- The Hiroshima Myth
The Hiroshima Myth
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 23:45Authored by John Denson via The Mises Institute,
Every year during the first two weeks of August the mass news media and many politicians at the national level trot out the “patriotic” political myth that the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945 caused them to surrender, and thereby saved the lives of anywhere from five hundred thousand to 1 million American soldiers, who did not have to invade the islands.
Opinion polls over the last fifty years show that American citizens overwhelmingly (between 80 and 90 percent) believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children) and saving American lives to accomplish the ending of the war.
The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth was created that this slaughter of innocent civilians was justified, and therefore morally acceptable. The essential problem starts with President Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of unconditional surrender, which was reluctantly adopted by Churchill and Stalin, and which President Truman decided to adopt when he succeeded Roosevelt in April of 1945. Hanson Baldwin was the principal writer for the New York Times who covered World War II and he wrote an important book immediately after the war entitled Great Mistakes of the War. Baldwin concludes that the unconditional surrender policy
was perhaps the biggest political mistake of the war….Unconditional surrender was an open invitation to unconditional resistance; it discouraged opposition to Hitler, probably lengthened the war, cost us lives, and helped to lead to the present aborted peace.
The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945. The Japanese monarchy was one of the oldest in all of history, dating back to 660 BC. The Japanese religion added the belief that all the emperors were the direct descendants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. The reigning Emperor Hirohito was the 124th in the direct line of descent. After the bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9 of 1945, and their surrender soon thereafter, the Japanese were allowed to keep their emperor on the throne and he was not subjected to any war crimes trial. The emperor, Hirohito, came on the throne in 1926 and continued in his position until his death in 1989. Since President Truman, in effect, accepted the conditional surrender offered by the Japanese as early as May of 1945, the question is posed, “Why then were the bombs dropped?”
The author Alperovitz gives us the answer in great detail which can only be summarized here, but he states,
We have noted a series of Japanese peace feelers in Switzerland which OSS Chief William Donovan reported to Truman in May and June [1945]. These suggested, even at this point, that the U.S. demand for unconditional surrender might well be the only serious obstacle to peace. At the center of the explorations, as we also saw, was Allen Dulles, chief of OSS [Office of Strategic Services] operations in Switzerland (and subsequently Director of the CIA). In his 1966 book The Secret Surrender, Dulles recalled that “On July 20, 1945, under instructions from Washington, I went to the Potsdam Conference and reported there to Secretary [of War] Stimson on what I had learned from Tokyo — they desired to surrender if they could retain the Emperor and their constitution as a basis for maintaining discipline and order in Japan after the devastating news of surrender became known to the Japanese people.”
It is documented by Alperovitz that Stimson reported this directly to Truman. Alperovitz further points out in detail the documentary proof that every top presidential civilian and military advisor, with the exception of James Byrnes, along with Prime Minister Churchill and his top British military leadership, urged Truman to revise the unconditional surrender policy so as to allow the Japanese to surrender and keep their emperor. All this advice was given to Truman prior to the Potsdam Proclamation which occurred on July 26, 1945. This proclamation made a final demand upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or suffer drastic consequences.
Another startling fact about the military connection to the dropping of the bomb is the lack of knowledge on the part of General MacArthur about the existence of the bomb and whether it was to be dropped. Alperovitz states,
MacArthur knew nothing about advance planning for the atomic bomb’s use until almost the last minute. Nor was he personally in the chain of command in this connection; the order came straight from Washington. Indeed, the War Department waited until five days before the bombing of Hiroshima even to notify MacArthur — the commanding general of the U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific — of the existence of the atomic bomb.
Alperovitz makes it very clear that the main person Truman was listening to while he ignored all of this civilian and military advice was James Byrnes, the man who virtually controlled Truman at the beginning of his administration. Byrnes was one of the most experienced political figures in Washington, having served for over thirty years in both the House and the Senate. He had also served as a United States Supreme Court Justice, and at the request of President Roosevelt, he resigned that position and accepted the role in the Roosevelt administration of managing the domestic economy. Byrnes went to the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt and then was given the responsibility to get Congress and the American people to accept the agreements made at Yalta.
When Truman became a senator in 1935, Byrnes immediately became his friend and mentor and remained close to Truman until Truman became president. Truman never forgot this and immediately called on Byrnes to be his number-two man in the new administration. Byrnes had expected to be named the vice presidential candidate [to FDR] to replace [Henry A.] Wallace and had been disappointed when Truman had been named, yet he and Truman remained very close. Byrnes had also been very close to Roosevelt, while Truman was kept in the dark by Roosevelt most of the time he served as vice president. Truman asked Byrnes immediately, in April, to become his secretary of state but they delayed the official appointment until July 3, 1945, so as not to offend the incumbent. Byrnes had also accepted a position on the interim committee which had control over the policy regarding the atom bomb, and therefore, in April 1945 became Truman’s main foreign policy advisor, and especially the advisor on the use of the atomic bomb. It was Byrnes who encouraged Truman to postpone the Potsdam Conference and his meeting with Stalin until they could know, at the conference, if the atomic bomb was successfully tested. While at the Potsdam Conference the experiments proved successful and Truman advised Stalin that a new massively destructive weapon was now available to America, which Byrnes hoped would make Stalin back off from any excessive demands or activity in the postwar period.
Truman secretly gave the orders on July 25, 1945, that the bombs would be dropped in August while he was to be en route back to America. On July 26, he issued the Potsdam Proclamation, or ultimatum, to Japan to surrender, leaving in place the unconditional surrender policy, thereby causing both Truman and Byrnes to believe that the terms would not be accepted by Japan.
The conclusion drawn unmistakably from the evidence presented is that Byrnes is the man who convinced Truman to keep the unconditional surrender policy and not accept Japan’s surrender so that the bombs could actually be dropped, thereby demonstrating to the Russians that America had a new forceful leader in place, a “new sheriff in Dodge” who, unlike Roosevelt, was going to be tough with the Russians on foreign policy and that the Russians needed to “back off” during what would become known as the “Cold War.”
A secondary reason was that Congress would now be told about why they had made the secret appropriation to a Manhattan Project and the huge expenditure would be justified by showing that not only did the bombs work but that they would bring the war to an end, make the Russians back off, and enable America to become the most powerful military force in the world.
If the surrender by the Japanese had been accepted between May and the end of July of 1945 and the emperor had been left in place, as in fact he was after the bombing, this would have kept Russia out of the war. Russia agreed at Yalta to come into the Japanese war three months after Germany surrendered. In fact, Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, and Russia announced on August 8, (exactly three months thereafter) that it was abandoning its neutrality policy with Japan and entering the war. Russia’s entry into the war for six days allowed them to gain tremendous power and influence in China, Korea, and other key areas of Asia. The Japanese were deathly afraid of communism and if the Potsdam Proclamation had indicated that America would accept the conditional surrender allowing the emperor to remain in place and informed the Japanese that Russia would enter the war if they did not surrender, then this would surely have assured a quick Japanese surrender.
The second question that Alperovitz answers in the last half of the book is how and why the Hiroshima myth was created. The story of the myth begins with the person of James B. Conant, the president of Harvard University, who was a prominent scientist, having initially made his mark as a chemist working on poison gas during World War I. During World War II, he was chairman of the National Defense Research Committee from the summer of 1941 until the end of the war and he was one of the central figures overseeing the Manhattan Project. Conant became concerned about his future academic career, as well as his positions in private industry, because various people began to speak out concerning why the bombs were dropped. On September 9, 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publically quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a “toy and they wanted to try it out.” He further stated, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment….It was a mistake to ever drop it.” Albert Einstein, one of the world’s foremost scientists, who was also an important person connected with the development of the atomic bomb, responded and his words were headlined in the New York Times: “Einstein Deplores Use of Atom Bomb.” The story reported that Einstein stated that “A great majority of scientists were opposed to the sudden employment of the atom bomb.” In Einstein’s judgment, the dropping of the bomb was a political-diplomatic decision rather than a military or scientific decision.
Probably the person closest to Truman, from the military standpoint, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Leahy, and there was much talk that he also deplored the use of the bomb and had strongly advised Truman not to use it, but advised rather to revise the unconditional surrender policy so that the Japanese could surrender and keep the emperor. Leahy’s views were later reported by Hanson Baldwin in an interview that Leahy “thought the business of recognizing the continuation of the Emperor was a detail which should have been solved easily.” Leahy’s secretary, Dorothy Ringquist, reported that Leahy told her on the day the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, “Dorothy, we will regret this day. The United States will suffer, for war is not to be waged on women and children.” Another important naval voice, the commander in chief of the US Fleet and chief of naval operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945 had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. Also, the opinion of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, given in a press conference on September 22, 1945, was reported as: “The Admiral took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” In a subsequent speech at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated, “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.”
