- Mapping Where Where U.S. Troops Are Based In The Middle East
On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen, Libya's eastern-based government and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, creating a new crisis in the Arab world. U.S. President Donald Trump quickly waded into the row, lambasting Qatar in a series of tweets. Joining the Gulf states in labeling Qatar a funder of extremism, Trump tweeted that his visit to Saudi Arabia "was already paying off" and that Monday's developments could mark the "beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism."
However, as Statista's Nial McCarthy notes, despite Trump's tweets and his accusations against Qatar, the country actually plays host to the largest U.S. base in the Middle East. Located southwest of Doha, Al Udeid Air Base hosts an estimated 10,000 U.S. troops and the facility has been proven crucial in the fight against ISIS. Qatar invested $1 billion in constructing the base and it's also home to the the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center, responsible for coordinating U.S. and allied air power across the Middle East, particularly in airspace over Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Indeed, the base is likely to become even more important in the coming weeks as a U.S. backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters gain traction in their offensive towards the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. In the wake of Monday's events and Trump's comments, the Defense Department praised Qatar for hosting the base and its "enduring commitment to regional security". State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said "we recognize that Qatar has made great efforts to stop the financing of terrorism but they still have a lot of work to do."
The following infographic highlights just how important Qatar is to the U.S. presence in the Middle East.
You will find more statistics at Statista
The country hosts an estimated 10,000 U.S. troops, second only to Kuwait's 15,000. Neighboring Bahrain is also vital to American interests in the region, home to the Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the U.S. Fifth Fleet and a substantial military presence at Isa Air Base.
- LiBTaRD ToDaY…
- Democrats Chase Red Herring Of 'Russia-Gate'
Authored by Norman Solomon via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
President Trump has caused many prominent progressives to degrade their own political discourse. It’s up to us to challenge the corrosive effects of routine hyperbole and outright demagoguery.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Consider the rhetoric from one of the most promising new House members, Democrat Jamie Raskin, at a rally near the Washington Monument over the weekend. Reading from a prepared text, Raskin warmed up by declaring that “Donald Trump is the hoax perpetrated on the Americans by the Russians.”
Soon the congressman named such varied countries as Hungary, the Philippines, Syria and Venezuela, and immediately proclaimed: “All the despots, dictators and kleptocrats have found each other, and Vladimir Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world.”
Later, asked about factual errors in his speech, Raskin floundered during a filmed interview with The Real News.
What is now boilerplate Democratic Party bombast about Russia has little to do with confirmed facts and much to do with partisan talking points.
The same day that Raskin spoke, the progressive former Labor Secretary Robert Reich featured at the top of his website an article he’d written with the headline “The Art of the Trump-Putin Deal.” The piece had striking similarities to what progressives have detested over the years when coming from right-wing commentators and witch-hunters. The timeworn technique was dual track, in effect: I can’t prove it’s true, but let’s proceed as though it is.
The lead of Reich’s piece was clever. Way too clever: “Say you’re Vladimir Putin, and you did a deal with Trump last year. I’m not suggesting there was any such deal, mind you. But if you are Putin and you did do a deal, what did Trump agree to do?” From there, Reich’s piece was off to the conjectural races.
Propaganda Techniques
Progressives routinely deplore such propaganda techniques from right-wingers, not only because the Left is being targeted but also because we seek a political culture based on facts and fairness rather than innuendos and smears. It’s painful now to see numerous progressives engaging in hollow propaganda.
CIA seal in lobby of the spy agency’s headquarters. (U.S. government photo)
Likewise, it’s sad to see so much eagerness to trust in the absolute credibility of institutions like the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency — institutions that previously earned wise distrust. Over the last few decades, millions of Americans have gained keen awareness of the power of media manipulation and deception by the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. Yet now, faced with an ascendant extreme right wing, some progressives have yielded to the temptation of blaming our political predicament more on a foreign “enemy” than on powerful corporate forces at home.
The over-the-top scapegoating of Russia serves many purposes for the military-industrial complex, Republican neocons, and kindred “liberal interventionist” Democrats. Along the way, the blame-Russia-first rhetoric is of enormous help to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party — a huge diversion lest its elitism and entwinement with corporate power come under greater scrutiny and stronger challenge from the grassroots.
In this context, the inducements and encouragements to buy into an extreme anti-Russia frenzy have become pervasive. A remarkable number of people claim certainty about hacking and even “collusion” — events that they cannot, at this time, truly be certain about. In part that’s because of deceptive claims endlessly repeated by Democratic politicians and news media.
