Jul 08

Today’s News 8th July 2018

  • America First, Helsinki, And Trump's Existential Threat To The Empire

    Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

    The major – perhaps only – redeeming virtue of the Donald’s ersatz campaign platform was his clear intent to seek a rapprochement with Russia, revamp America’s commitments to NATO and other cold war relics and to discard “Regime Change” as the core tenant of foreign policy. In essence, “America First” was to become the new route to domestic security and safety.

    Those eminently sensible notions struck the Deep State’s raison d’etre to the quick during the campaign; and by hook or crook, the Donald’s rapid fire actions toward these objectives since April have induced a palpable shock in the Imperial City.

    Clearly he means to withdraw America’s 29,000 military hostages now stationed in South Korea in return for some sort of peace treaty, economic normalization and denuclearization arrangement with Kim Jong-un.

    Likewise, he has sensibly suggested that demonizing Russia and Putin has accomplished nothing, and that they should be invited back into the G-8. And as soon as Robert Mueller finishes his RussiaGate farce, Trump can get rid of the present asinine sanctions on various Russian officials and Putin cronies, too.

    We also now know – owing to the sullen reporting of the Washington Post – that Trump has been hounding the national security bureaucracy about another utterly ridiculous artifact of the Empire. Namely, the fact that 73 years after Hitler descended into Hades from his bunker and 27 years after the Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history, there are still 35,000 US troops in Germany:

    The Pentagon is analyzing the cost and impact of a large-scale withdrawal or transfer of American troops stationed in Germany, amid growing tensions between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to people familiar with the work.

    ‘The effort follows Trump’s expression of interest in removing the troops, made during a meeting earlier this year with White House and military aides,’ U.S. officials said. Trump was said to have been taken aback by the size of the US presence, which includes about 35,000 active-duty troops, and complained that other countries were not contributing fairly to joint security or paying enough to NATO.

    ‘Word of the assessment has alarmed European officials, who are scrambling …’

    Scrambling?

    We doubt whether real Europeans are scrambling at all – the Post is surely just quoting from the NATO echo chamber.

    Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor, NATO doesn’t dare risk having the purportedly “uninformed” amateur in the Oval Office pointing out its buck naked behind.

    So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe’s elected politicians are in on the joke. They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.

    As Justin Raimondo aptly notes,

    Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention the cold war, is over: there’s no need for US troops to occupy Germany.

    Vladimir Putin isn’t going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker – but even if he were so inclined, why won’t Germany defend itself?

    Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of $43 billion on defense during 2017, or barely 1.1% of Germany’s $3.8 trillion GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia’s.

    In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don’t think Putin is about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate. And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms emanating from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking book in behalf of their own plush Brussels sinecures.

    But now comes the piece de resistance. The Donald is going to Helsinki to make peace with Vlad Putin, and just in the nick of time.

    Hopefully, in one-fell swoop they can reach an agreement to get the US military out of Syria; normalize the return of Crimea and Moscow’s historic naval base at Sevastopol to the Russian motherland; stop the civil war in Ukraine via a mutually agreed de facto partition; stand-down from the incipient military clashes from the Baltic to the Black Sea; and pave the way for lifting of the absurd sanctions on Russian businessmen and citizens.

    Needless to say, time is of the essence. Every hour that the Donald wastes tweeting, bloviating about his beloved Mexican wall, sabotaging American exports and jobs and watching Fox & Friends reruns is just more opportunity for the vast apparatus of the Deep State (and most of his own top officials) to deep-six the Donald’s emerging and thoroughly welcome rendition of America First.

    For instance, the same Washington Post article cited above is laced with off-the record quotes from officials determined to maintain the NATO status quo and therefore continuing, needless provocation of Russia.

    ‘…..the Pentagon continuously evaluates US troop deployments,’ the statement said, and such ‘analysis exercises’ are ‘not out of the norm.’

    Several officials suggested that Pentagon policymakers may have moved ahead with the assessment to prove the worth of the current basing arrangement anddissuade Trump from carrying the thought of withdrawal any further.

    Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon dismissed any suggestion of a full or partial withdrawal from Germany and described such analysis as routine.

    Overcoming the self-interested inertial forces of the Deep State and its vast syndicate of contractors, weapons suppliers, military pork barrels and think tank supplicants, of course, is its own monumental challenge. Yet the Donald’s pathway to America First is further obstructed by the fact that the Dems are way off-sides for purely partisan reasons.

    That is to say, Democratic politicians – including most of the so-called liberals and progressives – have turned themselves into handmaids of the Warfare State owing to their inconsolable grief and anger over losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump. Consequently, they are virtually incapable of thinking rationally about Russia – or of even thinking at all.

    Nevertheless, if the Donald is anything, he is a showman. And he very much needs to steal the show in Helsinki from the beltway saboteurs who will stop at nothing to keep the current utterly unnecessary and pointless cold war revival cranking at full steam.

    After all, to paraphrase Randolph Bourne, the Russian ogre is the health of the military/industrial/intelligence/think tank complex. So even a rapprochement – to say nothing of peace – with Russia is an existential threat to the Deep State; it would necessarily pull the fiscal pins right out from under the hideous $800 billion per year defense, intelligence and foreign aid apparatus.

    So we don’t know whether the Donald can pull off a second Singapore in Helsinki or not, but we are quite sure Flyover America would rally to his cause – just as it has done since his historic photo op with Kim Jong-un.

