Month: March 2018

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Tuesday’s post, It’s Impossible to Overstate How Terrible Mike Pompeo Is, laid out the view that Trump’s firing of Rex Tillerson represents a major shift toward war footing for the Trump administration, with Iran the specific target. This pivot was easily predictable, and I wrote numerous articles doing just that during 2017. Nevertheless, forecasting it and then seeing the disastrous pieces being moved into place are two different things.

Trump’s push to install Mike Pompeo as U.S. Secretary of State is a crystal clear indication that he’s begun the process of building his war cabinet. The next steps, likely to begin over the course of 2018, is to walk away from the Iran deal. I suspect relentless war propaganda to be unleashed simultaneously as the neocon/neoliberal/mass media war-monger alliance plays its well established role in selling the American public on another pointless and destructive war.

My prior post discussed Pompeo in detail, so I don’t want to be repetitive, but to revisit: Pompeo has contempt for the First Amendment, referred to torturers as patriots, wants Edward Snowden executed and is an extreme warhawk when it comes to Iran. In other words, he’s your typical neocon lunatic who’s just a bit more rough around the edges publicly. He represents the exact opposite sort of foreign policy to what so many Trump voters thought they were getting.

Switching gears a bit, today’s piece will zero in on Trump’s other desired appointment, Gina Haspel to head the CIA. Gina’s famous for running a CIA black site in Thailand where detainees were tortured. In fact, she performed her role with such gusto she was nicknamed “Bloody Gina” by colleagues, and also played a key role in destroying videotape evidence of the torture. Her promotion represents a bizarre way to “drain the swamp,” but I digress.

What’s most interesting and extremely disturbing about the Pompeo and Haspel appointments, is the lack of resistance from “the resistance.” If you’ve been paying attention, this won’t be surprising since the resistance has always been an unholy alliance of neocon/neoliberal war hawks, intelligence agencies and the mass media.

They don’t want to “resist” any of Trump’s genuinely bad policies, the entire purpose of this psyops of a movement is to ensure Trump continues with the insane imperial policies of his predecessors. Trump’s about to deliver in spades, and you can thank “the resistance” for paving the way for this administration’s upcoming belligerence.

Here’s what I mean. From The Hill:

This puts Democrats in a potentially powerful position to swing Haspel’s confirmation.

Yet early signs suggest that the minority is prepared to offer support, despite her controversial record, fierce opposition from human rights activists and the fact that she is a Trump nominee.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), on Wednesday cited a “very good working relationship” with Haspel, currently the agency’s deputy director. Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), a red-state Democrat who also sits on the Intelligence panel, said he was “very much open-minded.”

Even one of the Senate’s harshest critics of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the architect of the so-called torture report, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), signaled a surprisingly open reception to Haspel that could pull others off the fence.

“We’ve had dinner together. We have talked. Everything I know is she has been a good deputy director,” Feinstein said on Tuesday, adding, “I think, hopefully, the entire organization learned something from the so-called enhanced interrogation program.”

Feinstein in 2013 blocked Haspel’s promotion to run clandestine operations at the agency over her role in interrogations at a CIA “black site” prison and the destruction of videotapes documenting the waterboarding sessions of an al Qaeda suspect there.

Did you catch that? Feinstein blocked Haspel in 2013, but now, under Trump, she’s open to an even bigger promotion.

A few lawmakers have come out in opposition to Haspel – most prominently Paul and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren  (D-Mass.) – but it’s unclear how much influence they will wield. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that he is not whipping votes to oppose Haspel.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet “the resistance.”

It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

To be fair, Schumer does have some concerns with regard to Pompeo. He might not be belligerent enough toward Russia.

But Democrats stressed on Tuesday that their previous support for Pompeo did not automatically mean they would support him to be secretary of State.

Schumer noted he wants to know if the former House member will be tougher on Russia if he’s confirmed to be the country’s top diplomat.

You seriously can’t make this stuff up. Also, don’t forget that 14 Democrats supported Pompeo for CIA director back in 2016, and Democrats also supported increased surveillance state spying powers late last year. I find it fascinating that when it comes to mass surveillance and torture, suddenly the Democrats don’t want to “resist.”

Meanwhile, across the Washington D.C. cesspool hordes of “respected leaders” are vigorously defending Gina Haspel using the same defense used by actual Nazi war criminals after WWII.

From The Intercept:

During the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, several Nazis, including top German generals Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel, claimed they were not guilty of the tribunal’s charges because they had been acting at the directive of their superiors.

Ever since, this justification has been popularly known as the “Nuremberg defense,” in which the accused states they were “only following orders.”