One example is the rote and highly misleading claim that “17 U.S. intelligence agencies” reached the same conclusion about Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee — a claim that journalist Robert Parry effectively debunked in an article last week.
What Americans Want
During a recent appearance on CNN, former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner offered a badly needed perspective on the subject of Russia’s alleged intrusion into the U.S. election. People in Flint, Michigan, “wouldn’t ask you about Russia and Jared Kushner,” she said. “They want to know how they’re gonna get some clean water and why 8,000 people are about to lose their homes.”
White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is also President Trump’s son-in-law
Turner noted that “we definitely have to deal with” allegations of Russian interference in the election, “it’s on the minds of American people, but if you want to know what people in Ohio — they want to know about jobs, they want to know about their children.” As for Russia, she said, “We are preoccupied with this, it’s not that this is not important, but every day Americans are being left behind because it’s Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Like corporate CEOs whose vision extends only to the next quarter or two, many Democratic politicians have been willing to inject their toxic discourse into the body politic on the theory that it will be politically profitable in the next election or two. But even on its own terms, the approach is apt to fail. Most Americans are far more worried about their economic futures than about the Kremlin. A party that makes itself more known as anti-Russian than pro-working-people has a problematic future.
Today, 15 years after George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” oratory set the stage for ongoing military carnage, politicians who traffic in unhinged rhetoric like “Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world” are helping to fuel the warfare state — and, in the process, increasing the chances of direct military conflict between the United States and Russia that could go nuclear and destroy us all.
But such concerns can seem like abstractions compared to possibly winning some short-term political gains. That’s the difference between leadership and demagoguery.
- Questioning Government Is What Makes You An American
Authored by Rachel Blevins via TheAntiMedia.org,
Questioning your government does not make you Un-American.
It shouldn’t be a hard concept to understand, but based on a lot of the messages and the comments I have received this week, it sounds like some of y’all need a little help…
The United States was founded on the principle that citizens should have free speech, and they should be able to question their government. Yet today, we live in a country where if you use your First Amendment rights in a way that people don’t like, they tell you that if you don’t like what is going on, you should leave the country.
Seriously? This is what it has come to? You just have to take everything you’re fed, and then thank your masters, because at least you’re a slave in the best country in the world?
It amazes me that even at a time when our shiny new Republican president is doing exactly what his Democratic opponent would have done, we still have a public that is brainwashed into believing there is actually a difference between the two parties.
I have been accused of being both a leftist liberal snowflake, and a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and I am often asked where I stand politically, and what party I align with. The answer is always, none of the above.
I believe that the government should be as small as possible, and it’s not my job to tell you which master should rule over you, or how you should live your life. As long as you’re not harming anyone, I believe you should be able to do what you want—it’s your life.
I believe that mass surveillance is unacceptable, and that citizens should turn to their communities when they need help, instead of waiting for government handouts.
I believe that both police officers and politicians should be held accountable for their actions.
In a world filled with problems, I believe that we should take care of our own issues before pointing the finger at others.
I believe that overthrowing governments in sovereign nations is wrong, war should be avoided at all costs, and absolutely nothing justifies killing innocent civilians.
Most importantly, I believe that questioning authority is what truly makes you patriotic—not the other way around.
- Visualizing The Global Demographic Timebomb
With record-high amounts of student debt, questionable job prospects, and too much avocado toast in their bellies, many millennials already feel like they are getting the short end of the stick.
But, as Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, there’s another economic headwind they face as they are coming of age: the percentage of the global population that is 65 or older will double from 10% to 20% by 2050.
As millennials enter their peak earning years, there will be 1.6 billion elderly people on the planet.
SOMEONE HAS TO PAY THE BILL
Today’s infographic comes to us from Aperion Care, and it highlights how demographics are shifting as well as the economic challenges of a rapidly aging global population.
Courtesy of: Visual CapitalistWith an older population that works less, support and dependency ratios get out of whack.
After all, countries already spend trillions of dollars each year on healthcare and social security. These systems were designed a long time ago, and were not setup to work with so few people paying into the programs.
WHICH COUNTRIES FACE HEADWINDS?
While most countries face similar obstacles with aging populations, for some the problem is more severe.
The Potential Support Ratio (PSR), a measure of amount of working people (15-64) for each person over 65+ in age, is anticipated to fall below 5.0 in countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom. These countries will all have significant portions of their populations (>30%) made up of elderly people by 2050.
