- Beyond Ukraine: America's Coming (Losing) Battle For Eurasia
Beyond Ukraine: America’s Coming (Losing) Battle For Eurasia
Authored by US Army Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via AntiWar.com,
Academic historians reject anything smacking of inevitably. Instead they emphasize the contingency of events as manifested through the inherent agency of human beings and the countless decisions they make. On the merits, such scholars are basically correct. That said, there was something – if not inevitable – highly probable, almost (forgive me) deterministic about the two cataclysmic world wars of the 20th century. Both, in retrospect, were driven, in large part, by collective – particularly Western – nations’ adherence to a series of geopolitical philosophies.
The first war – which killed perhaps nine million soldiers in the sodden trench lines (among other long forgotten places) of Europe – began, in part, due to the continental, and especially maritime, competition between Imperial Great Britain, and a new, rising, and highly populous, land power, Imperial Germany. Both had pretensions to global leadership; Britain’s old and long-standing, Germany’s recent and aspirational – tinged with a sense of long-denied deservedness. Political and military leaders on both sides – along with other European (and the Japanese) nations – then pledged philosophical fealty to the theories of an American Navy man, Alfred Thayer Mahan. To simplify, Mahan’s core postulation – published from a series of lectures as The Influence of Sea Power Upon History – was that geopolitical power in the next (20th) century would be inherently maritime. The countries that maintained large, modern navies, held strategic coaling stations, and expanded their coastal, formal empires, would dominate trade, develop the strongest economies, and, hence, were apt to global paramountcy. Conversely, traditional land power – mass armies prepared to march across vast land masses – would become increasingly irrelevant.
Mahan’s inherently flawed, or at least exaggerated, conclusions – and his own clear institutional (U.S. Navy) bias – aside, key players in two of the major powers of Europe seemed to buy the philosophy hook-line-and-sinker. So, when Wilhelmine Germany took the strategic decision to rapidly expand its own colonial fiefdoms (before the last patches of brown-people-inhabited land were swallowed up) and, thereby necessarily embarked on a crash naval buildup to challenge the British Empire’s maritime supremacy, the stage was set for a massive war. And, with most major European rivals – hopelessly hypnotized by nationalism – locked in a wildly byzantine, bipolar alliance system, all that was needed to turn the conflict global was a spark: enter the assassin Gavrilo Princip, a pistol, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and it was game on.
The Second World War – which caused between 50-60 million deaths – was, of course, an outgrowth of the first. It’s causes were multifaceted and complicated. Nonetheless, particularly in its European theater, it, too, was driven by a geopolitical theorist and his hypotheses. This time the culprit was a Briton, Halford John Mackinder. In contrast with Mahan, Mackinder postulated a land-based, continental power theory. As such, he argued that the “pivot” of global preeminence lay in the control of Eurasia – the “World Island” – specifically Central Asia and Eastern Europe. These resource rich lands held veritable buried treasure for the hegemon, and, since they lay on historical trade routes, were strategically positioned.
Should an emergent, ambitious, and increasingly populated, power – say, Nazi Germany – need additional territory (what Hitler called “Lebensraum“) for its race, and resources (especially oil) for its budding war machine, then it needed to seize the strategic “heartland” of the World Island. In practice, that meant the Nazis theoretically should, and did, shift their gaze (and planned invasion) from their outmoded Mahanian rival across the English Channel, eastward to the Ukraine, Caucasus (with its ample oil reserves), and Central Asia. Seeing as all three regions were then – and to lesser extent, still – dominated by Russia, the then Soviet Union, the unprecedentedly bloody existential war on Europe’s Eastern Front appears ever more certain and explainable.
Germany lost both those wars: the first badly, the second, disastrously. Then, in a sense, the proceeding 45-year Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union – the only two big winners in the Second World War – may be seen as an extension or sequel to Mackinder-driven rivalry. The problem is that after the end of – at least the first – Cold War, Western, especially American, strategists severely miscalculated. In their misguided triumphalism, US geopolitical theorists both provoked a weak (but not forever so) Russia by expanding the NATO alliance far eastward, but posited premature (and naive) theories that assumed global finance, free (American-skewed) trade, and digital dominance were all that mattered in a “Post” Cold War world.
No one better defined this magical thinking more than the still – after having been wrong about just about every US foreign policy decision of the last two decades – prominent New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. In article after article, and books with such catchy titles as The World is Flat, and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman argued, essentially, that old realist geopolitics were dead, and all that really mattered for US hegemony was the proliferation of McDonald’s franchises worldwide.
Friedman was wrong; he always is (Exhibit A: the 2003 Iraq War). Today, with a surprisingly – at least with his prominent base – popular president, Donald J. Trump, impeached in the House and just acquitted by the Senate for alleged crimes misleadingly summed up as “Ukraine-gate,” a look at the real issues at hand in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, demonstrate that, for better or (probably) worse, the ghost of Mackinder still haunts the scene. For today, I’d argue, the proxy battle over Ukraine between the U.S. and its allied-coup-empowered government – which includes some neo-nazi political and military elements – and Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east, reflects a return to the battle for Eurasian resource and geographic predominance.
Neither Russia nor the United States is wholly innocent in fueling and escalating the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War. The difference is, that in post-Russiagate farce, chronically (especially among mainstream Democrat) alleged Russia-threat-obsessed America, reports of Moscow’s ostensible guilt literally saturate the media space. The reporting from Washington? Not so much.
The truth is that a generation of prominent “liberal” American, born-again Russia-hawks – Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, the whole DNC apparatus, and the MSNBC corporate media crowd – wielded State Department, NGO, and economic pressure to help catalyze a pro-Western coup in Ukraine during and after 2014. Their opportunism seemed, to them, simple, and relatively cost-free, at the time, but has turned implacably messy in the ensuing years.
In the process, the Democrats haven’t done themselves any political favors, further sullying what’s left of their reputation by – in some cases – colluding with Ukrainians to undermine key Trump officials; and consorting with nefarious far-right nationalist local bigots (who may have conspired to kill protesters in the Maidan “massacre,” as a means to instigate further Western support for the coup). What’s more, while much of the conspiratorial Trump-team spin on direct, or illegal, Biden family criminality has proven false, neither Joe nor son Hunter, are exactly “clean.” The Democratic establishment, Biden specifically, may, according to an excellent recent Guardian editorial, have a serious “corruption problem” – no least of which involves explaining exactly why a then sitting vice president’s son, who had no serious diplomatic or energy sector experience, was paid $50,000 a month to serve on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Fear not, the “Never-Trump” Republicans, and establishment Democrats seemingly intent on drumming up a new – presumably politically profitable – Cold War have already explanation. They’ve dug up the long ago discredited, but still publicly palatable, justification that the US must be prepared to fight Russia “over there,” before it has no choice but to battle them “over here” (though its long been unclear where “here” is, or how, exactly, that fantasy comes to pass). First, there’s the distance factor: though several thousands of miles away from the East Coast of North America, Ukraine is in Russia’s near-abroad. After all, it was long – across many different generational political/imperial structures – part of the Soviet Union or other Russian empires. A large subsection of the populace, especially in the East, speaks, and considers itself, in part, culturally, Russian.
Furthermore, the Russian threat, in 2020, is highly exaggerated. Putin is not Stalin. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union; and, hell, even the Soviet (non-nuclear) military threat and geopolitical ambitions were embellished throughout Cold War “Classic.” A simple comparative “tale-of-the-tape” illustrates as much. Economically and demographically, Russia is demonstrably an empirically declining power – its economy, in fact, about the size of Spain’s.
Nor is the defense of an imposed, pro-Western, Ukrainian proxy state a vital American national security interest worth bleeding, or risking nuclear war, over. As MIT’s Barry Posen has argued, “Vital interests affect the safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and power position of the United States,” and, “If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to ‘fall’ to Russia, it would have little impact on the security of the United States.” Furthermore, as retired US Army colonel, and president of the restraint-based Quincy Institute, Andrew Bacevich, has advised, the best policy, if discomfiting, is to “tacitly acknowledge[e] the existence of a Russian sphere of influence.” After all, Washington would expect, actually demand, the same acquiescence of Moscow in Mexico, Canada, or, for that matter, the entire Americas.
Unfortunately, no such restrained prudence is likely, so long as the bipartisan American national security state continues to subscribe to some vague version of the Mackinder theory. Quietly, except among wonky regional experts and investigative reporters on the scene, the US has, before, but especially since the “opportunity” of the 9/11 attacks, entered full-tilt into a competition with Russia and China for physical, economic, and resource dominance from Central Asia to the borderlands of Eastern Europe. That’s why, as a student at the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 2016-17, all us officers focused almost exclusively on planning fictitious, but highly realistic, combat missions in the Caucasus region. It also partly explains why the US military, after 18+ years, remains ensconced in potentially $3 trillion resource-rich Afghanistan, which, not coincidentally, is America’s one serious physical foothold in land-locked Central Asia.
Anecdotally, but instructively, I remember well my four brief stops at the once ubiquitous US Air Force way-station into Afghanistan – Manas Airbase – in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Off-base “liberty” – even for permanent party airmen – was rare, in part, because the Russian military had a mirror base just across the city. What’s more, the previous, earlier stopover spot for Afghanistan – Uzbekistan – kicked out the US military in 2005, in part, due to Russian political and economic pressure to do so.
Central Asia and East Europe are also contested spaces regarding the control of competing – Western vs. Russian vs. Chinese – oil and natural gas pipeline routes and trade corridors. Remember, that China’s massive “One Belt – One Road” infrastructure investment program is mostly self-serving, if sometimes mutually beneficial. The plan means to link Chinese manufacturing to the vast consumerist European market mainly through transportation, pipeline, diplomatic, and military connections running through where? You guessed it: Central Asia, the Caucasus, and on through Eastern Europe.
Like it or not, America isn’t poised to win this battle, and its feeble efforts to do so in these remarkably distant locales smacks of global hegemonic ambitions and foolhardy, mostly risk, nearly no reward, behavior. Russia has a solid army in close proximity, a hefty nuclear arsenal, as well as physical and historical connections to the Eurasian Heartland; China has an even better, more balanced, military, enough nukes, and boasts a far more powerful, spendthrift-capable, economy. As for the US, though still militarily and (for now) economically powerful, it lacks proximity, faces difficult logistical / expeditionary challenges, and has lost much legitimacy and squandered oodles of good will with the regional countries being vied for. Odds are, that while war may not be inevitable, Washington’s weak hand and probable failure, nearly is.
Let us table, for the purposes of this article, questions regarding any environmental effects of the great powers’ quest for, extraction, and use of many of these regional resources. My central points are two-fold:
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first, that Ukraine – which represents an early stage in Washington’s rededication to chauvinist, Mackinder geostrategy – as a proxy state for war with Russia is not an advisable or vital interest;
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second, that Uncle Sam’s larger quest to compete with the big two (Eur)Asian powers is likely to fail and symptomatic of imperial confusion and desperation.
As the U.S. enters an increasingly bipolar phase of world affairs, powerful national security leaders fear its diminishing power. Washington’s is, like it or not, an empire in decline; and, as we know from history, such entities behave badly on the downslope of hegemony. Call me cynical, but I’m apt to believe that the United States, as perhaps the most powerful imperial body of all time, is apt, and set, to act poorest of all.
