- Is Terrorism Transforming America Into A Police State?
Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
For at least three decades, experts have noted the growing militarization of America’s police forces. The proliferation of Special Weapons and Tactics forces, or SWAT forces, is the most obvious example of that trend. Originally, such units were designed to deal with exceptionally dangerous situations (such as mass hostage incidents) in which lightly armed police would be outgunned. Not surprisingly, the first SWAT contingents originated in America’s largest and most dangerous cities.
That situation has changed dramatically. Small cities and even some modest-sized towns now have such heavily armed units utilizing military hardware and traveling in armored vehicles. They look—and act—far more like military combat units than anyone’s traditional conception of police. And the missions of SWAT forces have greatly expanded since their original formation. Increasingly, local authorities use them in routine matters that involve little or no danger of major violence from the targets of police action.
A recent incident in Hutto, Texas, a sleepy, outlying suburb of Austin, illustrates just how dangerously promiscuous the utilization of SWAT teams has become. On June 26, local police conducted a raid to implement a search warrant on a house in a low-crime, middle-class neighborhood. The alleged crime? Police suspected that some residents of the target house were involved in gambling. Investigators were backed up by a SWAT unit with nearly a dozen officers in full combat regalia pouring out of an armored vehicle.Needless to say, the neighbors were both stunned and alarmed to see such an operation take place in their quiet community. One mother stated: “I went to my daughter’s room and looked outside their window to see if I could get a better view of what was going on, and there was a man in fatigues with a sniper rifle laying in my neighbor’s driveway.”
What was even more striking is that the police spokesman admitted to a reporter that the authorities “had no reason to believe” that the residence undergoing the search was involved in any violent activity. In other words, police were using paramilitary tactics and forces to execute a search warrant involving a nonviolent (indeed, victimless, crime) in a low-crime neighborhood. Such arrogant bullying should alarm anyone who cherishes domestic civil liberties.Unfortunately, such incidents have become all-too-common as local authorities seek new missions to justify the existence of SWAT teams and to keep the personnel alert and well trained. The expansion of SWAT units and missions is closely correlated to the existence of federal programs making surplus military hardware available at little or no cost to local police forces.
Such deadly toys have become a prime justification for law enforcement budget increases and the receipt of federal grants in communities around the country.
The war on illegal drugs has been the primary justification that authorities use to create and expand SWAT units, and antidrug raids are their primary mission. The drug-war rationale has some plausibility, since narcotics traffickers are sometimes extremely violent criminals. As concerns about terrorism became more salient, especially after the 9/11 attacks, that mission augmented the drug-war justification. Politicians, even in small communities with virtually a nonexistent possibility of being a terrorism target, highlight the alleged danger (along with the menace of illegal drugs) to pump-up police budgets and gain the military hardware from Washington.
Thus far, efforts to rescind or even curtail the federal program have proven unsuccessful. The militarization of America’s local police proceeds unabated. That is an alarming development. General Colin Powell, at the time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed that the military’s purpose is to “kill people and break things.” Military forces operate in enemy territory and tend to view all people there as potential adversaries who could prove deadly to them.
The purpose of America’s police forces is (or at least should be) totally different. Their legitimate role is to protect the life, liberty and property of people living in a free, constitutional republic. It is extremely unwise to confuse or conflate that role with the function of the U.S. military. Yet, that is what is occurring at an alarming rate.
The Posse Comitatus Act, which Congress passed in 1878, severely restricts the role of the military in domestic law enforcement. Unfortunately, that restriction has experienced significant erosion in recent decades, with some prominent political figures deriding the statute as “archaic.”
Even if the language of the act remains more or less intact, it will have little relevance if the proliferation of SWAT units continues. SWAT personnel are combat soldiers in everything but name. It matters little if they are technically police operating as part of a local government if their weapons and tactics are those of an occupying army. The old adage that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, applies to the SWAT phenomenon. The sight of such combat forces deployed in civilian neighborhoods in the United States is jarringly reminiscent of the images Americans once believed confined to repressive police states. It is tragic that such images are now the norm in America itself.
- The Demonization of Martin Shkreli
Remember the terrorist bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia? If you’ll recall (or follow the link and read), Richard Jewell, the security guard who discovered the backpack containing the bomb, heroically warned people away and prevented it from creating a larger tragedy than the two lives it claimed. His hero status was short-lived, however, as he became the prime suspect. With only an accusation, his name was gleefully dragged through the mud by every mainstream news outlet at the time until he was eventually cleared by the FBI. Though ultimately vindicated, Jewell’s life was just about ruined.
