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The EU is turning a blind eye to an opposition crackdown in Turkey that’s polarizing society and complicating efforts to find a political solution to the nation’s Kurdish conflict, Demirtas said in an impromptu interview en route to Brussels. European leaders are expected to ink an agreement with Turkey on Monday that will offer faster EU membership negotiations and visa-free travel in exchange for stopping refugees from crossing the country to enter Europe.

Demirtas was speaking two days after Turkish government trustees took over one of Turkey’s primary opposition newspapers in a dramatic raid that sparked clashes between protesters and police. The seizure reflects a broader intolerance of dissent that has also undermined the HDP, who are now largely excluded from mainstream media coverage.

On the same day that authorities took control of the Zaman newspaper, European Council President Donald Tusk, who was in Istanbul, tweeted a picture of himself with Erdogan in front of a pair of golden throne-like seats.

It was almost identical to a photo-op with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last year, which was around the same time that the EU agreed to Erdogan’s request to withhold a critical report on Turkish democracy until after the general election a few days later.

– From the Bloomberg article: EU Making `Big Mistake’ in Turkey Deal

European Union bureaucrats like to portray themselves as enlightened, competent technocrats who nobly represent humanity’s grandest political and economic experiment. Meanwhile, the stark reality is the EU is little more than a bunch of self-interested frauds willing to do “whatever it takes” to preserve their own status and power. When you peel back the EU’s facade of disingenuous humanitarian pledges, what you discover is a putrid cadre of incompetent, corrupt and deeply unethical politicians.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama to Expand Surveillance State Powers by Signing a 21 Page Memo

February 27, 2016

Obama to Expand Surveillance State Powers by Signing a 21 Page Memo

As the Apple vs. FBI battle rages in the court system and throughout the halls of Congress, Obama decides to do what he does best. Using “his pen” to make consequential decisions unilaterally.

Just another day in the American banana republic.

The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is on the verge of permitting the National Security Agency to share more of the private communications it intercepts with other American intelligence agencies without first applying any privacy protections to them, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The change would relax longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of the phone calls and email the security agency vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies.

The idea is to let more experts across American intelligence gain direct access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will recognize any possible nuggets of value. That also means more officials will be looking at private messages — not only foreigners’ phone calls and emails that have not yet had irrelevant personal information screened out, but also communications to, from, or about Americans that the N.S.A.’s foreign intelligence programs swept in incidentally.

Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that the administration had developed and was fine-tuning what is now a 21-page draft set of procedures to permit the sharing.

Until now, National Security Agency analysts have filtered the surveillance information for the rest of the government. They search and evaluate the information and pass only the portions of phone calls or email that they decide is pertinent on to colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As China’s Economy Craters, Economic Data Starts to “Disappear”

February 26, 2016

As China’s Economy Craters, Economic Data Starts to “Disappear”

For several years now, I’ve periodically observed that China’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissent serves as a harbinger of far more difficult times ahead. The thinking goes that if anyone is privy to the severe fragility of the country’s economic situation, it would be Chinese leadership. As such, desperate moves by Chinese leadership should foretell drastically worse economic and social conditions.

The scramble to crack down on dissent has become so intense, Chinese authorities seem to be now exerting illegal force against residents of Hong Kong. Of course, this story is long in the making, as the massive protest that broke out a little over a year ago known as the “umbrella revolution,” was in fact a protest against Beijing’s moves to ensure that Hong Kong leadership remain loyal puppets to the authorities on the mainland.

– From the post: Hong Kong Publishers Reportedly Being Kidnapped by Chinese Authorities and Taken to the Mainland

When it comes to the Chinese economy, you can always tell how bad the situation is based on the panicky actions of the authorities. If the latest moves are any indication, things are not getting any better.

The New York Times reports:

BEIJING — This month, Chinese banking officials omitted currency data from closely watched economic reports.

Just weeks earlier, Chinese regulators fined a journalist $23,000 for reposting a message that said a big securities firm had told elite clients to sell stock.

Before that, officials pressed two companies to stop releasing early results from a survey of Chinese factories that often moved markets.