The proxy fight in Ukraine, battle for Central Asia in general – to say nothing of related American aggression and provocations in Iran and the Persian Gulf – could be the World War III catalyst that the Evangelical militarist nuts, Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, unwilling to wait on Jesus Christ’s eschatological timeline, have long waited for. These characters seemingly possess the heretical temerity to believe man – white American men, to be exact – can and should incite or stimulate Armageddon and the Rapture.
If they’re proved “right” or have their way – and the Mikes just might – then nuclear cataclysm will have defied the Vegas odds and beat the house on the expected human extinction timeline. Only contra to the bloody prophecy set forth in the New Testament book of Revelations, it won’t be Jesus wielding his vengeful sword on the back of a white horse, but – tragic and absurdly – the perfect Antichrist stooge, pressing the red button, who does the apocalyptic deed.
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Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War, is available for preorder on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet. Check out his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 02/08/2020 – 00:05 -
- The U.S. Cities Mired In The Most Debt
The U.S. Cities Mired In The Most Debt
Truth in Accounting has released its 2020 Financial State of Cities report, highlighting the fiscal health of America’s 75 most populous cities. Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that the study found that this year, 63 cities do not have enough money to pay their bills and total municipal debt now stands at $323 billion.
It ranked the cities according to their taxpayer burden or surplus which is the amount each taxpayer would have to pay to clear municipal debt with nothing, such as benefits and services, in exchange.
You will find more infographics at Statista
New York has $62.7 billion available to pay $249.4 billion worth of bills which breaks down to a burden of $63,100 per taxpayer.
In Chicago, each taxpayer would have to pay $63,100 in future taxes without anything in return while Hononulu has the third-highest burden at $26,400.
Some cities are run better than others with Irvine, California and Washington D.C. notable examples. The former has a surplus of $4,100 per taxpayer while D.C. has a surplus of $3,500.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 23:45 - The Debacle In Iowa Is A Perfect Example Of The Extreme Incompetence That Is Plaguing America
The Debacle In Iowa Is A Perfect Example Of The Extreme Incompetence That Is Plaguing America
Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
The rest of the world is laughing at us. After what just took place in Iowa, we certainly do not have any right to lecture other nations about how to run their elections. It was a dumpster fire of epic proportions, and the entire globe is talking about it. Apparently the Democrats have decided to run their elections the same way that they run their cities. The Iowa Democratic Party had just one job to do, and they failed in spectacular fashion.
Collecting voting results and reporting them to the public shouldn’t be complicated, but these days incompetence has become the norm. From one end of the country to the other it seems like people are competing to see who can be the most incompetent, and our population is becoming more “dumbed down” with each passing day.
The debacle in Iowa is being blamed on a faulty app, and I suppose that we shouldn’t be surprised.
After all, just about everything that we put on our phones and computers these days must be constantly “fixed” or “patched” due to endless errors.
This app that the Democrats were using did not have to be complicated. It simply needed to accurately relay data from the precincts to the Iowa Democratic Party, but thanks to “a coding error” that did not happen…
Due to a coding error, the app, created by a company called Shadow Inc., wasn’t reporting the correct data, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. The error resulted in the Democrats delaying all public reporting of the results of Monday’s caucuses, and has sown chaos and confusion in a hotly contested and deeply important primary.
After all of the hot air that the Democrats have been blowing around about “the integrity of our elections”, you would think that they would have their act together for the 2020 election.
But instead they just showed the rest of the world what not to do.
And it isn’t as if this was a complete surprise. According to CNN, it was clear well in advance that the app “was not working properly”…
Precinct captains from across Iowa began realizing days before the caucuses that the app was not working properly. Some complained to their county party leadership, others said nothing and hoped it would work at the needed moment and some just planned to call in their results, as has been done in the past. And most county party chairs openly worried about the lack of training on the reporting system.
In fact, only about one-fourth of all precinct chairs were able to successfully download the app…
Only a quarter of nearly 1,700 precinct chairs even successfully downloaded the app, according to a Democrat familiar with the matter.
“I couldn’t get it to work,” said Jane Podgorniak, the Worth County party chair. “I tried and tried.”
There never was any training for the precinct chairs, and there was mass confusion among local party officials. In Polk County, the chairman of the Democratic Party told his precinct chairs to simply call in the results, but that didn’t work either. The following comes from the New York Times…
So last Thursday Mr. Bagniewski, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Iowa’s most populous county, Polk, instructed his precinct chairs to simply call in the caucus results as they had always done. But during Monday night’s caucuses, those precinct chairs could not connect with party leaders via phone. Hold times stretched past 90 minutes. And when Mr. Bagniewski had his executive director to take pictures of the results with her smartphone and drive over to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters to deliver them in person she was turned away without explanation.
Some precinct chairs were on hold with headquarters for two or three hours on Monday night, and it is still not clear why Iowa Democratic Party officials were not more responsive.
Needless to say, this was a complete and utter embarrassment for the national Democratic Party, and DNC Chair Tom Perez is pledging that such a debacle will never happen again…
“What happened last night should never happen again,” Perez wrote in the statement. “We have staff working around the clock to assist the Iowa Democratic Party to ensure that all votes are counted. It is clear that the app in question did not function adequately. It will not be used in Nevada or anywhere else during the primary election process. The technology vendor must provide absolute transparent accounting of what went wrong.”
Hopefully they can get their issues ironed out, but the truth is that the Democratic Party has a long history of complete and utter incompetence.
Of course the Republican Party is not much better. In fact, I could tell you stories about Republicans in my area that would make your hair stand on end.
Sadly, the truth is that we have become a raging “idiocracy” where people can’t seem to do much of anything right. At one time we were a shining example to the rest of the world, but today we are a horde of entertainment-addicted zombies that never learned what it means to grow up and act like adults. For example, just consider what is happening at one of our most prestigious universities…
Students at Yale University are being encouraged to participate in a variety of programs offered by the Chaplain’s Office, including a weekly “Cookies and Coloring” hour and a campus “Bouncy Castle” during nice weather.
The children’s activities are promoted as opportunities for adult students to relieve anxiety and disconnect from technology at the Ivy League institution.
The more mindless our entertainment, the more we like it. The number of alcohol-related deaths has doubled over the past 20 years, the suicide rate has soared to a record high, and we are taking more legal and illegal drugs than ever before. And in just about every category of immorality that you can possibly imagine we are either leading the world or we are in very close contention for the top spot. We are a complete and utter mess, and we on a road that inevitably leads to national ruin.
Of course if anyone dares to offend our snowflake sensibilities by confronting us with the truth, many of us instantly melt down and start throwing a temper tantrum.
Needless to say, what I have just said does not apply to everyone. But overall our society is rapidly degenerating all around us, and our nation has no future if we stay on this path.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 23:25 - Netflix Reveals It Removed These 9 Films At Foreign Government Requests
Netflix Reveals It Removed These 9 Films At Foreign Government Requests
The world’s top streaming service Netflix revealed in a new internal report it calls Environment Social Governance that it has taken down nine pieces of content around the world in response to written complaints and demands from governments.
The 23-year old company began conforming to such controversial censorship requests after 2015, in order to better conform to various countries’ laws and societal norms, according to Axios. It’s the first such revelation of active censorship admitted by the company.
The majority of government requests for removal came from the religiously diverse but staunchly morally conservative island city-state of Singapore. Other movies or series were taken down at the request of New Zealand, Vietnam, Germany, Brazil and Saudi Arabia — the latter instance for politically embarrassing and sensitive jokes about crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Full Metal Jacket”. Warner Bros. Taken off Netflix in Vietnam. Netflix conformed, for example, to a Saudi government request last year for the 2019 removal of comedian Hasan Minhaj “Patriot Act” standup special, related to references to the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had defended the controversial move by saying, “We’re not in the truth to power business, we’re in the entertainment business.”
In another instance, a Brazilian court ordered Netflix to remove the comedy special “The First Temptation of Christ,” after complaints from conservative Catholic groups over it’s portraying Jesus as gay and other issues seen as sacrilegious. But the ruling was recently overturned by Brazil’s Supreme Court. Singapore has, however, removed the film for its viewers.
Also of note is that in 2017 Netflix complied with the removal of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket at the request of the government of Vietnam.
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Here are all nine that were removed:
1) “The Bridge” – removed by New Zealand in 2015
“In 2015, we complied with a written demand from the New Zealand Film and Video Labeling Body to remove The Bridge from the service in New Zealand only. The film is classified as ‘objectionable’ in the country.”
2) “Full Metal Jacked” – removed by Vietnam in 2017
“In 2017, we complied with a written demand from the Vietnamese Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information (ABEI) to remove ‘Full Metal Jacket’ from the service in Vietnam only.”
3) “Night of the Living Dead” – removed by Germany in 2017
New Line “In 2017, we complied with a written demand from the German Commission for Youth Protection (KJM) to remove ‘Night of the Living Dead’ from the service in Germany only. A version of the film is banned in the country.”
4, 5, & 6) “Cooking on High,” “The Legend of 420,” and “Disjointed” – removed by Singapore in 2018
“In 2018, we complied with a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘Cooking on High,’ ‘The Legend of 420,’ and ‘Disjointed’ from the service in Singapore only.”
7) “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” episode titled “Saudi Arabia” – removed by Saudi government request in 2019
“In 2019, we complied with a written demand from the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission to remove one episode—’Saudi Arabia’—from the series ‘Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj’ from the service in Saudi Arabia only.”
8) “The Last Temptation of Christ” – removed by Singapore in 2019
“In 2019, we received a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ from the service in Singapore only. The film is banned in the country.”
9) “The Last Hangover” – removed by Singapore in 2020
Netflix “In 2020, we complied with a written demand from the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to remove ‘The Last Hangover’ from the service in Singapore only.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 23:05 - Why Both Republicans And Democrats Want Russia To Become The Enemy Of Choice
Why Both Republicans And Democrats Want Russia To Become The Enemy Of Choice
Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.
To hate Russia has become dogma on both sides of the political aisle, in part because no politician has really wanted to confront the lesson of the 2016 election, which was that most Americans think that the federal government is basically incompetent and staffed by career politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell who should return back home and get real jobs.
Worse still, it is useless, and much like the one trick pony the only thing it can do is steal money from the taxpayers and waste it on various types of self-gratification that only politicians can appreciate. That means that the United States is engaged is fighting multiple wars against make-believe enemies while the country’s infrastructure rots and a host of officially certified grievance groups control the public space.
It sure doesn’t look like Kansas anymore.
The fact that opinion polls in Europe suggest that many Europeans would rather have Vladimir Putin than their own hopelessly corrupt leaders is suggestive. One can buy a whole range of favorable t-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin on Ebay, also suggesting that most Americans find the official Russophobia narrative both mysterious and faintly amusing. They may not really be into the expressed desire of the huddled masses in D.C. to go to war to bring true U.S. style democracy to the un-enlightened.
One also must wonder if the Democrats are reading the tea leaves correctly. If they think that a slogan like “Honest Joe Biden will keep us safe from Moscow” will be a winner in 2020 they might again be missing the bigger picture. Since the focus on Trump’s decidedly erratic behavior will inevitably die down after the impeachment trial is completed, the Democrats will have to come up with something compelling if they really want to win the presidency and it sure won’t be the largely fictionalized Russian threat.