The US media is always casting heroes and villains in their contrived narratives, packaged and delivered for the consumption of the common American nitwit, many of whom swallow it whole and then follow the lead by piling on in social media forums, twittering and facebooking and generally being the good hapless dupes that they are. The latest Bad Guy of the week is Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. As anyone reading this probably already knows, Shkreli has been demonized for buying the rights to an outdated drug, Daraprim, that treats a rare condition called Toxoplasmosis and jacking the price up 5000%. On the face of it, it sounds absolutely awful. Martin was excoriated in the public sphere as the worst kind of greedy exploitative capitalist scumbag, accused of holding a captive audience virtually hostage and making them pay a hefty ransom if they wanted to live (Toxoplasmosis is fatal if left untreated). And Martin did his image no favors, happily donning the costume of the evil caricature that was custom-tailored for him by the American press, a nice bespoke suit of fine villainy.
However, as with every story, there’s much more nuance here than is fathomed by the short-attention-spanned and feeble-minded MSM lapdogs reporting it. Thanks to the internet–and in this case, Martin’s proclivity to make himself accessible to anyone in the world by way of a series of YouTube livestreams–we can actually get his side of the story. Let’s investigate.
Martin claims his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased Daraprim and jacked up its price in order to finance the development of a much more effective modern drug to treat Toxoplasmosis. The problems with Daraprim, as Martin explains, is that it’s very old (invented in the 1940s), it doesn’t work that well, and it’s toxic to bone marrow and can be as deadly to the patient as to the disease itself. There was no incentive to create a better drug because the disease was so rare, and there was already a cheap (if problematic) drug on the market to treat it, so it has mostly gone unnoticed in the pharmaceutical industry. Martin wants to replace Daraprim with a new drug that targets the enzyme that causes the disease without the bone marrow toxicity. To accomplish this, his plan is to raise the drug’s price from $13.50 to $750 per pill. At $750 per pill for an 84 pill course, the total cost is now $63,000 to cure the disease, which as Martin points is both rare and fatal. There are similar drugs on the marketplace (i.e. for other fatal ailments) that cost anywhere from $80,000-$130,000 per course, so Daraprim is still relatively cheap for a what is a life-saving medication. Martin explains that, while the price hike is indeed extreme, his company has made it easier for patients to get the drug by lowering the co-payment to “almost nothing”, with the insurance companies picking up the tab and, furthermore, that Turing gives away 60% of their Daraprim to patients who can’t afford it, leaving the company with a 40% gross margin. He says that nets out overall to $25,000 in profits for Turing per treatment course, virtually all of which goes back into R&D for a Daraprim replacement.
So, as the plan goes, by buying Daraprim and ramping up the price, Turing Pharmaceuticals will be able to use the profits to invent a new, more effective drug, while in the meantime being compassionate to Toxoplasmosis sufferers by making sure they can still get Daraprim affordably. He claims no one is dying as a result of the price hike and emphasized those who need it can still get it. Martin’s full explanation is nicely encapsulated in the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/v/E3Ezyd50nMU
I think the most likely reason people have a knee-jerk reaction to Martin and the price-hike is because he makes himself so easy to hate on, as is clearly demonstrated during his brief questioning before the House Oversight Committee earlier last year. He puts off an annoyingly smug self-confidence (a front, really, but in any event justified in my opinion) and the balls to tell a bunch of pompous, high-powered congressfags to fuck the fuck off with his repeated assertion of his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Drug companies are always raising prices on other more common drugs without a resulting media storm, but the thing is no one likes a smug asshole and Martin certainly plays the part all too well. When he’s not under the spotlight (as the video above and the one following below demonstrate) he otherwise gives off what I believe is the genuine demeanor of a slightly insecure nerd. The guy is clearly intelligent, highly so, but in the end, no one likes a smart ass, and so he was easy to demonize.
