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You can call it the bleep-hole moment (per the Fox “family channel”) or the shit-hole moment (per the rest of the MSM), but what you can’t call yesterday’s contretemps in the White House is evidence that sentient adults are in charge of the Imperial City.

And, no, we are not getting down on the Donald for using a swear word—nor are we trying to out race-card Don Lemon as to the obvious implications of the President’s crude phraseology.

Indeed, even prior to yesterday’s outburst it was hard to deny that Trump is a semi-literate bully and that he never got (read) the memo on racial comity and respect. But we actually happen to think that the Donald’s potty-talk eruption resulted not from some dark place in his mind and heart, but from sheer frustration as the intractability of the immigration issue closes in on him.

What we mean is that neither party has its cards face up on the matter—-which goes way beyond the potential deportation of the 800,000 dreamers, chain migration, the diversity lottery and the Wall. Underneath it all there is a brutal, raging political struggle for dominance which is almost existential in import.

To wit, the sundry Dem caucuses want more immigrants, and the browner the better, because it’s their only route to electoral dominance. By contrast, the hard core GOP immigrant-thumpers are desperately attempting to hang-on to Red State rule in the face of the forbidding demographic math of the white population—and the fact that not many Norwegians want to come to America anyway.

It would not be too far-fetched to say that the partisan battle for office is morphing into a racial-ethnic war.

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

2018: The Year of Living Dangerously

January 11, 2018

2018: The Year of Living Dangerously

I’m calling 2018 “The Year of Living Dangerously.”

That description might seem odd to lot of observers. Major U.S. stock indexes keep hitting new all-time highs. 2017 went down as the first calendar year in which the Dow Jones industrial average was up for all 12 months.

Even in strong bull market years there are usually one or two down months as stocks take a breather on the way higher. Not last year. There’s been no rest for the bull; it’s up, up and away.

Inflation is tame, even too tame for the Fed’s liking. The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low. U.S. growth was over 3% in the second and third quarters of 2017, much closer to long-term trend growth than the tepid 2% growth we’ve seen since the end of the last recession in June 2009.

The U.S. is not alone. For the first time since 2007, we’re seeing strong synchronized growth in the U.S., Europe, China, Japan (the “big four”) as well as other developed and emerging markets.

Growth breeds growth as consumers in one country create demand for goods and services provided by another. This is what economists mean by “self-sustaining” growth instead of force-fed growth from easy money and government spending.

Technology rules the day. The pace of innovation is unprecedented in world history. Our daily needs are being fulfilled better, faster and cheaper by the likes of Amazon, Google, Netflix and Apple. We can share the good news on Facebook.

Best of all, the U.S. Congress and White House got around to cutting our taxes in late December!

In short, all’s right with the world.

Or not.

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

Trump White House Weighing Plans For Private Spies to Counter “Deep State” Enemies

December 5, 2017

Blackwater founder Erik Prince arrives for a closed meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

TRUMP WHITE HOUSE WEIGHING PLANS FOR PRIVATE SPIES TO COUNTER “DEEP STATE” ENEMIES

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency.

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.

“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”

Oliver North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.

Some of the individuals involved with the proposals secretly met with major Trump donors asking them to help finance operations before any official contracts were signed.

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

How America Spreads Global Chaos

October 30, 2017

How America Spreads Global Chaos

The U.S. government may pretend to respect a “rules-based” global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is “might makes right” — and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.

As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment that had already killed millions of people.

Air Force F-105s bomb a target in the southern panhandle of North Vietnam on June 14, 1966. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force)”

As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented, the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as Pete Seeger satirized it, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to “credibility”: the domestic political credibility of the politicians involved and America’s international credibility as a military power.

Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. The CIA’s support for the repressive Diem regime and its successors ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them.