Chinese leaders are taking increasingly bold steps to stop rising pessimism about turbulent markets and the slowing of the country’s growth. As financial and economic troubles threaten to undermine confidence in the Communist Party, Beijing is tightening the flow of economic information and even criminalizing commentary that officials believe could hurt stocks or the currency.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New York Times Editorial Board Endorses Economic Fascism – Supports Banning the $100 Bill

February 22, 2016

New York Times Editorial Board Endorses Economic Fascism – Supports Banning the $100 Bill

I cannot overstate the significance of today’s New York Timeseditorial board endorsement of the elitist scheme to ban large denomination cash from public circulation. This is the latest example of the editorial board putting the interests of the establishment ahead of the citizenry, while at the same time employing a nonsensical argument to support its position which channels emotion rather than logic.

This public support for a de facto cash ban by the New York Times must not be viewed in a vacuum. It should be read in conjunction with its recent absurd endorsement of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. I highlighted that previously published piece of fiction in the post, A Detailed Look at The New York Times’ Embarrassing, Deceitful and Illogical Endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Here are a few excerpts:

The New York Times’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary consists of an unreadable, illogical piece of fiction. In this post, I will critique the paper’s position in detail, but first I want to take a step back and explain to people what I think is going on in the bigger picture.

In its endorsement of Hillary, the New York Times editorial board did such a sloppy job I can’t help but think it may have done permanent damage to its brand. Upon reading it, my initial conclusion was that the editorial board was either suffering from Stockholm syndrome or merely concerned about losing advertising revenues should they endorse Sanders. Then I thought some more and I realized my initial conclusions were wrong. Something else is going on here, something far more subtle, subconscious and illuminating. The New York Times is defending the establishment candidate simply because the New York Times is the establishment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Japanese Government Cracks Down Hard on the Media Amid Pitiful Economic Performance

February 19, 2016

Japanese Government Cracks Down Hard on the Media Amid Pitiful Economic Performance

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

Only last week, the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, sent a clear message to media organizations. Broadcasters that repeatedly failed to show “fairness” in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air, she told MPs.

Momii caused consternation after his appointment when he suggested that NHK would toe the government line on key diplomatic issues, including Japan’s territorial dispute with China. “International broadcasting is different from domestic,” he said. “It would not do for us to say ‘left’ when the government is saying ‘right’.”

From the Guardian article: Japanese TV Anchors Lose Their Jobs Amid Claims of Political Pressure

I’ve commented on the spectacular failure of Japan’s “Abenomics” several times in the past, most recently in last summer’s post, Japan’s Economic Disaster – Real Wages Lowest Since 1990, Record Numbers Describe “Hard” Living Conditions. Here’s what we learned:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power vowing to drag Japan out of deflation and stagnation. His logic was that rising prices would drive higher salaries and increased consumption. More than two years on, prices are rising, but wages adjusted for inflation have sunk to the lowest since at least 1990.

A record 62 percent of Japanese households described their livelihoods as “hard” last year in a survey on incomes. A sales-tax increase in 2014 helped drive up living costs faster than wage gains. At the same time, the Bank of Japan’s quantitative easing drove down the currency, boosting the cost of imported energy.

Fast forward a few months and things aren’t getting any better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Latest Version of Monopoly is Called “Ultimate Banking” and is Completely Cashless

February 16, 2016

Latest Version of Monopoly is Called “Ultimate Banking” and is Completely Cashless

The war on cash has been in the works for a very, very long time, but the propaganda campaign to convince an always gullible public to accept the scheme seems to have been hatched in earnest late last spring. For example, here are a few excerpts from the post, Martin Armstrong Reports on a Secret Meeting in London to Ban Cash:

Martin Armstrong noted at the time:

I find it extremely perplexing that I have been the only one to report that there is a secret meeting in London where Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University and Willem Butler the chief economist at Citigroup will address the central banks and advocate the elimination of all cash to bring to fruition the day when you cannot buy or sell anything without government approval. When I Googled the issue to see who has picked it up yet, to my surprise Armstrong Economics comes up first. Others are quoting me, and I even find it spreading as the Central Bank of Nigeria, but I have yet to find reports on the meeting taking place in London when my sources are direct.

Other newspapers who have covered my European tour have stated that the “crash” of which I speak is the typical stock market rather than in government. What is concerning me is the silence on this meeting where there are more and more reports about a cashless society would be better.

If we look at the the turning points on the ECM, yes they have been to the day when there has been a concentration of capital in a particular market. However, it has also picked the turning points in political decisions such as the formation of the G5 with 1985.65, the very day Greece asked for help from the IMF in 2010, to the day of 911.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America’s Corrupt Media – How Reporters Took Direct Orders from Hillary Clinton’s Staff

February 13, 2016

America’s Corrupt Media – How Reporters Took Direct Orders from Hillary Clinton’s Staff

It is the job of the Fourth Estate to act as a check and a restraint on the others, to illumine the dark corners of Ministries, to debunk the bureaucrat, to throw often unwelcome light on the measures and motives of our rulers. ‘News’, as Hearst once remarked, ‘is something which somebody wants suppressed: all the rest is advertising’. That job is an essential one and it is bound to be unpopular; indeed, in a democracy, it may be argued that the more unpopular the newspapers are with the politicians the better they are performing their most vital task.