It was learned also that on or about July 20, 1945, General Eisenhower had urged Truman, in a personal visit, not to use the atomic bomb. Eisenhower’s assessment was, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing….[T]o use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime.” Eisenhower also stated that it wasn’t necessary for Truman to “succumb” to Byrnes.
James Conant came to the conclusion that some important person in the administration must go public to show that the dropping of the bombs was a military necessity, thereby saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, so he approached Harvey Bundy and his son, McGeorge Bundy. It was agreed by them that the most important person to create this myth was Secretary of War Henry Stimson. It was decided that Stimson would write a long article to be widely circulated in a prominent national magazine. This article was revised repeatedly by McGeorge Bundy and Conant before it was published in Harper’s Magazine in February of 1947. The long article became the subject of a front-page article and editorial in the New York Times, and in the editorial it was stated, “There can be no doubt that the president and Mr. Stimson are right when they mention that the bomb caused the Japanese to surrender.” Later, in 1959, President Truman specifically endorsed this conclusion, including the idea that it saved the lives of a million American soldiers. This myth has been renewed annually by the news media and various political leaders ever since.
It is very pertinent that in the memoir of Henry Stimson entitled On Active Service in Peace and War, he states, “Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to know that history is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.”
To bring this matter more into focus from the human tragedy standpoint, I recommend the reading of a book entitled Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6–September 30, 1945, by Michiko Hachiya. He was a survivor of Hiroshima and kept a daily diary about the women, children, and old men that he treated on a daily basis in the hospital. The doctor was badly injured himself but recovered enough to help others and his account of the personal tragedies of innocent civilians who were either badly burned or died as a result of the bombing puts the moral issue into a clear perspective for all of us to consider.
Now that we live in the nuclear age and there are enough nuclear weapons spread around the world to destroy civilization, we need to face the fact that America is the only country to have used this awful weapon and that it was unnecessary to have done so. If Americans would come to recognize the truth, rather than the myth, it might cause such a moral revolt that we would take the lead throughout the world in realizing that wars in the future may well become nuclear and therefore all wars must be avoided at almost any cost. Hopefully, our knowledge of science has not outrun our ability to exercise prudent and humane moral and political judgment to the extent that we are destined for extermination.
- Airline Will Pay Medical & Funeral Costs To Get People Flying Again In COVID-19 World
Airline Will Pay Medical & Funeral Costs To Get People Flying Again In COVID-19 World
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 23:25At a moment the trade union for the airline industry, International Air Transport Association (IATA), has issued a dire prediction laying out that it doesn’t expect air travel to recover to pre-pandemic levels until at least after 2024, one major foreign carrier is rolling out with an unexpected, deeply unorthodox policy to gem up business and attention.
Emirates, the Dubai-based state-owned airline and flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates, is now offering passengers a ‘safety net’ of sorts, telling customers that if they catch coronavirus while traveling on their flights, the airline will cover all costs related to medical treatment, hotel quarantine, and even their funeral in the event of death.
Emirates file image The desperate measure — and no doubt costly in terms of the airline’s insurance premiums — comes as Emirates says it expects to cut as many as 9,000 jobs in the coming weeks.
Billing itself as “the first airline in the world to offer free, global cover for COVID-19 related costs,” it announced the policy on its website late last week:
Emirates customers can travel with confidence, as the airline will cover medical expenses of up to EUR 150,000 [$175,000] and quarantine costs of EUR 100 per day for 14 days, should they be diagnosed with COVID-19 during their travel, while they are away from home.
Emirates Group Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum described that the measure can give travelers some assurances during extremely unpredictable times, hopefully getting them back to flying long distance routes.
“We know people are yearning to fly as borders around the world gradually re-open, but they are seeking flexibility and assurances should something unforeseen happen during their travel,” he said.
Flying in a COVID-19 world, via “Airline Ratings” The airline said the policy will remain in effect through the end of October, and is valid for up to a month from the beginning of a passenger’s journey. Though it’s only been in effect for a few days at this point, it’s unclear if anyone has made a claim yet through the “free” COVID-19 insurance policy.
The New York Post notes that the available medical coverage for passengers who become hospitalized for the virus is significant: “Even sick passengers who don’t pass away after traveling with the airline can receive up to $176,000 in expenses as well as $118 per day to cover quarantine accommodations for up to two weeks,” according to the Post report.
And given the resulting positive media coverage the Emirates is getting from the unusual initiative, it’s likely other international carriers will follow suit, though most may not want to take the hit insurance-wise.
- "I Started A Local Gun And Preparedness Club… And Leftists Tried To Interfere"
“I Started A Local Gun And Preparedness Club… And Leftists Tried To Interfere”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 23:05Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
I live in the mountains outside a small town in rural Montana, a place you might assume is conservative through and through, and it is, for the most part. However, one rule I have found to be universal no matter where in the US I live or visit is that regardless of how conservative the population of a place is, leftists are almost ALWAYS entrenched into city politics and they almost always run the local newspapers.
In the past I found this to be a strange thing; why are the viewpoints and ideals of most of the city government and the local journalists the complete opposite of the majority of the citizenry in conservative communities?
I did not understand until later that this is a product of misaligned priorities. Leftists (specifically extreme leftists) seems to gravitate to positions of influence, even those we might consider small and inconsequential, because they see these positions as an opportunity to exert power over others. Conservatives tend to not care as much about having power over others unless they are a direct threat, and so we don’t have any interest in wasting our precious free time climbing our way through a faceless bureaucracy.
I actually prefer that mindset. I like the fact that conservatives aren’t always scrambling for position or power. That said, it might behoove us to pay better attention to who is in control of our local governments, because it may cause serious problems for us down the road.
For many years now I have been working with a group of people who have been preparing for the events that are happening today, including economic crisis, supply chain disruptions, civil unrest and government overreach. While many of these groups seek to remain private, I feel it is time for bigger discussions with the wider community on what people plan to do if the dangerous situation does not improve. In other words, are they going to work together? Or, are they going to remain isolated from each other?
This is a vital question, because it is becoming increasingly possible that a full spectrum collapse will strike the US in the near term. It is time for preppers and liberty minded people to start gauging the sentiment of the community around them and seeking out like-minded individuals. The more active the community is in its own survival, the less likely they will be to conform to draconian rules or fear.
Private groups should remain private, and so should the extent of your preps. But, it is foolish to think that you are going to survive a collapse on your own without working with others in the community. Think of it this way, if your circle of security is only the size of your property, when trouble arrives it will already be on your doorstep (in other words, you are dead if the attackers are organized and prepared). If your circle of security is your entire town or county, then when trouble arrives you might actually have time to respond.
Going “gray man” is an extremely short term solution. Eventually, you will be caught alone and unaware and then all the energy and time and money you put into your preps will have been wasted and someone else will be enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Another problem I see is that conservatives are far less adept at organization than the political left; we tend to be more spontaneous when we group together for a cause. I’m not saying we need our own Antifa or BLM, but we do need to put more effort into working together locally and minimizing our exposure to threats. Conservatives and liberty activists often feel alone, even though there are millions of us out there, and it’s because we refuse to organize in any practical way for fear of ending up on a “list”.
It’s the threat of being on “the list” that controls conservatives. The list doesn’t even need to exist in real life and we are still dominated by it. I hear it all the time, the “nail that sticks up will get hammered down”. I say, the nail that keeps its head down is more easily stepped on.
These are some of the reasons I decided to engage with the larger community by starting a local club that discusses firearms, preparedness and current events. I put the word out in as many places as I could, including tacking up fliers around town. These days, it’s hard for anyone to argue that prepping is a “silly idea” for “kooky conspiracy theorists”. We have been proven right, everyone else has been proven wrong, but that doesn’t mean our work ends here; we have to continue to educate as many people as possible on how it’s done while there’s still time. The more we do this, the safer everyone is.
The initial response was overwhelmingly positive. A lot of people are ready for this kind of information, and setting up the discussions in a more public forum gives people a greater sense of involvement and shows them they are not alone in their concerns. To that end I decided to hold the discussion at a local public park.
Then, I started getting emails and friends of mine started getting angry Facebook responses when discussing the club…
Officials from the city council using the primary city government email were not happy, though they did not identify themselves by name.
They claimed the club could not hold an “event” in the park unless we got permission and permits from the city council, along with insurance. If we did not, then police would be sent to kick us out of the park.
I thought this was rather bizarre; I didn’t expect hundreds of people to show up to the club meeting, maybe a couple dozen at most. The requirements these people from the city council demanded were traditionally for large events with hundreds or thousands of people. Getting permission would have taken weeks, and the emails suggested that permission was not guaranteed by stating “IF we approve”.
I could have held a meeting on private property, but using the city park was symbolic of open community engagement; the people of the area were supposed to feel welcome to participate and maybe this is what annoyed the lefties the most. They feel like they own that wheelhouse. Frankly, parks are public property paid for with public dollars and the community has every right to use them for free assembly. But if you think this is common knowledge think again; some politicians and officials think otherwise.