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

Mutual Assured Destruction

October 29, 2017

Mutual Assured Destruction

Sometimes it is possible to read or view something that completely changes the way one looks at things. I had that experience last week when I read an article at Lobelog entitled “A Plea for Common Sense on Missile Defense,” written by Joe Cirincione, a former staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who now heads the Ploughshares Fund, which is a Washington DC based global foundation that seeks to stop the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The article debunks much of the narrative being put out by the White House and Pentagon regarding missile defense. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to mistrust anything that comes out of the federal government justifying war given its track record going back to the War of 1812. And the belligerent posture of the United States towards Iran and North Korea can well be condemned based on its own merits, threatening war where there are either no real interests at stake or where a diplomatic solution has for various reasons been eschewed.

But the real reason why the White House gets away with saber rattling is historical, that the continental United States has not experienced the consequences of war since Pancho Villa invaded in 1916. This is a reality that administration after administration has exploited to do what they want when dealing with foreign nations: whatever happens “over there” will stay “over there.”

Americans consequently do not know war except as something that happens elsewhere and to foreigners, requiring only that the U.S. step in on occasion and bail things out, or screw things up depending on one’s point of view. This is why hawks like John McCain, while receiving a “Liberty” award from Joe Biden, can, with a straight face, get away with denouncing those Americans who have become tired of playing at being the world’s policeman.

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

Donald Trump: Warmonger-in-Chief!

October 9, 2017

Donald Trump: Warmonger-in-Chief!

Trump Warmonger

If a world conflagration, God forbid, should break out during the Trump Administration, its genesis will not be too hard to discover: the thin-skinned, immature, shallow, doofus which currently resides in the Oval Office!

This past week, the Donald has continued his bellicose talk with both veiled and explicit threats against purported American adversaries throughout the world. In a cryptic exchange with reporters during a dinner with military leaders, he quipped:

You guys know what this represents?

Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. It could be the

calm. . . before. . . the storm.*

A reporter asked if he meant Iran or Isis which the POTUS responded, “you’ll find out.” Instead of threatening supposed overseas foes with nuclear annihilation, none of whom have taken any concrete military action against the US, why not go after someone who has actually compromised the country’s security, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton!

While some dismissed the comments as typical Trumpian bluster, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders added further ominous overtones when questioned saying they were “extremely serious.”

Later in the week, Trump continued to threaten tiny North Korea, this time in not so veiled terms:

Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years,

agreements made and massive amounts of money paid hasn’t worked, agreements

violated before the ink was dry, making fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only

one thing will work.**

If war erupts either on the Korean Peninsula or in any other part of the globe that the U.S has wantonly poked its nose into, it can be safely assured that neither Trump nor any of the other “military leaders,” with which he recently had dinner with, will be in the midst of hostilities as the bombs and bullets are being cast about.

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

Rickards On “The Fragility Of The North Korean Nuclear Showdown”

October 1, 2017

Rickards On “The Fragility Of The North Korean Nuclear Showdown”

Amid today’s contradictory statements from President Trump that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man… Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” and The State Department’s statement that “The White House is still committed to a diplomatic approach” on North Korea, it appears the fragility of the North Korean nuclear showdown is a great as ever.

As James Rickards writes in The Daily Reckoning, right now, there’s no doubt that the greatest threat to world peace in general, and the U.S., in particular is coming from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK, commonly referred to as “North Korea.”

North Korea has made great strides in short-range and intermediate-range missiles, and is working rapidly toward an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), that could reach Los Angeles and much of the rest of the United States from their territory.

North Korea has a store of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) that can be converted into nuclear weapons. It has also made progress in the miniaturization and ruggedization of those weapons so they can be converted to warheads and placed on the missiles.

North Korea has also reached another important nuclear milestone…

North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon earlier this month on Sunday, Sept. 3. This was the sixth time they had done so, but the first time since their ICBM missile tests and the first time under President Trump’s administration.

This test was different in another important way. It is estimated to be a hydrogen bomb instead of an atomic bomb. The difference is significant.