– Brian R. Roberts from a October 29, 1955 article in the London periodical “Time & Tide”

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

– H.L. Mencken

If you really want to know how weak Hillary Clinton is as a candidate, you merely have to appreciate that the U.S. media essentially acts as her own personal PR firm, yet the public still recognizes her as a dishonest crook. Brace yourself for the following story, it’s huge.

Earlier this week, we learned from Gawker that at least one U.S. reporter traded content in his article for information from Hillary Clinton’s staff while she was Secretary of State. In what is an almost hard to believe exchange, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic, agreed to insert specific words and imagery into his article in return for a copy of Hillary’s upcoming speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

We have the exact exchange thanks to emails released from a 2012 Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA). Gawker reports:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lines Around the Block to Buy Gold in London…Banks Placing “Unusually Large Orders for Physical”

February 11, 2016

Lines Around the Block to Buy Gold in London…Banks Placing “Unusually Large Orders for Physical”

First, let’s look at the improved fundamentals. Gold bugs will exasperatingly proclaim that fundamentals have been great for the past four years yet the price plunged anyway, so who cares about fundamentals? To this I would respond with two observations. First, large institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds have been anticipating a rate hike cycle for a very long time now. They didn’t know when, but they expected it. The fact that the gold bugs never believed this is irrelevant; what matters is that big money believed it, and it was perceived to be very gold negative. In their minds, this anticipated rate hike cycle would confirm that things were getting back to normal, and if things are normal you don’t need to own gold, right?

The problem is that this assumption is quickly being called into question. Sure the Fed hiked rates once, but it is starting to look more and more like a policy error. Meanwhile, other major central banks around the world are going in the opposite direction, toward negative rates. I am a huge believer in market psychology, and the psychology dominating the minds of most institutional investors over the past few years has been that things were slowly getting back to normal. This has weighed on institutional demand for gold in a big way, and been a meaningful factor in the bear market (manipulation aside). If this psychology shifts, the shift back into gold could be very meaningful.

While that backdrop is interesting in its own right, what may make the move into gold that much more explosive is the lack of alternative investments…

– From the February 3, 2016 post: GOLD – It’s Time to Pay Attention

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. The Telegraph is reporting the following:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will a Turkey Related Event Spark a Much Wider Regional War?

February 8, 2016

Will a Turkey Related Event Spark a Much Wider Regional War?

I haven’t commented on the Middle East in a while, but a lot has been going on. In particular, Turkey continues to concern me the most, as president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears increasingly unstable, paranoid and tyrannical. The latest example came last month, when his government went ahead and arrested academics merely for signing a petition. Here’s what we learned from the post, U.S. Ally Turkey Arrests Academics for the Crime of Signing a Peace Petition:

Hundreds of Turkish academics are waiting to find out whether they will be prosecuted or sacked for spreading “terrorist propaganda”, after they signed a petition calling for violence to end in Turkey’s southeast, where government forces have been fighting Kurdish separatists.

Turkey’s government has previously clamped down on scientists and students who question its policies, imprisoned scientists charged with terrorism offenses, and restricted the freedom of funding agencies and scientific academies. But the number of arrests and investigations makes the current episode one of the larger Turkish attacks on freedom of expression in recent years, prompting outrage among human-rights advocates.

While this is bad enough, Turkey’s reputation on the global stage had already been severely damaged by the emergence of evidence of government support for ISIS. Throw in the downing of a Russian jet, and you start to see an increasingly chaotic country with the potential to kick off some serious geopolitical fireworks.

With all that in mind, an article I recently read in Al Monitor materially added to my fears. Here are some excerpts from the piece, Will Turkey Risk Military Confrontation with Russia?

