- American Suspension Of INF Treaty Is Aimed At China
Authored by Anatoly Karlin via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
So it’s done. The US has suspended its participation in the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Russia soon followed suit. This almost certainly spells an end to this late Cold War relic, which banned the two superpowers from deploying ground-launched ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with ranges of 500-5,500km. There have been recriminations all round. But in the end, so far as two of the world’s three most greatest military Powers are concerned, upholding the INF Treaty could never have been done exactly to the letter.
The US has specified Russia’s Novator 9M729 (NATO designation: SSC-8) as the offending missile that finally prompted US action. Russian nuclear weapons analyst Pavel Podvig has noted that it is very similar to the Russian Navy’s Kalibr-NK cruise missile, which has a range well beyond 500 km and has been touted as a potential “carrier killer”. Podvig goes on to speculate that if the US had observed a test of the 9M729 from a land-based Iskander-M launcher – even if on just a single occasion – then all of them “would have to be eliminated” by the formal terms of the treaty. This is obviously not something that Russia could reasonably be expected to carry out.
Moreover, any number of US missile systems can be considered to be in breach of the INF Treaty. For instance, the Russians have argued that America’s AEGIS Ashore program – a ground-based cruise missile, for all intents and purposes – can also be considered to be in systemic breach of the INF Treaty. Incidentally, this system was itself enabled by America’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, under the George W. Bush administration.
Trump has been taking heat for the INF withdrawal from the usual quarters. For instance, the top comment on this story at r/politics – a bastion of online Trump/Putin Derangement Syndrome – lambasts the US President for spoiling America’s image and letting down its allies instead of sanctioning Russia. (Naturally, no mention of where exactly it says that breaking the Treaty is grounds for such). In reality, dissatisfaction with the INF Treaty had been building up for years within the previous Obama administration, and NATO has released a statement of support for Trump’s decision. There is no significant division on this matter either within US political circles, or its transatlantic allies.
Because at the end of the day, rhetoric to the contrary, nobody really cares about the INF Treaty within Europe. Force levels on both sides of the border between the West and Russia – which has moved 1,000-1,500 km to the east, in large part thanks to NATO’s broken promises not to expand – are at a small fraction of Cold War levels. Few seriously believe that Russia has any territorial designs on the Baltics, and even on the off chance that it does, it’s not like the 9M729 is going to make any cardinal difference.
However, it is with respect to the balance of power in the West Pacific that the restrictions imposed by the INF on the US – but not on China – come into play. While consensus expert opinion holds that the US still retains dominance in the South China Sea vis-à-vis China, its margin of superiority is shrinking year by year. In a 2015 report, the RAND Corporation estimated that the number of US air wings required to defeat a surge of attacking Chinese aircraft over Taiwan increased from just a couple in 1996 to 30 by 2017. In a subsequent report released in the following year, we see the balance of power in potential China-US conflict scenarios shift from a terminal Chinese disadvantage in 1996, to parity over Taiwan by 2017 (though they believe that the US still holds a decisive advantage in a conflict over the Spratly Islands). Even so, it is especially notable that the only two categories in a conflict over Taiwan in which RAND now considers China to hold an advantage – “Chinese attacks on air bases” and “Chinese anti-surface warfare” – are both spheres in which intermediate-range ballistic missiles would play an important role.
This is not just my supposition. In another 2016 RAND report, tellingly titled “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable”, this consideration is stated openly and forthrightly:
“US land-based missiles from 500 km to 5,500 km are prohibited by the INF treaty, whereas the Chinese missiles are not, giving China a significant advantage.”
It has long been obvious that the US (correctly) regards China as the real long-term threat to its global hegemony. Meanwhile, Russia is a mere nuisance, a “dying bear” that is ever approaching collapse, in the wake of which Moscow will have no choice but to sign up to America’s China containment project. (Sure, this sounds like a crazy ideological narrative, and it is – but the US policy of alienating Russia and drawing it into a quasi-alliance with China is even crazier – just ask Kissinger). But like it or not, this really is how the American elites think, and it can’t be denied that there is a certain logic to it.
In this context, withdrawal from the INF Treaty – with Russia’s alleged violations as pretext – is just the logical next step to the military component of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, one that the US is entirely happy to continue and follow through with. It really is as banal as that.
- 5 Key Innovations Driving The Future Of Cannabis
It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention.
As cannabis breaks into the mainstream, Visual Capitalist’s Iman Ghosh points out that the complex web of regulations surrounding the plant may well be what compels the industry to think outside the box.
Today’s infographic from Valens GroWorks highlights some of the most anticipated areas of technology-based disruption in “cannabiz” – the business behind cannabis.
POTENTIAL INDUSTRY GAME-CHANGERS
As the cannabis industry grows, the business behind it must grow as well – and to get an edge, industry players are investing in new technologies and innovative practices that could be industry game-changers.