So, is Martin a bad guy? I don’t think so. In the interview above he states, “If you just raise prices and you don’t do the research, I think that’s wrong.” Of course anyone can say that, especially sociopathic CEOs, but I don’t think Martin is one of them, and I believe he’s sincere. Check out this Vice interview from a year and a half ago, just after he raised the price of Daraprim. While he still comes off as somewhat arrogant, he portrays a very different person than that of his more well-known public image:
http://www.youtube.com/v/2PCb9mnrU1g
In the interview, Martin is asked if he’s evil. He answers, “Am I evil? No. I think I’m the opposite of evil. …The reality is you’re talking to someone that cares deeply about helping peoples’ lives. I don’t like most drug companies. I think most of them do a bad job.” He goes on to say, “I’m a capitalist. I’d love to make an even bigger fortune than I have now, but I’m not going to do it at the expense of a human life. …We sell our drugs for a dollar to the government, but we sell our drugs for $750 a pill to Walmart, to Exxon-Mobile, to all these big companies, and they pay full price because, fuck them, why shouldn’t they? And if I take their money and I’m using it to do research for dying kids, I think I’m a hero.” Assuming he’s being genuine (I believe he is), and ignoring the minor self-aggrandizement, who can argue with that? From what I can see, Martin also possesses a certain humility and seems overall to be decent guy. I became interested in the brouhaha and spent time watching some of his recorded YouTube broadcasts last year. Here’s a CEO of a pharmaceutical corporation just hanging out in front of his computer and talking to anyone curious enough to come by on the internet and say hello and ask questions, or to tell him what a piece of shit they think he is. It was actually entertaining watching him dispatch prissy snowflakes who would come along to give him a piece of their mind, only to be savagely destroyed by his wit and logic. The first clip I linked above is the one that stood out above all. His explanation was clear, concise and logical. Upon seeing that, it became clear to me that Martin is just a good old shit-posting troll when he’s attacked, and has no problem playing the heel that he’s been cast into by the nattering nabobs of the MSM. “I’ll be the Bond villain!”, he cheerfully exclaims to the Vice interviewer. He certainly seems to be a firm believer in the adage that there is no such thing as “bad publicity”.
Here’s another clip of Martin being interviewed on CBS News in August of last year, at the time when Mylan raised the price of the EpiPen. No antics or smugness here, but a (if sometimes cringey) display of diplomacy and salesmanship:
http://www.youtube.com/v/RoMlxVimwiU
In conclusion, I hope you’ll agree with me that Martin Shkreli has been demonized by the media (I would say “unfairly” but he really brought it onto himself, and he knows this), whereas the reality is a far cry from the shadows being cast. Notwithstanding the SEC charges he’s currently facing, once you realize that he’s not some heartless and cruel capitalist profiteering on other peoples’ illnesses and misery but rather a brash and highly intelligent young entrepreneur with what by all measures looks to be some good busy savvy, you can’t help but respect the man. I certainly do, and I wish him well.
I’m hoping once Shkreli gets past all this and successfully launches a replacement drug for Daraprim, he’ll turn his sights towards a cure for VD as it seems a good majority of our political and media class seem to be afflicted with late stage syphilis.
I am Chumbawamba.
- 200 Years Of Immigration – Who Came To America, And When?
The United States has a long-standing history of being a “nation of immigrants”, and today the country is home to roughly 46.6 million residents that were born outside of the country. Courtesy of Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins, here are three maps and data visualizations that give us some history of who came to America, and when it all happened.
200 YEARS OF IMMIGRATION
To begin, this video from Metrocosm shows immigration to the U.S. starting from 1820. Each dot represents 10,000 people.
At first, immigration is coming almost exclusively from Europe.
But by around 1900, immigration from Russia, China, Canada, Turkey and Japan picks up – but then WWII devastates global mobility, and immigration to the U.S. grinds to a halt.
After WWII, it is the Cold War era, but the rate of arrivals slowly picks up again. Immigration eventually peaks between 1990-2000 after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Asian and Mexican immigration is also particularly strong around this time.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
Here’s another look – this time, it’s a data visualization from Insightful Interaction using data from the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics from 1820 to 2015.
Similar peaks in immigration near 1900 and 2000 can be seen. The dip from WWII is even more pronounced when visualizing the data this way.
The boom in newcomers from Mexico is also evident in the 1990s, though it has tapered off significantly in recent years.
MADE IN AMERICA
Over time, more people start feeling like their roots are tied to America, rather than having ancestry from somewhere else.
This final visualization from Overflow Data that shows the percentage of people in each state that claim to have American ancestry:
People in the country’s heartland and southern states are more likely to identify as having American ancestry, while folks along the coasts and northern states tend to see themselves as having ancestry from other parts of the world.
The highest rates of self-identification happen in Kentucky (17.6%), Tennessee (16.0%), and Alabama (16.4%). The lowest can be found in Hawaii (1.5%), D.C. (2.0%), and California (3.1%).
- Tucker Carlson: America's Birthright is Worth Defending
Content originally published at iBankCoin.com
Thoughts on this?
Jingoism and nationalistic fervor are often reviled by both leftists and cynics. In my younger years, I regaled in the glory of America — up until the point that I felt it was being used to emotionally control people to pursue an agenda that ran counter to the best interests of the people.
In other words, it feels good to be patriotic and to flaunt pride for God and Country — but what’s the point when the people we elect use that emotional currency to bomb the brains out of people overseas — exposing our bravest to depleted uranium — treating them like shit when they come home to continue life as a normie?