    We are also quite sure that even his own government will be doing its best to sabotage the Helsinki summit because the very prosperity of the Imperial City depends upon demonizing Putin and Russia. As Justin Raimondo has further observed:

    The Helsinki summit with Putin is the knockout punch. And the howls of painarising from our hateful warmongering media, the Democratic party politicians they’re in thrall to, and the phony ‘human rights’ scamsters, are getting louder by the minute. We should all revel in their misery.

    Trump campaigned on making peace with Russia: he has a mandate to do so. That, however, matters little to the ‘intelligence community’ and their media camarilla, which is up in arms at the very prospect of a Russo-American partnership for peace. The national security bureaucracy and the laptop bombardiers who inhabit Think-tank World have a vested interest in maintaining a cold war status quo that should’ve ended when the Berlin Wall fell. They are horrified by Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy views, and they are out to stop him by any means necessary – because his victory meant the end of their worldview and their careers.

    Meanwhile, the significance of Helsinki cannot be overstated. If it goes well, it will be proof positive that America faces no large state-based enemy.

    That is to say, it will mightily illuminate the hidden fact that neither Russia nor China (for that matter) even remotely possess the intent or the means to threaten the American homeland.

    Likewise, a potential US withdrawal from Syria and incipient agreement with Russia to de-escalate tensions in the middle east would remind America that Regime Change has been an utter failure.

    Yet without an imperial foreign policy that is implicitly designed to either bully or remove recalcitrant lesser governments anywhere on the planet – whether or not they have the intent or capacity to harm the US homeland – there would be no case at all for 11 carrier battle groups, massive air and sealift capacity and Washington’s far flung string of bases and occupations spread among more than 100 countries around the planet.

    So, much is riding in the balance at Helsinki – including the possibility that a strong success could open the door to a real, far more systematic and intellectually cogent America First Policy over the longer haul.

    To that end, we therefore propose to dig deeper – to tease out the full possibilities of an America First foreign policy now that the Donald has somehow succeeded in getting his ample belly right up close to the bar.

    In the first place it needs be observed that lurking not far below the surface of the Donald’s “America First” slogan is the ghost of Senator Robert Taft’s profoundly correct case for nonintervention.

    Back in the 1950s, the great statesman from Ohio fully understood that free enterprise prosperity, minimal government and maximum personal liberty were incompatible with a permanent, fiscally debilitating Warfare State leviathan designed to function as the world’s boots-&-suits-on-the-ground hegemon.

    Consequently, Taft strongly opposed a big peacetime navy, a large standing army with forward stationing and rapid global deployment capacities and the proliferation of foreign treaties and aid commitments.

    To the contrary, he reasoned that in the nuclear age a US-based bomber and missile force of unquestioned striking capacity would more than adequately protect the homeland from foreign military aggression; and that it could do so at a fraction of the cost of what amounted to permanent imperial legions assigned to patrolling the better part of the planet.

    Today Taft’s vision of a homeland defense would be more apt than ever. It would constitute an even cheaper and more efficacious guarantor of the safety and security of the American people than in his time. That’s because there are now no rival superpowers with even a fraction of the military and economic might of the former Soviet Union.

    Moreover, missile technology has become so advanced that a relative handful of submarines and hardened domestic launch sites can deter any conceivable foreign threat, which is inherently a nuclear one, to America’s homeland security.

    That is, in this day and age there is absolutely no conventional military threat to the safety and liberty of citizens in Omaha NE, Spokane WA or Springfield MA.

    That’s because there is no nation on earth that could mount a giant naval and air armada sufficient to invade the American homeland. Or, if it were foolish enough to try, could it survive the guided missile blitz that would send its forces to Davy Jones’ locker long before they crossed the blue waters which surround the North American continent.

    Stated differently, nuclear deterrence, the great ocean moats and a territorial military defense is all that it would take to keep America secure in today’s world.

    There is no need for Pax Americana, even if it could succeed, which manifestly it has not; and even if it could be afforded, which clearly it can’t be.

    To be sure, the Donald is too full of egotistical bluster and too infatuated with militarist trappings to go the full Taft-nonintervention route, but given a fair chance he might yet shimmy policy in that direction. Clearly a rapprochement with Russia would enable a de-escalation of Washington’s imperial presence in the middle east and avoid a dangerous buildup of military tensions and expense in eastern Europe.

    In any event, as crude and bombastic as Trump’s articulation of the America First proposition sometimes sounds, it does amount to a frontal attack on the intellectual superstructure which keeps the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, 35,000 troops in Germany, 29,000 of America’s military personal in harm’s way on the Korean peninsula, 11 carrier battle groups on the oceans, a continued expeditionary force of 100,000 troops, dependents and support personnel in Japan and military operations and economic and military aid in more than 100 other nations around the planet.

    Underneath this vast Empire, of course, lays the utterly bogus notion that America is the Indispensable Nation and that Washington Leadership is always and everywhere the sine quo non of stability, order and peace all around the planet.

    By the very obnoxious nature of his personality and modus operandi, however, the Donald has done much to tarnish the idea of Washington Leadership; and that is a considerable step toward global peace in its own right.

    That’s because the best way to stop more American wars is for no one to come next time Washington puts out the call, and for the so-called Coalition of the Willing to shrink to a quorum of none.

    That prospect has surely terrified the foreign policy establishment. Even though to date the Donald has been throttled at nearly every turn by the War Party in his discombobulated and amateurish pursuit of America First, that has not stopped its leading spokesman and institutions from lambasting him for allegedly sullying Washington’s self-assigned “leadership” role in the world.

    In that respect there are few grand poobahs of the War Party who better embody the arrogant pretensions of the American Imperium than the odious president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Hass.