I responded as I usually do to these kinds of things, by digging my heels in. I thoroughly researched the use and legality of public parks for free assembly and found that as long as your group is not blocking access to the park for other people, blocking roads or engaged in criminal activity then the demands for permits do not usually hold up in court and removal by police is not justified. Constitutionally, you are protected.
I emailed the official or officials back and reminded them that they risk a civil court issue by trying to stop people’s free speech on public property, and warned them that the city would be subject to bad press as well. I was perfectly ready to refuse removal and to be arrested if it came to that.
Another interesting discovery: The park in question was host to a bunch of BLM protesters only two weeks earlier. Did they have to get permits and insurance to hold their “event” in the park?
I decided to reach out to the only conservative member of the city council that I knew of and talk with him. He confirmed my suspicions. There were multiple hard leftists in the city government, but no one had actually brought up the issue of my club and the use of the park to rest of the council before sending me the threatening emails.
So, it was probably only a couple of weasels trying to make it look like they represented the entire city council’s position. He also confirmed that the BLM protesters had no permits or insurance, and that certain council members KNEW ahead of time that their protest was going to happen. In other words, the lefty council members were acting unilaterally to give BLM open access to the park, and then tried to interfere with my gun and preparedness club.
This was clear political bias applied to the usage of public property.
I have learned from past experience that these types of people do not like a stand-up fight; so they prefer to try to frighten you away from doing a thing through intimidation instead. They try to get you to give up voluntarily by painting a host of consequences in your mind. You start to worry about all the things that MIGHT happen; no one wants to have confrontations with cops these days, you don’t have to be insane like BLM to have concerns.
Luckily, my brain doesn’t really think in terms of risk over reward. I only really think about what is necessary. I held the club meeting in the park anyway and I made sure that whoever it was in the city council that was trying to interfere knew I was going to do it.
Long story short, the meeting was a success. I met a lot of locals that I had not talked with before that had the same concerns I did, and we discussed primarily the issue of community security if the system completely breaks down. The meetings will continue, perhaps even in the same park for a while just to make a point. The police never showed up, so the people making threats either didn’t want to risk a lawsuit and confrontation, they realized they didn’t have as much power as they thought they did, or the cops refused to bother with something that was clearly legal and constitutional.
The only confrontation happened a hundred yards away. A man looking for the meeting approached a group across the street that was organizing a separate community event. He told me that when he asked them if they were part of the gun club, a woman yelled at him “No, those people are across the street at that ILLEGAL MEETING!”
And there you have it. I highly recommend you hold an “illegal meeting” of your own for your community. These discussions need to start now, and people need to know that they are not alone during this crisis. It is time for conservatives to start banding together and planning ahead.
* * *
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- "No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams": Iran FM
“No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams”: Iran FM
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 22:45“There’s no difference between John Bolton, Brian Hook or Elliott Abrams,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet with the hashtag #BankruptUSPolicy on Friday.
“When U.S. policy concerns Iran, American officials have been biting off more than they can chew. This applies to Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump and their successors,” Mousavi added.
Indeed in perhaps one of the greatest symbols or representations of the contradictions and absurdity inherent in US foreign policy of the past few decades, and a supreme irony that can’t be emphasized enough: the new US envoy to Iran who will oversee Pompeo’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign remains the most publicly visible face of the 1980’s Iran-Contra affair.
Elliott Abrams has been named to the position after Brian Hook stepping down. This means the man who will continue to push for the extension of a UN arms embargo against Iran once himself was deeply involved in illegally selling weapons to Iran and covering it up.
Most famously, or we should say infamously, Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 1991 following years of the Iran-Contra scandal engulfing the Reagan administration; however, he was also pardoned by outgoing president George H.W. Bush at around the same time.
“Pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992, Abrams was a pivotal figure in the foreign-policy scandal that shook the Reagan administration, lying to Congress about his knowledge of the plot to covertly sell weapons to the Khomeini government and use the proceeds to illegally fund the right-wing Contras rebel group in Nicaragua,” NY Mag reviews.
Some are noting this heightens the chances that Washington could get dragged into a war involving Israel and Iran.
New Iran envoy Elliott Abrams raises the risk that Israel will provoke Trump into conflict with Teheran https://t.co/G1zgSJUqVy
— Joe Catron ✊🏽 (@jncatron) August 7, 2020
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Recall too that Abrams has been Trump’s point man for ousting Maduro from Venezuela, and it appears he’ll remain in the post of special envoy for Venezuela as well.
this is how you write a headline pic.twitter.com/Ce6inYdCRS
— John Carl Baker (@johncarlbaker) August 7, 2020
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The Grayzone journalist, Anya Parampil, who has frequently reported from Venezuela, alleged this week that Abrams will “try and destroy Venezuela and Iran at the same time”.
- The 1958 "Psychological Warfare" Plan Playing Out Before Us
The 1958 “Psychological Warfare” Plan Playing Out Before Us
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 22:25Authored by Annie Holmquist via IntellectualTakeout.org,
I recently wrote about an old 1984 interview with former communist Yuri Bezmenov, who described the “ideological subversion” that could eventually take down America.
It sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories – until one realizes that his predictions of “demoralization,” “destabilization,” and “crisis” are all unfolding before our eyes.
Pondering his prophetic words, I hunted up an old book a friend mentioned to me years ago: “The Naked Communist.” The title, I admit, is chuckle-worthy, but the words inside are no laughing matter, particularly when one reads the section titled, “Importance of the Psychological War.”
Written in 1958, some of the “current strategy goals which the Communists and their fellow travelers are seeking to achieve” seem dated and read like a history book from the past. But then one comes to item number 17:
“Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.” (Emphasis added.)
That part in bold especially caught my attention. Haven’t Americans been suspicious for years that public school curriculum has been dumbed down? Prominent public figures have certainly made this claim, while a comparison of middle school reading lists from today’s schools and those of 100 years ago provides further evidence.
Things take a step closer to home by encouraging the use of “student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.” We’ve had not a little experience with riots and protests lately, many of which have been heavily attended by young people. Are they mere tools in the hands of an ideology we don’t realize is pulling the strings?
Even more terrifying, the list progresses from student riots to the cancel culture and statue bashing we are also currently experiencing.
“Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression,” item number 22 commands, while number 31 calls for Communists to “[b]elittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history….”
The document also suggests discrediting both the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
Of the latter, it says,
“[p]resent them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the ‘common man.’”
Sounds similar to the “slave-holding racists” that the Founders are now portrayed as, does it not?
The list is extensive and many of the items listed as eventual goals are now accepted parts of our culture. There is one more, though, that deserves a closer look:
“Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ‘united force’ to solve economic, political or social problems.”
Since the death of George Floyd, protests and violence have become commonplace. The large gatherings banned by our governments during the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly became necessary for fighting racism.
Indeed, systemic racism is increasingly labeled as a “public health crisis” that Black Lives Matter must wage war against. Furthermore, complete unity is demanded from the public. Those who refuse to go along—or fail to say anything at all—are immediately ostracized.
Where does this leave us?
Should we start running around screaming, “The Communists are coming! The Communists are coming!”?
No. Now isn’t the time to lose our heads. Rather, we should look at this historical list, recognize the parallels it has with our current culture, and ask ourselves whether there’s an ideology working to undermine the values, history, and ideas upon which America was founded.
If we conclude that there is, we have a decision to make.
Do we accept that ideology and allow it to take over America?
If so, it’s time to join the throngs of corporations, politicians, and average citizens in agitating for change.
But if we decide that ideology isn’t in line with what we believe, nor with the direction we want to see America go, then we must be ready to choose the road less traveled.
This road is one of standing up for truth and justice. It also involves warning others of the consequences that come from giving way to an ideology completely opposed to what America has sought to protect and advance over the years.
As “The Naked Communist” implies, the alarm bell has been sounding for many years. Now, we just need the ears to hear and respond to it.
- Meet The RVs That Are Literally "Driving" Our Country's GDP
Meet The RVs That Are Literally “Driving” Our Country’s GDP
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 22:05The impact that recreational vehicles have had on GDP has rocketed to all time highs, as the pandemic has Americans looking for new ways to vacation after many traditional summer trips have been cancelled. In fact, as many as 50% of Americans cancelled their summer vacations, according to Inside Hook.
The site also noted that the main RV-sharing website had “the highest recorded booking numbers in company history.”
We noted the aberration in a Tweet we put out last week after the U.S. released its historic 32.9% GDP plunge.:
Everyone is either trading stocks or cooking meth pic.twitter.com/Re4Ji7O1ys
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 30, 2020
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RV companies are having trouble keeping up with demand and dealers are quickly going out of stock. RV Industry Association President Craig Kirby told Reuters that he thinks “more people will start to work out of RVs come fall.”
Jon Ferrando, CEO and President at RV Retailer said: “All models are in high demand and hard to keep in stock. Many models are on order for deliveries in December of 2020, as the demand has been unbelievable for the product over the past 90 days.”