I get the conundrum that if we don’t control the narrative being woven, someone else would — like dog eating fish faces in Asia. It’s hard to ‘love’ an entire country with so many degenerates and malevolent places of ill repute. I’ve come to realize that ‘country’ is better defined as the friends and family close to me — even some of you internet people who might reside in third world shit-holes, like Canada.
Nevertheless, the following Tucker Carlson monolog is inspirational, in spite the fact that it reeks with idealism. If being a ‘team player’ for America requires me to send my son’s overseas to die for some war that was designed to help elite’s at one of our many gigantic globalist corporations — count me out.
If we’re talking freedom to say these things without the NSA monitoring every text or email that I make, whilst watching subversive content online, maybe I’ll waive a flag or two on the 4th of July.
- Deep State Begins Anti-Russia Media Blitz Ahead Of Trump-Putin Meeting
Update: We have a fourth Trump attack story as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow claims that "someone is shopping a carefully forged, fairly convincing fake NSA document" to news organizations pointing to Trump campaign collusion with Russia… "we don't know who is doing it but we're wroking on it."
* * *
It's been relatively quiet in the last few weeks on the "the Russians did it, and Trump's Putin's best-buddy" propaganda-fest, but it appears the Deep State had three stories tonight – just hours ahead of Trump's face-to-face with Putin – claim Russian hackers are targeting US nuclear facilities, the Russians are nonchalantly stepping up their spying, and that Russia alone interfered with the US election.
With all eyes on the 'handshake' as Putin and Trump come face-to-face for the first time as world leaders, it seems the Deep State is desperately fearful of some rapprochement, crushing the need for NATO, and destroying the excuses for massive, unprecedented military-industrial complex spending.
And so, three stories (2 anonymously sourced and one with no facts behind it) in The New York Times (who recently retracted their "17 intelligence agencies" lie) and CNN (where do we start with these guys? let's just go with full retraction of an anonymously sourced lie about Scaramucci and Kushner and the Russians) should stir up enough angst to ensure the meeting is at best awkward and at worst a lose-lose for Trump (at least in the eyes of the media).
First off we have the 'news' that hackers have reportedly been breaking into computer networks of companies operating United States nuclear power stations, energy facilities and manufacturing plants, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The origins of the hackers are not known. But the report indicated that an “advanced persistent threat” actor was responsible, which is the language security specialists often use to describe hackers backed by governments.
The two people familiar with the investigation say that, while it is still in its early stages, the hackers’ techniques mimicked those of the organization known to cybersecurity specialists as “Energetic Bear,” the Russian hacking group that researchers have tied to attacks on the energy sector since at least 2012.
And Bloomberg piled on…
The chief suspect is Russia, according to three people familiar with the continuing effort to eject the hackers from the computer networks.
So that's that 5 people – who know something – suspect it was the Russians that are hacking US nuclear facilities (but there's no proof).
Next we move to CNN who claim a 'current and former U.S. intelligence officials' told them that Russian spies have been stepping up their intelligence gathering efforts in the U.S. since the election, feeling emboldened by the lack of significant U.S. response to Russian election meddling.
"Russians have maintained an aggressive collection posture in the US, and their success in election meddling has not deterred them," said a former senior intelligence official familiar with Trump administration efforts.
"The concerning point with Russia is the volume of people that are coming to the US. They have a lot more intelligence officers in the US" compared to what they have in other countries, one of the former intelligence officials says.
But, according to Steve Hall, retired CIA chief of operations, the Russians could also be seeking more information on Trump's administration, which is new and still unpredictable to Moscow
"Whenever there is a deterioration of relations between countries — the espionage and intelligence collection part becomes that much more important as they try to determine the plans and intentions of the adversarial government,"
So that's more anonymous sourcing about Russian spies… doing what they would normally do during a presidential transition.
And so finally, a third story – with CNN trotting out former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, to pin the 'Russians did it' tail on the "this is why we lost the election" donkey…
Former DNI James Clapper: I think Russia’s goal here is to “prep the battlefield” for the 2018 elections https://t.co/lkEj7yTPQd
— CNN (@CNN) July 6, 2017
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Claiming that the Russians alone were responsible for interference…
"As far as others doing this, well that's new to me," Clapper, who served under former President Barack Obama, said during an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room."
"We saw no evidence whatsoever that [there] was anyone involved in this other than the Russians," he said.
Clapper's comments draw a contrast from Trump, who declined earlier Thursday to single out Russia for interference in the 2016 White House race.