The Nuremberg judges rejected the Nuremberg defense, and both Jodl and Keitel were hanged. The United Nations International Law Commission later codified the underlying principle from Nuremberg as “the fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

This is likely the most famous declaration in the history of international law and is as settled as anything possibly can be.

However, many members of the Washington, D.C. elite are now stating that it, in fact, is a legitimate defense for American officials who violate international law to claim they were just following orders…

Haspel oversaw a secret “black site” in Thailand, at which prisoners were waterboarded and subjected to other severe forms of abuse. Haspel later participated in the destruction of the CIA’s videotapes of some of its torture sessions. There is informed speculation that part of the CIA’s motivation for destroying these records may have been that they showed operatives employing torture to generate false “intelligence” used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

John Kiriakou, a former CIA operative who helped capture many Al Qaeda prisoners, recently said that Haspel was known to some at the agency as “Bloody Gina” and that “Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.” (In 2012, in a convoluted case, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to leaking the identity of a covert CIA officer to the press and spent a year in prison.)

One who paraphrased it is Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency. In a Wednesday op-ed, Hayden endorsed Haspel as head of the CIA, writing that “Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well.”

John Brennan, who ran the CIA under President Barack Obama, made similar remarks on Tuesday when asked about Haspel. The Bush administration had decided that its torture program was legal, said Brennan, and Haspel “tried to carry out her duties at CIA to the best of her ability, even when the CIA was asked to do some very difficult things.”

Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd used the precise language of the Nuremberg defense during a Tuesday appearance on CNN when Wolf Blitzer asked him to respond to a statement from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: “The Senate must do its job in scrutinizing the record and involvement of Gina Haspel in this disgraceful program.”

Hurd, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and a former CIA operative as well, told Blitzer that “this wasn’t Gina’s idea. She was following orders. … She implemented orders and was doing her job.”

Bipartisan support of torture using a literal Nazi defense. Unfortunately, I’m not even surprised.

Now here’s the best part…

Notably, Blitzer did not have any follow-up questions for Hurd about his jarring comments.

Gotta love CNN.

Fortunately, there’s a small flicker of actual resistance to Trump’s shameless neocon pivot. It just happens to be coming from Rand Paul.

He held a press conference on the matter, which I suggest everyone watch in full.

As if all of this isn’t concerning enough, something Jeremy Scahill said in a recent Democracy Now interview really shook me. I discussed it on Twitter earlier today.

In a recent Democracy Now interview, @jeremyscahill said something that’s haunted me for the last 24 hours.
He posits Trump doesn’t actually want Haspel, he wants Tom Cotton for CIA.
So he puts up Haspel, knowing they’ll be a fight and then he gets Cotton through easy.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) March 15, 2018

Tom Cotton would round out the war soldiers Trump wants around him for Iran war push. As I’ve warned for years, Cotton is a dangerous lunatic.
Cotton and Pompeo are cut from the same cloth.
Not good.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) March 15, 2018

See how this works? We lose either way.

In fact, I find Cotton so dangerous, I specially singled him out in last year’s post, Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 3 (War):

While I’m already sufficiently concerned about the likelihood of another stupid escalation in the Middle East by Trump, there are milestones I’m looking out for to let me know it’s about to get really bad. At the core of any major disaster will be Senator Tom Cotton, a rabid neocon who I unequivocally believe is the most dangerous, anti-freedom person in the U.S. Congress. He reminds me of an American Mohamed bin Salman, and his elevated prominence around Trump earlier this year is what got me increasingly concerned in the first place.

If Cotton takes on a more senior role in the Trump administration, such as a rumored position as CIA director, you can bet the farm that U.S. foreign policy is about to take the most dangerous turn since George W. Bush. Tom Cotton is a neocon on steroids, and seems to genuinely love conflict and authoritarianism. To get a better sense of what sort of person he is, take a look at him taking Twitter legal counsel to task. He believes U.S. companies act as an active arm of state intelligence.

What’s going on here is crystal clear. Trump’s setting up a war cabinet because he wants to go to war, and his administration will soon be dominated by the exact same neocon lunatics his populist supporters wanted to get away from in the first place.

As the saying goes, “if voting made a difference, they’d make it illegal.”

Brace yourselves, the war sales job is imminent and it’s going to be relentless.

*  *  *

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via RSS http://ift.tt/2tRl6sG Tyler Durden

Self-proclaimed “idealists” on college campuses across the country are growing increasingly intolerant of political views that challenge the liberal establishment or conservative values on topics ranging from homosexuality to immigration.