To give a taste of exactly what is now officially driving U.S. GDP, Inside Hook released information on some of the more popular RVs being sold.
This Bushwhacker Teardrop model starts at just $8,990 and is only 13 feet long. It can be “configured with two separate mattresses, wall-mounted air-conditioning, a two-burner cooktop, a built-in sink and one of those electric Coleman coolers that acts like a mini fridge.”
This TAB Teardrop Trailer starts at $27,262 and boasts “a seriously spacious bathroom, off-road tires, extra exterior cargo storage and roof racks, and a ‘pitched axle’ which provides better clearance.
Starting at $38,400, this Airstream Basecamp model “can sleep up to four people with a bathroom onboard.”
This $225,000 Bowlus Road Chief Endless Highways model costs as much as a small house. The retro design is “because the company traces its roots back to 1934, when designer Hawley Bowlus built a trailer that would go on to inspire the household name.”
Then there’s the EarthRomer LTi, which starts at $590,000 and has been called the “best doomsday vehicle”. It sports a “carbon-fiber body, solar power and the ability to go off-grid instead of from RV hookup to RV hookup.”
Finally, if you want to go full “Motley Crue on tour”, there’s the Foretravel Realm FS6 Presidential Luxury Villa Bunk with Spa, which starts at about $1.4 million.
With this model you get “a 45-foot condo on wheels that’s bigger than many New York apartments, two full baths featuring a massaging, Chromatherapy and a VibrAcoustic tub.”
“High end luxury continues to improve year after year,” Ferrando concluded.
It sure does – though we’re guessing not too many of these $1.4 million models are the ones driving GDP…
Regardless, here’s what $1.4 million gets you:
- Debunking The Myth That Lockdowns Stop Pandemics
Debunking The Myth That Lockdowns Stop Pandemics
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 21:45Authored by Stacey Rudin via RealClearPolitics.com,
From the beginning of time, humans have used mythology to make sense of a chaotic natural world. Sir G.L. Gomme dubbed myths “the science of a pre-scientific age.” Folklore provided pre-scientific people a comforting sense of control over nature. To address dry spells, they deployed rain dances. Sunless stretches hindering crops prompted offerings to Helios. Then, our ancestors sat back and waited. The rains always came. The sun always reappeared, validating their “wisdom,” the illusion of control reinforced.
Thanks to science, we know this was pure superstition. Though the same outcomes would have occurred had the tribe taken no action, the tribe leader would still have received credit or blame from his constituents.
Similarly, today’s politicians race to take credit – or place blame – for COVID-19 “results.” Do politicians really control these outcomes, or are they simply exploiting our ingrained tendencies?
When China first deployed lockdown in January to “defeat COVID-19,” The Washington Post approvingly quoted a Georgetown University professor as saying,
“The truth is those kinds of lockdowns are very rare and never effective…”
In March, Imperial College London’s dire projections influenced the White House, but a careful reading of the advice contained in the Imperial College report reveals that its authors knew lockdown alone could not eliminate any infections, only delay them:
“The more successful a strategy is at temporary suppression,” it stated, “the larger the later epidemic is predicted to be in the absence of vaccination, due to lesser build-up of herd immunity.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pandemic planning documents state non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing are ineffective once a disease infects 1% of a region’s population. Literature on this subject is unanimous worldwide. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control:
“There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread.
It is hard to imagine that measures like those within the category of social distancing would not have some positive impact by reducing transmission of a human respiratory infection…
However, the evidence base supporting each individual measure is often weak.”
Decades of evidence corroborates this. In 1969, a group of men overwintering in Antarctica experienced a spontaneous respiratory virus outbreak during their 17th week of isolation. Similarly, COVID-19 appeared on an Argentinian naval ship on the 35th day of its voyage, following a 14-day isolation of captain and crew.
Nature always finds a way.
No respiratory virus ever needed a “lockdown” to dissipate. What it needs is herd immunity, preferably sooner than later, preferably developed by the young and healthy to minimize mortality.
Politicians know the disease will eventually leave, yet they strive to convince a critical mass that their actions — modern-day versions of the rain dance — brought about that result. They count on us behaving like renowned psychologist B.F. Skinner’s superstitious pigeons.
“A pigeon is … put into a cage. A food hopper may be swung into place … so that the pigeon can eat from it … If a clock is [set] to present the hopper at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird’s behavior, operant conditioning usually takes place. The bird tends to learn whatever response it is making when the hopper appears. The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking.”
Publicly available data shows no causal relationship between government orders and COVID-19 mortality outcomes.
Sweden’s all-cause, per-capita mortality for 2020 is approximately 290 per million above the prior five-year average, while lockdown-loving New Jersey’s is almost 1,900 per million above the prior five-year average, and Michigan’s is over 700 per million. (In case you suspect Sweden “naturally” locked down on its own, mobility data reveals it didn’t.)
The mainstream media does not report this. Instead, its energetic smearing of Sweden, coupled with its pseudo-scientific insistence that lockdowns do anything more than delay the inevitable, helps politicians exploit the human tendency to mythologize.
We are faced with a virus with a 997-out-of-1,000 survival rate. We have vanquished fiercer adversaries. We can rid ourselves of this plague less painfully by remembering one simple truth: neither we, nor our politicians, have control over death.
- Visualizing The Biggest Ammonium Nitrate Explosions Since 2000
Visualizing The Biggest Ammonium Nitrate Explosions Since 2000
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 21:25This week, a massive explosion involving ammonium nitrate rocked the city of Beirut, sending shock waves through the media. While this recent tragedy is devastating, unfortunately, as Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang details below, it’s not the first time this dangerous chemical compound has caused widespread damage.
Today’s graphic outlines the biggest ammonium nitrate explosions over the last 20 years.
A Brief Explanation of Ammonium Nitrate
Before getting into the details, first thing’s first—what is ammonium nitrate?
Ammonium nitrate is formed when ammonia gas is combined with liquid nitric acid. The chemical compound is widely used in agriculture as a fertilizer, but it’s also used in mining explosives. It’s highly combustible when combined with oils and other fuels, but not flammable on its own unless exposed to extremely high temperatures.
It’s actually relatively tough for a fire to cause an ammonium nitrate explosion—but that hasn’t stopped it from happening numerous times in the last few decades.
The Death Toll
Some explosions involving ammonium nitrate have been deadlier than others. Here’s a breakdown of the death toll from each blast:
One of the deadliest explosions happened in Tianjin, China in 2015. A factory was storing flammable chemicals with ammonium nitrate, and because they weren’t being stored properly, one of the chemicals got too dry and caught fire. The blast killed 165 people and caused $1.1 billion dollars in damage.
In 2001, 14 years before the explosion in Tianjin, a factory exploded in Toulouse, France. The accident killed 30 people and injured 2,500. The power of the blast was equivalent to 20 to 40 tons of TNT, meaning that 40 to 80 tons of ammonium nitrate would have ignited.
In addition to factory explosions, there have been several transportation accidents involving ammonium nitrate. In 2007, a truck in Mexico blew up and killed over 57 people. Filled with explosives, the truck crashed into a pickup, caught fire, and detonated. The blast left a 60-foot long crater in its wake.
The Aftermath
While there have been several ammonium nitrate accidents throughout history, the recent tragedy in Beirut is one of the largest accidental explosions ever recorded, with 157 deaths and 5,000 injuries and counting.
In terms of TNT equivalent, a measure used to gauge the impact of an explosion, it ranks in the top 10 of the largest accidental explosions in history:
Topping the list is yet another ammonium nitrate explosion, this time back in 1947.
Known to history as the Texas City Disaster, the port accident was one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions to occur in history. The explosion killed over 500 people and injured thousands. The impact from the blast was so intense, it created a 15-foot wave that crashed along the docks and caused flooding in the area.
A Resource With Trade-Offs
Despite being dangerous, ammonium nitrate is still a valuable resource. There’s been an increased demand for the chemical from North America’s agricultural sector, and because of this, ammonium nitrate’s market size is expected to see an increase of more than 3% by 2026.
Because of its increasing market size, it’s more important than ever for trade industries to enforce proper safety measures when storing and transporting ammonium nitrate. When safety regulations aren’t followed, accidents can happen—and as we saw this week, the aftermath can be devastating.
- Russia Hoax: Are We All Being Played? Put Up Or Shut Up!
Russia Hoax: Are We All Being Played? Put Up Or Shut Up!
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 21:05Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,
Many people have asked me why I haven’t written a book since the start of my reporting on the FBI’s debunked investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia.
I haven’t done so because I don’t believe the most important part of the story has been told: indictments and accountability. I also don’t believe we actually know what really happened on a fundamental level and how dangerous it is to our democratic republic. That will require a deeper investigation that answers the fundamental questions of the role played by former senior Obama officials, including the former President and his aides.
We’re getting closer but we’re still not there.