    According to the latter, the trouble with Trump is that after 16 months in office he still doesn’t get it; he’s turned his back on the core predicate that animates the Imperial City:

    ‘Trump is the first post-WWII president to view the burdens of world leadership as outweighing the benefits. The United States has changed from the principal preserver of order to a principal disrupter.’

    Exactly what hay wagon does he think we fell off from?

    How did the war on Vietnam, the First Gulf War to save the Emir of Kuwait’s oil wealth, the futile 17-year occupation of Afghanistan, the destruction of Iraq, the double-cross of Khadafy after he gave up his nukes, the obliteration of much of civil society and economic life in Syria, the US-supplied Saudi genocide in Yemen and the Washington sponsored coup and civil war on Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine, to name just a few instances of Washington’s putative “world leadership”, have anything to do with preserving “order” on the planet?

    And exactly how did the “benefits” of these serial instigations of mayhem outweigh the “burdens” to America’s taxpayers – to say nothing of the terminal costs to the dead and maimed citizens in their millions who had the misfortune to be domiciled in these traumatized lands?

    Likewise, have the refugees who have been flushed out of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere in the middle east by Washington’s wars done anything for the peace and stability of Europe, where Washington’s victims have desperately fled in their millions?

    Yet, there would have been no long-lasting civil war in Syria without the billions of cash and weapons supplied to the so-called rebels and the outright jihadis by Washington and its Persian Gulf vassals; nor would Yemen by sinking into famine and cholera plagues without the American bombs, missiles and drone dispatched by the Saudi pilots essentially functioning as hired Pentagon mercenaries.

    Indeed, the smoldering ruins of Mosul, Aleppo, Fallujah, Benghazi and lesser places in their thousands hardly speak to a beneficent hegemony.

    Yet had Washington never brought its fleets and occupying forces to the Middle East after 1970 and had the region not come under the heavy boot of the Central Command and Washington’s assorted proconsuls and plenipotentiaries, the plague of radical Sunni jidhadism would never have arisen. Nor is it likely that the ancient rift between the Sunni and Shiite confessions of Islam would have erupted into today’s lethal armed conflicts.

    It is well to note that during peacetime before 1970, no American soldiers were killed in the middle east. After 1990. However, virtually all US serviceman who were killed or wounded in combat were stationed in the greater middle east.

    It is also worth noting that the answer to high oil prices is high prices, not the Fifth Fleet. In fact, global oil production today has doubled since 1973 owing to price, technology and the worldwide quest for profits by state and private oil companies alike – even as constant dollar prices per barrel stand far below the peaks reached during that decade.

    There never was any economic imperative whatsoever to bring the American armada into the region.

    So when candidate Trump said the Iraq invasion was a stupid mistake, that Hillary’s war on Khadafy was misbegotten, that he would like to cooperate with Putin on pacifying Syria and that NATO was obsolete, he was actually calling into question the fundamental predicates of the American Imperium.

    And that gets us to the Russian threat bogeyman, the War Party’s risible demonization of Vladimir Putin and the cocked-up narrative about the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election – all of which the upcoming Helsinki summit could knock into a cocked hat.

    When Trump captured the GOP nomination against all odds and expectations in the spring of 2016, the War Party went into hyper-drive. Each of these bogus themes were promoted to a fare-the-well through the MSM in order to derail his candidacy; and then, after the fact, to delegitimize and imperil his presidency.

    Yet the gruel behind each of these memes is thin indeed. So it’s is fair to say that while the Donald has caused the Imperial City itself to become unhinged, it is also possible that a successful Helsinki photo op writ large could mightily help Flyover America to see the light.

    In the case of the election meddling meme, there are few more hypocritical instances of the cat-calling-the-kettle-black than this one.

    To wit, the total US intelligence community (IC) budget is upwards of $75 billion – 25% more than Russia’s entire military budget including ships, planes, tanks, ammo, fuel, rations, operations, maintenance and even spare boots – and a big part of that giant IC spend goes to, well, meddling, hacking and sabotage of foreign nations!

    The Targeted Access Operations (TAO) unit inside NSA alone has a multi-billion budget which funds thousands of in-house and contractor personnel who spend day and night hacking the communications channels of virtually every government in the world, friend, foe and enemy alike.

    It goes without saying, of course, that the very purpose of these intrusions is to interfere with the domestic politics and governance of most of the planet’s population, and in some cases to actually sabotage perfectly appropriate operations, such as the Natanz centrifuges in Iran which were destroyed by the Washington’s stuxnet virus.

    Thus, if you are not caught up in the War party’s self-serving groupthink, it seems entirely plausible that in the face of these massive Washington cyber-assaults that targeted nations might indeed seek to counterattack, as apparently the Russian security services have done.

    Yet that also opens up another show and tell possibility for Helsinki. There could be nothing that would shutdown the whole RussiaGate Farce (and leave the Dem handmaids high and dry) than a freeze-for-freeze proposal on meddling – something we are quite confident Cool Hand Vlad would jump at in a heartbeat.

    After all, what the whole Russian meddling meme boils down to is an assertion that Kremlin operatives have been attacking America in plain sight. That is, they hacked the DNC’s gossip and intrigue-ridden computers and breached the content of Podesta’s password protected political skullduggery. But airing intra-party dirty laundry is neither a national security matter nor does its disclosure jeopardize American democracy in the slightest.

    The very idea that these two alleged hacks amount to some grand assault on American democracy is just plain laughable; and it surely does not take a dozen congressional investigations and the rogue Mueller witch-hunt to preclude any future recurrence.