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

Trump Commits To Using “Nuclear Capabilities” To Defend US Terroritory, Allies

September 3, 2017

Trump Commits To Using “Nuclear Capabilities” To Defend US Terroritory, Allies

In what we believe is a significant escalation and potentially a hint as to the president’s thinking, President Trump said during a phone call with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the US remains committed to defending its territories and allies using all “diplomatic, conventional and – here’s the big one – nuclear – capabilities at our disposal.” This is the first time Trump has explicitly referenced possible involvement of nuclear weapons in a US response to its isolated antagonist, and also means that the two world leaders discussed the possibility of a nuclear response.

TRUMP REAFFIRMS U.S. COMMITMENT TO DEFEND THE U.S. & ALLIES USING FULL RANGE OF DIPLOMATIC, CONVENTIONAL AND NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES: STATEMENT

The White House released a statement about what the two leaders discussed on the call. It’s available in full below:

JUST IN: White House issues statement on call between President Trump and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pic.twitter.com/pc7w3v42y4

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 3, 2017

The call was held to discuss how the two countries should respond to North Korea’s sixth nuclear test – and possibly its first successful test of a hydrogen bomb. The test came after multiple provocations from the North over the past week, including two missile tests. Earlier, Defense Secretary James Mattis, using the couched language of international diplomacy, said any threat to the US or its territories would be met with a “massive military response.”

The full White House statement on the 6th North Korean nuclear test, as delivered by Mattis shortly after 3pm ET, is below:

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

China Slams White House For Latest Sanctions On “Close Ally” Venezuela

August 28, 2017

China Slams White House For Latest Sanctions On “Close Ally” Venezuela

Shortly after the White House unveiled new sanctions last Friday against Venezuela while prohibiting U.S. trading in various bonds issued by the country (while exempting the notorious Goldman “Hunger Bonds”), Venezuela’s “close ally” China slammed the latest diplomatic crackdown and said on Monday that external interference and unilateral sanctions only make things “more complicated and will not help resolve problems.”

Asked by reporters about the new U.S. measure, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China’s position had consistently been to respect the sovereignty and independence of other countries and not to interfere in their internal affairs. “The present problem in Venezuela should be resolved by the Venezuelan government and people themselves.”

“The experience of history shows that outside interference or unilateral sanctions will make the situation even more complicated and will not help resolve the actual problem,” Hua told the daily news briefing.

Oil pumps in Lake Maracaibo, Lagunillas, in the state of Zulia, Venezuela

As discussed on previous occasions, China and Venezuela have extensive business links, with oil being the largest, where the countries have a multi-billion loan-for-oil deal, which assures Beijing of obtaining Venezuela crude at below market prices.

Earlier in August, China said it believed voting in Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly election was “generally held smoothly”, brushing off widespread condemnation from the United States, Europe and others and evidence of voting irregularities, as China wishes to remain on Maduro’s good side due to concerns that a public uprising and/or revolution would void its billions in loans made to the current regime which Venezuela has been repaying in barrels of crude. As Reuters reported recently, Venezuela owes China more than $62 billion and is behind in the oil shipments. The Maduro regime similarly owes Russia billions in loans under a similar arrangement.

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

The Goldman Sachs Regency

August 23, 2017

The Goldman Sachs Regency

There’s not many tears being shed over Steve Bannon’s departure. His ethno-nationalist and protectionist worldview are opposite to true notions of liberty, free markets and a minimalist state.

While Bannonism presented itself as a coherent alternative ideology to mainstream Big Government, it actually boiled down to an incoherent potpourri of cultural resentments and prejudices, economic shibboleths and amateur historical theorizing. His message appealed to the alt-Right because it proposed to replace oppressive statism with a more right wing version rooted in protectionism and nativism.