Here are some of the most disruptive moves happening that could shape the future of cannabis:
AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY
As consumers become more discerning, they’ve come to demand premium quality cannabis. That’s why many indoor growers are exploring various means to improve the productivity of cannabis plants.
- Cloud-controlled lights
Using cloud-based IoT technology, cultivators can remotely adjust the colors and cycles of growing lights that cannabis plants are exposed to in their operations. Such precise control ensures consistency in plant quality. - Tissue culture
Essentially, tissue culture is the multiplication of a single cannabis tissue into hundreds of identical ones. While this method is impressive, it’s incredibly tricky to get right at scale.
Biotech breeding is another upcoming trend to watch out for. Just like the ubiquitous GMO foods you can find in a grocery store, the genetic manipulation of cannabis plants to strengthen specific effects could take the industry by storm.
NOVEL DELIVERY
Millions of patients in North America rely on medical cannabis, which will only intensify as states continue to legalize its use. For the longest time, prescribed cannabis has relied on smoking – but extraction technology is introducing new delivery methods.
- Vaporizer Pens
These pocket-sized pens can deliver a controlled cannabis dose, with lower chances of including dangerous chemicals. The latest models include Bluetooth capabilities and smartphone apps to customize vape temperatures, among other features. - Oils and Tinctures
Cannabis concentrates, packaged into capsules or as liquid, can be used in vape pens or ingested directly. They also provide a small, controlled cannabis dose, and act fast in a patient’s system.
CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Recreational consumers won’t be left behind. This growing segment is enjoying cannabis-based products in a myriad of ways, made possible by new extraction technologies.
- Nano-technology
Water soluble oils demonstrate their potent effects quickly through the bloodstream, instead of relying on the slow-acting respiratory or digestive systems. - Topicals
With a wide range of skincare products in the market, these cannabis-infused lotions can applied to the skin’s surface, where they are absorbed for a relaxing effect.
CASHLESS PAYMENTS
Despite the increasing legality of “cannabiz”, many businesses and their customers prefer to deal with cash. Financial institutions are also wary of investing in cannabis, as it’s still perceived as risky in certain circles.
To that end, fintech has stepped up to the plate. Secure and automated transactions can be made and processed via the blockchain, potentially creating an anonymous and convenient way for consumers and companies to transact.
DATA AND ANALYTICS
Cannabis is finally coming out of hiding, but records around point-of-sale transactions are still lacking. Providing context for such data to give it meaning is difficult, but lucrative.
Leveraging big data to track the cannabis supply chain has secondary advantages of easing the regulatory process, and putting customer demand into perspective. What’s more, digital transaction data on these consumers also offers future opportunities for businesses to address their needs.
As the cannabis space steadily progresses, cannabis companies that respond and adapt to these broad trends of tech innovation will be poised for success.
Tech innovation and ongoing R&D are ingredients that the industry needs to continue to mature and grow.
– Michael Garbuz, CannRoyalty Corporate Strategist
- Cloud-controlled lights
- How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump's Coup In Venezuela
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
On Monday, February 5th, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the 14 countries of the Lima Group — who had actually formed themselves under her direction into this new group on 8 August 2017 in order to overthrow and replace Venezuela’s current President Nicholas Maduro — have now been joined (though she didn’t say to what extent) by the EU, and by 8 other individual countries. She stated:
“Today, we have been joined by our Lima Group partners, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia. We have also been joined in our conversations with our partners from other countries, for this Lima Group ministerial meeting. These include Ecuador, the European Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”
She, along with US President Donald Trump, had, all along, been the actual leaders of this international diplomatic effort, to violate the Venezuelan Constitution blatantly, so as to perpetrate the coup in Venezuela.
Her active effort to replace Venezuela’s Government began with her formation of the Lima Group, nearly two years ago.
Canada’s Ottawa Citizen headlined on 19 August 2017, “Choosing Danger”, and their reporter Peter Hum interviewed Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela, Ben Rowswell, who was then retiring from the post. Rowswell said that Venezuelans who wanted an overthrow of their Government would continue to have the full support of Canada’s Government:
“‘I think that some of them were sort of anxious that it (the embassy’s support for human rights and democracy in Venezuela) might not continue after I left,’ Rowswell said. ‘I don’t think they have anything to worry about because Minister (of Foreign Affairs Chrystia) Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list.’”
Maybe it wasn’t yet at the top of Trump’s list, but it was at the top of hers. And she and Trump together chose whom to replace Venezuela’s President, Nicholas Maduro, by: Juan Guaido. Guaido had secretly courted other Latin American leaders for this, just as Freeland had already done, by means of her secretly forming the Lima Group.
On 25 January 2019, the AP bannered “AP Exclusive: Anti-Maduro coalition grew from secret talks” and reported that the man who now claims to be Venezuela’s legitimate President (though he had never even run for that post), Juan Guaido, had secretly visited foreign countries in order to win their blessings for what he was planning:
In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to brief officials on the opposition’s strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro’s expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally.
Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido [9 January 2019] the night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony [on 10 January 2019] to offer her government’s support should he confront the socialist leader [Maduro], the Canadian official said. Also active was Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela and has received more than two million migrants fleeing economic chaos, along with Peru and Brazil’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
To leave Venezuela, he sneaked across the lawless border with Colombia, so as not to raise suspicions among immigration officials who sometimes harass opposition figures at the airport and bar them from traveling abroad, said a different anti-government leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security arrangements.
During the last days in office of Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela Rowswell, US President Donald Trump went public with his overt threat to invade Venezuela. On 11 August 2017, McClatchy’s Miami Herald bannered “Trump was making friends in Latin America — before he raised Venezuela ‘military option’”, and Patricia Mazzei reported that “President Donald Trump’s unexpected suggestion Fridaythat he might rely on military force to deal with Venezuela’s pressing political crisis was an astonishing statement that strained not only credulity but also the White House’s hard-won new friendships in Latin America.” Even a spokesperson from the Atlantic Council (which is the main PR agency for NATO) was quoted as saying that “US diplomats, after weeks of carefully building the groundwork for a collective international response, suddenly find their efforts completely undercut by a ridiculously over the top and anachronistic assertion. It makes us look imperialistic and old-time. This is not how the US has behaved in decades!” However, Peru’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Luna, was just as eager for a coup in Venezuela as were Trump and Freeland.
On 26 October 2017, Peru’s Gestion TV reported that Luna was the co-Chair of the meeting of the Lima Group in Toronto, which Freeland chaired, and that (as translated into English here) “Luna added that the objective of the meeting of the Group of Lima ‘is to create a propitious situation’ so that the regime of Nicolás Maduro ‘feels obligated to negotiate’ not only an exit to the crisis, ‘but also an exit to his own regime’.” This gang were going to make Maduro an offer that he couldn’t refuse. So, the Lima Group, which was founded by Luna and by Freeland, was taking the initiative as much and as boldly as Trump was, regardless of what NATO might think about it. The topic of that news-report, and its headline, was “Peru proposes Grupo de Lima to involve the UN to face the Venezuelan crisis.”
Four days later, Freeland and Luna met privately at the UN, in New York, with the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. Inner City Press reported that “The title of the meeting is ‘the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter’ [see it here] and the briefer will be not USG [Under Secretary General] Jeffrey Feltman but his Assistant, ASG [Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs] Miroslav Jenca.” Jeffrey Feltman was the person who, in the secretly recorded 27 January 2014 phone-conversation in which US President Barack Obama’s agent, Victoria Nuland — planning and overseeing the February 2014 coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President — instructed the US Ambassador to Ukraine, that, after Ukraine’s President is ousted, Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk was to be appointed as Ukraine’s ‘interim’ leader as the new Prime Minister, to replace the President. She also said: “I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning; he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry. … He’s now gotten both Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. That would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and to have the UN help glue it, and, you know, fuck the EU.” So, the still Under Secretary General of the U.N, Mr. Feltman, is still America’s fixer there, who “glues” whatever the US President orders the UN to do, and his Assistant was filling in for him that day. Therefore, if Trump and Freeland turn out to be as successful as Obama was, then the UN will “glue” the outcome. Chrystia Freeland happens also to be a friend of Victoria Nuland, and a passionate supporter of her coup in Ukraine.
Freeland’s parents were Ukrainian and supported the Nazis during World War II. Cameron Pike headlined about Freeland at The Saker, on 2 February 2019, “Canada’s Nazi Problem” and opened:
In the 1960’s the Polish government, still reeling from their role as the main course of the European ‘meat-sandwich’ that was the second world war, went on the hunt for Nazi aiders and abettors who destroyed their people. Contrary to what mainstream readers are allowed to know, WWII Nazi and Waffen SS leaders, Goebbels’s publishers and editors (otherwise known as propagandists), willing and outright Nazi collaborators and vicious killers, made their way out of conquered Germany to the United States [under CIA direction] and to Canada, under MI-6 direction, [and Canada] took in 2000 of them. Most of them ‘made their way’ to Ontario and Alberta. One of them even became the President of the University of Alberta. I repeat, one of them EVEN BECAME THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA. … It was this former Waffen SS soldier-turned University President who created the Ukrainian Studies department at the U of A. … Michael Chomiak, another of these significant Nazis who were never caught, lived out his days after the war as a farmer in Alberta. His Nazi identification documents were uncovered by the Polish Government in the 1960’s. “Chomiak’s records show he was trained in Vienna for German espionage and propaganda operations, then promoted to run the German press machine for the Galician region of Ukraine and Poland during the 4-year occupation. So high-ranking and active in the Nazi cause was Chomiak that the Polish intelligence services were actively hunting for Chomiak until the 1980s – without knowing he had fled for safety to an Alberta farm in Canada.” [Editing note: Please see link for John Helmer’s extensive work on uncovering Freeland’s Nazi family history.] Poland was on the hunt but lost the trail because he was well hidden by their WWII ‘ally’, the British, unbeknownst to my fellow peaceful Canadians.