Nevertheless, someone should tell Congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, to shut up as he is becoming an international embarrassment. His “closing arguments” speeches last week were respectively two-and-a-half hours and ninety minutes long and were inevitably praised by the mainstream media as “magisterial,” “powerful,” and “impressive.” The Washington Post’s resident Zionist extremist Jennifer Rubin labeled it “a grand slam” while legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called it “dazzling.” Gail Collins of the New York Times dubbed it “a great job” and added that Schiff is now “a rock star.” Daily Beast enthused that the remarks “will go down in history” and progressive activist Ryan Knight called it “a closing statement for the ages.” Hollywood was also on board with actress Debra Messing tweeting “I am in tears. Thank you Chairman Schiff for fighting for our country.”
Actually, a better adjective would have been “scary” and not merely due to its elaboration of the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors committed by President Trump, much of which was undeniably true even if not necessarily impeachable.
It was scary because it was a warmongers speech, full of allusions to Russia, to Moscow’s “interference” in 2016, and to the ridiculous proposition that if Trump were to be defeated in 2020 he might not concede and Russia could even intervene militarily in the United States in support of its puppet.
Schiff insisted that Trump must be removed now to “assure the integrity” of the 2020 election. He elaborated somewhat ambiguously that “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”
Schiff also unleashed one of the most time honored but completely lame excuses for going to war, claiming that military assistance to Ukraine that had been delayed by Trump was essential for U.S. national security. He said “As one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry, the United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
Schiff, a lawyer who has never had to put his life on the line for anything and whose son sports a MOSSAD t-shirt, is one of those sunshine soldiers who finds it quite acceptable if someone else does the dying. Journalist Max Blumenthal observed that “Liberals used to mock Bush supporters when they used this jingoistic line during the war on Iraq. Now they deploy it to justify an imperialist proxy war against a nuclear power.” Aaron Mate at The Nation added that “For all the talk about Russia undermining faith in U.S. elections, how about Russiagaters like Schiff fear-mongering w/ hysterics like this? Let’s assume Ukraine did what Trump wanted: announce a probe of Burisma. Would that delegitimize a 2020 U.S. election? This is a joke.”
Over at Antiwar Daniel Lazare explains how the Wednesday speech was “a fear-mongering, sword-rattling harangue that will not only raise tensions with Russia for no good reason, but sends a chilling message to [Democratic Party] dissidents at home that if they deviate from Russiagate orthodoxy by one iota, they’ll be driven from the fold.”
The orthodoxy that Lazare was writing about includes the established Nancy Pelosi/Chuck Schumer narrative that Russia invaded “poor innocent Ukraine” in 2014, that it interfered in the 2016 election to defeat Hillary Clinton, and that it is currently trying to smear Joe Biden. One might add to that the growing consensus that Russia can and will interfere again in 2020 to help Trump. Absent from the narrative is the part how the U.S. intervened in Ukraine first to remove its government and the fact that there is something very unsavory about Joe Biden’s son taking a high-paying sinecure board position from a notably corrupt Ukrainian oligarch while his father was Vice President and allegedly directing U.S. assistance to a Ukrainian anti-corruption effort.
On Wednesday, Schiff maintained that “Russia is not a threat … to Eastern Europe alone. Ukraine has become the de facto proving ground for just the types of hybrid warfare that the twenty-first century will become defined by: cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, efforts to undermine the legitimacy of state institutions, whether that is voting systems or financial markets. The Kremlin showed boldly in 2016 that with the malign skills it honed in Ukraine, they would not stay in Ukraine. Instead, Russia employed them here to attack our institutions, and they will do so again.” Not surprisingly, if one substitutes the “United States” for “Russia” and “Kremlin” and changes “Ukraine” to Iran or Venezuela, the Schiff comment actually becomes much more credible.
The compulsion on the part of the Democrats to bring down Trump to avoid having to deal with their own failings has brought about a shift in their established foreign policy, placing the neocons and their friends back in charge. For Schiff, who has enthusiastically supported every failed American military effort since 9/11, today’s Russia is the Soviet Union reborn, and don’t you forget it pardner! Newsweek is meanwhile reporting that the U.S. military is reading the tea leaves and is gearing up to fight the Russians. Per Schiff, Trump must be stopped as he is part of a grand Russian conspiracy to overthrow everything the United States stands for. If the Kremlin is not stopped now, it’s first major step, per Schiff, will be to “remake the map of Europe by dint of military force.”
Donald Trump’s erratic rule has certainly dismayed many of his former supporters, but the Democratic Party is offering nothing but another helping of George W. Bush/Barack Obama establishment war against the world. We Americans have had enough of that for the past nineteen years. Trump may indeed deserve to be removed based on his actions, but the argument that it is essential to do so because of Russia lurking is complete nonsense. Pretty scary that the apparent chief promoter of that point of view is someone who actually has power in the government, one Adam Schiff, head of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 22:45 - We Are Wall-E – Cali Gov. Newsom Wants To Halt School Physical Education Tests
We Are Wall-E – Cali Gov. Newsom Wants To Halt School Physical Education Tests
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom wants to turn a generation of kids into obese adults, that by the time 2050 rolls around, these hopeless folks will be wheeled around in self-balancing strollers, first popularized in the animated film Wall-E.
Newsom plans to cancel physical education tests for students for three years over new concerns of bullying and discrimination against disabled and non-binary students.
The move to cancel physical education tests comes as annual test results suggest California’s youth is becoming obese.
H.D. Palmer, the spokesman for the Department of Finance, told Bay Area KPIX 5 that the current measurement of body mass index (BMI) is discriminatory to some students, most notably to non-binary students, as BMI screenings require students to select “male” or “female,” he said.
AP News noted that annual state physical education reports show that around the 2014/15 period, health scores of students started to decline.
Students’ scores in “aerobic capacity,” which can be described in layman’s terms as the one-mile run, have dropped over the years. Tests for push-ups and sit-ups have also declined.
“In the last five years, the percentage of fifth-graders scoring healthy in the aerobic category has dropped by 3.3 percentage points. In seventh and ninth grades, the drops are 4.4 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points, respectively. Meanwhile, the percentage of students identified as “needing improvement” and having a “health risk” went up: by 3.3 percentage points among fifth-graders, 4.4 for seventh graders and 3.8 among ninth-graders,” KPIX 5 said.
During the three-year suspension of tests, Newsom and school officials will review whether to modify or completely withdraw the health exam.
Physical education classes will continue for the duration of the suspension, though the government won’t be able to track the health of kids.
Palmer told KPIX 5, “the issue of BMI screening plays a role in the issues of both body shaming and bullying.”
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s spokesman Daniel Ketchell said, “whether the state uses fitness tests or not, Governor Schwarzenegger believes that the most important thing is that our students have access to daily physical education classes to promote a healthy and fit lifestyle.”
With a staggering 75% of Americans already overweight or obese – California’s suspension of the obese test could lead to a continuation of deteriorating health trends for youth in the state, eventually lead to unhealthy lifestyles, that by the time this future generation hits retirement, they might be rolling around in self-driving chairs.
The future of America is fat…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 22:25 - Group At Center Of Iowa Caucus App Chaos Birthed By Billionaire-Funder Of Alabama DisInfo Campaign
Group At Center Of Iowa Caucus App Chaos Birthed By Billionaire-Funder Of Alabama DisInfo Campaign
Authored by Max Blumenthal via TheGrayZone.com,
Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman funded the creation of ACRONYM, the group that sabotaged the Iowa caucus results, after bankrolling voter manipulation campaigns including the notorious online “false flag operation” in Alabama’s 2017 senate race.
At the time of publication, February 6, the winner of the Iowa’s Democratic Party caucus is still unknown. Senator Bernie Sanders, the clear winner in virtually every exit poll, is currently ahead in votes. Yet somehow Pete Buttigieg, a favorite of the party establishment who was unknown to most voters until last year, has claimed victory.
The force accused of sowing the confusion and disarray surrounding the first Democratic Party contest of the 2020 election season is a dark money nonprofit called Acronym. It was Acronym that launched Shadow Inc, the mysterious company behind the now-infamous, unsecured, completely unworkable voter app which prevented precinct chairs from reporting vote totals on caucus night.
The exceptionally opaque Acronym was itself created with seed money from a Silicon Valley billionaire named Reid Hoffman who has financed a series of highly manipulative social media campaigns.
The billionaire founder of LinkedIn, Hoffman is a top funder of novel Democratic Party social media campaigns accused of manipulating voters through social media. He is assisted by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a corporate consultant who pushed school privatization before joining Hoffman’s political empire.
One of the most consequential beneficiaries of Hoffman’s wealth is Acronym CEO Tara McGowan, a 33-year-old former journalist and Obama for America veteran.
Acronym CEO Tara McGowan with Barack Obama, her former boss
Once touted as “a weapon of a woman whose innovative tactics make her critically important to the Democratic Party,” McGowan’s name is now synonymous with the fiasco in Iowa. She also happens to be married to a senior advisor to Pete Buttieg’s presidential campaign.
Back in December 2018, McGowan personally credited Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s “Investing in US” initiative for the birth of her dark money pressure group, Acronym.
“I’m personally grateful and proud to be included in this group of incredible political founders + startups @reidhoffman and his team, led by Dmitri [Mehlhorn], have supported and helped to fund over the past two years,” she declared on Twitter in December 2018.
I’m personally grateful and proud to be included in this group of incredible political founders + startups who @reidhoffman and his team, led by Dmitri, have supported and helped to fund over the past two years. https://t.co/o0QApPbHWY
— Tara McGowan (@taraemcg) December 21, 2018
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At the time, Hoffman had just been exposed for funding Project Birmingham, a covert disinformation campaign consisting of false flag tactics that aimed to depress voter turnout and create the perception of Russian interference in the 2017 Alabama senate election.
Hoffman and Mehlhorn have also faced scrutiny for their alleged operation of a series of deceptive pages which attempted to manipulate center-right users into voting for Democrats. Today, Acronym’s McGowan oversees a massive Facebook media operation that employs similarly deceptive techniques to sway voters.
Through youthful, tech-centric operatives like McGowan, Hoffman and Mehlhorn are constructing a massive new infrastructure that could supplant the party’s apparatus.
As Vanity Fair reported, “Hoffman and Mehlhorn, after all, are not just building a power base that could supplement traditional Democratic organizations, they are, potentially, laying the groundwork to usurp the D.N.C. entirely.”
‘Laying the groundwork to usurp the D.N.C. entirely’
Having fostered friendships with nationally known Silicon Valley oligarchs like right-wing libertarian Trump supporter Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, is now making his name as a top sugardaddy of the Democratic anti-Trump resistance.
Following Trump’s election in 2016, Hoffman plowed his money into an array of new Democrat-aligned social media groups through a funding hub he founded called Investing in US.
To run Investing in US on a day-to-day basis, Hoffman tapped Dmitri Mehlhorn, a venture capitalist and political strategist accustomed to walking the line between the corporate world and Democratic Party.
“There was no risk-capital or growth-capital arm of the resistance, and so that is what we’ve tried to build,” Mehlhorn told Vanity Fair.
“Now, in terms of what that implies, that implies that we are backing founders, so people who we think have big, potentially game-changing ideas.”
Mehlhorn’s career path tracked closely with neoliberal party favorites like Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. He studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, launched his career at McKinsey Associates, and became a leading advocate for school privatization as the chief operating officer of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.
According to Mehlhorn’s bio, he sits on the board of American Prison Data Systems, a company that claims to reduce recidivism by giving prisoners tablets to study coding for five hours a day.
Dmitri Mehlhorn
Mehlhorn is also an advisor to the Democratic group DigiDems, which Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign paid $1,540 for technology services.