Notwithstanding the rotten essence of Bannonism, however, the firebrand self-promoter who was the Donald’s chief strategist got it right in his parting shots at his internal White House enemies. In so many words, he correctly asserted that the nation will now be ruled by a Goldman Sachs Regency and a team of generals.

The move embodies the essence of Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon told the conservative Weekly Standard on the Friday after his White House departure. “We will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over.”

The Donald will now function, as Robert Wenzel aptly described it, as “something of a tweet master frontman” with the Vampire Squid riding higher than ever before. Expect him to be riding even higher than when the George W. Bush handed a blank check to Wall Street for a bailout at the Treasury led by former Goldman CEO, Hank Paulson.

Goldman’s crew in the current White House – Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, Dina Powell and Jared Kushner – are likely to bring about the final destruction of the Trump presidency. The cast of characters will eventually trigger a thundering collapse in the markets which will finally crush Goldman Sachs and its posse of gamblers and crony capitalist.

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

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

August 13, 2017

Fourth Turning’s Neil Howe Fears “Strong Parallels” Between 1930s And Today: “It’s Going To Be A Rollercoaster Ride”

This week on the MacroVoices podcast, host Erik Townsend interviewed Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning, an investing tract that’s found renewed relevance thanks to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who’s cited it as an inspiration for his (and by extension, President Donald Trump’s) worldview.

According to the New York Times, which published a story earlier this year explaining the theories encapsulated in the book, the Fourth Turning was “written by two amateur historians, making the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each, and that they can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter.”

Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.”

Turner shares Bannon’s enthusiasm, saying in his preamble that he believes the Fourth Turning is “the most important investing book of our time…I am such a big fan of this book personally that I literally named my own investment management company Fourth Turning Capital Management after Neil’s work.”

During the interview, Turner and Howe discussed Howe’s conclusion that America is presently in the middle of a 20-year-long period of social, economic and political upheaval.

Howe begins by explaining how the first book written by himself and William Strauss, with whom he also collaborated on the Fourth Turning, introduced him to the idea that America’s economy and culture follow distinct patterns.

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

Trump’s Currency War Battle with China Goes

August 8, 2017

Trump’s Currency War Battle with China Goes Live

Welcome to the currency wars. The Trump administration has entered a new low in relations with China. The change comes after the White House announced it is officially beginning to take aim at China’s economic strategy.

As friction between the world’s greatest economic powers deteriorates toward a high stakes currency war, the global economy could see spillover in financial, geopolitical and trade arenas.

The White House recently announced its plan to open up fresh investigations into Chinese trade and intellectual property practices. Now that China’s 100 days are upfollowing Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping, the White House is no longer holding back on contempt for China.

President Trump campaigned on a hardline message on China, but seemingly backed off of rhetoric after entering office. That approach changed after his geopolitical targeting on Twitter that lashed out at the Chinese government and the lack of action toward North Korea.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet.

hem to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet…

7:29 PM – Jul 29, 2017

Conditions on the Korean peninsula appear as though they will continue to escalate, and as they do the expectation is that it will drive a major wedge between the U.S and China. What that means is conditions are extremely ripe for a trade and currency war between the respective economic powers and their global trade operations.

All hope is not lost, yet. That is primarily because a significant amount of pressure has been placed on the North Korean regime. Seemingly, as goes the China-North Korean relationship so swings the pendulum of the Trump administration.

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

Syria Denies Plans For A Chemical Attack As Russia Accuses US Of “Provocation”

June 27, 2017

Syria Denies Plans For A Chemical Attack As Russia Accuses US Of “Provocation”

The Syrian government dismissed the White House’s unsubstantiated, and bizarrely ominous late Monday night allegations that it was preparing a new chemical weapons attack. According to AP, Ali Haidar, the Syrian minister for national reconciliation, dismissed the White House’s warning and said it foreshadowed a diplomatic campaign against Syria at the U.N., according to the AP. Or maybe military campaign.