So in summary – 3 stories pinning Russia for shameful acts against 'Murica that just happen to hit hours before Trump shakes hands with Putin… ensuring that unless Trump slams Putin to the ground like a wrestling-CNN-logo, he will be adjudged as being soft… and therefore clearly in cahoots with the Russian leader. Seriously, do the Deep State realy think Americans are that dumb? (rhetorical question)
- Freedom Is Not Necessarily The Absence Of Tyranny
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
Is it true that freedom is an overly idealized concept? Perhaps, but it is one of the few concepts worthy of idealization. It is so worthy, that it is worth dying for.
Since the dawn of recorded history human beings have fought and sacrificed to attain freedom. It is an inherent psychological construct. It is a principle that is rooted not only in the mind of man, but his spirit or soul. Scientists in the realm of the mind have struggled for generations to understand where it comes from — others have sought to dismiss it as a fanciful notion or societal construct. Nihilists claim it doesn't really exist, while other people center their entire lives on the proliferation of it. The concept of freedom, love it or hate it, is central to all cultures and all civilizations. The most common dismissal of the idea of freedom that I have seen is the argument that none of us is really free because "tyranny exists". Tyranny is a constant, therefore, in the view of the nihilists, freedom cannot exist. I believe this dim way of thinking stems from a misconception of what freedom is and where it comes from.
Freedom, first and foremost, begins in the mind, or the heart; whatever you are inclined to put more stock in. To think critically or to imagine wildly is indeed to be free. Tyranny, by extension, rises from the mire and muck in the physical world around us and ends in the mind and the heart. If one is free of mind, then one is never truly enslaved.
I have heard so many times the ignorant accusation that freedom requires action before consequence. That is to say, if you have suffered the consequences of a tyrannical system, then you have already failed to prevent your own enslavement. This is not how freedom functions. It has never worked this way.
There is no such thing as a world without the consequences of tyranny. Tyrants are everywhere, always. There are little tyrants in our everyday lives, and big tyrants that pull strings from behind the curtains and from the darker places. There are people reading this article right now that think they are liberty-minded, but act like tyrants towards those around them. There are people who think they are slaves when one simple choice or action could easily make them free. There are people who see private property as tyranny and seek to supplant it….with an even greater tyranny of entitlement and socialism. And, there are people who think freedom means freedom for them, but not for others. Each tyrant takes time to understand and remove from our lives. Some we simply need to walk away from; others need to be destroyed.
The point is, we are forever dealing with tyranny, and many of us are forever working to topple it. As long as we are able to pursue that goal, we are still free. The true slaves are those that have given up completely out of laziness or fear. Tyranny is always present, after all; why take a bath today when you are just going to end up soiled again tomorrow?
The idea that one can do nothing in the face of the machine is an old idea proven wrong time and time again, yet, it is also a very easy and comfortable lie to live in. Struggle is difficult. Sacrifice is foreboding and ugly. There are a million-and-one excuses and rationalizations as to why it is better to "accept fate" or circumstances. There is always another excuse that can be used to paper over cowardice.
Tyrants can, in fact, win and keep winning for the length of an epoch, exactly because of the logical fallacy that they cannot be resisted or be beaten. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy of nihilism that makes tyranny possible. Without it, tyrants inevitably fail and fall.
The great monster of our time that must be slayed is the monster of organized conspiracy. Past generations have confronted and defeated appendages of this monster, but they never beheaded it, and this is why our particular brand of tyranny persists. It is not enough for us to fight the tentacles of the beast anymore — it is the job of the freedom fighters of our era to stab at the brains of the wretched thing.
I am of course speaking of the banking cabal, the cult of financiers and elites that make up the globalist hierarchy. They pervade the halls of numerous institutions and think tanks, from the Federal Reserve and the Council on Foreign Relations to the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements. They sit in positions of great political influence and hold council (and some would say considerable sway) over world leaders. They write "theoretical" policies which are quickly adopted by governments and made into law. They are primary stockholders and owners of our mainstream media. Their slithering fingers are wrapped around academia and many scientific communities. They insinuate themselves into every foundation of thought, because thought is what they most wish to control.
They prefer to divide and conquer, to pit one group against another, or to give their ideological enemies enough rope to hang themselves with. If they can't rule the psyche of a society or succeed in 4th generation warfare, they will fall back to the old standard of brute force. In fact, they might just do that anyway, because what tyrant doesn't love instilling abject terror every once in a while?
And yet, these "elites" stand on a razor's edge. Despite all their supposed power, despite all their wealth, despite the vast spiderwebs they weave, all of it can be turned to ash in an instant and they know it. Empires like this rely on anonymity, and they are anonymous no longer. The cabal is out in the open; they have to be.