In a 2018 Medium post, announcing the “founders” that Investing in US planned to back, Mehlhorn resorted to distinctly neoconservative talking points to emphasize the mission of his organization.
After quoting Ronald Reagan, he declared, “Trump and his movement, borrowing heavily from other authoritarian criminals such as Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin, promised to hollow out America’s principles in favor of his own personal enrichment.”
Pledging to “inoculate our politics and our economy against corruption, white nationalism, and mass deceit,” Mehlhorn announced major donations to “diverse groups” with names like Woke Vote, PushBlack, and an “anti-Nazi” organization known as Integrity for America.
Among the top recipients of support from Investing in US was McGowan’s Acronym, which Mehlhorn described merely as a “media group.”
As The Grayzone reported, Acronym has ballooned since its founding into a massive dark money operation, even launching a Super PAC dubbed Pacronym that has raked in money from hedge fund billionaires like Seth Klarman and Donald Sussman.
What Mehlhorn and Hoffman never disclosed to the public, however, was their support for a Democrat-aligned group that waged a covert online disinformation campaign which aimed to influence the outcome of the 2017 special senate election in Alabama.
Project Birmingham: From New Knowledge to no knowledge
The 2017 senate election in Alabama was one of the most dramatic races of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. Treated by national media as a referendum on Trump in a red state, it pitted a far-right Republican, Roy Moore, against Doug Jones, a moderate Republican who ran as a Democrat. In the end, Jones won an upset victory in a deep red state, thrilling Democrats across the country.
As Dan Cohen wrote in a series of reports for The Grayzone, the outcome of the 2017 Alabama race was heavily influenced by an online disinformation operation. The campaign, which was unknown to voters at the time, was called Project Birmingham.
Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman provided $100,000 to the architects of this black ops campaign. His money was pipelined through American Engagement Technologies (AET), a company run by Obama administration veteran and Democrat tech operative Mikey Dickerson. Through AET, another firm comprised of Obama campaign veterans and national security state operatives called New Knowledge was contracted to carry out the secretive voter manipulation project.
In internal documents first covered by the New York Times, Project Birmingham’s architects described the scheme as an “elaborate false flag operation” which aimed to convince voters that the Kremlin was supporting Moore through thousands of fake Russian bots.
Project Birmingham went to absurd lengths to drive voters away from Moore. Its architects deployed a phony Facebook page encouraging Alabamians to vote for an obscure write-in Republican candidate, arranged interviews for the candidate in major newspapers, and even sought to arrange SuperPAC funding for his dark horse campaign.
The deeply un-democratic campaign was overseen by a cast of characters remarkably similar to those who bungled the 2020 Iowa caucus count. Like the staff of Acronym and Shadow Inc., the New Knowledge operatives who carried out Project Birmingham were 30- and 40-something techies who had worked in the Obama administration and on various Democratic campaigns. (New Knowledge was rebranded as Yonder after the scandal was exposed in national media.)
The devious tactics they waged in Alabama likely influenced the outcome of the election. A leaked “Project Birmingham Debrief” claimed that New Knowledge’s black operations “moved enough votes to ensure a Doug Jones victory.”
After the scheme was exposed, Hoffman issued a public apology and claimed he had no knowledge of the New Knowledge disinformation project. He said nothing about the Investing in US employee who worked directly on Project Birmingham, however.
This was hardly the first time Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s finger prints were discovered on a deceptive voter manipulation campaign.
Aiming to ‘mirror’ the tactics of Russia’s Internet Research Agency
Following the 2018 midterm congressional election, Reid Hoffman and his henchman Dmitri Mehlhorn faced further scrutiny in national media, this time for operating a fake news-style organization called News for Democracy.
This shady outfit managed an array of community Facebook pages initially focusing on sports, Christianity, patriotism, and other topics that were likely to generate interest from right-wing voters in swing states.
Yet the seemingly locally-branded cultural pages took a decisively political turn as election night approached. After racking up millions of likes, News for Democracy slipped in ads for Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke on a Facebook page targeting evangelical Christians, and attacked a Republican candidate, Senator Marsha Blackburn, on a page focused on local Tennessee sports.
While Hoffman’s right-hand man, Mehlhorn, claimed to reject the spread of misinformation, he told the Washington Post that through projects like News for Democracy, he aimed to “mirror” the tactics of the notorious Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm.
Tech billionaire Reed Hoffman funded the @NewKnowledgeAI Alabama black op. His advisor, Dmitri Mehlhorn, has called for efforts to “mirror” the tactics of the Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm. This IRA Facebook ad is clearly worth emulating. https://t.co/rh90K8WND7 pic.twitter.com/yq7cuOLPWQ
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 27, 2018
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Facebook eventually launched an investigation into the insidious manipulation ploys of Hoffman and Mehlhorn’s News for Democracy.
The very tactics that landed the two in hot water are remarkably similar to those that Tara McGowan, the Acronym founder who disrupted the Iowa caucuses, has put on display.
McGowan recently founded Courier Newsroom, a seemingly journalistic initiative that appeared to take on a more overtly partisan role with time. Like News for Democracy, Courier Newsroom has opened local news pages on Facebook with unassuming names like “The Virginia Dogwood” or “Arizona’s Copper Courier.” After seeding the pages with folksy local stories, Courier Newsroom bombards users with pro-Democrat political messaging.
As Bloomberg reported, McGowan used “her sizable war chest and digital advertising savvy to pay to have her articles placed into the Facebook feeds of swing-state users.” McGowan then used “that feedback to find more people like them.”
One of McGowan’s dubious news pages, the Virginia Dogwood, spent a whopping $275,000 on Facebook ads during the 2018 midterm elections.
“We’ll try it, see if we can make it work, and hopefully become a permanent piece of the new infrastructure,” McGowan told Bloomberg.
Tara McGowan’s shenanigans in Iowa could be seen in the light of a wider string of manipulations by the Silicon Valley-backed neoliberal network behind her. While Democratic Party elites blame incompetence for the fiasco in Iowa, the history of Acronym and its billionaire backers casts a disturbing shadow over the whole episode.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 22:05 - Smaller Restaurants Forced Into Bankruptcy As Foot Traffic Collapses
Smaller Restaurants Forced Into Bankruptcy As Foot Traffic Collapses
While the big names in eating out – McDonald’s, Popeye’s, Chick-Fil-A and Olive Garden, to name a few – are all working diligently to get customers through the door at a time when the American eater is staying home more, lesser known restaurants are bearing the brunt of not being able to find new customers.
Names like Bar Louie and American Blue Ribbon Holdings, which owns Village Inn and Bakers Square, both filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, according to Bloomberg. Both cited lower foot traffic in the U.S. as the reason for their downfall.
Michael Halen a senior restaurant analyst at Bloomberg, said: “The business is just over-built, especially casual dining and full-service dining. There are too many restaurants.”
American Blue Ribbon also said that competition, rising labor costs and unprofitable restaurants were all reasons for facilitating its bankruptcy. The company owns and operates 97 restaurants after closing 33 stores prior to filing Chapter 11.
The company’s majority owner, Cannae Holdings, Inc., has agreed to provide a $20 million loan to maintain the company during bankruptcy. Cannae generates about 30% of its revenue from various restaurant companies it is invested in and has said that American Blue Ribbon will focus on strategic options in bankruptcy.
Bar Louie has been opening new locations over the last few years which has grown its top line, but the increase in debt necessary to open new stores has suffocated the company.
Chief Restructuring Officer Howard Meitiner said: “This inconsistent brand experience, coupled with increased competition and the general decline in customer traffic visiting traditional shopping locations and malls, resulted in less traffic at the company’s locations proximate to shopping locations and malls.”
Bar Louie has 110 locations, 38 of which have “seen their sales and profits decline at an accelerating pace” since the company began a strategic review in 2018. Those locations expected a staggering same store sales drop of 10.9% in 2019 and were closed prior to the company filing for bankruptcy. Lenders are providing a loan of as much as $22 million to keep the company operating during the proceedings.
Other restaurant names like The Krystal Co., Houlihan’s Restaurants Inc., Kona Grill Inc. and Perkins & Marie Callender’s all filed for bankruptcy last year as well.
Halen concluded: “We need to see a correction in the restaurant industry. We’ve seen a lot in the last few months, and I think this is just the beginning. Once the economy softens, you’ll see this getting worse.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 21:45 - What's Next For The Virginia Sanctuary Movement?
What’s Next For The Virginia Sanctuary Movement?
Authored by José Niño via The Mises Institute,
Despite the media’s fearmongering, the Virginia Citizens Defense League Lobby Day 2020, which took place on January 20, turned out to be a normal event.
The pro-gun demonstration drew twenty-two thousand people, who peacefully protested several gun control measures that Virginia governor Ralph Northam was proposing for the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly. The conclusion of this rally now has Virginia gun owners pondering where to go from there. The path to bringing about pro-gun policy at the state level appears to be at a dead end, at least in the short term, after Democrats secured control over all branches of government in the 2019 general elections.
Although there was tremendous euphoria right after Lobby Day concluded, Virginia Democrats did not waste time in showcasing their newly held political power, quickly passing a red flag gun-confiscation bill. Red flag laws are in vogue with gun control boosters, and Virginia is looking to be the eighteenth state that will implement it. In all likelihood, gun owners will have a rough time during the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly based on this political reality. There are tons of doomsday predictions of a demographic shift taking place in Virginia and the possibility that Republicans may never be able to take control of all branches of the state government again.
Virginia Could be Sailing in Uncharted Waters
Nonetheless, the highly publicized Second Amendment “sanctuary” movement has created a new set of opportunities for gun owners in Virginia to exploit. Recent developments indicate that gun politics could create a political realignment in Virginia.
First off, the president of Liberty University Jerry Falwell Jr. boldly called for Virginians to exercise civil disobedience in the case that the Virginia state government passes gun control this year. Falwell took it a step further, even suggesting that the limits of the District of Columbia be extended to include the entire DC metro region, which has effectively sprawled out into northern Virginia. “That’s what the founders intended, was for the federal district to be separate from any state because they have a conflict of interest and they never anticipated it would sprawl out as far as it has,” Falwell argued.
A similar jurisdictional shake-up could possibly take place, thanks to several West Virginia house delegates putting a resolution forward, HCR 8, which would allow Virginia sanctuary counties to join the state. These delegates believe that Virginia sanctuary counties’ rights would be better protected under West Virginia’s jurisdiction. West Virginia governor Jim Justice is also on record as being in support of these counties joining his state: “If you’re not truly happy where you are,” Justice said, “we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia.” The lawmakers do raise a good point about West Virginia’s pro-gun environment.
In 2016, West Virginia became a constitutional carry state—where law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry a firearm without having to obtain a permit. This, along with other pro-gun policies it has implemented during the last few years, has allowed West Virginia to build a solid reputation as a gun-friendly state. In 2019, Guns and Ammo ranked West Virginia the fifteenth best state for gun owners, whereas Virginia occupied a mediocre thirty-first place—a ranking that will likely fall steeply if anti-gun Democrats have their way during the 2020 session of the Virginia General Assembly.
But it doesn’t have to end this way.
Are Sanctuary Counties the Way to Go?
Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center brought up some valid concerns about how so-called Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions employ a misleading term given that they don’t have legal force behind them. On the other hand, sanctuary cities dealing with immigration enforcement—where local law enforcement does not cooperate with federal immigration enforcers—involve a more decisive political action that is not symbolic in nature. We may need to cut the Second Amendment movement some slack, however. This is relatively new territory for Second Amendment proponents, who have traditionally operated under the premise that federal lobbying or petitioning of the courts will save them. There will be learning curves through this process, but gun owners will have to start somewhere.