Chomiac was Chrystia Freeland’s father. Chrystia Freeland loves him very much and is unshakably loyal to his memory and to his far-right beliefs, which she proudly supports. She also is a close friend of George Soros, who likewise is entirely unembarrassed at, and unapologietic about, his having, as a supposed Christian child in Hungary, helped the Nazis take the property of other Jews, before they were sent off to the concentration camps. He chose to do that — help the Nazi regime — rather than die as a Jew himself. Of course, subsequently, he founded the rabidly anti-Russian Open Society Foundation and other political ‘charities’ to tax-exempt his global political donations. Soros, too, is a passionate supporter of the US coup in Ukraine and of Ukraine’s far-right, and helped to finance (tax-exempt via his International Renaissance Fund) Obama’s Ukrainian coup by being one of the three top donors to Hromadske TV, which propagandized for slaughtering at least one and a half million of the people in the far eastern region of Ukraine, where Obama’s imposed far-right Ukrainian government was totally rejected. It’s the region that had voted over 90% for the Ukrainian President whom Obama-Nuland overthrew, and George Soros was a top funder of such exterminationist propaganda. So, it’s reasonable that his fellow anti-Russian fanatic, Freeland, is a friend of his.
That’s the “liberal” side of fascism. The “conservative” side of it is represented by such people as John Bolton and the Koch brothers.
Of course, the man whom the US and Canadian regimes and the Lima Group are trying to install as Venezuela’s President, Juan Guaido, had been well groomed for that job, but not by political and electoral experience, of which he has almost none, but by his foreign sponsors. On 29 January 2019 the Gray Zone Project bannered “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader”, and their two star investigative journalists, Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, opened: “Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.” This report also noted that “The ‘real work’ began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington, DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [and the IMF is a central part the operation that’s described in John Perkins’s now-classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man] who spent more than a decade working in the Venezuelan energy sector, under the old oligarchic regime that was ousted by Chávez.” Moreover, ”Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.” Etc. This is how ‘democracy’ now functions. It’s not democracy — it is fascism. The euphemisms for it are “neoliberalism” and “neoconservatism.”
Regardless of whether or not the Trump-Freeland-Luna program for Venezuela succeeds, democracy and human rights won’t be advanced by it; but, if it succeeds, the fortunes of US-and-allied billionaires will be. It’s part of their global privatization program.
PS: If you want to understand what was the historical context where Inner City Press reported that “The title of the meeting is ‘the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter’”; then Luk Van Langenhove has summarized that context, by saying: “Few invocations of Chapter VIII’s provisions were made during the cold war period. But when the bipolar world system collapsed and spawned new global security threats, the explosion of local and regional armed conflicts provoked a renewed interest in regional organizations and their role in the maintenance of regional peace and security. The United Nations was forced to acknowledge its inability to solely bear the responsibility for providing peace and security worldwide.” So, “during the cold war period,” this provision of the UN Charter remained virtually inactive. Then, suddenly, after 1991, when the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance to counter America’s NATO military alliance, all ended (with no concessions being made on the American side), America could no longer use ‘communism’ as a ‘justification’ to invade or perpetrate coups against foreign governments that were friendly toward or else allied with Russia. So, now, this provision of the UN’s Charter became activated by the US and its allies, in order to be able to say that The West’s coups and invasions aren’t actually to build-out the US empire, but are instead for (in the terms of this part of the UN’s Charter) “the maintenance of international peace and security” — so as to ‘authorize’ coups and international invasions by the US and its vassal nations, such as are the members of NATO. This is what US President G.H.W. Bush had in mind to rely upon, when he told the leaders of the US regime’s vassal states, secretly at Camp David, on the night of 24 February 1990, that the ‘Cold War’ would now continue secretly on the US-allied side, against Russia and against any nation’s leaders (such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and Viktor Yanukovych) that aren’t hostile toward Russia, by Bush’s saying then to them, that no compromise must ever be allowed “with Moscow,” because “To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn’t.” In other words, whereas the UN had been set up by FDR to evolve ultimately into the global democratic federation of nation-states — a democratic world-government — so as to become the sole possessor of control over all strategic weaponry, and thus to become the democratic republic of the entire world authorized to settle international disputes peacefully, the subterranean Nazis and other fascists whom US President Truman and the Bilderberg group represented, were determined that the US and its vassal nations would ultimately become the dictatorship over all nations, the entire world. That’s what Ukraine, and now Venezuela, and many other US coups and invasions, are — and have been — really about. It’s about the ‘peace’ of the graveyard, NOT any democracy, anywhere at all.