Still, the extent of what happened during the last presidential election is much clearer now than it was years ago when trickles of evidence led to years of what Fox News host Sean Hannity and I would say was peeling back the layers of an onion. We now know that the U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement was weaponized against President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and administration by a political opponent. We now know how many officials involved in the false investigation into the president trampled the Constitution.
I never realized how terrible the deterioration inside the system had become until four years ago when I stumbled onto what was happening inside the FBI. Those concerns were brought to my attention by former and current FBI agents, as well as numerous U.S. intelligence officials aware of the failures inside their own agencies. But it never occurred to me when I first started looking into fired FBI Director James Comey and his former side kick Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that the cultural corruption of these once trusted American institutions was so vast.
I’ve watched as Washington D.C. elites make promises to get to the bottom of it and bring people to justice. They appear to make promises to the American people they never intended to keep. Who will be held accountable for one of the most egregious abuses of power by bureaucrats in modern American political history? Now I fear those who perpetuated this culture of corruption won’t ever really be held accountable.
These elite bureaucrats will, however, throw the American people a bone. It’s how they operate.
They expect us to accept it and then move on.
One example is the most recent decision by the Justice Department to ask that charges be dropped on former national security advisor Michael Flynn. It’s just a bone because we know now these charges should have never been brought against the three-star general but will anyone on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team have to answer for ruining a man’s life. No, they won’t. In fact, Flynn is still fighting for his freedom.
Think about what has already happened? From former Attorney General Jeff Session’s appointment of Utah Prosecutor John Huber to the current decision by Attorney General William Barr to appoint Connecticut prosecutor John Durham to investigate the malfeasance what has been done? Really, nothing at all. No one has been indicted.
The investigation by the FBI against Trump was never predicated on any real evidence but instead, it was a set-up to usurp the American voters will. It doesn’t matter that the establishment didn’t like Trump, in 2016 the Americans did. Isn’t that a big enough reason to bring charges against those involved?
His election was an anomaly for the Washington elite. They were stunned when Trump won and went into full gear to save their own asses from discovery and target anyone who supported him. The truth is they couldn’t stand the Trump and American disruptors who elected him to office.
Now they will work hand in fist to ensure that this November election is not a repeat win of 2016. We’re already seeing that play out everyday on the news.
But Barr and Durham are now up against a behemoth political machine that seems to be operating more like a steam roller the closer we get to the November presidential elections.
Barr told Fox News in June that he expects Durham’s report to come before the end of summer but like always, it’s August and we’re still waiting.
Little is known about the progress of Durham’s investigation but it’s curious as to why nothing has been done as of yet and the Democrats are sure to raise significant questions or concerns if action is taken before the election. They will charge that Durham’s investigation is politically motivated. That is, unless the charges are just brought against subordinates and not senior officials from the former administration.
I sound cynical because I am right now. It doesn’t mean I won’t trying to get to the truth or fighting for justice.
But how can you explain the failure of Durham and Barr to actually interview key players such as Comey, or former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, or former CIA Director John Brennan. That is what we’re hearing from them.
If I am going to believe my sources, Durham has interviewed former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, along with FBI Special agent Joe Pientka, among some others. Still, nothing has really been done or maybe once again they will throw us bone.
If there are charges to be brought they will come in the form of taking down the subordinates, like Strzok, Pientka and the former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who altered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application against short term 2016 campaign advisor Carter Page.
Remember DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report in December, 2019: It showed that a critical piece of evidence used to obtain a warrant to spy on Page in 2016 was falsified by Clinesmith.
But Clinesmith didn’t act alone. He would have had to have been ordered to do such a egregious act and that could only come from the top. Let’s see if Durham ever hold those Obama government officials accountable.
I don’t believe he will.
Why? Mainly because of how those senior former Obama officials have behaved since the troves of information have been discovered. They have written books, like Comey, McCabe, Brennan and others, who have published Opinion Editorials and have taken lucrative jobs at cable news channels as experts.
It’s frankly disgusting and should anger every American. We would never get away with what these former Obama officials have done. More disturbing is that the power they wield through their contacts in the media and their political connections allows these political ‘oligarchs’ unchallenged power like never before.
Here’s one of the latest examples.
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann just went after Barr in a New York Times editorial on Wednesday. He went so far as to ask the Justice Department employees to ignore any direction by Barr or Durham in the Russia investigations. From Weissmann’s New York Times Opinion Editorial:
Today, Wednesday, marks 90 days before the presidential election, a date in the calendar that is supposed to be of special note to the Justice Department. That’s because of two department guidelines, one a written policy that no action be influenced in any way by politics. Another, unwritten norm urges officials to defer publicly charging or taking any other overt investigative steps or disclosures that could affect a coming election.
Attorney General William Barr appears poised to trample on both. At least two developing investigations could be fodder for pre-election political machinations. The first is an apparently sprawling investigation by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, that began as an examination of the origins of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The other, led by John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, is about the so-called unmasking of Trump associates by Obama administration officials. Mr. Barr personally unleashed both investigations and handpicked the attorneys to run them.
But Justice Department employees, in meeting their ethical and legal obligations, should be well advised not to participate in any such effort.
I think Barr and Durham need to move fast if they are ever going to do anything and if they are going to prove me wrong. We know now that laws were broken and our Constitution was torched by these rogue government officials.
We shouldn’t give the swamp the time-of-day to accuse the Trump administration of playing politics or interfering with this election. If the DOJ has evidence and is ready to indict they need to do it now.
If our Justice Department officials haven’t done their job to expose the corruption, clean out our institutions and hold people accountable then it will be a tragedy for our nation and the American people. I’m frankly tired of the back and forth. I’m tired of being toyed with and lied to. I believe they should either put up or shut up.
- Bernie Sanders Just Proposed A Tax That Would Instantly Cost Bezos $42.8 Billion And Musk $27.5 Billion
Bernie Sanders Just Proposed A Tax That Would Instantly Cost Bezos $42.8 Billion And Musk $27.5 Billion
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 20:45Nothing says liberty and equality quite like swooping in and passing a piece of legislation that instantly absconds with the wealth of America’s most successful businessmen.
But that’s the vision that Bernie Sanders has for America. Apparently unaware that taxation is no longer necessary, as the Fed can now solve the country’s money problems with its printing press, Sanders has proposed a “Make Billionaires Pay Act” that would impose a “one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021,” according to CNBC.
The proceeds from the tax would be used to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for all Americans for one year, Sanders says. It would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March 18, his PR says.
Essentially, the tax amounts to a massive charge for many executives who have seen their wealth shoot up during the pandemic. The boost in asset prices, of course, has nothing to do with those executives and everything to do with monetary policy. Sanders, like the rest of the left, still hasn’t figured out the problem is the Central Banks – not the billionaires. But we digress.
According to CNBC, under the new tax, here’s how much some of the country’s richest will pay:
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would pay a one-time wealth tax of $42.8 billion.
- Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk would pay a one-time wealth tax of $27.5 billion.
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would pay a one-time wealth tax of $22.8 billion.
- The Walton family would pay a one-time wealth tax of $12.9 billion.
We have to ask, however: how much of Sanders’ wealth has also increased due to the Fed’s flawed policies? He owns two homes – we’re assuming he owns financial assets. Have they appreciated due to the Fed’s bailing out of the market? If so, shouldn’t he be parting with those proceeds and volunteering them up for taxation as well?
Come on, comrade. We all have to do our part…
- Trucking Company Refuses To Deliver To Cities Calling To "Defund The Police"
Trucking Company Refuses To Deliver To Cities Calling To “Defund The Police”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 20:25Authored by Michael Wing via The Epoch Times,
While governors and mayors echo calls to “defund the police” across the United States, trucking companies don’t seem all that impressed by the social justice virtue signalling. Some have even asserted there may be consequences if it is implemented.
Small business owners are at risk, as they store, transport, and sell valuable goods, rent or own property, and pay insurance for all of this.
Disbanding law enforcement would mean no protection for their businesses (or their lives) from criminals who would profit at their expense.
But some trucking companies are drawing a line in the sand issuing a simple consequence: no police, no deliveries. Mike Kucharski, co-owner of JKC Trucking, told Fox & Friends First that a disbanded police makes an already risky business even riskier.
JKC truck (Screenshot/Google Maps)
“Our first priority is to support our drivers and their safety when they are on the road,” said Kucharski.
“Defunding the police is a bad idea, because when you’re on the road, you’re for weeks and days at a time driving 11 hours with valuable cargo. Everybody wants to steal this.”
Truck driving and transportation/material moving are already the top two most dangerous jobs in the United States, Fox Business reports. Meanwhile, 79 percent of drivers say they would not deliver in cities without a police force.
“When you’re tripping over long enough on the road you know there’s no safe place. Violence is everywhere. So, if you’re gonna be having valuable cargo and there’s gonna be no police to rely on, who’s gonna protect our drivers?”