Tensions between Russia and Turkey continue to escalate following the downing in November of a Russian Su-24 fighter jet that strayed into Turkish airspace.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

GOLD – It’s Time to Pay Attention

February 3, 2016

GOLD – It’s Time to Pay Attention

The last time I shared my thoughts on gold, a subject I had previously wrote about constantly, was all the way back in July of last year. That post was titled, 4 Mainstream Media Articles Mocking Gold That Should Make You Think. Here’s an excerpt:

There are many reasons why I stopped commenting on markets, but the main reason is that I started to recognize I wasn’t getting it right. In fact, in some cases I was getting it spectacularly wrong. Whenever this happens, I try to isolate the problem and fix it. In this case there was no fix, because much of why I was no longer getting it right was rooted in the fact that my heart, soul and passion had moved onto other things. My interests had expanded, and I started a blog to express myself on myriad other matters I deemed important. Providing relevant market information needs intense focus, and my focus had shifted elsewhere. I recognized that I wasn’t intellectually interested enough in centrally planned markets to provide insightful analysis, and so I stopped.

Years ago, Martin Armstrong was saying that nothing goes up in a straight line and that gold would experience a severe correction before beginning its real bull market. We are seeing his prediction unfold before our very eyes. What he also said is that as gold approached the $1,000 per/oz mark or even below, everyone would proclaim that “gold is dead” and start making comically bearish statements. In a nutshell, negative sentiment would plunge to levels not seen in years, if not more than a decade. We are starting to see this now.

I didn’t write this article to “call the bottom in gold” or anything like that.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meet Vigilant Solutions – The Private Company Storing 2.2 Billion License Plate Photos & Selling the Data

January 29, 2016

Meet Vigilant Solutions – The Private Company Storing 2.2 Billion License Plate Photos & Selling the Data

Vigilant Solutions is a company that will be familiar to longtime Liberty Blitzkrieg readers. It was first highlighted in the early 2014 post, Department of Homeland Security Moves to Install National License Plate Tracking System, in which we learned the following:

The Department of Homeland Security wants a private company to provide a national license-plate tracking system that would give the agency access to vast amounts of information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers, according to a government proposal that does not specify what privacy safeguards would be put in place.

The national license-plate recognition database, which would draw data from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, would help catch fugitive illegal immigrants, according to a DHS solicitation. But the database could easily contain more than 1 billion records and could be shared with other law enforcement agencies, raising concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens who are under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

The agency said the length of time the data is retained would be up to the winning vendor. Vigilant Solutions, for instance, one of the leading providers of tag-reader data, keeps its records indefinitely.

Fast forward two years, and “could easily contain 1 billion records” sounds trite compared to the reality. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, Vigilant Solutions has already has taken 2.2 billion license plate photos, and is adding more at a clip of 80 million per month.

From the Atlantic:

Throughout the United States—outside private houses, apartment complexes, shopping centers, and businesses with large employee parking lots—a private corporation, Vigilant Solutions, is taking photos of cars and trucks with its vast network of unobtrusive cameras. It retains location data on each of those pictures, and sells it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Yanis Varoufakis Reveals – Berlin Blocked Greece From Chinese Funding During Crisis

January 21, 2016

Yanis Varoufakis Reveals – Berlin Blocked Greece From Chinese Funding During Crisis

Hundreds of millions of people throughout the Western world are being forced to admit an obvious, yet uncomfortable reality. Democracy is dead. Your vote and your voice doesn’t matter. Not at all.

No group of people understand this as intimately as the Greeks. They voted for one thing, got something else, and in the process were unceremoniously reminded of their political irrelevance.

– From the post: Greeks Flock to Grassroots Alternative Currencies in Affront to Euro Debt Slavery

Just in case you still had any doubts as relates to how slimy, nefarious and undemocratic the EU is, check out the following from Ekathimerini:

Yanis Varoufakis was instructed last year by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to put together a small team of people to draw up a plan for introducing a parallel currency if Greece was unable to reach an agreement with its lenders on a new bailout, the ex-finance minister said in a TV interview late Tuesday.

Speaking on Skai TV’s “Istories” (Stories) program, Varoufakis outlined what was known as Plan X. He said that a small team of about six people examined the various parameters surrounding a potential standoff that would lead to Greece being unable to meet its obligations. Among the issues examined by Varoufakis and his advisers were how the country would continue to have access to medicines, fuel and food under such circumstances.

Varoufakis said that he advised Tsipras to put the plan, which would see Greece defaulting on 27 billion euros in Greek government bonds held by the European Central Bank, into action as soon as he called a referendum at the end of June.