That’s their dream. They want to monopolize the corruption everywhere, not to end it, anywhere. And that’s why they distort and blatantly lie about Venezuela’s democratic constitution now, just as they did about Ukraine’s democratic constitution in February 2014. It’s, essentially, a lawless international gang of billionaire thugs. It is the international Deep State. It consists of the under 2,000 people who are international billionaires in the US and secondarily in the US-allied countries, and of those billionaires’ millions of hirees. 585 of those under-2,000 are Americans. But the wealthiest person on the planet isn’t even listed on any of the standard lists of billionaires, and he is the King of Saudi Arabia. That person is the US aristocracy’s #1 international ally, because ever since the 1970s when gold no longer backed the US dollar but instead oil did, that person’s decisions have enabled the US dollar to continue as being the world’s reserve currency, no matter how big the US economy’s trade deficits are, and no matter how high the US Government’s fiscal deficits are.
Below those billionaires (and trillionaire), and below their millions of hirees, are the billions of serfs; and, below those, at the very bottom, are the approximately 40 million slaves, and the many millions imprisoned — virtually all of whom have extremely low (if any) net worth at all, since slavery and imprisonment are, in the real world, only for the very poor, not at all for the international gangsters, except for a very few exceptions (such as, perhaps, “El Chapo”).
The billionaires command, and the governments obey; that’s ‘democracy’, and it’s ‘the rule of law’, today. Everything to the contrary is propaganda, such as that what Trump-Freeland-Luna want for Venezuela is to decrease corruption and to increase democracy and human rights.
At least the more blatant fascist John Bolton was honest when he said on January 28th: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” But he would have been lots more honest if he had acknowledged, instead, that “It will make a big difference to the United States billionaires economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” This is all that the fascists ever really cared about. Mussolini called it “corporationism.” Now, decades in the wake of the Allies’ supposed ‘victory against fascism’ — against the Axis powers — in WW II, we all (at least the realists) are acknowledging that we clearly are staring in the face the raw fact that fascism has finally won, or at least very nearly totally won, in the world.
Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito, died; but their ideological followers today rule the world, and FDR would be turning in his grave.
- In Rare Interview, Ivanka Trump Says She's "Not Worried" About Mueller Indictments
Despite serving as a senior advisor to her father (alongside her husband, Jared Kushner), Ivanka Trump has managed to avoid the media spotlight since the early days of her father’s administration, when a flurry of leaks focused on the battle for influence between Ivanka, Jared and former Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn and the nationalist contingent led by Steve Bannon.
But in a rare interview with ABC’s “The View” that comes just days after President Trump committed to passing paid family leave during his State of the Union address – and after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff intimated that her brother, Don Jr., may have perjured himself during closed-door testimony to the Intelligence Committee – Ivanka told her interviewer that she’s “not worried” about Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicting her, or any members of her family, being indicted by Mueller.
Asked “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman whether she’s worried about “anyone in your life that you love being involved” in the probe, Ivanka replied that she has “zero concern” about any future indictments.
“Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love being involved?” Huntsman asked.
“I’m not. I’m really not,” Ivanka replied.
She also said she knew little about talks between the Trump Organization and Russia back in 2015 about the possibility of building a Trump Tower Moscow. She also backed up her father’s characterization of the Moscow deal as something that was merely “floating around” and that it was not “an advanced project.”
“Literally almost nothing,” she said when asked about her knowledge of the deal. “We were an active business.”
“There was never a binding contract. I never talked to the – with a third party outside of the organization about it. It was one of – I mean we could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Nobody visited it to see if it was worth our time. So this was not exactly like an advanced project.”
Reports that Mueller’s probe may soon be ending have stoked speculation that the special counsel might be closing in on indicting more members of Trump’s inner circle, with Don Jr. and Jared frequently speculated as potential subjects of indictments.
Watch the interview below:
- The U.S. Faces A Catastrophic Food Supply Crisis In America As Farmers Struggle
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
American farmers are battling several issues when it comes to producing our food. Regulated low prices, tariffs, and the inability to export have all cut into the salaries of farmers. They are officially in crisis mode, just like the United States’ food supply.
“The farm economy’s in pretty tough shape,” said John Newton, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“When you look out on the horizon of things to come, you start to see some cracks.”
Average farm income has fallen to near 15-year lows under president Donald Trump’s policies, and in some areas of the country, farm bankruptcies are soaring. And with slightly higher interest rates, many don’t see borrowing more money as an option. “A lot of farmers are going to give the president the benefit of the doubt, and have to date. But the longer the trade war goes on, the more that dynamic changes,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, according to Politico.
With no end to the disastrous trade war in sight, many farmers have traveled to Washington to share their plights with the president himself hoping that he’ll end the trade war that’s exacerbating an already precarious food crisis. Farmers make up a fairly large chunk of president Trump’s base, and an unwillingness to put food production in the United States first could be detrimental for Trump reelection chances in 2020. It could also be the beginning of a catastrophic food shortage.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis warned back in November of rising Chapter 12 bankruptcies used by family farmers to restructure massive amounts of debt. The Fed said that the strain of low commodity prices “is starting to show up not just in bottom-line profitability, but in simple viability.” The increase in bankruptcies was driven by woes in Wisconsin’s dairy sector, which shrunk by about 1,200 operations, or 13 percent, from 2016 to October 2018.