People carry signs during a “defund-the-police” march from King County Youth Jail to City Hall in Seattle, Washington, on Aug. 5, 2020. (JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)
A survey of 258 police departments across the United States, soon to be released, shows that nearly half of them have had budget cuts, mainly in the areas of training and equipment. Meanwhile, both gun violence and violent crime have increased in different parts of the country, USA Today reported.
Another risk for trucking businesses in states where police are defunded is insurance, Kucharski says.
JKC Trucking corporate headquarters in Summit, Il. (Screenshot/Google Maps)
It remains a question whether JKC will even have cargo, liability, and fiscal damage coverage while delivering in cities with a diminished police force. While the company has domestic coverage, they may have to buy special insurance for those cities, like when shipping to Canada or Mexico.
“Defunding the police is not the solution,” he adds.
“We all have to work together with critical thinking and in finding the solution, the problem during this time of crisis. The government’s been behind the steering wheel, and it’s time for small businesses to take back the steering wheel and make the right decisions, to sit down with the politicians. I welcome the politicians to sit down with us.”
- "Any Inbound Missile Will Be Seen As Nuclear" – Russia's Military Warns Amid Arms Treaty Talks
“Any Inbound Missile Will Be Seen As Nuclear” – Russia’s Military Warns Amid Arms Treaty Talks
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 20:05Though all eyes have been focused on the emerging ‘new Cold war’ scenario between the US and China, Russia’s military has just issued a rare and eye-opening statement which represents perhaps the most severe threat to come out of ongoing New START extension negotiations thus far.
“Russia will perceive any ballistic missile launched at its territory as a nuclear attack that warrants a nuclear retaliation, the military warned in an article published Friday,” AP writes.
“The harsh warning in the official military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) is directed at the United States, which has worked to develop long-range non-nuclear weapons,” the report continues.
US Navy ballistic missile launch, via The National Interest In the article some of Russia’s top generals, including senior officer of the Russian military’s General Staff, Maj.-Gen. Andrei Sterlin, claimed that in the event of an attack, radar and anti-air systems will have no way of knowing if a ballistic missile has a nuclear warhead or not.
“Any attacking missile will be perceived as carrying a nuclear warhead,” the Russian military publication said. “The information about the missile launch will be automatically relayed to the Russian military-political leadership, which will determine the scope of retaliatory action by nuclear forces depending on the evolving situation.”
“Russia has designated the ‘red lines’ that we don’t advise anyone to cross,” the Krasnaya Zvezda article said further. “If a potential adversary dares to do that, the answer will undoubtedly be devastating. The specifics of retaliatory action, such as where, when and how much will be determined by Russia’s military-political leadership depending on the situation.”
The military publication clearly upped the ante in a huge way, no doubt seeking to bolster Russian diplomats’ leverage as the landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START, could be on the chopping block after the US pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
New START will expire in February 2021 if the two sides don’t agree to renew it. So far ongoing talks between Moscow and Washington have failed to extend it by up to five years, despite pressure to strike an extension by America’s allies.
There were talks in mid-June that led nowhere, as well as at least three days of talks at the end of July in Vienna. It appears that while Russian diplomats talk nice in Vienna, Russia’s military is engaged in strong arm tactics to give the diplomats bigger bargaining position as the treaties extension is weighed.
The Kremlin also appears keen on reminding Washington in the clearest terms possible what a post nuclear arms control world looks like – namely, the likelihood of a new nuclear arms race in a deeply uncertain ‘Wild West’ scenario.
- Bike Store Cancels Contract With Austin Bike Police After "Woke" Employees Complain
Bike Store Cancels Contract With Austin Bike Police After “Woke” Employees Complain
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 19:45Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A bike store in Austin, Texas has cancelled its contract with the Austin Police bike patrol unit after three ‘woke’ employees complained that the bikes were being used for crowd control during Black Lives Matter protests.
In a Facebook post (since deleted), Christopher Carlisle explains how for eight years he maintained a contractual relationship with Mellow Johnny’s Bike store in downtown Austin to provide bikes and other equipment for the Down Town Area Command (DTAC) Bike Patrol and the Bicycle Public Order Team.
Now thanks to the last two months of BLM social justice protests in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, that relationship is apparently over.
“Today I received a call the sales manager I have worked with for years at MJ’S, he informed me that they have three employees who work for them that are complaining about providing bikes to the police department in this time of social unrest in protest and disturbances,” writes Carlisle.
“They stated to ownership that they did not like the fact that we use bicycles to help us manage crowds and crowd movement.”
Carlisle asserts that the store caved in to the woke employees by canceling the contact with Austin police that had four years left to run, “because three employees do not like police officers and did not like us in the store.”
The APD had been purchasing around 40 TREK police bikes a year as part of the agreement, meaning the amount of income the store is sacrificing in order to satiate its leftist staffers is reasonably substantial.
Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop has since issued a statement on Facebook:
Dear Austin
In the context of the current evaluation of community policing in Austin, we have decided to no longer purchase, re-sell, and service police-issue Trek bikes and accessories under a City of Austin RFP the shop was previously awarded.
We regret not publicizing our decision before it was presented by others on social media. It’s difficult in these times to balance the needs of a business and a community. Our entire employee group was engaged in this dialogue and we delved deep into our community to understand how we could best do our part to keep our customers safe and this city moving in the right direction. These are certainly trying times and we understand people will object to any decision made along these lines.
Businesses can no longer be non-participants in the communities they serve. We chose what we think will do the most to suture these divides and place our community on the right side of history. We have had to make these choices before when we felt companies whose products we sold put kids at schools at risk of violence. We lost sales due to this choice. We also saw our former vendors later divest of holdings and we’ve returned to selling these products. We will live with the choices our customers make if they want to buy bikes and bike products somewhere else.
We are committed to the city of Austin and the community of cyclists that we serve every day.
We are not anti-police. We do believe our local police force will protect us from the very threats we are receiving right now.
We wish this entire community peace and progress and togetherness at the conclusion of these trying times. And we intend to be a part of the discourse, struggle, and growth for Austin, as we have since we opened our doors in 2008.
Tim Enlow responded to the news by posting, “That is their absolute right as business owners. It’s also every citizen’s right to decide to take their bicycle business elsewhere,” calling for a boycott of the store.
* * *
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- 100 Children Shot In Philadelphia Year-To-Date
100 Children Shot In Philadelphia Year-To-Date
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 19:25100 children have been shot in Philadelphia so far this year, according to police, who say they will take a ‘multi-pronged approach’ to keep them safe.
7-year-old Zamar Jones was fatally shot last weekend “This culture of violence where we have adults are willing to shoot indiscriminately into crowds of people without care or concern for women or children,” said Philadelphia Police First Deputy Commissioner, Melvin Singleton, according to CBS Philly.
Police say there is a plan in place to curb the violence, but it will take some time.
“Now we have to be strategic, targeted, identify our repeat offenders and target those folks,” Singleton said. –CBS Philly
Last weekend, 7-year-old child Zamar Jones was fatally shot on his front porch around 7:40 p.m. when he was caught in the crossfire of a shootout where at least 16 shots were fired. Jones was shot in the head.
BREAKING: Philadelphia Homicide Unit confirms Zamar Jones, 7, of the 200 block of North Simpson, West Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at 1p. One man is in custody. Police are seeking two more. @CBSPhilly pic.twitter.com/9tUaXB3vbl
— Joe Holden (@JoeHoldenCBS3) August 3, 2020
27-year-old Christopher Linder was taken into custody later that night after he attempted to recover his bullet-ridden truck, while antother man, 30-year-old Michael Banks, turned himself in.
While involved in the manhunt for the suspect in the Jones murder, police were called to another West Philadelphia shooting where a 6-year-old girl playing with friends was shot in the chest.
She is currently in the hospital in stable condition while her shooter remains at large. Both shootings happened less than three miles apart.
- Fighting Over Kashmir Could Blow Up The Planet
Fighting Over Kashmir Could Blow Up The Planet
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 19:05Authored by T.J.Coles via Counterpunch.org,
Jammu and Kashmir, widely referred to as Kashmir, has had many designations since India and Pakistan were partitioned by Britain and gained their respective independence from the Empire: a Princely State, a State, a Union Territory.
The 86,000 mile, Muslim-majority region sits in the Himalayas on the border with China. It is of strategic significance to both India and Pakistan, primarily because of the Siachen Glacier which brings freshwater the drought-ridden nations.
India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons: armaments of such destruction that even a “minor” regional war would cause more than a decade of global nuclear winter.
Both countries have already fought several times over Kashmir.
With India going down the route of Hindu fanaticism and Pakistan gripped by Islamism, both nations compound their irrationalities with a different form of religious extremism exported from the West, namely neoliberal economics. The chances of global survival diminish.
The question is what we in the West can do to pressure our governments to de-escalate the conflict and cease exacerbating it.