Of course, the suppression of conservative views isn’t an officially sanctioned policy (at least, not at most schools, though that is slowly beginning to change). But one thing to remember is that this militant adherence to political correctness is enforced by a tiny minority of students. And the outsize influence that they exert on school administrators, and on school policies, is stoking resentment among more conservative students.

A recent Gallup poll measuring attitudes about intellectual freedom on university campuses showed that students are increasingly aware that it’s not acceptable for some students to speak their mind in class or elsewhere on campus. But instead of this trend leading to a backlash, the study showed that a growing number of students have come to accept this strictures.

Even Democrats Have Their Doubts

Contrary to what one might expect, students who identify as Democrats (63%) and are even more likely than Republicans (53%) to acknowledge that students can’t speak their minds on their respective college campuses. independents (62%), meanwhile, are about as skeptical as Democrats.

Per Gallup, these results were gleaned from its 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey of 3,014 randomly sampled US college students about First Amendment issues. The survey is an update of a nationally representative 2016 Knight Foundation/Newseum Institute/Gallup survey on the same topic.

Disillusionment Is Deepening

In addition to Republicans, most key subgroups are more inclined now than in 2016 to agree that climate on their campus can inhibit expression. Independents and blacks show slightly greater increases, 13% and 14%, respectively, than other subgroups.

Fewer Students Prefer Campus That Allows All Types of Speech

While more students now agree that their campus climate stifles free speech, fewer students now (70%) than in 2016 (78%) favor allowing unfettered free speech, even that which is offensive. In contrast, 29% of students now, up from 22% in 2016, would rather campuses be “positive learning environments for all students” by prohibiting certain speech that is offensive or biased.

With these findings in mind, we’d like to direct your attention to a report we published early this year showing six things college students were offended about last year.

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Authored by Chris Whalen via TheInstitutionalRiskAnalyst.com,

The failure of Bear Stearns & Co a decade ago illustrates the key lesson of financial markets, namely that non-banks are dependent upon 1) banks and 2) clients, for liquidity.  And no amount of capital will save a non-bank that has a deficit in terms of confidence.  In times of market stress, credibility and character are far more important than capital.

Like the Crisis of 1907, when JPMorgan had to rescue the trust banks at the behest of President Teddy Roosevelt, the investment banks in 2008 were abandoned by the markets. Lacking stable funding in the form of core deposits, the non-banks failed in droves, starting in 2007 with New Century Financial, once among the largest issuers of subprime mortgages.

And it can happen again.  Mark Adelson wrote in the Journal of Structured Finance:

“By the summer of 2007, the prices of subprime mortgage-backed bonds already had begun to plunge. New Century, once a major lender, had declared bankruptcy; two hedge funds run by Bear Stearns were collapsing; and as emails obtained via lawsuits and investigations would later show, the rating agencies were well aware of the problems. In April 2007, one S&P analyst told another, ‘We rate every deal. It could be structured by cows and we would rate it.’”

We recall sitting in a conference room with a group of investors early in March 2008, listening to people congratulate themselves for not “facing” Bear.  Little did they suspect that the whole non-bank sector was toast and that Lehman Brothers would be next. While JPM took down Bear without a default, Lehman eventually failed and filed bankruptcy because nobody could get comfortable with the firm’s financials.

The markets today are just as vulnerable to a “run on liquidity,” with Goldman Sachs now the smallest of the universal banks followed by Morgan Stanley. Since 2008, non-banks have grown in residential mortgages and other areas that are totally dependent upon bank financing.  The changes made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1998 to Rule 2a-7, which prevents non-banks from issuing their own paper for purchase by money market funds, gave the big banks a monopoly on short-term warehouse credit, thus making the 2008 crisis inevitable. 

Bear was the smallest and least beloved of the bulge bracket Wall Street securities firms, having figuratively pissed on the floor by not agreeing to help rescue Long Term Capital Management in 1998.  Nobody on the Street forgot that slight.  Governance at Bear was at a minimum.  The firm was run like a bridge tournament in a high school auditorium, with each table representing a different business unit and no overall enterprise management.

Regulators and members of the academic community like to say that non-banks caused the financial crisis in 2007, but the reality is that banks as well as non-banks failed when liquidity disappeared.  Regulators correctly point to issuers such as New Century, Lehman Brothers and Bear, Stearns as examples of wayward non-banks, but key players in the banking sector such as Wachovia, Washington Mutual and Countrywide also were culpable and vulnerable to runs.

Jonathan Rose (2014) notes that during the subprime panic in 2007-2009, many large depositories such as Wachovia were subject to runs by institutional investors, both in terms of institutional deposits and even debt. WaMu, for example, lost significant deposits during 2008 leading up to its resolution by the FDIC and subsequent sale to JPMorgan.

