personally while they pillage the nation’s assets, selling them off to other nations and destroying the country. They care not for their “constituency,” and their only honor is to themselves for self-aggrandizement. Their only loyalties are toward power, wealth, and exemptions from the laws that govern other men.

    Such is the point that we have reached, and where we are. The illusion is maintained: “We’re strong, united, and defending the Homeland.” All of it obfuscates the true actions and objective:

    The United States is being turned into a total surveillance state in preparation for a “collapse,” the complete enslavement of its citizens (Socialism into Communism, complete with gulags), and its dissolution and subsequent “absorption” into the system of global governance.

    The NY Post published an article by Rich Lowry on 7/30/18 entitled “Like it or not, America is now seriously debating socialism.” It details the methanous-reemergence of Bernie Sanders in the forefront and his “Medicare For All” plank, a platform estimated by the Mercatus Center (a conservative firm) to cost around $33 trillion for the first 10 years if it’s emplaced.

    Really? Socialism? Lenin himself said that socialism is the final step before communism: and these morons are going to eat it right out of the hand of Bernie Sanders.

    It is not so far-fetched as you may think: Olympia Snow (R, ME) brought Obamacare to the floor of the Senate, and within a small matter of time it became law…a law that is still bleeding us even after the President knocked the individual mandate out of the picture.

    The stultified masses will “bite” on it hook, line, and sinker as another entitlement, and it has the surest method of funding: taxes. The unstoppable, SWAT team and LEO-enforced taxes raised by the politicians upon their serfs, the public. The media has never ceased their barrages against the President.

    The globalist vehicle to ensure complete accountability of the citizens from a legal perspective is mandatory health care…and one that cripples the country in the exact same plan that Cloward and Piven introduced to President Johnson that took effect: the creation of a welfare state to implode the system.

    A Time Magazine article posted on 6/11/18 by Alex Fitzpatrick has a title that summarizes the fostered complacency and resignation that the Media and globalists are using to mold the people. The title is “Drones are here to stay. Get used to it.” The article mentions there are 1.1 million drones registered by the FAA (don’t you just love that one? More revenue and ad valorem…the “registered drone” business). Of this total amount, 918,000 are listed as “hobbyists,” and 194,000 as “commercial” drones.

    This article does not mention the number of drones used by the Federal government, by law enforcement, and by government agencies.

    The drones have GPS and Wi-Fi capabilities. They have cameras. Ta-dah! The cameras can be linked, and the images captured and used by the government. The happy Hallmark family in the park doesn’t realize their happy Saturday drone flight’s recordings and images can be snatched up by law enforcement and the fusion centers.

    That Petraeus and his “Internet of things” statement is coming to fruition: all of the computers, cell phones, devices in the home, CCTV cameras, data recorders in the cars, trash recycling firms (sifting your trash), satellites, drones…all of it is caging us in. The other countries are leading the pack: China is breaking new ground that will find its way into the U.S.  England (especially London) is a complete surveillance labyrinth.

    They’re collecting biometric data from us in the airports, with the CCTV cameras, and with the cellular telephones. The Android model is taking biometrics of pulse, voice recognition, and transmitting user location with composition (others in the room with you). All for no reason, right? Just to foster loving togetherness and a feeling of belonging to a social group…a remake of “teaching the world to sing,” but this time without Coca-cola.

    Wrong. The cage has to be emplaced, and laws made: laws to try and wrest our remaining freedoms from us. They want the guns, they want to adulterate the vote (allowing illegal aliens to vote) and destroy the fabric of society. They want to destroy the United States, and they’re succeeding, on a daily basis. Edward Snowden was only able to reveal a small fraction of what is happening, and that information is astounding. Think what they’re doing now, and look what they’re doing, right before our eyes.

  • Visualizing How The 50 Largest US Companies Are Connected

    For any corporation, the Board of Directors plays a crucial role in corporate governance.

    Elected by the company’s shareholders, the board is meant to represent shareholder interests – it ultimately hires the CEO, sets strategic objectives, approves annual budgets, and provides accountability to the shareholders regarding the performance of the organization.

    These duties are no cakewalk, and, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, finding capable and experienced board members to help run a multi-billion dollar corporation just isn’t easy.

    CORPORATE OVERLAP

    To locate a qualified candidate, one option is to hire someone that already has experience working on a big corporate board – and because it’s a part-time gig, people can actually be on multiple boards at once.

    Today’s data visualization is from Reddit user /r/qwerty2020 and it shows the overlap between boards of the top 50 largest companies in the United States.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    It reveals that 78% of the multi-billion dollar companies here have at least one board connection with another company on the list.

    THE MOST CONNECTED COMPANIES

    Here are the three most connected companies:

    3M (7 connections)
    The 3M board has 12 members on it, including people like the retired CEOs of Kroger and UPS, and the current CFO of Microsoft.

    As for board members in common, there are seven people on 3M’s board that have a connection to one of the other 50 large companies, including: Boeing, Coca-Cola, AbbVie, Proctor & Gamble, Amgen, Chevron, and IBM.

    Boeing (6 connections)
    Boeing’s board has 13 members, including the CEO and Chairman of Amgen, and Ronald Reagan’s former White House Chief of Staff (Kenneth Duberstein). The former CEO of Allstate and the former CEO of Continental Airlines also serve on the board.

    It has six connections to other big U.S. companies through its board, including: 3M, AbbVie, Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, U.S. Bancorp, and AT&T.

    Amgen (6 connections)
    The large biopharmaceutical company has 13 people on its Board of Directors, including the CEO and Chairman of Phillips 66, the former CEO of Mattel, and a former CFO of Walmart.

    In total, it has six people that also serve on other boards: 3M, United Technologies, Apple, Boeing, Chevron, and McDonald’s.

    Runners up: (5 connections)
    Other highly-connected companies include Walt Disney, Apple, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, IBM, and Procter & Gamble – each has five board members that also serve for other top 50 corporations.

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