JAMMU AND KASHMIR
The princely state of Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh. Following independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistani fighters invaded Kashmir. Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to India, igniting war between India and Pakistan, which lasted for two years. Two-thirds of Kashmir fell under Indian control. Both states violated UN Security Council Resolution 47: India refused to hold an election, which would have allowed the Muslim-majority population to decide their future, and Pakistan never withdrew its troops. India subsequently opposed UN involvement in the dispute.
In 1965, Pakistan infiltrated troops into the Indian zones in an apparent effort to incite a counter-India insurgency. Around 6,000 people were killed during the 17-day Indian counter-offensive. The war ended with the so-called Line of Control, created by the Simla Agreement of 1972, which followed another conflict in Kashmir and basically existed until India’s annexation of Kashmir in 2019. Following a growing independence movement among Kashmiris, India passed the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978, which led to the disappearances of around 8,000 Kashmiris and the indefinite detention of hundreds more.
In a repeat of 1965, India tried to seize the high ground of Kargil in 1999. A few years later, two Kashmiri groups based in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, attacked the Indian Parliament, nearly triggering war. A so-called Composite Dialogue was established, seeking to bring the more moderate independence groups into negotiations. This led to a ceasefire.
In 2007, a bilateral peace plan was nearly finalized, but collapsed due to Pakistan’s internal problems. Pro-independence demonstrations ended in violence in 2010. Tensions rose again in 2016, with India’s murder of Burhan Wani, the leader of the group Hizbul Mujahedin. Hundreds were detained and dozens killed, following more protests. In 2017, the Indian government declared its lack of interest in peace talks as curfews were imposed. However, India employed the ex-intelligence officer, intelligence official, Dineshwar Sharma, to seek a consensus for peace. This was scuppered by Pakistan’s decision to release from house arrest, Hafiz Saaed of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In 2019, India bombed Pakistan in retaliation for an SUV attack in Kashmir, attributed to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad. In August, India’s ultra-Hindu nationalist BJP party revoked Article 370 of the Constitution, effectively ending Jammu and Kashmir’s formal autonomy and leading to its de facto annexation.
RESPONSES
How are Britain and the U.S. responding?
In 2017, the UK exported £370m-worth of military equipment to India, including components for aerial targeting equipment, RADAR, technology for military space craft, viruses (yes, viruses), and nuclear detection equipment and graphite; an element used in nuclear weapons production.
In the same year, the UK exported £14m-worth of military equipment to Pakistan, including aerial targeting equipment and deuterium compounds, which can also be used in nuclear reactors. After the declaration of ceasefire in 2018, the UK continued to feed the war machine.
In that year, it exported £164m-worth of similar military equipment to India and £19m-worth to Pakistan.
India has had the atomic bomb since 1974, when it conducted an underground test (“Smiling Buddha”). In 1998, India began testing again, allegedly prompting Pakistan to test and formally declare possession. Like Israel, neither country is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. During the 1980s, the U.S. Reagan administration allowed Pakistan’s dictator Zia ul-Haq to develop nuclear weapons, partly in exchange for using Pakistan as a base to recruit and transport anti-Soviet Mujahiddeen, later rebranded “al-Qaeda” by the CIA. In 2006, the U.S. lifted sanctions on India, enabling it to import nuclear materials.
In July, shortly before India’s unilateral annexation, Trump told India’s PM Modi that the U.S. would be willing to act as a moderator between the two states over Kashmir. This gave Modi leverage to annex: the logic being that India seizes the main prize and “negotiates” smaller ones. This tactic is modelled on Israel’s theft of Palestine and its sham “peace process.” Indeed, these events occurred around the time that Israeli PM Netanyahu was greenlighted by Trump to formally annex parts of Palestine.
India is mimicking Israel in other ways. Just as Israel holds 1.8m Gazans hostage behind a wall, India is keeping Bangladeshis locked into their poverty by constructing a “security fence” on the border. Just as Israel cries “anti-Semitism” whenever pressure is put upon it to treat Palestinians with minimal decency, BJP apologists accuse Modi opponents of “Hinduphobia.”
As Britain’s Lord Desai signed a letter denouncing alleged anti-Semitism within the UK Labour Party under the lefty leader and anti-occupation activist, Jeremy Corbyn, Desai appeared on television in praise of India’s lockdown Kashmir. Labour’s new leader, Keir Starmer, seems to be to the left of the party on social issues (at the moment), thanks to pressure from the grassroots. But Starmer is a Blarite in his approach to foreign policy. A lawyer and former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Sir Keir said:
“Any constitutional issues in India are a matter for the Indian Parliament, and Kashmir is a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve peacefully.”
CONCLUSION
Every few years, scientists model nuclear winter. Recently, climatologists modelled “the potential effects” of nuclear powers detonating “50 Hiroshima-size bombs—less than 1 percent of the estimated world arsenal.” They found that at least five million tons of soot would block out the Sun for fifteen years and reduce global crop production by 11 percent. In 2015, Pakistan declared that it had developed tactical nukes, which are usually of a small yield and therefore more dangerous because they increase the likelihood of being used. India’s nukes are more advanced and capable of being delivered from sea, on land, and dropped from the air.
Nearly three decades ago, Hindus razed a mosque in Ayodhya, India, said to have been built on the site of the Hindu god, Ram. Today, Modi is back at the site to inaugurate the construction of a Hindu temple. Zafaryab Jilani, General Secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, says:
“It is against the letter and spirit of India’s secular constitution for the prime minister in his official capacity to attend such a religious event.”
With these underlying cultural tensions creating a psychology of illogicality, a war sparked in Kashmir over, for instance, access to water from the Siachen Glacier, could prove fatal for us all. We will have ourselves to blame, in part, for not pressuring our leaders to forge peace: if there’s anyone left to blame after the atoms are split.
- Mentally Ill Professor Invented Bisexual Native American Persona Who 'Died' Of COVID-19
Mentally Ill Professor Invented Bisexual Native American Persona Who ‘Died’ Of COVID-19
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 18:45A former assistant professor who was denied tenure at Vanderbilt University for sending threats to colleagues was busted running a years-long ‘hoax’ – in which she invented an online persona on Twitter claiming to be an oppressed bisexual, Native American geologist.
BethAnn McLaughlin created the persona, @Sciencing_Bi, in 2016 while working as an assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt. After being denied tenure in 2017, McLaughlin left the university in July of 2018 – going on to found MeTooSTEM, a nonprofit organization aimed at advising scientists who are the victims of sexual harassment.
Illustratiopn by Anita Kunz via Science But McLaughlin was doing much more than harassing coworkers and failing to earn promotions.
According to the New York Times:
The anonymous account, @Sciencing_Bi, was an active participant in the corner of Science Twitter that frequently discusses issues of sexual misconduct in the sciences. It claimed on at least one occasion to have grown up in Alabama, to have “fled the south because of their oppression of queer folk,” and to have attended Catholic school. The account began to pointedly make reference to being Native American and, earlier this year, began to identify as Hopi.
Then, McLaughlin decided to kill off @Sciencing_Bi, announcing in April that she had contracted coronavirus – which she publicly blamed on Arizona State University, which she says made her teach in a lecture hall with 200 people.
Last Friday, BethAnn McLaughlin announced that @Sciencing_Bi had died of the virus.
Then it gets really weird (via HotAir.com)
After her “death” BethAnn McLaughlin suggested that she’d been in an intimate relationship with the woman known only as @Sciencing_Bi. “Looking at her side of the bed and crying. Just a lot of crying.”
this is one of my big hangups. if SB was a real and autonomous human, she was allegedly interacting with MTS in a client/support capacity, and should not have been anywhere near BA’s bed, much less had an established “side.” pic.twitter.com/LkqDEuC5hM
— Isabel Ott (@IsabelOtt) August 2, 2020
But pretty quickly McLaughlin’s story began to really fall apart as people noticed that details @Sciencing_Bi had claimed about Arizona State University were false, e.g. she didn’t know the correct dates for the school’s closing. Also, looking back over her tweets it seemed that she had only referenced her Native American ancestry fairly recently.
Here’s some more weirdness on the Indigenous ID claims, shared by a friend. Prior to 2020, their tone re: “Native Americans” indicated ID’ing as exterior to that group; first claims of Indigeneity seem to have arisen this spring/summer and seem…fishy to me. pic.twitter.com/0H7kwMIpbC
— Isabel Ott (@IsabelOtt) August 2, 2020
What’s more, people caught McLaughlin using stock photos.
SB tweeted this photo about arriving in Nashville to meet with BA. This photo is a generic pic from an airline’s website. It couldn’t have been taken by herhttps://t.co/SL6t1cbt1v pic.twitter.com/rYWHpw6YNi
— Fieldwork Initiative (@MeTooFieldwork) August 2, 2020
In the end, Twitter suspended McLaughlin’s personal account and her @Sciencing_Bi persona, while ASU told BuzzFeed that they had no record of any such person.
As the questions swirled, the account settings were switched to private. Then late on Sunday, Twitter suspended both McLaughlin’s and the @Sciencing_Bi accounts.