By March of 2008, in another example, Wachovia was seeing a significant outflow of deposits and demands from bond investors for early redemption which led to the bank being acquired by Wells Fargo later that year.  Only the fact of “too big to fail” protected larger names such as Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), JPMorgan, Bank America and Citigroup from the contagion.

The funding support provided to the non-banks and second tier banks by the large depositories, as well as the market demand provided by the mortgage securities issuance of the GSEs and large banks, are important factors that drove the overall demand for subprime mortgages. The eventual collapse of demand led to the failure of both banks and non-banks alike.

Countrywide’s warehouse was largely financed by Bank of America, which was forced eventually to acquire the crippled institution. Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns were likewise funded by the large banks and money market funding, and were eventually acquired by JPMorgan with support from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Moreover, substantial parts of the balance sheet funding of “banks” such as WaMu and Countrywide were sourced from non-core deposits in institutional money markets.

Many observers fret about the risk presented by nonbanks, yet the dependence of these institutions on bank financing means that the credit and market risk remains “in the bank.” In the event that a large nonbank financial firm in future experiences liquidity or solvency problems, the lender banks would almost certainly be compelled to acquire the nonbank.  Non-banks, at the end of the day, are the customers of the big banks.  That is the key lesson of the failure of Bear Stearns.

via RSS http://ift.tt/2FMy3W5 Tyler Durden

China’s sweeping overhaul aimed at closing regulatory loopholes and cracking down on manipulation (manipulation that isn’t directed by some central authority, that is) continued apace on Thursday when the country’s securities regulator unveiled fines against a Chinese logistics company, charging it 5.5 billion yuan ($870 million) for manipulating the local stock market. The fine is the largest-ever handed out for market manipulation, and is nearly six times the sum the regulator alleges was earned by the illicit behavior.

The decision isn’t altogether unexpected: Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, warned investors back in February 2017 that Chinese securities regulators would be cracking down on fraud and manipulation…

Here’s Bloomberg:

Xiamen Beibadao Group was charged with manipulating the share prices of three Shenzhen-listed companies, Jiangsu Zhangjiagang Rural Commercial Bank Co., Jiangsu Jiangyin Rural Commercial Bank Co. and Guangdong Hoshion Aluminium Co., China’s securities regulator said in a briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. It later clarified that the unit’s parent, Shanghai-based Beibadao Group, was the manipulator.

The penalty is almost six times what Beibadao earned by its actions, the watchdog said. Chinese authorities have been mounting a campaign to stamp out illicit behavior in the world’s second-biggest equity market, which is dominated by individual, often first-time investors. Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said in February 2017 that he would pursue market malpractice and wrongdoing no matter whether it’s “historical or current.”

The crackdown comes at a crucial time for Chinese markets. President Xi Jinping cemented his grip on power this week after China’s National People’s Congress overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to eliminate term limits. This established Xi as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. Maintaining financial stability is paramount to Xi, and to help him maintain his iron grip on domestic markets, rumor has it that Xi intends to dramatically expand the role of Liu He, a Politburo member and leader of the Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs. It’s been reported that He, one of the country’s top securities regulators, will soon add Chairman of the People’s Bank of China to his long list of responsibilities.

And with the US threatening to pull the rug out from under the global free-trade order (a paradigm that has greatly benefited the Chinese economy) safeguarding the country’s massive debt pile is of paramount importance to the regime.

And bank strategists who spoke with Bloomberg appear to be toeing the party line.

Bank strategists who spoke with Bloomberg parroted the party’s line: The crackdown, which comes as CSRC’s boss, Liu He, prepares to expand his regulatory role purportedly to include running the People’s Bank of China. Combating manipulation and corruption

“The fines will only get bigger and bigger as regulators step up the crackdown on market irregularities, and it’s likely we’ll begin to see similar cases being exposed more frequently in the future,” said Yin Ming, vice president of Shanghai-based Baptized Capital. “It’s a signal to market participants that violent share moves and speculative trades are prohibited, and it’s always the authorities’ priority to maintain a stable market.”

…

In the past, when there was illegal activity in the capital market, the fine was just hundreds of thousands. The cost to violate the rules was so low,” said Hong Hao, Hong Kong-based strategist at Bocom International Holdings Co. “Going forward, as long as there is a similar case, I think the regulators will continue to charge huge fines.”

Readers may remember late last year when a bout of unprecedentedly low volatility (which just happened to coincide with the Communist Party’s National Congress) did more to ward off small-time investors than any individual trader or (or corporate trading desk) ever could, as we pointed out late last year.