    All it would really require is a handshake agreement in Helsinki because it is plainly obvious that Russia got nothing out of the St. Petersburg troll farm or any of the other related allegations of “meddling”.

    At the end of the day, we are supposed to believe that a country with a puny$1.3 trillion GDP, which is just 7% of the US’ $19.7 trillion GDP, and which consists largely of aged hydrocarbon provinces, endless wheat fields, modest industrial capacities and a stagnant Vodka-favoring workforce, is actually a threat to America’s security.

    And we are also supposed to fear the military capacity of a country that has no blue water Navy to speak of and no conventional airlift and air-attack capacity which could remotely threaten the New Jersey shores, and that spends less in a full year than the Pentagon consumes every 35 days.

    Oh, yes, and this midget military is run with an apparent iron-hand by the Cool Hand Luke of the modern world. Yet as will be readily apparent to the unwashed American masses from his demeanor at Helsinki, the last thing Putin is going to do is commit Russian national suicide by launching a nuclear attack on America.

    Yet that’s all he’s got: To wit, a nonexistent military threat and a justifiable desire to protect the Russian-speaking populations on his doorstep in Crimea and the Donbas from the depredations of the Civil War that Washington itself instigated.

    That too will become apparent at Helsinki.

    So let the Empire’s existential crisis begin!

    *  *  *

    Reprinted via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

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  • US Army Discovers New Explosive Material – "More Powerful Than TNT"

    The chemical compound trinitrotoluene (C7H5N3O6), or most commonly known as TNT, was developed in Germany in 1863 by Joseph Wilbrand. While TNT is not as powerful as dynamite, it is more stable than most explosives. For more than a century, militaries around the world have melted down TNT into shell casings for kinetic energy weapons. TNT is considered the premier mixture of chemicals for creating spectacular explosions, and it is used in the formulation of determining the amount of energy released when a nuclear weapon is detonated, usually expressed as a TNT equivalent.

    After more than a 100 years of dominance, new research from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Army Research Laboratory have discovered a new, more powerful compound, Bis-oxadiazole (C6H4N6O8), which could render TNT obsolete.

    The molecular structure of Bis-oxadiazole. (Source: OPR&D)

    “It would be about 1.5 times the power of TNT,” said David Chavez, an explosives chemist at Los Alamos who worked on the new molecule, who spoke with Popular Mechanics. “So fairly energetic, quite a nice improvement compared to TNT.”

    Popular Mechanics first uncovered the report titled “Bis(1,2,4-oxadiazole) Bis(methylene) Dinitrate: A High-Energy Melt-Castable Explosive and Energetic Propellant Plasticizing Ingredient,” which was published late last month in the Organic Process Research & Development, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Chemical Society.

    Chavez told Popular Mechanics that TNT is a blend of the seemingly harmless elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen (C7H5N3O6). However, he compares the explosive compounds to gasoline, indicating that rather than extracting oxygen from the air to work as an oxidizer for combustion, like an engine, the explosives have all the ingredients for a powerful explosion within the compound.

    The report goes on to explain how TNT has a “major advantage” on the production line than other forms of explosives: it is melt-castable, which means the explosive can be shaped into molds and shells to produce bombs.

    “The place where you see it used most is mortar shells and artillery shells,” said Jesse Sabatini, a synthesis chemist with the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, told Popular Mechanics.

    TNT has some significant disadvantages that have led to a “quest to develop new melt-castable explosives,” said Sabatini, between various governmental agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Sabatini told Popular Mechanics the Army is concerned that TNT and other chemical compounds produce high amounts of pollutants during the manufacturing process.

    “There is actually quite a bit of waste that’s generated by making TNT,” Chavez said. “There’s something that’s called red water, which is the kind of water that’s left over from the nitration of TNT. And then when the TNT itself is actually isolated, it’s washed with more water, and that water is a waste that’s called pink water, and it also has some environmental impacts.”

    Explosives chemist David Chavez pours an example of melt-castable explosive into a copper mold at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 9. (Source: Army)

    “The Army always wants to have enhanced performance,” Sabatini said. “They want more blast. They want more power. And TNT is okay… but we want to do better than that.”

    In 2016, ARL synthesized Bis-isoxazole, which proved to be much greener to manufacture and melt-castable, but there was one problem: the new explosive was not as powerful.

    The scientist at ARL contacted their colleagues at the Los Alamos laboratories to tweak the explosive recipe. By exchanging a carbon atom for another nitrogen, the Los Alamos scientists were amazed the new tweaked compound produced a much higher explosive yield.

    The result, well, the new tweaked chemical compound could replace TNT, is now known as Bis-oxadiazole.

    “The additional nitrogen adds density to the molecule, and removing carbon helps balance out the oxidizer so all of the fuel can be used up to produce energy in the reaction. And once the researchers had synthesized it in the lab, they realized Bis-oxadiazole has a melting point around that of TNT, making it melt-castable,” said Popular Mechanics.

    According to the scientist, there are two methods in measuring the energy of an explosion: detonation velocity and detonation pressure. It is believed that Bis-oxadiazole “should have a detonation velocity of around 8.18 km/s and detonation pressure of 29.4 gigapascals, compared to around 7.8 km/s and 26 gigapascals for Composition B,” said Popular Mechanics.

    The scientist told Popular Mechanics that the production of Bis-oxadiazole would continue for future toxicity studies at ARL and Aberdeen Proving Ground. If the outcomes are successful, the new compound will be molded into artillery shells for testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground. If all goes well on the artillery range, then scientist could start producing large quantities

    Chavez explained the average time from chemical discovery to fielding new explosives takes about 5 to 10 years. However, if the new explosive material is as powerful and green to manufacture as scientist suggest, then the Pentagon could rush to incorporate Bis-oxadiazole on the modern battlefield.