The United States sits in a slightly better situation with 27.9% of its population expected to hit 65 or higher by the same year – however, this is still analogous to modern-day Germany (which sits at 27.6%), a country that is already dealing with big demographic issues.
Here’s one other look, from our previous Chart of the Week on dropping fertility rates and global aging:
Will millennials be able to diffuse the demographic timebomb, or will an aging population be the final straw?
- Tolerance-Preaching Professor: 'Diversity Of Opinion' Is "White Supremacist Bullshit"
Authored by Justin Caruso via Campus Reform blog,
- At a recent conference on Critical Race Theory, professors discussed how "there is no virtue in whiteness," with some saying "whiteness" is "inherently violent."
- Other conference-goers reportedly called the concept of intellectual diversity "white supremacist bullshit," while another said "research" is a "colonial, white supremacist, elite process."
Professors at a recent conference hosted by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis reportedly called whiteness “inherently violent,” saying “diversity of opinion” is just “white supremacist bullshit.”
The conference, held between May 31 and June 2, was organized by the Critical Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA), an organization that frequently hosts similar events to bring together an “interdisciplinary consortium of experts who recognize global implications of race and education for minoritized people.”
“As a community, we are committed to (1) countering and combating systemic and structural racism with scholarship and praxis, (2) recognizing the multiple locations of oppression and the myriad manifestations and effects of their intersections and (3) co-constructing liberating knowledge that facilitates collective agency to transform schools and communities,” the group describes itself on its website, a description supported by several attendees at its most recent conference, who quoted highlights from the event on Twitter.
“Whiteness has already been constructed against blackness. There is no virtue in whiteness, it is inherently violent,” one conference-goer tweeted, referencing a quote from Michael Dumas, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who spoke at the event.
“Whiteness and the United States knows itself through the violence and death of the subordinated,” another attendee quoted Dumas as saying, with one academic at the conference noting Dumas claimed that there “is no position of whiteness that isn’t already violent.”
Dumas, notably, has expressed similar views in the past, tweeting that “whiteness” is “violent and delusional, delighting in Black death in every historical moment," claiming at the recent conference that “there will never be anything close to justice in the U.S. because the system is built upon violence.”
Other conference speakers, such as Indiana University at Purdue Professor David Stovall, apparently called the term “diversity of opinion” “white supremacist bullshit,” saying “white tears are an act of physical and political violence.”
According to another attendee, Professor James Scheurich, who also teaches at Indiana University’s Purdue campus, claimed that “research” is a “colonial, white supremacist, elite process,” while Professor Theodorea Berry suggested that “some people need to be slapped into wokeness.”
Berry explained to Campus Reform that the "notion of being 'slapped into wokeness' is one where an individual comes to gain [a] level of understanding about others' oppression by experiencing oppression," saying this is "especially true for those socially marginalized" people "who subscribe to respectability politics."
"The proverbial 'slap' is the incident of marginalization," she added. "The 'wokeness' is the realization that regardless of your privilege, marginalization can occur."
One attendee, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, concluded her time at the conference by noting that she’s “happy” since she managed to collect “a few white tears.”
Campus Reform reached out to all of the professors quoted in this article, and will update it if and when responses are received.
- Home-Flippers Reliance On Leverage Rises To Highest Level In 9 Years
In the latest sign that the US housing market has peaked after an astounding post-crisis run-up, a report by ATTOM Data Solutions showed that the number of homes flipped by speculators fell to its lowest level in two years.
The report showed that 43,615 single family homes and condos were flipped nationwide during the first quarter of 2017, the lowest number since the first quarter of 2015.
However, even as the number of flipped homes has fallen, their share of total real-estate transactions has actually risen. During the first quarter, they accounted for 6.7% of all transactions, up from 5.8% in the fourth quarter of 2016, and unchanged from the same period a year earlier.
“The business of financing for home flippers continued to grow in the first quarter of 2017 even as the home flipping rate plateaued compared to a year ago and average home flipping returns decreased for the second consecutive quarter,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions.
“Home flippers financed an estimated $3.5 billion in purchases for homes flipped during the quarter, up from $3.3 billion in the previous quarter and up from $2.4 billion a year ago to the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2007 — a more than nine-year high.”
The explosion in home valuations in urban markets like Brooklyn, Washington D.C. and San Francisco has inspired real-estate speculators to search for the next big score, with the highest percentage of home flips completed with the aid of outside financing occurring in Colorado Springs, Colorado (69.3 percent); Denver, Colorado (54.8 percent); Seattle, Washington (51.6 percent); Boston, Massachusetts (51.3 percent); and Providence, Rhode Island (47.3 percent).
Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate noted that escalating home prices in Seattle forced flippers to rely on financing their purchases.
“Seattle has such a high number of flippers who are financing their purchases relative to the U.S. as a whole due to escalating home prices in our region. The decision to finance is proof that these flippers believe the risks of financing are low due to our booming housing market,” Gardner said in a statement.
Other markets where more than 40 percent of home flips completed in Q1 2017 were originally purchased by the speculator using financing included San Diego, California (46.3 percent); Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota (46.2 percent); Phoenix, Arizona (44.1 percent); San Francisco, California (43.0 percent); and Washington, D.C. (40.5 percent).
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“With low interest rates, and available lenders willing to provide non-owner occupied loans, we are seeing many of our investors across Southern California take advantage of leverage financing when participating in housing flips,” said Michael Mahon, president at First Team Real Estate, who covers the Southern California housing market.
The areas where home flipping constituted the highest share of all real-estate transactions was Washington, DC, with a rate of 10.7%, followed by Nevada (9.8 percent); Alabama (9.0 percent); Tennessee (8.9 percent); Maryland (8.5 percent); and Missouri (8.0 percent).
Among 85 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 90 single family and condo home flips completed in Q1 2017, those with the highest home flipping rate were Memphis, Tennessee (15.1 percent); York-Hanover, Pennsylvania (12.5 percent); Fresno, California (11.1 percent); Birmingham, Alabama (10.3 percent); and Las Vegas, Nevada (10.0 percent). Nationwide, the average return for flipped homes fell for the second straight quarter: The average gross flipping profit translated to an average 47.4 percent gross return for homes flipped in Q1 2017, down from an average 49.0 percent gross flipping ROI in Q4 2016 and an average 48.5 percent gross flipping ROI in Q1 2016.
The markets with the highest home-flipping returns were Pittsburgh, PA (141.8 percent); Allentown, Pennsylvania (122.2 percent); Cleveland, Ohio (118.6 percent); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (111.7 percent); and Baltimore, Maryland (106.0 percent).
The median size of homes flipped in Q1 2017 shrunk to 1,402 square feet – the smallest median square footage going back to Q1 2000, the earliest quarter for which data are available.
That’s down from a median 1,409 square feet in the previous quarter, and 1,428 square feet a year ago.The median year of construction for homes flipped in Q1 2017 was 1978, the same as in the previous quarter but down from a median of 1981 for homes flipped in Q1 2016.
ATTOM defines home flipping as "an arms-length sale of a property for the second time within a 12-month period."
- What Do "Think Tanks" Think About?
Authored by Bonner & Co.'s Bill Bonner, annotated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,
“Russiagate”
First, there is a dust-up in the Washington, D.C., area. “Russiagate,” it is called. As near as we can make out, some people think the Trump team had or has illegal or inappropriate contacts with the Russian government.
It’s all very obvious, if one looks closely… Putin has inundated the brains of US voters with his evil Putin rays from his redoubt in Moscow, causing them to make the wrong choice.
This knowledge, such as it is, has apparently been obtained by illegal or inappropriate leaks of information gotten by illegal or inappropriate eavesdropping by government agencies doing illegal or inappropriate things for illegal or inappropriate reasons.
Does it matter one way or another? Probably not. The insiders are firmly in control no matter which way it turns out. What we have here is a fight among insiders – a scrap over who gets to rip us off and how.
Mr. Trump has proven to be flexible and compliant. He is willing to go along with practically every scam and bamboozle in the Deep State repertoire. But much of the establishment finds him unreliable, embarrassing, and vulnerable.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
In Saudi Arabia, for example, the president delivered the big bucks to Raytheon and other arms merchants. But then he stiffed the “alternative energy” industry by rejecting the Paris climate change agreement. Both moves, he claimed, would lead to “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Trump:
“I have just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was a very, very successful trip, believe me.”
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer:
“The visit also included historic economic development deals for the United States, totaling well over half a trillion dollars and the creation of tens of thousands of American jobs.”
First he engages in professional sword dancing and then he single-handedly makes the sea levels rise… is there anything he cannot do?
The Saudi feds have money. They get it by selling oil to people who need it to power their factories, fuel their cars, and heat their houses. The money comes out of the productive, win-win economy.
Every penny of this money gets applied to something. They can use it to buy tanks and fighter jets. Or they can buy tomatoes or make movies. Big arms deals get the headlines, but do they create more jobs other than spending?