“I’m out of the game,” said Gu Yuan, 34, an information-technology worker in Shanghai who sold almost 70% of a portfolio worth 600,000 yuan ($87,336) after the 2015 market slump and pared down some more this year. “It is more difficult to identify strong tech companies or convincing investment themes since the crash.”

Hopefully, the target of these penalties can at least appreciate the irony: The CSRC late last year essentially declared that the local market had become more efficient as a result of regulators’ manipulation.

Which only reinforces the notion that market manipulation will no longer be tolerated…

…unless, of course, it’s perpetrated by China’s National Team…

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Authored by Rand Paul via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Americans have also been increasingly clear that they are tired of constant war

What kind of job can you have where you are consistently wrong, yet get to still go on TV talking endlessly and making more wild predictions that will no doubt lead to the same failed result?

If you guessed “TV Weatherman” you’re close…but the job I’m referring to is “Neocon Foreign Policy Expert”.

Being a neocon means never having to say you’re sorry, even trillions of dollars and decades into doomed wars.

Iraq

Famously, the neocons have told us that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. The thousands of American soldiers killed or wounded might argue otherwise. The architects of the Iraq war forgot to tell us that it would embolden Iran and give Iran a new ally in the ‘liberated’ Shia majority in Iraq. They forgot to tell us that it would tip the balance of power in the Middle East and encourage Saudi Arabia to go on a military buying spree and become the third largest purchasers of weapons in the world.

Libya

The neocons told us that the Arab Spring would bring Western-style democracy to the Middle East. They told us toppling Muammar el-Qaddafi would bring freedom and stability. They were wrong and instead of stability the overthrow of Qaddafi brought chaos. They failed to understand that the chaos of Libya would become a breeding ground for terrorism.

Syria

The neocons loudly announced that regime change in Syria was their goal. Yet, even Hillary Clinton realized the problem when our arms, as well as Saudi and Qatari arms, were getting delivered in the hands of ISIS. In one of the Wikileaks emails, Hillary warned Podesta: “the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia . . . are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS and other radical groups in the region.”

And yet, the deliveries of Western arms to jihadists went on and on for years.

Despite the evidence that many of the fighters opposing Assad were jihadists with an equal hatred for Israel and the United States, the weapons kept flowing.

Remember their call to arm the “moderate fighters?” Who can forget the $260 million spent to train sixty fighters, ten of whom were captured only minutes after they were sent into battle.

The neocons vociferously argued that Assad must go. Senators McCain and Graham argued that you couldn’t defeat ISIS without also defeating Assad. John Bolton went so far as to pontificate that “defeating the Islamic State” is “neither feasible nor desirable” if Assad remains in power. Actually, the opposite was true. Only when the mission changed from removing Assad to attacking ISIS did the tide finally turn.

Max Abrahms and John Glaser wrote in the LA Times late last year that contrary to neocon dogma, ISIS “imploded right after external support for the ‘moderate’ rebels dried up.”

So, the neocons who argued that ISIS couldn’t or shouldn’t be defeated without first defeating Assad were wrong again.

In the 2016 presidential primary two candidates—myself and Donald Trump—declared that the Iraq War was a mistake, that we should not arm our enemies and that America didn’t have a dog in every fight.

I campaigned against the folly of recent neocon wars, the futility of nation building, and the bankruptcy, moral and literal, of the idea of policing the world. So did Donald Trump—for the most part.

So where do we go from here? Congress is still dominated by neocons. The Trump administration shows no sign of ending the Afghan war. If anything, President Trump has doubled down on our support for Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni civil war. Candidate Trump, who consistently voiced his displeasure with the Iraq War, has surrounded himself with generals still intent on finding military solutions where none exist.

Neocon critics believe the world is black and white. You’re either Churchill or Chamberlain. You’re either with us or against us. You’re either a patriot or an isolationist.

The irony is that the neocons are the TRUE isolationists. The neocons wish to isolate and forbid trade with regimes that they disapprove of. The neocon policy toward Cuba is the very definition of isolationism.

For over half a century, we’ve had an embargo with Cuba. Not only did the Castros survive it, but they milked it for everything it was worth. The Cuban government stoked the flames of nationalism in Cuba and blamed America for anything that went wrong, rather than the true culprit—their own dogmatic socialism.

The isolationist neocons want to continue this embargo. They want to peel back the small diplomatic gains that have been made. They want to pare back cultural exchange and dialogue.

The opposite, free travel and trade, is what is needed.

Our founders understood the perils of perpetual war.