Even politicians at the federal level, such as Kentucky senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie, are throwing their support behind Second Amendment sanctuaries. They recognize that there is only so much they can do politically in DC. Should any type of roll call vote come up on pro-gun legislation, they would almost assuredly be in the minority. That’s the political reality on Capitol Hill, and gradually more and more constitutionalists are starting to recognize where the winds are blowing. Hence their forays into more local and state-level forms of activism.
Second Amendment Activists Would Be Wise Not to Fall for the Federal Court Trap
Based on personal experience working within the gun lobby, I have noticed a tendency among activists to think that conventional methods of politics will bring constitutionalism back to America. Many envision repealing numerous infringements at the federal level, such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, as a first step in reversing decades of government overreach. Although well intentioned, this kind of mindset is outdated and ignores how detached both political parties at the federal level have become from upholding traditional American civil liberties. Further, it disregards how unreliable the Supreme Court has been, both in upholding Second Amendment rights and striking down unconstitutional measures that have been established through federal law or bureaucratic mandates.
Sure, DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago expanded the Second Amendment to state and local policy. The result was an expansion of legal protections for gun owners, for now. But it would behoove us to look at the bigger picture. The same federal courts that might “restore” positive freedoms on occasion are just as capable of reverting to their managerial tendencies by legislating from the bench and nullifying gun rights. These court cases make for great fundraising opportunities and public relations stunts, showing how a gun organization is sticking it to the gun control crowd, but they don’t do much to curb state growth. Litigation consumes time, talent, and treasure that could otherwise be allocated to more grassroots activities such as full-fledged nullification measures or even bolder efforts involving plebiscites in which certain jurisdictions break away from their oppressive state governments.
As the days go by, the School House Rock version of politics that Americans have been accustomed to has increasingly become a distant memory, thanks to DC’s thorough embrace of managerial politics. So, no matter who’s in charge, politics is business as usual, which means more government growth at the expense of local jurisdictions and civil society. However, politics is the art of the possible, especially when people appreciate the value of American federalism and all of its implications. The opportunities are endless, provided that people break free from the conventional wisdom they’ve been fed about political action and start acting locally. Gun rights issues could be the catalyst that kicks off a decentralization revolution America desperately needs.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 21:25 - Mike Bloomberg's Campaign Is Paying 'Micro-Influencers' To Make Him Look Cool
Mike Bloomberg’s Campaign Is Paying ‘Micro-Influencers’ To Make Him Look Cool
It’s almost ironic because they basically represent the alpha and the omega of the political spectrum within the modern Democratic Party, but there’s no question that the Iowa Democrats massive fuck-up during the caucus hurt Bernie Sanders more than any other candidate, and helped Michael Bloomberg (and Biden, and Buttigieg) more than any other candidate.
That’s because Bloomberg wasn’t even on the ballot in Iowa, and has bet the farm on an unusual campaign strategy focused on winning a string of primaries in March. No candidate has ever clinched the nomination without bagging either Iowa or New Hampshire, but then again, no candidate has ever had an 11-figure fortune to throw around, either.
Aside from spending $10 million for an almost unbelievably brief Superbowl spot, what has Bloomberg’s coterie of overpaid advisors recommended? How about ’embracing a strategy that’s worked for hundreds of shady ‘fit tea’ hawkers’, Bloomberg is giving money to social media influencers in the hopes that they’ll make him look ‘cool’.
According to the Daily Beast, Bloomberg’s team are utilizing “Tribe”, a “branded content marketplace” that helps politicians and brands coordinate influencer-based ad campaigns, and they’re optimistic about its prospects to really help their astronomically wealthy boss punch through the clutter (we thought that’s what his media behemoth was supposed to do?).
Specifically, the campaign is focusing on “micro-influencers”, that is, people with between 10k and 100k followers. That means the campaign is spending up to $15 million on this endeavor (that’s a lot of memes). They are offering $150 for these influencers to create original pieces of content’ that explain why Bloomberg is the best candidate to lead the USA.
The Bloomberg campaign has quietly begun a campaign on Tribe, a “branded content marketplace” that connects social-media influencers with the brands that want to advertise to their followers, to pitch influencers on creating content highlighting why they love the former New York City mayor—for a price.
For a fixed $150 fee, the Bloomberg campaign is pitching micro-influencers—someone who has from 1,000 to 100,000 followers, in industry parlance—to create original content “that tells us why Mike Bloomberg is the electable candidate who can rise above the fray, work across the aisle so ALL Americans feel heard & respected.”
“Are you sick of the chaos & infighting overshadowing the issues that matter most to us? Please express your thoughts verbally or for still image posts please overlay text about why you support Mike,” the campaign copy tells would-be Bloomberg stans under the heading “Content We’d Love From You,” asking influencers to “Show+Tell why Mike is the candidate who can change our country for the better, state why YOU think he’s a great candidate.”
Content creators have been asked to highlight Bloomberg’s credentials as a “middle-class kid who worked his way through college”, they’ve also been asked to avoid profanity and anything “overtly negative.”
The campaign post, reviewed by The Daily Beast, encourages submissions to be well lit, mention why the influencer thinks “we need a change in Government,” and for the creator to “be honest, passionate and be yourself!”
Influencers are asked not to use profanity, nudity, or “overtly negative content,” as well as be U.S. residents to participate.
The DB definitely has an agenda (like Buzzfeed and Deadspin, it roughly translates to ‘capitalism bad!’), but, credit where credit is due, at least the reporter highlighted the fact that this is a novel strategy that isn’t being used by any of the top-polling candidates, suggesting that Bloomberg’s unorthodox candidacy is generating some appropriately outside-the-box ideas.
The campaign also asked that influencers avoid topics like stop and frisk and Hizzoner’s failed campaign against oversized soft drinks. We suspect readers can do the math on that.
But at this rate, if Bloomberg keeps cranking out gaffes like ‘shaking a dog’s snout’ – gaffes that make him appear like an alien from the billionaire planet – he’ll manage to keep his name near the top of TikTok’s list of trending topics.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 21:05 - Optimism Fades As Virus Deaths Jump To 724; 190K Under Observation; Drop In New Cases Reverses Higher
Optimism Fades As Virus Deaths Jump To 724; 190K Under Observation; Drop In New Cases Reverses Higher
Summary:
- Confirmed cases rise to just shy of 35K in China and 24 other countries, deaths surge by 86 to 722, set to surpass SARS total in hours; total number of people under observation jumps to an all time high of 189,660.
- Suspected cases rose to 27,657 from 26,359 the day before, with 6,107 people in in serious/critical condition. Patients who have recovered jumped to 2,050,
- 6,107 people are in serious/critical condition
- Reporter says ‘real’ death toll could be closer to 20k
- German scientists say coronavirus can survive for 9 days on surfaces
- Chinese quarantine expanded to Guangzhou; 400 million now on lockdown
- Singapore raises response level to Orange
- Hong Kong confirms case No. 25
- Death of Dr. Li stokes demands for more free speech in China
* * *
Update (2000 ET): After two days of declines in the number of “new cases” reported by China’s National Health Commission, and the latest number of total infected in China coming in below JPMorgan’s daily estimate – no really, to JPM the number of daily new infections is just like the jobs report: it either beats or misses…
… Saturday, Feb 8 saw an unexpected reversal in the downward slope in new cases, and as the NHC reported moments ago, as of Feb 7, China has a total of 34,546 cases, (higher than JPMorgan’s base case forecast of 34,224, shown below)…
… and an increase of 3,385 overnight, which ominously was the first rise in reported new cases in three days, suggesting any hopes that the pandemic had already peaked were just crushed.
Adding the 365 international cases, means that as of Saturday, there were a total of 34,911 global cases, resulting in 724 deaths – an increase of 86 on the day, the biggest one day rises since the pandemic started – and a mortality rate of 2.1%, which is where it has been stuck for the past ten days. At this rate of increase in officially reported (which is vastly different from the actual true number) cases, the coronavirus pandemic will claim more lives than SARS in under 24 hours.
Here one surprising observation: in the past two weeks what was initially an exponential curve in the number of new cases, has quietly shifted into a quadratic one, where the number of new cases is largely unchanged day after day, almost as if China wants to represent a higher number to preserve some credibility, but nowhere near as high as what it really is if the disease followed the traditional exponential progression.
Some other observations: the number of suspected cases rose to 27,657 from 26,359 the day before, with 6,107 people in in serious/critical condition. And while a record 722 have died – just 50 shy of the SARS record in 2003 – the number of those who have recovered from the diseases is now 2,050, with 25 total countries reporting cases.
And speaking of reversals, there was another notable one in the number of people receiving medical attention in China, because after sliding dramatically and even shrinking today, on Saturday the number of people under observation once again jumped, rising to 3,615 after a drop of 309 the day before.
One final point about all of the above: China is notorious about manipulating all of its economic data, why on earth would it publish accurate pandemic data, especially when it has repeatedly refused the presence of foreign observes in its fight to contain the deadly virus. As such, readers can simply ignore all of the above Chinese “goalseeks” and even Bloomberg notes that “total deaths may be far higher, given reports of an overwhelmed health system in Hubei, central China.”
Looking ahead, JPMorgan predicts that the epidemic will peak in 1.5 months, i.e., by mid-March, at which point the total infected people will grow to 85K.
* * *
Update: (1500ET): When the dust has settled and the novel coronavirus has finally died out, we can’t imagine how the World Health Organization will manage to revive its reputation.
After repeatedly defending China as a beacon of “transparency” and model for other emerging economies, the death of Dr. Li stands as a rebuke to WHO head Dr. Tedros, who has kowtowed to China at every turn.
Reuters reports that a cruise line has banned Chinese travelers. And Apple said it’s hoping to open its offices in China on Feb. 10, while it has extended the closure of its retail stores to Feb. 13.
With markets closing in the red, Larry Kudlow took to Fox News to remind traders that the coronavirus outbreak is really China’s problem, saying that the outbreak will likely hurt China’s economy – bad.
The outpouring of rage of Dr. Li’s death continued into the early hours of Saturday on the mainland, with the SCMP now reporting that it’s fueling demands for free speech. For many, his death symbolized Beijing’s missteps and repressive tendencies when dealing with the outbreak, as he was punished for being one of the first to warn about the outbreak.
“It is a very big crisis. China’s public opinion was divided, but this time a consensus has been formed. The public share the same attitude and harbour the sentiments of sympathy, suppression and grieving anger,” Wuhan University law professor Qin Qianhong said.
“I am worried that the situation could explode, or become like when [former Communist Party general secretary] Hu Yaobang died or even more serious.”
The death toll hasn’t budged all day:
Amnesty International weighed in on Dr. Li’s death, calling it a “tragic reminder” of how Beijing’s “preoccupation with stability” inspired it to suppress vital information.
As Beijing cracks down on dissident speech, cities appear to be ramping up stuff like this – spraying disinfectant on every public surface.
We’re clearly being lied to, wtf is going on in China #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/iorXQDe8Cw
— Thomas Sutherland (@Tssomas) February 7, 2020
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Over the last two days, Beijing has made a big show of opening two new hospitals in Wuhan that were built in under two weeks. We’ve already reported how the hospitals look more like prisons with medical equipment. But come to find out that most of the hospitals are actually being run by their patients. Dr. Feigl-Ding, the Harvard epidemiologist who is one of many academics slammed as an alarmist for telling the truth, tweeted that nearly one-third of the patients in one hospital in Wuhan are also medical staff. There’s a common trope to describe this: something about a lunatic and an asylum.