    “It is a compound that certainly has us excited,” Sabatini said.  

    To sum up, the Army has developed environmentally friendly explosives that are much more powerful than TNT. It is likely this new technology of advanced explosives will be rushed onto the battlefield before the next round of wars. Seems like the Army is going green…

  • Political Smear Job? Law Firm Investigating Accusations Against Jim Jordan Steeped In Partisanship

    Authored by Jon Hall via Free Market Shooter blog,

    Over the July 4th holiday, NBC News posted an article detailing alleged sexual abuse at Ohio State University. At the center of the story, NBC News implicated one of the most well-known members of the Republican party, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

    Former wrestlers that Jordan coached over two decades ago at OSU accuse him of failing to stop the team doctor from molesting students.

    It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Jim Jordan is on the rise. Already a member of the Freedom Caucus, his name has been thrown around by many for the next Speaker of the House. Jordan has also led the charge against the corruption at the FBI and DOJ – known for many heated debates in hearings.

    To note, the University opened an investigation into the accusations that Dr. Richard Strauss – who died in 2005 – abused students when he was the doctor for the wrestling team during his tenure from the mid-70’s to late 90’s back in April. The timing of Jordan’s name being thrown into the mess is not the only suspect element regarding this scandal…

    Enter Perkins Coie, the firm heavily involved in the investigation into whether or not Russia influenced the 2016 Presidential election. When DNC servers were hacked, Perkins Coie did not go to authorities with proof of the hack but instead hired Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm with ties to Hillary Clinton, to investigate the breach.

    As FMShooter reported back in 2017:

    On top of all of this, Crowdstrike was the only one to come to a conclusion on the “Russia” conspiracy. The FBI never even inspected the hacked DNC servers and simply went off of Crowdstrike’s conclusion that Russian hackers did infiltrate DNC servers when there is absolutely no proof behind their claim.

    Perkins Coie also sits at the center of the FISA abuse scandal. The Steele dossierwas the first piece of evidence used in FISA warrants to surveil former Trump team member, Carter Page. Both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee helped fund research into the Steele dossier through Perkins Coie – the very same law firm that is now looking into the accusations against Strauss and Jim Jordan.

    For proof, OpenSecrets has Perkins Coie’s major contributions laid bare.

    Of course, the DNC tops the list with Hillary For America, Obama for America, and Priorities USA Action – David Brock’s former PAC – also making appearances; along with many other high-profile Democratic fundraising efforts. 

    Notably, Perkins Coie was hired by OSU to investigate the accusations less than a month after the University shut down their office that helped sexual-assault victims. In a statement, OSU said:

    To date, Perkins Coie has interviewed more than 150 former students and witnesses and is engaged in further investigative efforts. Ohio State has shared all additional information that has come to the attention of the university with the independent investigators whose work is ongoing.

    This isn’t even mentioning the shaky history of Jordan’s accusers, raising questions about their authenticity.

    One of the accusers, Mike DiSabato is being accused by the widow of a marine for intimidating and bullying her over a memorial fund set up in her husband’s name. Another accuser served time in prison for a $1.8 million fraud scheme.

    While OSU did notify local police and prosecutors, it’s strange that they immediately selected a law firm (and stranger that it was Perkins Coie) instead of letting police handle the investigation. Perkins Coie has no power to convene a grand jury or bring charges of perjury; nor do they have police powers or are able to compel someone to testify.

    Certainly, an investigation into these accusations is warranted. However, giving the case to a law firm with proven bias isn’t how to go about getting to the truth. Perkins Coie are already involved in numerous scandals and being involved in this investigation further complicates the process. Perkins Coie has proven that politics is more important than the truth – therefore, can any conclusion they reach in this case really be trusted?

    * * *

    Editor’s note: After this article was posted, a member of the FMShooter team uncovered more about Perkins Coie:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The quoted text is as follows:

    In recent years, a group of attorneys have been fighting to keep their recruited immigrant clients eligible for naturalization as delays have mounted. Some have been successful, including nearly 50 recruits who were granted a type of temporary status while their background investigations are being completed.

    “Some of our clients have finally emerged through the system and at least are doing basic training,” said Donald Friedman, a Washington attorney with Perkins Coie.

    The firm has certainly engaged in far more legal actions supporting liberal causes than the few listed against Rep. Jordan. 

  • "Get The F*ck Out": Watch Trump Supporters Kick White Supremacists Out Of "Occupy ICE" Counterprotest

    A group of KKK members led by a Jefferson County “Imperial Wizard” known only as Derek were ejected from a Saturday “Occupy ICE” counterprotest by members of conservative groups the “Three Percenters” and “Proud Boys,” who had organized the response.

    “Get your ass out of here… go, go… get the fu*k out. You’re racist.” 

    Occupy ICE has been physically blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings across the country to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of enforcing existing laws. The group has been camped out in front of the local Louisville ICE building at 7th and Broadway since early this week, calling for the agency to be abolished.

    In advance of the event, Louisville police Chief Steve Conrad warned residents of the potential for violence. 

    “I believe a number of people coming to this event will be armed,” Conrad said at a press conference on Friday.

    Gary Foreman, a spokesman for the Kentucky chapter of the Three Percenters, said on Friday the group would be coming to “ensure everyone expresses their thoughts in a peaceful environment.” He said about 100 people are expected to attend, including members of state chapters in Tennessee and Indiana.