To shift the world into true globalism and true centralization requires actions which can be masked from some people but not all people. They believe the intricate digital networks they have funded will buy them total information awareness, but these same networks also provide us with the tools to understand who they are and what they want. This double-edged sword of full spectrum data creates a Catch-22 timeline. The longer the globalists wait to implement the one world system they desire, the more time we have to educate millions of people. The faster they implement their one-world system, the more likely they are to make a mistake.
Time is running out. Time is working against them. Time is the master here, and the globalists are nothing but paper boats on a tidal wave.
This organized conspiracy increases its odds of success through psychological manipulation. There will come a time, perhaps sooner rather than later, when banking elites and their political allies can no longer stand outside the game unscathed. Risk is coming. So, they must encourage as much self-defeat in the minds of freedom champions as possible.
They will conjure crisis and catastrophe, they will conjure puppet enemy after puppet enemy, they will exploit useful idiots with collectivist views as cannon fodder, they will engineer conflicts between East and West. They will try to grind us down and break the legs of our resolve.
However, as long as there are people who know who the globalists are that are willing to hunt them down, the globalists cannot win. For what they desperately want is to stand out in the sun with criminal impunity, and without fear. They want to be untouchable. They want to be gods.
Real gods do not suffer consequences, and these people will suffer consequences.
The nihilists will cry, "When?! How?! Never!" But this is the nature of freedom. Freedom is in the fighting; winning is transitory. Tyranny can be subtle and it can be blunt, freedom is the same way. If you think because there is no shooting going on yet that a war is not happening, then you do not understand the nature of warfare.
Yes, it is possible that the fall of one globalist cabal might give rise to another, and another. But we are free to be there and to fight again. As long as we fight, we prevail. When we abandon the fight completely, that is when true slavery begins. Today, we fight using information versus propaganda, and we must be adept at this. We also must be adept at other forms of combat as the conflict escalates.
There will never be total absence of tyranny. The naysayers against the principle of freedom are delusional, or maybe they know such a standard is unattainable and this will make them forever "right." When will the fight begin? It already has. It has been going on since time immemorial and we are merely here to continue it. This might seem like a task for Sisyphus – an endless circular nightmare. I look at it another way: We are a changing of the guard. We have inherited a responsibility beyond all responsibilities. In this age, we are the freedom fighters, and if we fail now then we pass an even more difficult horror on to some other generation down the line.
In my view this is unacceptable. The opportunity to end one longstanding tyranny is now. We must counter using information as long as is needed, and we must wake up as many people as possible, so when the time comes to storm the castle, the shared sacrifice is that much easier to bear. If you have taken up this fight in one form or another never let anyone tell you you are not free. Your ability to think and to act is concrete proof otherwise.
- California One Step Closer To Becoming A Sanctuary State
California is once again seeming to prove it wants to be its own nation as legislators in Sacramento have pushed SB 54, the so-called “Santuary State Bill”, one step closer to reality after it “sailed through” the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
The bill was drafted by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and would stop state and local cops, in every town across California, from helping the feds enforce immigration law. Under the measure, ICE agents would no longer be allowed to go into jails to deport undocumented prisoners, and they’d have restricted access to state databases.
Here is DeLeon explaining why it’s ok for California legislators to simply pick and choose which laws they will enforce. Per CBS Sacramento:
“During the Trump administration, the first 100 days, arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record has jumped to 150% during the same period as last year. We will protect those who contribute to making California the sixth largest economy in the world,” said Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles).
De Leon maintains his bill will allow authorities to respond to ICE inquiries, only about convicted violent offenders. And support is strong, from union groups representing undocumented workers to faith-based organizations that shield immigrant families. First in line, Former state Supreme Court judge Cruz Reynoso, the son of Mexican immigrants and a professor of law at UC Davis.
“It’s up to the federal government to enforce federal laws and the state don’t need to cooperate with the federal government,” he said.
Of course, not everyone in California’s Senate agrees with the liberal policies pushed by the majority of legislators from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Senator Jeff Stone (R-Temecula) recently appeared on Fox News to express his opposition:
The bill protects people convicted of human trafficking, child abuse or assault with a deadly weapon from deportation, he said.
“Basically we are going to be putting these dangerous criminals back into our streets and neighborhoods,” Stone said on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning.
To be clear, immigrants who commit these crimes would still face justice. SB 54 does not prevent the police from arresting people, prosecutors from filing charges, judges from sentencing or jails from detaining anyone.
However, Stone argues that people convicted of serious crimes who have served their sentence will be released from jail instead of being deported and, because there is a high recidivism rate, they are likely to commit more crimes.