29% — that’s the % of the 138 #coronavirus infected patients who are actually infected medical staff in one Wuhan hospital. Almost 1 in 3 patients being hospital healthcare workers is just insane. New case series report in JAMA: https://t.co/j7HPV8j8dp pic.twitter.com/3Hmu3MaE7m
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) February 7, 2020
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2) In addition to 29% medical staff, 12% of patients had gotten #coronavirus as hospital-acquired🦠. Quote: “Hospital-associated transmission was suspected as the presumed mechanism of infection for affected health professionals (40 [29%]) and hospitalized patients (17 [12.3%]).”
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) February 7, 2020
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3) Astute readers added 29%+12% and asked if it means 41% of the 138 patients got 🦠 as a hospital-acquired infection… yes but maybe not one’s personal risk walking into a hospital. 12% maybe weak/susceptible, and 29% medical staff have much closer contact than normal patients.
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) February 7, 2020
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We wonder how many more doctors will need to die before the mainland really does ‘import Hong Kong’s sickness’?
* * *
Update (1215ET): Here’s the latest sign that the public outrage over China;’ handling of the coronavirus outbreak might lead to a genuine ‘crisis of confidence’ in the regime.
SCMP reports that the death of Dr. Li is threatening to turn into a public confidence crisis for Beijing as it expands quarantine measures to more than 400 million Chinese, 3 provinces and 60+ cities.
Many are treating the doctor as a martyr. Across the country, mourners are paying tribute for his death. On Friday, dozens of mourners placed flowers and black-and-white photos of Li at the entrance to Wuhan Central Hospital where he worked and died.
“We have just been discharged but our boy didn’t make it,” she said.
Li’s wife – who is expecting the couple’s second child in June – was staying with her own mother and the couple’s five-year-old son, the doctor’s mother said.
“[Li] is a brilliant person and he would always do his duties and never tell lies,” she said.
Some have demanded that the Wuhan government apologize to his family.
Beijing’s “unusual decision” to send a team from the country’s top anti-corruption agency to Wuhan just hours after the death suggests the central government is desperately searching for a local scapegoat upon whom they can blame the doctor’s death. The “issues of public concern relating to Li Wenliang” shows how seriously the government is taking the venting of public anger.
Yesterday, Beijing reportedly started rounding up all of the infected patients in Wuhan to move them into quarantine, with officials claiming that the public is now living in “war like” conditions.
“It is a very big crisis. China’s public opinion was divided, but this time a consensus has been formed. The public share the same attitude and harbour the sentiments of sympathy, suppression and grieving anger,” Wuhan University law professor Qin Qianhong said.
“I am worried that the situation could explode, or become like when [former Communist Party general secretary] Hu Yaobang died or even more serious.”
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases has climbed above 31k.
Following initial ‘confusion’ about the circumstances surrounding Li’s death, by 6 am on Saturday morning in Beijing, hashtags “Dr Li Wenliang has passed away” had 670 million views on Chinese social media. “Li Wenliang has passed away” had 230 million views, and “I want freedom of speech” had 2.86 million views on Weibo. Though these hashtags were quickly censored.
Li, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist, was one of the eight whistleblowers who were “disciplined” by the police in early January for spreading dangerous “rumors” after he posted a message in a closed online WeChat group about a number of “SARS-like” cases at his hospital. He was soon infected from his patients.
As one reporter who has been assiduously sharing videos from the epicenter of the crisis in Wuhan reported, many in Wuhan have taken to shouting Dr. Li’s name to other apartments as millions remain on lockdown.
People in #Wuhan shouting together from their apartments last night. Some say they shouted to pay tribute to Li Wenliang, who first exposed #CoronaVirus Outbreak, and who died yesterday. What they shouted though, is “Wuhan, Add oil”, meaning keep fighting, pump up, or cheer up pic.twitter.com/3eYG9lKuIV
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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Jennifer Zeng also shared a video showing 30,000 dead ducks who died as a result of neglect during the outbreak. We reported yesterday that millions of Chinese have been struggling to care for pets and animals who have been abandoned by the quarantine.
Over 30K ducks starved to death for lack of forage due to #coronavirus #coronaviruschina 因 #武漢肺炎 疫情， 三萬多隻鴨子缺飼料餓死了。 pic.twitter.com/dw2rZlogb6
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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Hong Kong has also confirmed its 25th case as panic sets in.
25 confirmed #coronavirus cases in #HongKong . https://t.co/dVHzhOTXh9
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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She also reported that a more realistic death toll is closer to 20k.
No idea. One leaked Chinese source says over 20 K, but got deleted soon. A Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui says over 30K. No way to verify, as the #CCP doesn’t tell you the truth. But definitely much, much more than the official number. https://t.co/cHzc63kwmm
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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And shared video of what’s alleged to be one of the CCP’s internet-monitoring stations.
And, a more advanced stage of monitoring the internet using #bigdata and #AI, in #5G era. This shows how #CCP is monitoring the internet and manipulating public opinion. 进入5G 时代，监控手段也上了台阶，现在是 #大数据 + #人工智能 了。#BigBrother in #China. pic.twitter.com/RHWpG08KWd
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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A rare glimpse of how #CCP‘s internet police monitoring everything you are doing! 这个有点壮观。中共监视你在网上的一举一动。#InternetPolice in #China. #BigBrother is watching you. pic.twitter.com/eLVTgXPcUl
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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As we’ve reported, dozens of airlines have suspended flights to and from China – much to Beijing’s chagrin. But FlightRadar24 showed that while air traffic has fallen off significantly, there are still some flights leaving parts of the country where the virus is very active.
Traffic in China over the past six weeks—Tuesdays at 9am local time.
Live tracking: https://t.co/8zVMaXFjb3 pic.twitter.com/qwBytSm2sG
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 6, 2020
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Meanwhile, as we reported earlier, the White House has asked American researchers to study the origins of the White House, the latest sign that the ‘conspiracy theory’ about the virus being a bioengineered weapon unwittingly unleashed on an unsuspecting population may have bred a handful of skeptics in high places.
* * *
Update (1100ET): This is bad news for airlines, casinos and virtually every business (restaurants, bars any other business) in the nightlife or entertainment fields. A team of German scientists have determined that the coronavirus can survive for up to 9 days on a surface.
That’s bad news, because it means the virus, which was recently discovered to have some genetic markers in common with HIV, is much more hardy than the common flu.
The researchers also commented on research from Chinese scientists who said the virus may have spread from bats to humans via the illegal trafficking of pangolins, one of the most heavily poached animals in the world (the species is beloved for its scales).
Though other scientists have questioned these connections, according to Reuters, the researchers, from Greifswald and Bochum, have published findings from their coronavirus research earlier than planned and said the pangolin poaching theory was plausible.
They also added that certain disinfectants help particularly well to make the viruses on surfaces harmless.
Now that another case has been confirmed, the total number of infected people in Germany rose to 13, almost all of those infected had never been to China, indicating that most were infected via human to human transmission.
As of Friday morning there were more than 31,000 registered diseases. The death toll rose to 636, Der Tagesspiegel reported. By comparison, the flu virus can barely survive for 24 hours, HIV can survive for six days.
* * *
Guangzhou, the capital of China’s southwestern Guangdong Province and the country’s fifth largest city with nearly 15 million residents, has just joined the ranks of cities imposing a mandatory lockdown on all citizens, effectively trapping residents inside their homes, with only limited permission to venture into the outside world to buy essential supplies.
The decision means 3 provinces, 60 cities and 400 million people are now facing China’s most-strict level of lockdown as Beijing struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak as the virus has already spread to more than 2 dozen countries.
That’s more than 400 million people forcibly locked inside their homes for 638 deaths? Just think about that: If there was ever a reason to believe that Beijing is lying about the numbers (and not just because Tencent accidentally leaked the real data), this is it.
Breaking: Guangzhou City (population: 14 M) locked down. All residential blocks be isolated from each other. So far around 400 million people locked down in #China to contain #coronavirus. #coronavirusOutbreak Original Chinese official report:https://t.co/emfLIaOLut pic.twitter.com/RmX82iDOEH
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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Meanwhile, in the US, the Trump Administration has directed researchers to investigate the ‘true origins’ of the virus, as ‘conspiracy theories’ and misinformation spreads online. We can’t help but wonder: What if the scientists discover something that the regime in Beijing doesn’t want them to see?
白宮要求美國科學家和醫學研究者調查 #新型冠狀病毒 的起源。#武汉肺炎 https://t.co/mZPAYz0K1N
— 曾錚 Jennifer Zeng (@jenniferatntd) February 7, 2020
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Elsewhere, Singapore raised its national disease response level to Orange, the second-highest level and the same level from the SARS epidemic, according to the city-state’s health ministry. It also confirmed three new coronavirus cases. While investigations are ongoing, none of the three appear to have a history of recent travel to China, suggesting they picked up the virus in Singapore.
‘Orange’ means the outbreak “is severe and spreads easily from person to person” but “has not spread widely in Singapore and is being contained,” according to the Disease Outbreak Response System Condition color-coded framework. Singapore has never invoked its highest level, red, per BBG.
Foreigners are complaining that the new hospitals in Wuhan are merely ‘quarantine centers’ without any medical resources.
Dear Gov’t of Uganda,
The famous makeshift “hospitalsh the Chinese Gov’t is bragging about are not hospitals, they are quarantine areas where patients are not receiving any treatment at all. Is this the place you’re saying is safer for us ? #EvacuateUgandansInWuhan pic.twitter.com/sLzdUHA24P
— Thomas (@owishemwe) February 7, 2020
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Yesterday, Beijing argued that the virus outbreak had ‘peaked’ as they cited a drop in the rate of new infections. However, others have suggested that the rate of new confirmed cases has more to do with Beijing’s limited resources.
It’s been said by others but I’ll say it too:
The way China is reporting almost an identical number of new coronavirus cases each day (approximately 3000) MUST be a reflection of its diagnosis capacity rather than the true caseload, which is likely much worse.
— Mark B. Spiegel (@markbspiegel) February 7, 2020
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The WHO said during a press conference on Thursday that it’s too early to claim that the outbreak has peaked, even as the outlook for the global economy falls off a cliff.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 20:48 - Confirmed cases rise to just shy of 35K in China and 24 other countries, deaths surge by 86 to 722, set to surpass SARS total in hours; total number of people under observation jumps to an all time high of 189,660.
- "Gasmaggedon" Sweeps Over Global Energy Market
“Gasmaggedon” Sweeps Over Global Energy Market
Authored by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
China’s state-owned gas importers are considering declaring force majeure on LNG imports, which would amplify the turmoil in global gas markets.
LNG prices have already plunged to their lowest levels in a decade in Asia as the ramp up of supply in 2019 came at a time when demand has slowed. That was true before the outbreak of the coronavirus. But the quarantine of around 50 million people and the shutdown of huge swathes of the Chinese economy has sent shockwaves through commodity markets.
Shipments of oil and gas are backing up at Chinese ports, which is creating ripple effects across the world. Now, Chinese state-owned CNOOC is considering declaring force majeure on its LNG import commitments, according to the FT. Sinopec and CNPC are also apparently considering the move.