    Conrad said people have the right to carry firearms in Kentucky, but the police department won’t accept violence or property damage in any form. He said mixing firearms with the intensity of the immigration debate was the reason he canceled planned days off for police officers in order to have more resources on Saturday.  –Courier Journal

    “The fact (that) emotions are so high on this issue and people’s opinions are so varied, I think it’s important that we provide a place where people can share their opinions and hopefully we can keep them safe in the process,” Conrad said. 

    The Proud Boys and Three Percenters regularly attend rallies and other events in support, or counterprotest, of public policy or liberal activism. In 2017, the Three Percenters were involved in the “Unite the Right” demonstration against the removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, VA organized by white nationalist provocateur Jason Kessler – who was an active Obama supporter just eight months prior to the event. Kessler’s motives were called into question when he was discovered to have written and performed African revenge-porn poetry about “white devils” raping Africa, while his Jewish ex-girlfriend said he showed “no signs of being anti-Semitic” following the “Unite the Right” rally. From Kessler’s “running thoughts” blog in December, 2015:

    The Three Percenters distanced themselves from the neo-Nazi element at Charlottesville after dozens of people were wounded and a woman, Heather Heyer, died after a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters. 

    “While we support and defend everyone’s right to free speech, we will not align ourselves with any type of racist group.” -Three Percenters 

    Meanwhile, violence between left and right has been escalating. Last weekend at a conservative rally in Portland, a large skirmish broke out which led to a viral video of a Proud Boy known as “Rufio” knocking out an Antifa member. (Knockout at 7:35)

    And on the 4th of July, 16-year-old Trump supporter Hunter Richard was assaulted at 2:35 a.m. at a San Antonio Whataburger restaurant while dining with two friends, when 30-year-old Kino Jimenez threw soda on the trio and stole Richards’s red MAGA hat. Jimenez was arrested on Friday.

    The recent confrontations over Trump’s immigration policy come on the heels of several members of the Trump administration suffering harassment in public and at their homes – most notably Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was ejected from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA after the owner’s gay employees became uncomfortable in Sanders’s presence. 

    In response to the spate of public harassment last month, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters (CA) called for Democrats to form into mobs and physically confront members of the Trump administration if they see them out in public. 

    “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” said Waters. 

  • US Rents Surge To Record Highs Led By Small-Town Texas Oil-Boom

    After climbing roughly 1% in June, the national average rent in the US reached yet another record high as rents in small and mid-sized cities continued to outpace their larger peers. But while prices in Midland, Texas and Odessa, Texas led the pack as rising oil prices revived the fortunes of the US energy industry, the usual suspects continued to occupy the top spots, with Manhattan and San Francisco remaining the two most expensive rental markets in the country, according to RentCafe‘s latest monthly rent report.

    RentCafe

    Here are a few takeaways from the June report, courtesy of RentCafe:

    • The national average rent reached the all-time high of $1,405 in June 2018, having increased by 2.9 percent year over year, and by 0.9 percent ($12) month over month, according to Yardi Matrix data.

    • Rents increased in 88 percent of the nation’s biggest 250 cities in June, remained unchanged in 10 percent of cities, and dropped in 2 percent of them compared to June 2017.

    • The top 20 fastest increases in the country were registered in small cities, where population migration and the strengthening economy are accelerating rent growth.

    • Manhattan has had the largest year-over-year rent increase of the past 12 months, June having brought a 1.5% increase after a year-long period of decreasing or stagnating prices.

    With more families renting today than in years past (as home valuations make ownership out of reach for all but the middle-class and the wealthy, two- and three-bedroom apartments and homes have been the primary drivers of rent growth so far in 2018. However, June’s increases were almost perfectly balanced as rents in one-bedroom and studio apartments caught up to two- and three-bedroom

    The thriving oil-industry hubs of the Permian Basin, Midland and Odessa have been leading the nation with rents growing at a spectacular rate since the last significant drop in oil prices.

    The latest data shows a 40% increase in Midland compared to June 2017, whereas Odessa rents have increased by 36.6% on average in the same period. Lancaster, California enters the top 5, where rents have seen an alarming 10.2% growth rate over the past 12 months. The 9.9% rent increase in Reno, NV means The Biggest Little City in the World has maintained the its position from last month, when it had posted a 10.7% gain. The Phoenix suburb of Peoria, AZ climbs to 5th place, registering a 9.6% Y-o-Y increase in rents.

    Small

    When it comes to larger cities, Las Vegas again claimed the title of the fastest growing in that category, with rents rising 7% year-over-year.

    Rent

    Among mid-sized cities, Tampa, Fla. took home the title of fastest-growing rents in June, while three mid-sized California cities – Sacramento, Stockton and Fresno – all made it in the top five fastest growing.

    Midsized

    And with the stock of available homes on the market continuing to lag demand, it’s likely home valuations – and by extension, rents – will continue to climb until the already expensive rents and home prices rise beyond the means of the average renter or marginal buyer, a phenomenon that’s already beginning to play out in the most expensive markets.

  • California Millionaires Flee State After Tax Hike

    California lost an estimated 138 high income individuals due to the passage of the Proposition 30 – a tax hike pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and approved by voters in 2012, according to new research from Stanford University and members of the California Franchise Tax Board. 

    The measure raised taxes on the state’s highest earners by 8% – increasing it one percentage point to 13.3%, leaving California top-earners with the highest state income tax rate in the country. It also hiked the tax rate on income between $300,000 and $500,000 by 2%, while raising the tax rate on income over $500,000 by 3%.