John Quincy Adams echoed and summed the spirit of the foreign policy of our founders when he said:

America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

Far from being isolationist, the foreign policy of our Founders is the true engagement. To seek honest friendship, free commerce, open dialogue and peaceful engagement with all who are willing.

Libertarian realists agree.

We do not seek to retreat within our borders—nor do we seek to expand them.

We do not seek a wall to keep everyone out, nor to keep anyone in.

Too often the United States has attempted to till the soil in foreign lands with our bombs and plow it with our tanks.

Instead, we should seek to help others till their land with our tractors and reap their harvest with our combines.

The neocons argue that Americans want a more robust foreign policy. Maybe, but at the same time, Americans have also been increasingly clear that they are tired of constant war.

Reagan had it right when he said “our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will.”

In fact, restraint is a triumph of will.

After the debacles of Iraq and Libya, after becoming weary of a drawn-out mission in Afghanistan, the American people are looking for a new path for foreign policy.

America should steer clear of other countries civil wars, such as Yemen.

We should not be in wars where the best outcome is stalemate, as we are in Afghanistan.

And America shouldn’t fight wars that are not authorized by Congress.

Admittedly, the War on Terror is not over, but any military action must be judged by this question: will this use of force kill more terrorists than it creates?

Refueling Saudi bombers mid-air and supplying them with bombs that are dropped on a funeral procession is exactly the kind of misguided policy that creates more terrorists than it kills.

To defend our country properly, we must understand that while there are those that hate our values, military interventions aimed at changing that at the point of a gun—or the blast radius of a bomb—may well exacerbate this hatred rather than end it.

We need a foreign policy that recognizes its own limits, a common sense realism of strength, limited action, full diplomatic engagement and free trade.

Here’s how I see the most important principles of this foreign policy.

First, the use of force must always be on the table, but rarely used. War should be the last resort, not the first.

War is necessary when America is attacked or directly and clearly threatened, and when we have exhausted all measures short of war.

The second principle is that Congress, the people’s representative, must authorize the decision to intervene.

The most serious decision we make as a nation is to send our sons or daughters to war. We should make it together, and we should vote on it.

Finally, how do we solve non-military challenges in places like Asia and Eastern Europe?

That’s where the third principle comes in – a firm, full commitment to diplomacy and leadership.

Hysteria over election-meddling threatens to reignite the Cold War.

Russia, at times, is our adversary, but it need not be our permanent enemy.

Whether it is the threat of ISIS, or the situations in Iran and Syria, it would be in our interest to work together with Russia where possible, yet this opportunity is slipping by. Obsession with Russian “collusion” or other conspiracies involving the Kremlin and the administration have frozen the narrative and hampered what I believe to be the president’s good instincts on the proper relationship with Russia.

Before I close, let me talk about the last piece of the puzzle for a strong foreign policy—our own economic strength.

Adm. Mike Mullen properly noted that the biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

A bankrupt nation does not project power, but weakness.

Our national debt now exceeds $20 trillion. Trillion dollar annual deficits have returned.

Our overseas adventures are causing us to be stretched thin, and Republicans have pushed for, and received, a massive military spending increase.

Despite Congressional hostility, I have asked the question: is our military budget too small or is our mission too big?

I believe, without question, it is the latter. Our mission has become too large. Years after completing our mission in Afghanistan, America remains—spending $50 billion a year nation-building. We are adding debt at nearly $2 million per minute.

If we’re not careful, we will spend our way into second-tier nation status quickly.

If the long war is to ever end, we must understand what must take its place.

It isn’t just religion, nor even abject poverty, that motivates those seeking a better life. It is often the simple idea of freedom that we in the west take for granted.

Mohammed Bousazizi, the Tunisian street merchant who set himself on fire and began the Arab Spring, was an aspiring entrepreneur foiled by an overbearing government.

He had a dream. He’d save for a truck, and he’d sell his wares on the streets to build a life.

Cronyism and overbearing government stifled his dream. He set himself on fire, and the flames are still burning.

My great grandfather came to America with a dream not unlike Bousazizi’s. He peddled vegetables until he saved enough to purchase a truck, to become what was then logically called a truck-farmer. Over time he was able to purchase a home, then a small bit of land.

My grandfather didn’t need a permit or a license. No government hindered his success.

Peruvian economist De Soto spoke to Bousazazi’s father and asked him if he left a legacy. He replied, “Of course, he believed even the poor had a right to buy and sell.”

To own one’s labor and the products of one’s labor is a fundamental human right.

To trade one’s labor and products is also a fundamental right.