“You’ve had farms that have gone out of business, that have gone bankrupt because of this trade war,” said Kuehl of Farmers for Free Trade.
“There’s a lot of farmers going through tough conversations right now with their lenders.”
And so far, the government’s solution to the problem they created is to give more welfare to farmers, placing the burden on the backs of taxpayers.
As the government continues to pass the burden onto others while destroying the food industry, things could very well reach apocalyptic levels. Nothing will see this country spiral into complete disarray like a lack of food. Alarmingly, scientists have already said that the global food supply system is broken.
To put it simply, government interference in the agriculture industry is responsible for the food crisis we all are about to face.
- "WTF Is Going On In Downtown LA?": Army War Drills Continue Across Los Angeles
Having started on Monday, the US Army continues its war drills across the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area through Saturday with the goal of enhancing Army Special Forces skills by “operating in urban environments”, Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.
Residents around Los Angeles may hear sounds associated with the field training exercise, including helicopters and weapon simulations, according to the statement.
“The local terrain and training facilities in Los Angeles provide the Army with unique locations and simulates urban environments the service members may encounter when deployed overseas,” the Army told CBS.
Downtown Los Angeles residents were shocked Monday night when a fleet of Boeing A/MH-6M Little Bird and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters swooped in around them.
👀WTF is going on in downtown Los Angeles??? 👀 Multiple military helicopters landing on the street!!!#QAnon pic.twitter.com/jlUmBkfPRb
— Uche (@ThatsUche) February 7, 2019
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A commercial parking lot across the street from the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 14, at 1000 W Olympic Blvd, was the epicenter of some intense war simulations Tuesday night.
MILITARY EXERCISE: The U.S. Army is conducting military training in the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach areas tonight until Feb. 9. Downtown LA residents are reporting seeing helicopters and hearing explosions. @MizSkellington pic.twitter.com/8Mmgn2FdTK
— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) February 5, 2019
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Newchopper4 Bravo was overhead as Special Forces performed training exercises in the parking lot, then were extracted by helicopters before taking off over the 110 Freeway while police blocked nearby intersections.
Not every day that you see the @USArmy training in downtown LA and landing helicopters close to @STAPLESCenter and LA Live. https://t.co/mXi8qNpgKn pic.twitter.com/b7HvhwjO3V
— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) February 6, 2019
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There were other field training exercises that were on the perimeter of the city, away from populated areas and toward the San Pedro Bay port Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning.
The Army leased space in an industrially zoned area around the Port of Los Angeles near Terminal Island for field training exercises Wednesday night, according to Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the L.A. port. Port operations at Long Beach, the second largest port in the US, were not affected, port spokesman Lee Peterson told the Los Angeles Times.
Sanfield said residents living on houseboats in marinas around Wilmington were notified they might hear helicopters, explosions, and simulated assault rifle fire.
“There is no replacement for realistic training. Each location selected enables special operations teams and flight crews to maintain maximum readiness and proficiency, validate equipment and exercise standard safety procedures. The training is essential to ensure service members are fully trained and prepared to defend our nation overseas.”
The Army Special Operations Command conducts multiple urban field training exercises around the country, said Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, a spokesman for the command group.
“It wouldn’t be unheard of to train in Boston or Miami,” he said.
“It takes a lot of planning and coordination to do this safely.”
This is not the first time residents of a major metropolitan area across the US have experienced a military exercise. For instance, in 2015, Texas residents prepared for Jade Helm 15, an army training exercise which took place in multiple states.
As to what exactly the Army was preparing for by simulating war drills on the streets of Los Angeles was beyond our comprehension. One thing that is obvious: the Army is preparing for more conflict, whether with a foreign adversary or, more troubling, social unrest on the streets of America?
- 35 Mind-Blowing Facts About America That Previous Generations Never Would Have Believed
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
The only thing that seems to be constant in our society is change, and today America is changing at a pace that is more rapid than we have ever seen before. But is that a good thing or a bad thing?
For a moment, I would like for you to imagine what it would be like for a group of average Americans from 1919 to suddenly be transported to our time. How do you think that they would feel about what we have become? Certainly they would be absolutely amazed by our advanced technology, but beyond that they would almost certainly have very strong opinions about the current state of our society. Similarly, if any of us were suddenly transported 100 years into the future, I am sure that we would be completely and utterly shocked by how things had changed. The decisions that we make today are going to echo long into the future, and if we make very bad decisions there might not be a future for our country at all.
The following are 35 mind blowing facts about America that previous generations of Americans never would have believed…
#1 Approximately one-fourth of the entire global prison population is in the United States.
#2 By the time an American child reaches the age of 18, that child will have seen approximately 40,000 murders on television.
#3 The average U.S. adult “logs 6 hours, 43 minutes of total screen time daily”.
#4 Approximately 96 percent of all Americans use the Internet.
#5 According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 56,000 bridges in the United States are currently “structurally deficient”. What makes that number even more chilling is the fact that vehicles cross those bridges a total of 185 million times a day.