    Using California Franchise Tax Board data, the study led by Charles Varner, associate director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, examined taxpayers who were and were not affected by the Prop. 30 tax hike, and found that in the two years before the increase was imposed (2011 and 2012) net in-migration for both groups “was positive and roughly consistent.” After the tax increases, however, net in-migration fell for households hit with a tax increase of 0.5% or more – with the greatest reduction coming from households saddled with the highest effective tax rate.

    For the largest and most recent of these reforms—a 2012 voter-enacted tax increase, the largest top marginal rate increase by any U.S. state over the past three decades—we observe a statistically significant effect in the expected direction. -Varner

    The 2012 tax increases affected roughly 312,000 people, resulting in approximately .04% leaving the state. Numerically that’s not a lot, but it’s significant for several reasons – especially considering that an earlier 2004 tax increase had no negative effect on the millionaire population.

    The research is an update to an earlier study that found more millionaires actually moved to California following a 2004 tax hike of 1% on income over $1 million to fund mental health services. 

    “In other words, the highest-income Californians were less likely to leave the state after the [2004] millionaire tax was passed.”

    The 2012 tax hikes, however, were much larger than the 1% mental health surcharge.

    “One reason we wanted to update our previous paper is that this tax change in 2012 is the largest state tax change that we have seen in the U.S. for the last three decades,” Varner said.

    [A]fter 2012, net in-migration declined for those facing an effective tax increase of 0.5 percent or higher. The drop was largest for the group facing the highest effective tax increase, wrote the authors, who included Allen Prohofsky of the California Franchise Tax Board. –SF Chronicle

    That said, the researchers also noted that migration in and out of California accounts for a tiny portion of the state’s millionaire ranks – a population which fluctuates by more than 10,000 people from year to year, while migration accounts for 50 – 120 people, or around 1%. The remaining 99% “is due to income dynamics at the top – California residents growing into the millionaire bracket, or falling out of it again.” 

    Moreover, the California millionaire population migrates for many reasons – and “changes dramatically over the business cycle.” Tax increases are but one factor. 

    If the population of top earners were determined mostly by tax rates, the basic population graph could be quite informative. However, population changes for other reasons. The strength of financial markets is critical, with the two peaks in Figure 1.5 corresponding to the dot-com boom (1999-2000) and the more recent stock market run-up (2007-08). These economic trends greatly increased the number of Californians earning very high incomes. Analytically, other drivers of the top-income population (particularly income growth) overshadow migration, which occurs on a smaller scale. -Varner

    The millionaire population is highly correlated to the financial markets. The researchers found that the median person who earned at least $1 million in a given year earned at least $1 million in only seven of the 13 years before and after that year.

    That could be one reason people don’t pull up stakes after a tax increase. Another reason: It’s hard to move when you have a high-paying job, a spouse who may work and kids. The report found that married people with children are less sensitive to the tax increase than married people without children. –SF Chronicle

    Divorce

    While tax increases account for a small number of CA millionaires leaving the state, a much larger factor is divorce, and as the authors note “The tax policy changes examined in this report are very modest compared to the life-impact of marital dissolution.” 

    “We find a strong migration effect for high-income earners who become divorced. In the year of divorce, the migration rate more than doubles, and remains slightly elevated for two years after the event.”

    The “divorce effect” was found to fall off as time passes, and is insignificant for divorces which happened over three years ago. 

    So while the research team didn’t find that millionaires are leaving “in droves” because of the tax hikes – and found that California was “consistently becoming a more attractive place for millionaires over the period we study” – the small but statistically significant migration tied to tax increases is notable. Not only can other states considering top-earner tax hikes look forward to outward migration, they should consider the economic impact of millionaires who move their businesses as well.

  • Energy Is The Key To Everything

    Authored by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake,

    When people are sitting around making lists and deciding what they need to survive or just get by in the future there is one thing they need to give great thought to. Energy is the basis of everything. Energy takes many forms such as food, electricity, liquid fuels, mechanical, nuclear, solid fuels, solar and wind to name a few. Without it your body will not function, you will have no light, no heat, no transportation or communication. Energy is the foundation of everything humans do in this world. Without energy in its many forms we cannot live.

    If you can produce enough energy you can do just about anything. You can live deep underground, live on the moon or even in space. You can heat your home, produce light to see, grow food, power vehicles and radios, produce goods from raw materials and power equipment to keep you alive.

    Most people do not think about this very often because they can simply walk outside and feel the warm sun on their skin, do numerous tasks and even feed themselves as a result of this energy from the sun. They can do many things without modern technology because the sun provides the energy to do it. Knowing how to generate and utilize the various types of energy allows you to survive in many different environments.

    Here is one example to think about to show you what I mean…

    In the movie The Road, the earth is consumed by an environmental disaster that leaves the world in a cloudy haze, leaving it cold and dead. The survivors wonder around looking for any type of sustenance they can find including each other.

    Even under the circumstances given, these people still have the ability to produce energy. Energy means life. Nuclear power would still work under these circumstances especially in navel vessels. Even though all of the trees seem to be dead, they can still be burned for fuel. As long as water falls from the sky hydroelectric power will still work. Where you have power generation you have the means to provide heat and light to grow food. You only need the knowledge and skills to do it.

    In a survival situation, especially an extreme one, having an energy source that allows you to live is very important. That is one reason why knowledge and skills are so important to many preppers. Knowledge and skills allow you to construct a new living environment following an event and energy plays a major role in that. It is idiotic to walk around like the survivors in The Walking Dead, with no food, water, equipment or transportation when there are resources scattered all around you that can be utilized.