Strangely, neocons and libertarians likely agree that government should largely leave us free to pursue our dreams. Neocons, however, feel some universal calling to liberate humanity. Libertarians want the same liberty for individuals across the globe but think that ‘spreading liberty’ through perpetual war can only occur with a big government that tramples individual liberty.

When you boil it all down, the dilemma is whether liberty spreads best by persuasion or force.

And going one step further, one must ask if the government can maintain its character as a defender of individual liberty if the government must large enough to support perpetual war.

This was the great battle fought between William F. Buckley and Murray Rothbard in the early 1960’s. Everyone thinks Buckley’s National Review won hands down. And yet, Buckley himself ended up doubting the wisdom of the Iraq War.

The schism that divides neocons and libertarian realists will heal when the neoconservatives finally acknowledge that a government big enough to “make the world safe for democracy” is inconsistent with individual liberty.

When neoconservatives accept that a government large enough to fight perpetual war requires taxes and debt so extensive as to be to inconsistent with individual liberty – then will the schism heal.

When that time comes, libertarians and neoconservatives will gather in Williamsburg and raise a pint to our common heroes: Jefferson, Paine, Madison, and yes, even John Adams. That will be a glorious time, a time when liberty is no longer divided and we can all celebrate the great American experiment in Liberty.

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Confirming the “purge rumblings” reported earlier, moments ago the Washington Post reported that President Trump has decided to fire H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser, delivering the latest jolt to the senior ranks of his administration.

This latest termination from Trump’s administration makes it 25 departures in Trump’s first 419 days, or on average one every 17 days.

As the WaPo adds, while “Trump is now comfortable with ousting McMaster, with whom he never personally gelled,” he is taking the time to execute the move because “he wants to ensure both that the three-star Army general is not humiliated and that there is a strong successor lined up, these people said.”

Developing.

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The Moritomo scandal that has plagued Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his finance minister Taro Aso for the past year, took another twist when the Nikkei reported on Friday that Abe was made aware of alterations made to documents linked to the controversial land sale at the heart of the scandal six days before his government admitted as much to the public – and potentially much longer assuming he ordered said alterations – sparking fresh claims from the opposition he was trying to cover up the biggest political scandal of his (second) career as PM.

On Thursday, Abe’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that Abe was told as early as March 6 that Finance Ministry documents related to the sale of steeply discounted public land may have been altered; it was not only Monday March 12 that the ministry made the unaltered documents available to lawmakers and the public. As a reminder, the scandal in question involves the sale of land to Moritomo Gakuen, a nationalist private school operator with ties to Abe and his wife; media reports first emerged the previous week that the documents were altered to erase evidence of the school’s political connections to the prime minister.

According to the Nikkei’s newly disclosed timeline, Japan’s land ministry informed Suga’s deputy, Kazuhiro Sugita, of discrepancies between documents held there and those the Finance Ministry had submitted to Diet lawmakers on March 5. Sugita then ordered the Finance Ministry to work with the land ministry to investigate, and the deputy notified the prime minister the following day.

This means the government waited six days after Abe was informed to admit the rewriting. The discovery of this time lag prompted the opposition to accused Abe of a systemic cover-up, which it clearly is.

To be sure, the administration has defended itself, saying that notifying the Diet on March 5 would have been “irresponsible,” as “we did not have the originals at that time” senior government official retorted.

“We obtained the [unaltered] documents on March 10 through cooperation with prosecutors,” Suga said. “The Finance Ministry has explained that it could not fully authenticate the documents until that time.”

Then the Finance Ministry told Abe and his inner circle Sunday that it had altered 14 documents, and the ministry made the unaltered versions available to lawmakers Monday. These showed that key details had been removed, including all references to the premier’s wife, Akie Abe. and specifics regarding price negotiation between the ministry and Moritomo Gakuen.

The incident did not end there as even when caught, the government tried to cover up… again: when the ministry sent fresh copies of the documents to the Diet’s upper house budget committee March 8, these turned out to be the same altered versions submitted previously, drawing outrage from the opposition according to the Nikkei.

“The prime minister’s office was engaged in a cover-up,” Yuichiro Tamaki, head of the center-right Kibo no To, or Party of Hope, has alleged. “They kept this from the people for days,” Kazuo Shii, who leads the Japanese Communist Party, told reporters Thursday, claiming “they were hiding it.”

In retrospect, if that’s the best Japan’s communists and opposition politicians can do, Abe has nothing to fear: to become effective they would need to take long lessons of outrage from US Twitter to be able to enact any change.

But wait there’s more.