Prices were already in the dumps. JKM prices recently fell to 10-year lows. But they have continued to decline, approaching $3/MMBtu for the first time in history. Just a few weeks ago, JKM prices were trading at around $5/MMBtu, itself an incredibly low price for this time of year.
LNG exports from the U.S. are uneconomical at these price levels. Many exporters have contracts at fixed, higher prices. But shipments can be cancelled for a fee. And any spot trade would be hit hard. The question now is whether shipments will come to halt. “Forward prices for summer are now at levels where U.S. LNG shut-ins begin to seem viable,” Edmund Siau, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultant FGE, told Bloomberg. “There is usually a lead time before a cargo can be canceled, and we expect actual supply curtailments to start happening in summer.”
But if buyers start cancelling their purchases, LNG exporters have to ramp down production. That could then ripple back to the shale gas fields in the U.S., where prices are already below $2/MMBtu and drillers can’t make any money. The CEO of Marcellus shale gas giant EQT said in December that “a lot of this development doesn’t work as well at $2.50 gas.” Henry Hub prices are now below $1.85/MMBtu.
There is little relief in sight.
“Even with our projected increase in power sector natural gas demand due to the current low price environment, we estimate natural gas stocks to end this summer with 3.85 tcf in the ground,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a recent note.
“Such inventory level would be more than 100 bcf higher YoY, and does not leave much room for bearish errors from mild weather, high renewable generation, or reduced LNG exports.”
Europe too is sitting on abnormally high inventories.
“LNG exporters desperately need cold weather in Europe to draw down inventories and provide more breathing room this summer,” Bank of America warned.
But that is not happening. Europe just saw its warmest January on record, depressing gas demand. Fossil fuels are driving climate change, so it’s rather ironic that higher temperatures are now battering gas markets.
It’s all combining to create a “gasmaggedon,” according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“We are now more than halfway through the winter, and thus far Mother Nature has not been kind to natural gas prices,” analysts at the bank wrote.
The investment bank calls the U.S. Midwest power sector is the “true market of last resort,” which means that U.S. gas prices have to fall to such low depths that coal-fired power plants are forced offline in their last redoubt – the Midwest.
“We believe the US cannot sustain reduced LNG exports this summer,” Bank of America warned.
“Therefore, US natural gas prices might have to go low enough to stimulate sufficient Midwest power sector natural gas demand to balance the entire global gas market.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 20:45 - Visualizing The Problem Of An Aging Global Population
Visualizing The Problem Of An Aging Global Population
The world is experiencing a seismic demographic shift and, as Visual Capitalist’s Katie Jones details below, no country is immune to the consequences.
While increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates are considered major achievements in modern science and healthcare, they will have a significant impact on future generations.
Today’s graphic relies on OECD data to demonstrate how the old-age to working-age ratio will change by 2060, highlighting some of the world’s fastest aging countries.
The Demographic Debacle
By 2050, there will be 10 billion people on earth, compared to 7.7 billion today—and many of them will be living longer. As a result, the number of elderly people per 100 working-age people will nearly triple—from 20 in 1980, to 58 in 2060.
Populations are getting older in all OECD countries, yet there are clear differences in the pace of aging. For instance, Japan holds the title for having the oldest population, with ⅓ of its citizens already over the age of 65. By 2030, the country’s workforce is expected to fall by 8 million—leading to a major potential labor shortage.
In another example, while South Korea currently boasts a younger than average population, it will age rapidly and end up with the highest old-to-young ratio among developed countries.
A Declining Workforce
Globally, the working-age population will see a 10% decrease by 2060. It will fall the most drastically by 35% or more in Greece, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. On the other end of the scale, it will increase by more than 20% in Australia, Mexico, and Israel.
Israel’s notably higher increase of 67% is due to the country’s high fertility rate, which is comparable to “baby boom” numbers seen in the U.S. following the second World War.
As countries prepare for the coming decades, workforce shortages are just one of the impacts of aging populations already being felt.
Managing the Risks
There are many other social and economic risks that we can come to expect as the global population continues to age:
-
The Squeezed Middle: With more people claiming pension benefits but less people paying income taxes, the shrinking workforce may be forced to pay higher taxes.
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Rising Healthcare Costs: Longer lives do not necessarily mean healthier lives, with those over 65 more likely to have at least one chronic disease and require expensive, long-term care.
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Economic Slowdown: Changing workforces may lead capital to flow away from rapidly aging countries to younger countries, shifting the global distribution of economic power.
The strain on pension systems is perhaps the most evident sign of a drastically aging population. Although the average retirement age is gradually increasing in many countries, people are saving insufficiently for their increased life span—resulting in an estimated $400 trillion deficit by 2050.
Pensions Under Pressure
A pension is promised, but not necessarily guaranteed. Any changes made to existing government programs can alter the lives of future retirees entirely—but effective pension reforms that lessen the growing deficit are required urgently.
Towards a Better System
Certain countries are making great strides towards more sustainable pension systems, and the Global Pension Index suggests initiatives that governments can take into consideration, such as:
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Continuing to increase the age of retirement
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Increasing the level of savings—both inside and outside pension funds
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Increasing the coverage of private pensions across the labor force, including self-employed and contract employees, to provide improved integration between various pillars
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Preserving retirement funds by limiting the access to benefits before the retirement age
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Increasing the trust and confidence of all stakeholders by improving transparency of pension plans
Although 59% of employees are expecting to continue earning well into their retirement years, providing people with better incentives and options to make working at an older age easier could be crucial for ensuring continued economic growth.
Live Long and Prosper
As 2020 marks the beginning of the Decade of Healthy Ageing, the world is undoubtedly entering a pivotal period.
Countries all over the world face tremendous pressure to effectively manage their aging populations, but preparing for this demographic shift early will contribute to the economic advancement of countries, and allow populations—both young and old—to live long and prosper.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 20:25 -
- Students Call Number Of White Male Oscar Nominees "A Problem"
Students Call Number Of White Male Oscar Nominees “A Problem”
Authored by Eduardo Neret via Campus Reform,
Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, Campus Reform Digital Reporter Eduardo Neret went to American University to ask students to react to claims that the nominees are “too white” and not diverse enough.
“I definitely think there’s a problem,” one student said of the mostly white and male Oscar nominees.
“I feel like, as a Latina woman, I want to see more representation in entertainment.”
“It’s not reflective of our actual population,” another student added.
WATCH:
Students also reflected on the need for more diversity in other areas of society.
“White men need to understand that not every thought that they have is worth saying,” one student said.
“I feel like there’s a lot of white males [on campus],” a different student said.
“The majority of my professors are white men,” one student said as an example of how the presence of white men was a problem on campus.
Others disagreed.
“Qualifications and the quality of the work should be the priority as opposed to your level of melanin or chromosomes,” one student said.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 20:05 - Iraq & Russia Look To Boost Military Ties While US Threatens Sanctions
Iraq & Russia Look To Boost Military Ties While US Threatens Sanctions
In more continuing fallout over the Jan.3 assassination by drone of the IRGC’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iraq and Russia are preparing for deepening military coordination, reports the AP.
Iraq’s Defense Ministry announced Thursday that increased “cooperation and coordination” is being discussed with Moscow amid worsened relations with Washington, which even last month included President Trump issuing brazen threats of “very big” sanctions on Baghdad if American troops are kicked out of the country.
This week Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi and Russian Ambassador Maksim Maksimov met to discuss future military cooperation. Crucially, Gen. Ghanimi highlighted Russia’s successful anti-ISIS operations over the past years, especially in Syria where the Russian military has supported Assad since being invited there in 2015.
Iraqi helicopters file image. On Russia’s role in Iraq, Ghanimi said Moscow had provided “our armed forces with advanced and effective equipment and weapons that had a major role in resolving many battles,” according to the ministry statement.
It’s been long rumored that since late summer Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to deliver either Russia’s advanced S-400 or S-300 anti-air missile defense systems – a prospect which US officials have condemned.
Like other areas of the Middle East, as US adventurism heightens pressure for a US withdrawal, Russia appears to be seizing the opportunity to move in. This much was affirmed in AP’s reporting, via at least one anonymous senior official:
A senior Iraqi military intelligence official told The Associated Press that Russia, among other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of fraught US.-Iraq relations following Soleimani’s killing.
“Iraq still needs aerial reconnaissance planes. There are countries that have given signals to Iraq to support us or equip us with reconnaissance planes such as Russia and Iran,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.
Many military analysts have of late noted that the “blowback” from the incredibly risky operation which killed Soleimani will be a hastening of American forces’ exit from the region.
It could also actually serve to increase Baghdad’s dependency on Iran – something which appears to be already in the works. And now we have confirmation that Moscow will seek to benefit as well from the worsened US-Iraq relations, certainly now at the lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 19:45 - Absurdistan: Government-Funded Feminists Suggest Banning Heterosexual Relationships
Absurdistan: Government-Funded Feminists Suggest Banning Heterosexual Relationships
Authored 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, your finances, and your prosperity.
Feminist group thinks heterosexual relationships are “violent” and should be banned
The “Federation des Femmes du Quebec” is a Canadian feminist group that receives $120,000 of taxpayer funding each year.
And the Federation’s President recently took to Twitter to declare:
“Heterosexual couple relationships are really violent. In addition, the vast majority are relationships based on religion. It may be time to have a conversation about their ban and abolition.” (Translated from French.)
After a backlash, she walked back her statement and apologized.
She explained that her Tweets were an emotional reaction to the news that a man who had murdered his girlfriend was released on parole and killed another 22 year old woman.
So rather than blame a justice system which let a killer walk free, she blamed all straight men.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
118 “unlicensed handymen” arrested in Florida
Undercover police in Florida spent six months luring unlicensed handymen to fake jobs to arrest them.
These are guys who do things like paint houses, install tile, redo bathrooms, and install light fixtures.
Clearly these are among the most horrific crimes against society– guys trying to earn a buck by doing hard labor for their patrons.
Luckily for the citizens of Florida, a total of 118 of these handymen were ARRESTED during a six-month sting operation.
Did Florida run out of actual criminals?? Heaven forbid that two consenting adults trade labor for money without the government’s approval.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
It’s illegal for Chinese to criticize their government’s pitiful Coronavirus response
China recently sent out an “Announcement on the Special Control of Rumors Related to New Coronavirus Pneumonia.”
The announcement reminds citizens that it is illegal to spread false information or induce panic online. And the government considers anything about the Coronavirus that doesn’t come directly from government sources “false information”.
Anyone who violates this ban and shares what the government considers rumors about the outbreak could face up to seven years in prison.
China has also made clear that the government considers criticizing their response to the Coronavirus outbreak a violation of the law.
Already China arrested dozens of social media users for spreading “false information without verification.”
This is all made even more absurd by China’s terrible response to the outbreak. Instead of tackling the issue head-on, they tried to hide it for over a month. Hundreds of people have now died, and more than 20,000 have been infected.
Yet China’s government is still more concerned about keeping information from spreading rather than keeping the disease from spreading.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
California wants to make voting mandatory
About 64% of California voters participated in the 2018 midterm elections.
That’s actually a pretty high turnout as these things go. But not good enough for California.
A state Senator introduced a bill this week to make it mandatory for registered voters to participate in every single election.
You would no longer have the option of sitting out if you don’t like the candidates.
And that’s what this bill ignores. Not voting IS voting. It is making a statement that there is no one WORTH voting for.