Does money spent by the feds ever create more wealth and satisfaction than money spent by the people who earned it?
The answer to both those questions is “no.” We know that only win-win deals add real wealth. Government arms deals are not win-win.
“But wait,” you say. “They might buy their tomatoes from anywhere… but we’ve got the high-tech killing machines. When they buy from Raytheon, they put Americans to work.”
Hmmm… Somewhere, someone looks at the Big Scheme of Things. He must wonder: Why is it better for an American to have a good job than, say, a Canadian? He must also wonder: Why is it better to pay people to build a tank than to build a truck?
All Downhill
Fighter jets are bought by the government – with money it took, by force, from its citizens. Most often, military spending serves no purpose other than to protect or enhance the power of the government. Only rarely does it pay to build a tank.
The last time American civilians were targeted by a conventional military attack was when Sherman’s Yankee army marched through Georgia – more than 150 years ago.
Sherman’s march to the sea – Sherman didn’t like railroad tracks, so he ordered his troops to remove them and tie them around trees (these tree ornaments became known as “Sherman’s necklaces”).
Like government itself, a little bit of “defense” spending may be necessary, but it fast reaches the point of declining marginal utility. Then, it is all downhill. The money is either wasted or used to create a bloodbath.
In the Middle East, it’s been going downhill for many decades; the odds that these weapons will be put to any honest service – such as preventing an attack on Saudi Arabia – are close to zero.
Drunken Bards
Weapons and warfare are favorite Deep State scams; they are ways to transfer wealth and power from the people who earn it to governments and their crony military suppliers.
And here, we draw a line – from “The Donald’s” trip to the Middle East… to a think tank called the Center for Gulf Affairs at the Middle East Institute… to the Raytheon corporation.
It always was and always will be the by far biggest racket of all time…
Reports Just Security, an online forum for national security issues:
“In March of this year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invited former ambassador Gerald Feierstein – director of the Center for Gulf Affairs at the Middle East Institute – to speak about the situation in Yemen and about his views on the sale of U.S. arms to the Saudis.
As one might have anticipated from his interview in the Washington Post, Feierstein told the committee, “Accusations of war crimes leveled against Saudi and Coalition armed forces and threats to end arms sales to the Saudis have the potential to inflict long-lasting damage to these relationships.” Limiting the supply of munitions, he said, would be “counter-productive” […]
Never disclosed in the Washington Post interview or in the Senate hearing was the source of funding for Feierstein’s Middle East Institute. According to its most recent public report, the Institute counts among its chief donors leading members of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and major arms manufacturers.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait provide the highest level of support as “Platinum Sponsors,” and the UAE [United Arab Emirates] is also a donor. Raytheon, the manufacturer of the very weapons at issue in the Senate hearing, is a Gold Sponsor of the Institute. It is worth noting, of course, that the Middle East Institute is not unique in Washington. The defense industry and foreign governments pump money into many think tanks.”
(emphasis added)
What do think tanks think about? Whatever they are paid to think about, of course. Like drunken bards, they sing praises to whomever will buy them a drink.
Post war rumors making the rounds.
- Tucker Talks Tentacle Porn After Kurt Eichenwald Caught Red Handed
Oh boy…
Senior Newsweek writer and MSNBC contributor Kurt Eichenwald was caught red handed Wednesday night after posting a screenshot to Twitter which happened to include several open tabs in his browser…
Users on 4chan noticed the tabs immediately and ENHANCED
And what did that lead to? Why – Japanese tentacle porn (Hentai)!
Kurt’s response
“I was looking up tentacle porn with my kid in order to prove to my wife it exists…”
Whatever Kurt, looking up tentacle porn with your adult offspring is beyond creepy.
Tucker’s on the case…
Tucker Carlson, who presided over Eichenwald’s “self immolation” last december as a guest of Tucker Carlson Tonight, couldn’t resist covering the latest in the saga of Kurt Eichenwald.
“Well of course! Just another afternoon of surfing the internet for hardcore porn with your kids!” -Tucker
VIDEO HERE (sorry for quality, will update):
Tucker Carlson worried about Kurt Eichenwald for surfing tentacle porn hentai with his kid. pic.twitter.com/CZaVAbdfSM
— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) June 9, 2017
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Reactions have been hilarious
— Rodin (@DatRodin) June 8, 2017
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You have good taste, Kurt pic.twitter.com/VkoorNmRAO
— Kurt’s Anime Tiddies (@AnimeKurt) June 8, 2017
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— Silas Smith (@SiFitheguySmith) June 8, 2017
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