The Kremlin also dismissed the White House statement, which had warned that Assad and his military would “pay a heavy price” if it goes ahead with the attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “such threats to Syria’s legitimate leaders are unacceptable.” As a reminder, Russia sided with Assad when he denied responsibility for a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people in Idlib province on April 4. Days later, President Donald Trump ordered a retaliatory cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.

Peskov also criticized the Trump administration for using the phrase “another chemical weapons attack,” arguing that an independent investigation into the April attack was never conducted despite Russia’s calls for one. The US has so far not explained why it is against an impartial third party determining all the facts.

A senior Russian lawmaker dismissed the U.S. warning as “provocation.” Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, accused the United States of “preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces.” The U.S. strike in April was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump’s most dramatic military order since becoming president. Trump said at the time that the chemical attack crossed “many, many lines,” and called on “all civilized nations” to join the U.S. in seeking an end to the carnage in Syria.

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

Save Liberty, Shut Down the Government

May 1, 2017

Save Liberty, Shut Down the Government

Congress ended the week by passing a continuing resolution keeping the government funded for one more week. This stopgap funding bill is designed to give Congress and the White House more time to negotiate a long-term spending bill. Passage of a long-term spending bill has been delayed over objections to Republican efforts to preserve Obamcare’s key features but give states a limited ability to opt out of some Obamacare mandates.

This type of brinkmanship has become standard operating procedure on Capitol Hill. The drama inevitably ends with a spending bill being crafted behind closed doors by small groups of members and staffers and then rushed to the floor and voted on before most members have a chance to read it. These “omnibus” spending bills are a dereliction of one of Congress’s two most important duties — allocating spending. Of course, Congress long ago abandoned another primary duty — preventing presidents from launching military attacks without first obtaining a congressional declaration of war.

The uncomfortable question raised by Congress’s abrogation of these two key functions is whether a republican form of government is compatible with a welfare-warfare state. The answer seems to be “no.”

Congress’s dysfunctional spending process is an inevitable result of the government’s growth. It is simply unrealistic to expect Congress to fund the modern leviathan via a lengthy and open process that allows individual members to have some say in how government spends their constituents’ money. The dysfunctional spending process benefits the many politicians eager to avoid accountability for government spending. The rushed process allows these politicians to say they had to vote for the spending bills. Often, these big spending bills include a promise to cut spending in the future. Like tomorrow, the promised spending cuts are always a day away.

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

Is That Armageddon Over The Horizon?

April 16, 2017

Is That Armageddon Over The Horizon?

The insouciance of the Western world is extraordinary. It is not only Americans who permit themselves to be brainwashed by CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times and Washington Post, but also their counterparts in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, who rely on the war propaganda machine that poses as a media. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39573526

The Western “leaders,” that is, the puppets on the end of the strings pulled by the powerful private interest groups and the Deep State, are just as insouciant. Trump and his counterparts in the American Empire must be unaware that they are provoking war with Russia and China, or else they are psychopaths.

A new White House Fool has replaced the old fool. The New Fool has sent his Secretary of State to Russia. For what? To deliver an ultimatum? To make more false accusations? To apologize for the lies?

Consider the audacity of Secretary of State Tillerson. He has spent the week prior to his visit to Moscow supporting incredible lies and false allegations that Assad of Syria used chemical weapons with Russia’s permission, which justified Washington’s unambigious war crime of a military attack on a country with which the US has not declared war. Less than 100 days in office, and Trump is already a war criminal along with the rest of his warmonger government.

The entire world knows this, but no one says it. Instead, Tillerson, who has been heavy with lies and threats has the confidence to go to Moscow to tell the Russians that they have to hand over Assad to the American Uni-Power.

Tillerson’s mission demonstrates the complete, total unreality of the world in which Washington lives. Try to imagine Tillerson’s arrogance. If you had been bad-mouthing and threatening strong, important people, would you feel comfortable going over to their house to have dinner with them?

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

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