The timing of the bill looks kind of silly too… I mean politicians can’t even design an app that functions properly to count votes. It’s been nearly a week and the Iowa votes haven’t been fully counted yet.
And at the same time, they want to force everyone into this flawed system.
Click here for the full story.
* * *
And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 19:25 - Dems Triggered After Trump Tweets 'Misleading' Montage Of Pelosi Insulting SOTU Honorees
Dems Triggered After Trump Tweets ‘Misleading’ Montage Of Pelosi Insulting SOTU Honorees
Democrats have caught the vapors after President Trump tweeted a montage of Nancy Pelosi tearing up a copy of his State of the Union speech after various honorees received accolades.
While Pelosi actually tore up the speech after Trump was finished giving it, the clip tweeted by Trump encapsulates a widely-shared sentiment among conservatives; that Pelosi’s theatrics were deeply insulting to those honored during the speech – including a former Tuskegee Airman, a low income family who received a scholarship, and several others.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2020
Perhaps most triggered of all was top Pelosi aide Drew Hammill, who got in a Twitter argument with Facebook spox Andy Stone.
“The American people know that the President has no qualms about lying to them – but it is a shame to see Twitter and Facebook, sources of news for millions, do the same,” said Hammill, adding “The latest fake video of Speaker Pelosi is deliberately designed to mislead and lie to the American people…” to which Sovern replied “Sorry, are you suggesting the President didn’t make those remarks and the Speaker didn’t rip the speech?”
Facebook spox tussling with top Pelosi aide over an edited video tweeted by Trump of Pelosi ripping up his SOTU speech pic.twitter.com/5lKtQrhQ68
— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) February 7, 2020
As the 2020 presidential election approaches, Facebook and Twitter have published their own policies on deepfakes and edited videos like this Pelosi clip. Facebook’s policy only affects videos that were created by artificial intelligence or machine learning algorithms that would “likely mislead” someone. Twitter announced its own rules this week that don’t take effect until March. But its rules state that manipulated media that is “likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm” could be labeled or removed. –The Verge
Other triggered leftists include Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), according to The Verge. Khanna notably included Trump’s tweet in his own, exposing an entirely different demographic to the clip.
.@Twitter must take this misleading video about @SpeakerPelosi down now.
Social media platforms are a place where people come for news & information.
They need to have certain standards.
Falsity has never been part of our 1st Amendment tradition. https://t.co/dwiDeKNd3D
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) February 7, 2020
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We’re so sorry this is happening to them.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 19:05 - Rabobank: The Dilemma Facing China Is Truly Awful
Rabobank: The Dilemma Facing China Is Truly Awful
Submitted by Michael Every of Rabobank
As has been the case since Monday’s sell-off, there is an attempt to try to look on the bright side of the virus headlines. Chinese officials are spreading the word globally that things are under control and that other countries should not be closing their borders to China, in line with the WHO recommendations that says that free-flows of people during a potential epidemic is completely fine. Of course, at home China is still under draconian lockdown, with tens of millions of people not allowed to leave their homes, and hundreds of millions more voluntarily following the same advice. Moreover, as a former Mexican ambassador to China publicly notes, when Mexico briefly suffered from H1N1 bird ‘flu back in 2009 China’s response was to ignore the WHO’s recommendations and: place all Mexican nationals in China under quarantine; cancel all direct flights to Mexico; stop issuing visas to Mexicans; and closed all its consulates in Mexico.
After having extended its Lunar New Year break, and yet with more cities and firms still shutting down than doing any re-opening, Beijing is starting to become cognizant of just how deep and serious the economic damage is going to be if this goes on much longer. We are, after all, talking about 80% of the economy, and 90% of exporters, simply not functioning. This is already seeing supply-chain knock-on effects for a swathe of global firms and this, very much like the virus itself, will snowball as time passes if nothing changes. For a country that was already seeing foreign firms talk about shifting production to other locations this is a problem. Thus, perhaps, some of the urgency in trying to stress that everything is returning to normal soon, and that the WHO advice is worth following – this time.
S&P, for example, are suggesting the virus might knock 0.8ppts off of 2020 GDP growth in China. That sounds a lot, doesn’t it? Until we realise that 80% of China’s GDP is probably shrinking by 10-20% y/y right now, a slump that makes the peak of 2008-09 look like a picnic by comparison and which frankly defies traditional economic statistical analysis of the S&P variety, where outliers like this get “winsorized” away and the underlying equilibrium GDP model kicks in and drags us back to a trend rate of growth again by magic. (Very much like an apparatchik, as I was saying yesterday.)
During The Great Recession did *everybody* stay at home and almost all business shut down? I don’t recall that being the case. If this virus *is* all over in days then one can make the case that Q2, Q3, and Q4 will see a huge bounce in GDP into double digits as everyone restarts work and eats out more, etc. Yet if this drags on through Q1 and into Q2–and I have not seen any serious virologists, merely not-at-all-serious economists, suggest such a rapid return to normal is possible–then the negative effects in the first third of the year are going to be so bad that the rest of the year is never realistically going to get us back close to 6% y/y GDP growth again, or 5.2%, regardless of empty new skyscrapers and shiny subways and high-speed trains. Surely the whole year will be flat at best? Obviously, 2021 GDP will then be gangbusters in Q1 and Q2 (“so buy stocks!”) – but there will also be lasting damage if this drags on as SMEs shut down and don’t reopen, and as already capital-constrained banks are forced to bail everyone out, and as the PBOC is then forced to bail banks out. Market calm that does not make for.
Yes, are we seeing a slowdown in new virus cases reported this morning. We now have 31,481, which does show a day-to-day decline away from an exponential rate of growth *if accurate*. Yet for those market participants merrily saying this is “just a flu” (there are some) we also have 4,824, 15% of the total, in critical condition, and 638 deaths. Further, one arguably cannot measure the death-rate of any virus against the number of *currently* sick people: you surely measure it against those who eventually recover vs. those who don’t. Given we have 1,563 who have recovered vs. 638 dead (and 4,824 critical) that is a worrying ratio of 29% dead as an end-outcome, which is right up there with the MERS virus from a few years ago – although, yes, there is real reason for us all to hope that number will decline sharply as milder cases will be fully curable. But a simple flu this is not.
The quandary for China between releasing the quarantine straitjacket in days to stop its economy from getting truly sick, and allowing a virus like this to spread further as people start to mingle again is truly awful. There are no good options. For a world with a serious lack of final end-demand, and which has been relying on China, along with increasingly “Chinese” central banks, this is going to be a nasty shock either way that Mr Market is treating like he is Mr Magoo. (Oh, and Donald Trump was apparently “apoplectic” with PM Boris Johnson over his recent Huawei decision in a recent call, with suggestions that the UK might now be trying to backtrack; the US is allegedly also floating the idea of buying shares in firms like Nokia and Ericsson to help build a Western 5G alterative. Something else for China to be worrying about, of course.)
For example, Bloomberg is this morning trying to sell the fact that Chinese government bond yields are dropping (-33bp this year) as a good news story. It isn’t, even if that single trade is one I have long supported if one simply has to be in Chinese markets. If China is seeing its yields plummet, what does that say about global growth prospects? What does that say about global reflation? It’s a long bonds story – full stop. Of course, lower yields mathematically means higher P/E ratios for equities too (“so buy stocks!”). Until yields have gone as low as they ever can, real activity has ground to a halt, and we have a world where bonds can’t go any higher, equities can’t go any higher, central banks and governments can’t afford to let either collapse, and only FX markets have any pricing function.
Talking of pricing functions, the RBA have hilariously used their Statement on Monetary Policy this morning to make clear that rates are on hold right now, and that further rate cuts could do more harm than good with only two left in the can before QE has to start. I always guessed these guys spent all day on the Domain.com property website, but the timing is pure black comedy, as is their call that the unemployment rate will be going down and not up just as Chinese tourism collapses. On which note, today has already seen Japanese household spending collapse -4.8% y/y in December before anyone even sneezed and real labour earnings -0.9% y/y. Gambatte, ne?
Also talking of pricing functions, this time political, and of black comedy the US Iowa Democratic caucus moved into even more surreal areas yesterday, with a press report that up to 30% of the votes might have been tabulated wrong due to bad math skills; then a very slow final count; then populist Bernie Sanders taking the lead and publicly claiming victory; and at the same instant the Democratic National Congress chairman Tom Perez saying an “immediate recanvas” was needed instead. In the UK they called that a “People’s Vote” – perhaps he could use that terminology? Meanwhile, previous Iowa ‘winner’ Mayor Pete is busy appointing ex-Goldman Sachs staff to his campaign team. Hope and Change, people.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 18:55 - US Attorney Who Declined To Charge Cops For Killing Innocent Man Is Nominated For Treasury Role
US Attorney Who Declined To Charge Cops For Killing Innocent Man Is Nominated For Treasury Role
Op-Ed authored by attorney and journalist Techno Fog
In November of 2019, Jessie Liu, the former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, declined to press charges against two U.S. Park Police officers who fatally shot a harmless and unarmed driver four times in the head.
Next week, on February 13, 2020, Liu – who was rejected last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the #3 spot at the DOJ – will attend a hearing for her nomination to be the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes at the Department of the Treasury.
If this makes you angry, it should. Only in D.C. does cowardice get you a promotion.
The driver was Bijan Ghaisar, a 25 year-old young man who fled the scene of a minor car accident. (He was the one who had been hit.) Officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya followed him and eventually blocked his Jeep’s path at an intersection. Ghaisar turned his car from the officers and tried to get away at a low speed. The officers weren’t threatened – Ghaisar didn’t have a gun and they weren’t in the path of a speeding car. They responded by firing nine shots into his Jeep at close range. He was hit four times in the head and once in the wrist. He later died at the hospital.
This video shows the fatal shots and the moments leading up to the killing.
It’s clear from the video that the officers – who claimed self defense – weren’t in danger. The Jeep wasn’t speeding in their direction; rather, it was moving ever so slowly to the side. Making matters worse – if that’s possible – the final few shots were put on Ghaisar after the Jeep started rolling into a ditch. By that point he was apparently incapacitated. The officers just finished the job.
Despite the video evidence, Liu declined to press charges. Her office defended her decision, stating that “there is insufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers willfully committed a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242. Specifically, the Department is unable to disprove a claim of self-defense or defense of others by the officers.”
“Insufficient evidence.”
“Unable to disprove a claim of self-defense.”
What’s more, Liu’s office declined to issue a written report on the case, as is standard practice in high-profile police shootings. And according to the Washington Post, she stymied a Fairfax prosecutor’s request for FBI agents to appear before a grand jury about the shooting.
Making matters worse – Liu was a roadblock to the local prosecution as well.
Virginia prosecutors’ request for FBI agents to appear before a grand jury “were stymied by Liu herself” pic.twitter.com/HvW0VlBk2g
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 7, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Ghaisar’s family disagreed:
“Today’s decision was a cowardly act by a Department of Justice that is afraid to hold law enforcement, especially federal law enforcement, accountable when it commits murder.”
They’re right. Jessie Liu denied a murder victim justice. She refused to hold federal officers accountable – which Fairfax County Prosecutors decided to pursue last December after Lieu gave them a pass. She trivialized the grief of the family by disputing what they and the rest of the world saw with their own eyes – an unjustified execution.
Liu is the manifestation of everything wrong with DC: the powerful protecting the institutions from those it victimized. If she gets the job at Treasury, it would show that not only does crime pay, but the cover-up pays better.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/07/2020 – 18:45
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