    Simply burning wood can provide you with energy to run a vehicle, produce power for lighting and communications and produce heat for cooking. With sufficient energy you can grow food, produce clothing, distill water, even provide fresh air and refrigeration. Energy is the key to living and the more knowledge you have in producing and controlling it the more likely you are to survive long term. The types of energy produced and the ways you utilize them are entirely up to you when your survival is in your hands. The more energy you can produce, the better your living standard is likely to be.

    When an abnormal event occurs that can bring civilization to a screeching halt, the energy you have available to you will determine if you survive or not. Energy in all of it’s forms is something most people never think about until it is too late. It does not matter if it is the sun, wind, hydro, wood, oil, bio fuels, coal or thermoelectric. You need to be ready to utilize what you have available when the time comes. Your ability to create and utilize the energy available to you is your ability to live.

  • "Irate" Long Island Man Arrested For Making "Terroristic Threats" Against Trump Supporters

    As the hysterical violence and aggression directed at Trump supporters continues to escalate (at the urging of Congresswoman Maxine Waters and other radical political opponents of the president), a Long Island man was arrested for threatening to kill supporters of President Donald Trump and Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin on Friday.

    After making the threats, the man also reportedly nearly hit a campaign staffer for Zeldin with his car. It’s the latest attack on a supporter of President Trump, following an assault in a restaurant near San Antonio where a Texas man was arrested after assaulting a teen and stealing his MAGA hat.

    Trump
    Martin Astrof

    According to the New York Post, Martin Astrof, 75, of Nesconset, “became irate” at Zeldin’s Suffolk County campaign headquarters at 11:15 am Friday. Astrof then threatened to kill a campaign worker as well as other Zeldin and Trump supporters.

    Astrof was arrested at his home Saturday morning and charged with making terroristic threats.

    He threatened to kill a campaign worker, as well as other Zeldin and Trump supporters – then “backed his car up in an aggressive manner nearly striking the worker,” according to authorities.

    Astrof fled the scene and was arrested at his home Friday afternoon. He was expected to be arraigned Saturday on a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, and on second-degree reckless endangerment charges.

    Zeldin, a dedicated political ally of the president, spoke out against the attack Friday night on twitter.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Panico, the volunteer who was attacked, is a former deli owner from Smithtown. He was Zeldin’s guest at Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year, in recognition of his efforts to feed Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11. The attack on Zeldin’s campaign office comes after Sen. Rand Paul said he and his family had received death threats from a person who said they would be “chopped up” with an axe.

    This is not going to end well.

  • Australia Will Now Fine Parents Twice a Month If They Don’t Vaccinate Their Kids

    Authored by Emma Fiala via MintPressNews.com,

    Australia’s “No Jab, No Pay” policy just got a little stronger, or at least more insistent. Under the previous policy, parents who did not keep their children up to date on vaccinations would miss out on a one-time, end-of-the-year tax benefit called Family Tax Benefit Part A, valued at AU$737. Under the updated policy, those same parents will instead lose AU$28 every two weeks while their child is not up to date.

    Australia’s Minister for Social Services, Dan Tehan, said in a statement:

    Immunization is the safest way to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases. Parents who don’t immunize their children are putting their own kids at risk as well as the children of other people.”

    The expanded No Jab, No Pay policy went into effect on July 1, 2018.

    While parents will miss out on approximately the same amount of money in the end, the updated policy serves as a more “constant reminder” that the government of Australia wants all children vaccinated, according to Tehan.

    The Australian government has been attempting to quell the anti-vaccine movement for years and first introduced the No Jab, No Pay campaign in 2016. Since then, nearly 246,000 families have taken steps to meet the requirements.

    Concerns arose after small outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough were blamed on an increase in the percentage of children younger than seven claiming a “conscientious objection” to vaccination. Between December 1999 and December 2014, the proportion of children under seven with a “conscientious objection” rose from 0.23 to 1.77 percent.

    Government vaccination campaigns are nothing new in Australia. Back in 1999, vaccination rates for children between the ages of 24 and 27 months hit the lowest level in 17 years. After launching an aggressive education campaign, that same rate rose from 73.6 percent in 1999 to 92.2 percent in 2015. But the Australian government asserted that still wasn’t enough and subsequently launched the No Jab, No Pay policy, spending AU$14 million on free vaccinations in 2017 alone.

    Medical exemptions are available both for children at risk of serious harm from vaccines and for children who have natural immunity.

    In addition to the No Jab, No Play policy, in some areas of Australia, a “No Jab, No Play” policy has gone into effect. In Queensland, for example, according to the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance:

    Child care services can cancel or refuse enrollment or attendance of children if they are not fully immunised, unless they are undergoing a vaccination catch-up program or have a medical reason not to be vaccinated. Vaccination objection is not a valid exemption. This legislation applies to attendance at long day care, kindergarten, family day care, outside school hours care/vacation care, limited hours care or occasional care.

    If an outbreak occurs, unimmunised children may be excluded from child care for a period of time.”

    As a result, those abstaining from vaccines in Queensland are reportedly organizing their own childcare services to circumvent the law.

    Allona Lahn of the Natural Immunity Community told ABC News:

    We organize group childcare arrangements and we’re now devising our own combined homeschooling system. We use health practitioners within the anti-vaccine networks around Australia and ‘anti-vaccination-friendly’ doctors in the community.”

    A similar move was attempted in nearby New Zealand but then-Prime Minister John Key concluded the choice should ultimately be left up to parents. Key said in 2015 of state-mandated vaccinations:

    If the state forced a child to be vaccinated and the child had a significant medical reaction and potentially died as a result of that, that would be a huge burden that the state would have put on those parents.”

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