“We’re aware of this activity and have suspended these accounts for violating our spam and platform manipulation policies,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News by email. The company declined to comment on whether it had any forensic evidence linking the two accounts to the same device or person.
A spokesperson from ASU told BuzzFeed News they had no record of any faculty matching @Sciencing_Bi’s description. And other parts of @Sciencing_Bi’s accounts did not match up: The university closed its campus in March, switching to online instruction, and did not implement salary cuts.
“We have been looking into this for the last 24 hours and cannot verify any connection with the university,” ASU spokesperson Katie Paquet told BuzzFeed News by email on Sunday. “We have been in touch with several deans and faculty members and no one can identify the account or who might be behind it.” -BuzzFeed
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsFinally, McLaughlin admitted to being behind the anonymous account.
“I take full responsibility for my involvement in creating the @sciencing_bi Twitter account. My actions are inexcusable. I apologize without reservation to all the people I hurt,” she said in a statement to the New York Times, adding that she’s aware she needs mental health treatment.
“As I’ve reflected on my actions the last few days, it’s become clear to me that I need mental health treatment, which I’m pursuing now.”
- Ignorance Prevails Once Again!
Ignorance Prevails Once Again!
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 18:25Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.
Yale Study tests the best Covid vaccine propaganda
Is guilt, self-interest, or anger the most effective way to convince people to get a Covid vaccine?
A Yale study will attempt to answer that question, by studying which message resonates most with the general population. It’s called Persuasive Messages for COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake.
There is no actual vaccine yet. But the study is already testing to see which method of propaganda will most effectively convince people to get a vaccine… whenever that happens to be.
The study will also measure how confident the propaganda makes people feel about a vaccine, and if it makes participants want to persuade others to take the vaccine.
Finally, researchers want to see if the propaganda produces fear in the unvaccinated, and how much social judgment it will cast on those who choose to remain unvaccinated.
Just in case you start to see a “spontaneous” groundswell of popular support for a brand new untested vaccine…
Click here to read about the study on clinicaltrials.gov.
* * *
Bed and Breakfast removes insensitive Norwegian flag
Being Norwegian is now racially insensitive.
At least that’s true for people who can’t tell the difference between the Norwegian and Confederate flag.
A bed and breakfast in Michigan calls itself the Nordic Pineapple. The owners used to hang a Norwegian flag out front (next to the American flag) to celebrate the heritage of co-founder Kjersten Offbecker.
But the red flag with a blue and white cross drew criticism from some guests, passers-by, and of course, the Twitter-mob.
The couple who owns the B&B says they received substantial hate mail, bad reviews, and angry phone calls from people who thought they were flying the Confederate flag of the former Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
They had originally tried to educate people that, in fact, THE NORWEGIAN FLAG IS NOT THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.
(Honestly– take a look. The Norwegian flag looks NOTHING like the confederate flag. You have to be totally blind to confuse the two.)
But they quickly realized that the Twitter mob has no mind (or soul) and is hence incapable of being educated.
Ignorance prevails again!
Click here to read the full story.
* * *
Scottish Hate Crime bill could outlaw the Bible and theater performances
The Catholic Church has expressed concern that the Bible could be outlawed under a section of a Scottish Hate Crime bill.
The legislation would make it illegal to possess “inflammatory material” which could “stir up hatred” of a person or group based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and so on.
For instance, if a prosecutor decides that supporting typical gender roles constitutes “stirring up hatred,” the Bible could be considered “inflammatory material” for any number of relationships depicted– or the rules laid out in the Book of Leviticus.
The bill also specifically takes aim at theater performances, noting that portrayal of fictional characters does NOT exempt an actor or producer from liability.
An actor, director, or writer could be prosecuted under the law when an offense “is committed during a public performance of a play by a person who is a performer in the play.”
So if you’re an actor who plays a fictional bigot that uses racist language, you could be prosecuted under this law.
Of course this gives the government all the power it needs to ban essentially any book or play that they determine stirs up hatred.
This is yet another nail in the coffin for free speech and expression in the [formerly] civilized world.
Click here to read the full bill.
* * *
Illinois Lawmaker wants to ban history class for being racist
A State Representative from Illinois is leading a charge to abolish history classes and remove history books from public schools.
He says that these books and lessons currently teach a racist history which promotes systemic racism (similar to how future Nobel Prize laureate Colin Kaepernick called July 4th a “celebration of white supremacy”).
Until the books can be replaced with something that better indoctrinates– or, uh, teaches– kids about the history that the Marxist censors approve of, these classes should be replaced with classes that better promote today’s zeitgeist.
Click here to read the full story.
* * *
Colorado declaring racism a public health crisis
Colorado has declared racism a public health crisis.
That will allow the Department of Public Health to take funds that were earmarked for things like, you know, health, and divert those funds towards the eradication of systemic racism.
But don’t forget about all the glorious powers the state claimed to fight the Covid public health crisis…
Surely the Governor of Colorado has just as much power to end systemic racism.
For instance, if you can shut down restaurants for spreading Covid, you could shut down restaurants for spreading racism– or perhaps having too large a proportion of white patrons.
If you can force the sick to quarantine, you can detain anyone who says something you consider racist– like “All Lives Matter”– until they are cured.
Remember, one Colorado town even banned property owners from their own vacation properties in the name of Covid-19 safety.
Don’t support Black Lives Matter (i.e. the organization co-founded by– in their own words– “trained Marxists” that has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars without a shred of financial transparency) ?
Well perhaps the town will restrict you from your property for this thought-crime.
Click here to read the full story.
* * *
Trader Joe’s backtracks: “we disagree that any of these labels are racist.”
Trader Joe’s decided that the store will not bow to a teenage girl’s petition we wrote about two weeks ago.
The Twitter mobsters demanded that Trader Joe’s change the culturally insensitive branding of certain products, like Trader Jose’s Beer, or Trader Ming’s Chinese Food.
Originally it appeared that Trader Joe’s would bow to the mob when the chain said that, although the brand names were “rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect.”
But now, Trader Joe’s won’t change the names after all.
The store now disagrees that its labels are racist, and they will make decisions based on customers, not Twitter mobs.
“Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing.”
Click here to read the full story.
* * *
On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.
- Daily Briefing – August 7, 2020
Daily Briefing – August 7, 2020
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 18:25Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal is joined by senior editor Ash Bennington to discuss the current state of different asset classes at this unique juncture. Raoul shares his view on the dollar, precious metals, and bitcoin. He also provides a strategic update on his unfolding thesis. Raoul guides viewers from the hope event into the insolvency phase as high-frequency data show slowdowns in economic activity. Raoul and Ash discuss why they think bitcoin is a favorable trade, and they explore why buying calls on the VIX and puts on the S&P 500 could ballast a gold-heavy portfolio. In the intro, Jack Farley discusses today’s Employment Situation Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. - Steele's Source Met With Russian Official Days Before Dossier Fabrication Began
Steele’s Source Met With Russian Official Days Before Dossier Fabrication Began
Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2020 – 18:05Christopher Steele’s primary dossier source – alcoholic Russian national Igor Danchenko, who worked at Brookings with a Trump impeachment witness, met with a Russian energy official just four days before Steele produced the first of 17 memos which comprise his infamous opposition research on the Trump campaign.
Notably, Steele’s first memo contained the salacious allegation that the Kremlin was blackmailing President Trump over a video of prostitutes urinating on each other at the Moscow Ritz Carlton in 2013 in a room which the Obamas had previously stayed.
The debunked accusation has made fake news headlines for years, as propagandists such as the New York Times have squeezed as much mileage as possible out of the dossier’s absurd claims.
According to the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross, Danchenko met with Sergey Abyshev – who was a deputy-director in the energy ministry, as well as the editor-in-chief of a Russian finance website, Ivan Vorontsov. The meeting was documented in a Facebook post by Vorontsov, and confirmed by Abyshev.
It is unclear what they talked about – but it occurred as Danchenko was in the thick of his work with Christopher Steele, who the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign and the DNC paid to cook up opposition research on President Trump’s campaign. The dossier was a key component of several FISA warrants issued to spy on former campaign aide Carter Page and his contacts, and was widely distributed by US media outlets in a campaign to discredit Trump.
Danchenko, a Russian national who lives in Washington, D.C., told the FBI in January 2017 that Steele, a former MI6 officer, tasked him in June 2016 to dig up dirt on Trump. Steele was hired in May 2016 by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm working for the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Vorontsov posted a photo on June 16, 2016 from the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), an annual business conclave, saying he had met the prior evening with Danchenko and Abyshev.
“The night before was so nice with Sergey Abyshev and Igor Danchenko,” Vorontsov wrote. –Daily Caller
According to Abyshev, the encounter with Danchenko was “an almost accidental meeting in the center of Moscow with three ‘cheerful’ guys,” adding “As a result, I had to listen to a lecture on investment opportunities for about 20 minutes.”
Read the rest of the report here.
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