Varoufakis added that he was against efforts to secure funding from Russia but that there had been an agreement with China regarding investment in Greece, including in Greek bonds.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“For the Sake of Capitalism, Pepper Spray Davos”

January 20, 2016

“For the Sake of Capitalism, Pepper Spray Davos”

Yra Harris just posted a blistering critique of the crony capitalist crooks congregating in Davos. The first few paragraphs of his post, For the Sake of Capitalism, Pepper Spray Davos, are a must read.

Enjoy.

Please, PEPPER SPRAY ALL THE ATTENDEES OF DAVOS in order to halt the rape of taxpayers and consumers across the globe. This annual conclave is responsible for more wealth destruction and the widening disparity in GINI coefficients than any public policy. I believe that the cost of attending Davos is priced at such an extravagant rate because it is a giant insider scam. Hobnob with politicians and policy makers in an effort to be part of the “smart money” crowd. It was the great moral philosopher and economist Adam Smith who so presciently noted: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for the merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The conspiracy against the public has been the financial repression of the global middle class in an effort to bail out those who are attached themselves to the public treasury to maintain the “animal spirits” of crony capitalism.

The cost of an entrance pass to this private/public congress of mover and shakers should sound an alarm to all those who desire transparency in financial markets. In contemporizing the words of Adam Smith, Samuel Huntington was credited in the online research cite, Acton Commentary, as creating the phrase DAVOS MAN: “A soulless man, technocratic, nationless and cultureless, severed from reality. The modern economics that undergirded Davos capitalism is equally soulless, a managerial capitalism that reduces economics to mathematics and separates it from human action and human creativity.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Ally Turkey Arrests Academics for the Crime of Signing a Peace Petition

January 19, 2016

U.S. Ally Turkey Arrests Academics for the Crime of Signing a Peace Petition

A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’”

ISIS, in other words, is state-sponsored — indeed, sponsored by purportedly Western-friendly regimes in the Muslim world, who are integral to the anti-ISIS coalition. Which then begs the question as to why Hollande and other Western leaders expressing their determination to “destroy” ISIS using all means necessary, would prefer to avoid the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS’ emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region.

There are many explanations, but one perhaps stands out: the West’s abject dependence on terror-toting Muslim regimes, largely to maintain access to Middle East, Mediterranean and Central Asian oil and gas resources.

– From the post: So Who’s Really Sponsoring ISIS? Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Other U.S. “Allies”

There’s been a lot going on lately, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you missed the latest drama from of U.S. ally, and sometimes ISIS/al-Qaeda supporter Turkey.

Recently, a peace petition circled the globe calling on the Turkish government to end fighting against Kurdish militants in the country’s southeast, which has reportedly led to thousands of civilian deaths. By January 15th, 2,000 Turkish academics had signed the petition, which was too much for authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to handle. He not only publicly denounced the entire affair, he went ahead and started arresting people.

Nature reports:

Hundreds of Turkish academics are waiting to find out whether they will be prosecuted or sacked for spreading “terrorist propaganda”, after they signed a petition calling for violence to end in Turkey’s southeast, where government forces have been fighting Kurdish separatists.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Saudi Arabia is Buying Up American Farmland to Export Agricultural Products Back Home

January 17, 2016

Saudi Arabia is Buying Up American Farmland to Export Agricultural Products Back Home

Just what we need, cornfield crucifixions.

Seriously though, this is very troubling. The Saudis are explicitly conserving their own resources at home, while exploiting land and water supplies here in America.

CNBC reports:

Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red.

Saudi Arabia grows alfalfa hay in both states for shipment back to its domestic dairy herds. In another real-life example of the world’s interconnected economy, the Saudis increasingly look to produce animal feed overseas in order to save water in their own territory, most of which is desert.

Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California — an agricultural town along the Colorado River — for nearly $32 million. Two years ago, Fondomont’s parent company, Saudi food giant Almarai, purchased another 10,000 acres of farmland about 50 miles away in Vicksburg, Arizona, for around $48 million.

But not everyone likes the trend. The alfalfa exports are tantamount to “exporting water,” because in Saudi Arabia, “they have decided that it’s better to bring feed in rather than to empty their water reserves,”said Keith Murfield, CEO of United Dairymen of Arizona, a Tempe-based dairy cooperative whose members also buy alfalfa. “This will continue unless there’s regulations put on it.”

Recall, this is precisely the type of investment Michael Burry of “Big Short” fame recently said he was involved in.

In a statement announcing the California farmland purchase, the Saudi company said the deal “forms part of Almarai’s continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) to support its dairy business. It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources.”

Sure, conserve local, exploit American. Just brilliant.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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