There are more than 3 million undocumented immigrants living in California and about 11,000 of them have been convicted of serious and violent felonies, according to state lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood has also spoken out against the bill and has asked his county’s Board of Supervisors to a adopt a resolution that would declare Kern a “law and order” county and not a “sanctuary” county. Per The Daily Caller:
Far from limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood wants to ensure that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have continued access to his jails so they can identify and deport illegal alien felons.
“Sheriff’s deputies don’t enforce immigration laws and we don’t go on federal immigration sweeps, but we do have to allow our federal partners to do their job,” Youngblood told the LA Times.
A Republican and Vietnam veteran, Youngblood has no shortage of critics in California, which has emerged as the leading opponent to the immigration policies of the Trump administration. Activists and Democratic opponents say he is setting his own immigration enforcement agenda in defiance of state law.
Of course, somehow we suspect the few voices of the opposition will drown in California’s vast sea of progressivism.
- Dead Mall Stalking: One Hedge Fund Manager's Tour Across Middle-America – Part 1
Via AdventuresInCapitalism.com,
For the past few years, most retailers have struggled. Of course, it’s easy to blame Amazon.com, but it is only one of many causes. At the same time, for us hedgies living in major cities with luxury malls, there is confusion about the problem itself – my mall is crowded and people are shopping. After having debated with friends endlessly on what the real root of the problem is, I decided it was time to actually go investigate. Every city has its own story and the local mall is the nexus of that story.
In my mind, the only way to get real answers was a 4-day, 1,500 mile meandering road-trip through the lower mid-west, where we planned to hit as many malls and take as many meetings with facility managers and brokers as we could organize along the way. Besides, when an asset class like mall real estate is down 90% in a few years’ time, a different viewpoint can create huge upside.
The overriding question was: is retail suffering because of Amazon.com cannibalizing store-fronts or are rising health care costs, with stagnant wage growth, what’s really cannibalizing disposable spending power in middle-America? Is shopping still America’s pastime or do we prefer food and “experiences” instead? Every industry evolves. Why hasn’t the mall changed in the past three decades – it’s still the same cinema, crappy food court and undifferentiated retailers that I knew when I was a teen—where’s the fun in that? Other countries are perfecting “shoppertainment,” why hasn’t America? In summary, what is the real issue with retail?
When you scroll through http://deadmalls.com there is a certain eeriness about a million square feet of empty space.
However, the images don’t, in any way, prepare you for an almost-dead mall on its last gasps. As we wandered one facility with the head of leasing, we could look straight ahead at a thousand feet of almost vacant space, dimly lit from sky-lights as none of the lighting fixtures still worked—the air conditioner had long ago failed and it was 95 degrees inside this mall. However, there was one light that drew us forward. As we approached, we heard music and sure enough, it was the Victoria’s Secret that time forgot (corporate probably forgot it too). In a mall with only 7 tenants and even fewer shoppers, Victoria’s Secret was still jamming out. No customers, but 2 girls tending shop, blasting music and throwing light into a dark hallway.
As we rounded another corner, we heard the unmistakable sound of a Zumba Class at 100 decibels. As we drew nearer, we saw the first mall visitors in almost an hour – what looked like an instructor with a half dozen middle-aged women trying to do exercises that they were hopelessly unfit to accomplish.
I turned to the leasing agent;
Me: Any idea how much they pay in rent?
Him: Actually, I think they’re squatting in here. I don’t show any record of them being a tenant.
Me: Is anyone going to make them pay rent?
Him: Why bother, at least it brings people to the mall…
With no security or cleaning staff, who's watering the plants?
All of this segwayed into the meeting with the leasing agent afterwards.
Me: Can I meet the facility manager when we’re done chatting?
Him: Funny story; actually, she quit a few months back. Unfortunately, the owner only told me last week that I am now in charge of managing this mall. I’m doing my best, but I live an hour away, so I can only come here a few times a week.
Me: So who’s been locking up at the end of the day lately?
Him: Hmmm…. Honestly, I’m not sure. That’s a pretty good question.
Me: Would anyone notice if they never locked the doors?
Him: Probably not…
Of course, you cannot quite put this into context until you realize that I was sitting there in a nearly pitch black food court, in 95 degree heat, with only a beam of light from the sky-light above to guide the conversation – yet despite the odds, one vendor still remained at the food court – ironically it was the sushi place.
I wonder what decade these gumballs are from?? I didn't know they could turn brown.
While the tour was entertaining, what I really wanted to know was; why did this place, surrounded by a thriving community somehow fail? This is where the story actually deviates from the usual narrative.