#6 In more than half of all U.S. states, the highest paid public employee in the state is a football coach.
#7 The Pentagon has more square footage of office space than any other office building in the entire world.
#8 The state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of Rhode Island. But Rhode Island has a significantly larger population than Alaska does.
#9 Alaska has a longer coastline than all of the other 49 U.S. states put together.
#10 The city of Juneau, Alaska is about 3,000 square miles in size. It is actually larger than the entire state of Delaware.
#11 The average age of America’s dams is now 52 years.
#12 The average supermarket in the United States wastes about 3,000 pounds of food each year.
#13 There are more than 75 million dogs in the United States, and that number is constantly growing.
#14 Montana has three times as many cows as it does people.
#15 The grizzly bear is the official state animal of California. But no grizzly bears have been seen in the state since 1922.
#16 The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaii.
#17 More than 2 million Americans work for Wal-Mart.
#18 Half of all American workers make less than $30,533 a year.
#19 According to one recent survey, 37 percent of all Americans eat fast food every 24 hours.
#20 One study found that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.
#21 Almost one-third of all Millennials are still living with their parents.
#22 The suicide rate in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 1999.
#23 Women have earned at least 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in the United States for 18 years in a row.
#24 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would have the fifth largest GDPon the entire planet.
#25 America does not have a single airport that is considered to be in the top 25 in the world.
#26 Today, a million Americans are living in their RVS, and that number is rising with each passing year.
#27 More than 100 churches in the United States are dying every single week.
#28 The original name of the city of Atlanta was “Terminus“.
#29 There are three towns in the United States that have the name “Santa Claus“.
#30 There is actually a town in Michigan called “Hell“, and during the recent polar vortex it actually froze over.
#31 Almost one-third of all land in the United States is owned by the federal government.
#32 More than 27 million acres of U.S. farmland is owned by foreigners.
#33 Congestion on our highways costs Americans approximately 101 billion dollars a year in wasted fuel and time.
#34 According to Bloomberg, it is being projected “that by 2025, shortfalls in infrastructure investment will subtract as much as $3.9 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product.”
#35 In 1980, the U.S. national debt had just surpassed the one trillion dollar mark. In 2019, we are about to surpass the 22 trillion dollar mark with no end in sight.
These days, just about everyone that tries to step forward and shake up the system is slapped with heavy criticism.
But at least they are trying to do something.
Holding an important position does not make you a leader. Rather, being a leader is about having a positive vision for the future and doing whatever you can to achieve that vision.
We have way too many “leaders” out there that are simply filling seats. Our country is literally falling apart at the seams, and all they can think about is protecting their careers.
America desperately needs change, but unfortunately we have very few change agents. So we continue to steamroll toward our date with destiny, and time is not on our side.
- Meet The Rich Kids Of Venezuela
Like every socialist state in the history of the world, the children of Venezuela’s socialist elite spend their time galavanting around Europe and fanning themselves with 100-dollar-bills while the people immiserated by their family’s policies starve in the streets.
Maria Gabriella, the oldest daughter of former leader Hugo Chavez, is Venezuela’s richest woman, according to the Daily Mail. She reportedly is worth some $4 billion, thanks to a fortune that has been secreted away in European bank accounts. The wealthy socialite earned her fortune while serving as Venezuela’s first lady when her father was still alive.
Former Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Maria Gabriella
But while Gabriella relies on diplomatic immunity (she is Venezuela’s alternative ambassador to the UN), her younger sister Rosines Chavez fled the country for Paris more than two years ago after a photo of her flaunting dollar bills went viral, provoking widespread outrage. Now, the 21-year-old Rosines is enjoying the luxe life in Paris as a student at the Sorbonne.
Rosines Chavez
But if Chavez’s children are behaving badly by the standards of socialism (where being rich is a sin and being a billionaire is a policy error), the children of Chavez’s successor are doing even worse.
Nicolas Maduro’s stepsons Yoswal Gavidia Flores and Walter Gavidia Flores recently managed to blow $45,000 on an extravagant 18-night stay at the Ritz hotel in Paris, where rooms cost $591 a night, and breakfast is an extra $40.
Yoswal Gavidia Flores and Walter Gavidia Flores
Moreover, while Maduro’s sons were partying in Paris, six out of ten Venezuelans reported having a relative who went without in order to feed their family, while one in 12 families in the country have been forced to scavenge for food in dumpsters.
Their hotel bill, according to the DM’s calculations, was equivalent to the monthly wages of 2,000 Venezuelans.
Maduro himself has been criticized for his largesse, recently appearing in a video at a banquet hosted by the Turkish restaurateur better known as “Salt Bae”.
Salt Bae and Nicolas Maduro
But only one of the rich kid’s of Venezuela has an Instagram presence on par with the wealthy offspring of American and European elite. And that’s the daughter of Maduro’s second-in-command Diosdado Cabello. Cabello’s daughter Daniela has achieved Internet fame thanks to her stunning beauty and celebrity lifestyle, which she shares with her boyfriend, the Latin pop-singer Omar Acedo.