This mall was in a community of about 100,000 people. A decade ago, this had been a thriving mall. Then, a new major highway was placed about 5 miles west of the mall, which diverted regional traffic away from the mall. Even worse, a massive open air retailing complex was built alongside the new highway, siphoning shoppers from the mall. In a town that was big enough to support one large shopping complex, the newer one with better access from the highway had ultimately won out. However, this mall was still muddling forward with a handful of national tenants who hadn’t quite thrown in the towel, despite no lighting, air conditioning or adult supervision at the mall. It lead to a real epiphany; malls die a slow strange death—not the cataclysmic collapse depicted by most analysts.
We saw a similar situation on the following day at another mall about 100 miles away. In this situation, a new retailing facility had been built closer to the local university to compete with the mall. This facility had stolen a number of the key tenants from the mall. At the time, it looked like this mall would also surrender to the newer facility in the better location. Instead, the mall was sold to new owners who; injected substantial capital to remodel the mall, offered discounted rent to retain existing tenants and had put up a fight to the death with the newer facility. Now, nearly a decade later, neither facility was full and both were desperately fighting it out for the minds of tenants and shoppers in a winner-take-all battle, a veritable retailing Battle of Verdun in the north of Texas—where even the winner will be a loser for having spent so much capital to win the booby prize of top retail destination in a town of about 125,000 people. Even worse, with no clear winner, new retailing concepts were hesitant to guess wrong in their expansion plans and simply chose to pass this town by when expanding—further sapping the strength of both facilities.
In fact, we continued to see similar stories as we ventured north. Retail may not be dead; instead there may simply be too much retail (both property and competing concepts) fighting it out for too few customers. This is further compounded by too much cheap capital developing more retail as a result of ultra-low interest rates. Naturally, there will be losers in this process – in fact; the losses have only just begun. There will also be huge winners.
To Be Continued…
- Tesla Registrations Plunge 24% In California, Its Largest Market
After a week full of abysmal news for Tesla, which some have said is rapidly becoming the new Uber on the bad-to-worse news front, the weekend couldn’t come fast enough for Elon Musk who by now is begging for the simple company of “a little red wine, vintage record and some Ambien.”
A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien … and magic!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 7, 2017
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But before that can happen, there is even more bad news for the electric car company which today entered a bear market after hitting all time highs just 2 weeks ago: according to Reuters, Tesla registrations in California – by far the largest market of the luxury electric car maker – fell 24% in April from a year ago, based on IHS Markit data. The latest report showing a plateau for Tesla’s products comes amid both investor concerns that demand for Tesla’s luxury Model S sedan is waning ahead of the mass market Model 3 launch, the sales of its Model X actually declined…
… and follows a scathing Goldman report which effectively said that Tesla can kiss its aggressive growth forecasts goodbye.
The punchline: IHS reported April Tesla registrations fell to 2,177 from 2,867 in California. Nationally they dropped nearly 10 percent to 3,911 from 4,334.
Tesla declined to comment on California registration figures and reverted back to its Monday’s press release that second-quarter global deliveries rose 53 percent from a year earlier, to just over 12,000 Model S and just over 10,000 Model X, which incidentally allso missed consensus expectations of 22,900 sales. Inexplicably, Musk blamed battery pack production problems for holding back vehicle output in the second quarter until early June, even though Tesla producted 2,000 more cars than it sold, and also completely forgot to inform investors of this material adverse development for more than two months, and also during its May earnings call.
Willing to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt, IHS analyst Stephanie Brinley said that “if Tesla had an issue with its production for the month, that could explain” the drop in registrations, she said, noting in particular the problems with battery pack output. Still, she said, Tesla’s Model S, could be in need of a refresh.
“They haven’t changed much on the exterior or much on the package,” and it is a high-fashion car, she said. “I can certainly understand where Model S sales may be softening a little bit because it’s an older product. That could be contributing to the issue.“
The car was launched in 2012 and is unchanged since as Musk has been far too busy looking for taxpayer subsidies and scapegoats on which to pin the ongoing disappointments of his business plan.
Industry data reviewed separately by Reuters showed that the Model S registrations in California were uneven over the first four months of 2017, varying by more than 1,000 units month-to-month. In percentage terms Model S growth peaked in February, decelerated in March and turned negative in April in California.
IHS measures vehicle registration, which comes after a sale. Registration in California and overall in the United States rose sharply for the combined first four months of the year, but April showed steep declines. IHS has not released data for May or June.
While Brinley said it was difficult to assess whether that reflected demand or availability, the fact that Tesla has chornically overproduced more cars than it delivered in any given quarter, we would think the answer should be obvious.
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