Daniela Cabello
Daniela Cabello
To be sure, not all of Venezuela’s rich kids have it so lucky: Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores are languishing in a US jail, where they will remain for the duration of an 18-year sentence, after they were caught trying to smuggle $20 million worth of cocaine into the USA via Haiti.
- US Military Fuel Tanks Threaten Aquifer In Hawaii
Authored by Ann Wright via ConsortiumNews.com,
A major spill of jet fuel in 2014 should have shut down this aging, leaking, storage complex…
The North Korean missile scare in Hawaii a year ago was alarming. But that fear has abated. Once again the greatest perceived threat to the island of Oahu comes from our own U.S. military.
A massive complex of 20 U.S. military storage tanks is buried in a bluff called Red Hill that overlooks Honolulu’s primary drinking water supply, 100 feet below.
The walls on the 75-year-old jet fuel tanks are now so thin that the edge of a dime is thicker. Each of the underground tanks holds 12.5 million gallons of jet fuel; 225,000,000 gallons in total.
In 2014, 27,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked through a weak spot on a tank that had been repaired with a welded patch. The welding gave way and the fuel entered the the water supply.
An Ohau beach.
Drinking water is currently safe to drink, but traces of petroleum chemicals are being detected in the groundwater near the tanks.
Leaks have been going on for years. Studies have documented them since 1947. The continued corrosion of the tank liners constantly risks a catastrophic fuel release.
Concerned citizens on the island have for decades been trying to get the U.S. Navy to remove the tanks. The military’s position is that the fuel tanks are of strategic importance to U.S. national security and are being maintained as well as 75-year old tanks can be.
Formidable Opponent
The military is a formidable political opponent here.
Military expenditures in Hawaii—direct and indirect combined— generate $14.7 billion into Hawaii’s economy, creating more than 102,000 jobs. Military procurement contracts amount to about $2.3 billion annually, making it a prime source of contracting opportunities for hundreds of Hawaii’s small businesses, including significant military construction projects.
The state of Hawaii is one of the most militarized states in the nation. Oahu is one of the most militarized islands. It has seven major U.S. military bases, including Pearl Harbor Naval and Hickam Air Force, headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
U.S. Marines in exercise at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, 2004. (Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Jane West, U.S. Navy)
The island has a total of 36,620 military personnel spread over the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard. When the 64,000 military family members and military contractors are added to the active duty military, the military-industrial complex on Oahu numbers about 100,000, 10 percent of Oahu’s total population of 988,000.
The U.S. has acknowledged the medical problems the contamination of the drinking supply caused at another community; the huge U.S. Marine Base at Camp Lejeune, N. C., and Marine Corps Air Station in New River, North Carolina.
From 1953 through 1987, tens of thousands of Marines and their families were exposed to two on-base water wells that were contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE), benzene, vinyl chloride among other compounds from on-base leaking storage tanks and an off-base dry cleaner.
At long last, the Veterans Administration has acknowledged the dangerous situation on the bases in North Carolina that was ignored for decades. The VA has declared that a large number of diseases are caused by the chemicals and that military and family members who have contracted these diseases and who are still living will be compensated.
On the other side of the country from North Carolina, the Navy has already closed down one complex of underground jet fuel storage tanks at Point Loma, California, which had 54 storage tanks. The riveted seams on the underground tanks began leaking as they aged. When 1.5 million gallons of fuel spilled from the site in 2006, the U.S. Navy was decided to replace the tanks.
Question of When, Not If
For us on Oahu, the bottom line is that when —not if —the massive jet fuel storage tanks leak into the aquifer of Honolulu, city, state and federal officials must be held accountable. The public has given them plenty of warning of their concerns.
In Flint, Mich., officials also knew that the drinking water was contaminated. They didn’t do anything to stop the community from using it. Remarkably, no Flint official has gone to jail yet, but the community is demanding accountability for malfeasance in office—which would be the same in Honolulu when disaster strikes on the jet fuel storage tanks.
I will make this personal.
I am 72 years old and served 29 years in the U.S. military. I retired 20 years ago. The 20 jet fuel storage tanks are 75 years old and have served each of those 75 years and are still serving.
At 72, I have had the normal number of aches and pains including a hip replacement that didn’t turn out the best and skin cancer surgery that left skin grafts and patches on my face, head and leg.
At 75, the 20-story jet fuel storage tanks also have had aches and pains as well as their skin getting thinner and thinner due to seven decades of corrosion. Patching of the thin skin of the Red Hill jet fuel tanks didn’t turn out so well either, with the welding on one of the patches giving way in 2014.
Those of us in our 70s, whether we are fuel tanks or humans, know all about leaks—it’s a hazard of age.
I retired from the U.S. Army after 29 years of service. After 75 years of service, it’s time to retire the leaking Red Hill Storage tanks—and protect our precious water supply.
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