It turns out that in addition to cronyism and a coverup, Abe’s actions may have resulted in a suicide: on Thursday Japanese media reported that a worker at the Finance Ministry’s Kinki bureau found dead last week wrote in a suicide note that he was “forced to rewrite” the documents by superiors.

The man had been ill since last fall and repeatedly missed work, according the reports. The Kinki bureau handled the sale to Moritomo Gakuen, and the ministry has blamed the alterations on employees there.

Meanwhile, fireworks await: Nobuhisa Sagawa, who resigned as Japan’s tax chief March 9, just days before the scandal became public, will be called to testify before lawmakers. He led the ministry’s Financial Bureau at the time the alterations were made. The key question is whether ministry bureaucrats made the changes on their own, or whether Abe’s office was involved as well. Of course, there is no reason on earth why anyone in the finance ministry would seek to protect Abe or his wife without some ulterior motive, although that’s precisely the angle that Abe will pursue.

Until then, calls for resignations continue to rise, if remain largely unheeded: “Even what we know now is ample reason for Finance Minister Taro Aso to resign,” Kohei Otsuka, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, told reporters Thursday. “At the latest, he should step down after the fiscal 2018 budget is approved.”

Aso has repeatedly rejected calls for his resignation.

So finding themselves at an impasse, where a career-ending scandal that would have cost the job of any of Abe’s drama-allergic predecessors has so far failed to lead to even one resignation (but at least on suicide), some lawmakers want testimony from the prime minister’s wife as well.

“I would like to propose Akie [Abe] be called to give testimony after Sagawa,” said Kiyomi Tsujimoto, Diet affairs chief for the center-left Constitutional Democratic Party.

But wait, this cartoon continues (for those who claim that only Donald Trump can provide hours of entertainment): Mrs Abe has also drawn criticism for liking a Facebook post critical of the opposition. “It was inappropriate,” said Toshio Ogawa, the Democratic Party’s chief in the upper house, adding that she should be called in to explain herself.

Meanwhile, sensing that the public mood can sour quickly, and with no North Korean ICBMs to use as a convenient distraction, even the prime minister’s own Liberal Democratic Party demands an investigation of the document scandal.

“It is our responsibility to answer the questions that people have: Why was it done, and was it of the perpetrator’s own volition?” said Shigeru Ishiba, a veteran lawmaker often at odds with Abe.

“The people are taking a hard look at the Diet and the Finance Ministry,” Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the LDP’s junior coalition partner Komeito, said Thursday.

“The public views this less as a case of rewrites than as a case of document tampering,” said Ichiro Aisawa, the LDP’s former Diet affairs chief. “Politicians will eventually have to take political responsibility.”

Maybe, but not just yet, and certainly not the man at the center of the scandal, Finance Minister Taro Aso, who on Friday said that the abovementioned Nobuhisa Sagawa – the man at the heart of the Moritomo Gakuen scandal – was not trying to act on any unspoken wishes of his superiors in his previous testimony about the scandal in parliament. In other words, Japan’s former tax chief inexplicable decided to to Abe and wife this huge favor in vacuum.

Of course, if the Japanese populace is dumb enough to accept this “explanation”, it deserves the civilization-crushing economic and market collapse that will follow once Abe and Kuroda’s grand experiment in central planning finally ends.

 

 

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Authored by J.G.Martinez via The Organic Prepper blog,

Dear fellows, I want to tell a little story of this last week.

My son had a rash in his little armpits and other parts. So his mom took him to the doctor, within walking distance from our subdivision (our SUV is still busted). After the subsequent blood test (according to my wife it was a real spectacle. He is a strong kid and a task force between my wife, the doctor and a nurse was needed to get the blood sample…well at least we know he is able to defend himself.) The lab result (freaking expensive because the reactants are scarce) was salmonella.

I started to worry a lot, as it is logical. That was Thursday. I got immediately into fast-forward mode, and found the money, while I was extremely concerned about the availability of the needed antibiotics. My wife woke up early, and with a neighbor in his car went with the kiddo to the pharmacy. After visiting two pharmacies with negative results, they headed up to a state-owned pharmacy next to the state hospital, controlled by Cubans or party members, who betray the hospital personnel that dares to report malnutrition deaths or similar events. This is happening.

She was finally able to find the medicines on Saturday morning, at a really inflated price, but the neighbor works for an official government, with a flash of his badge she could buy them without the employees giving it a second look.

I emailed a copy of the doctor’s report to Daisy, so she can confirm my history for those who feel the need to do so.

To me, this was a major achievement under the actual circumstances. I used some of the money from your donations, to exchange it for the needed Bolivares to buy the medications, but the important thing to note here is that they were found. And that is not easy in this country.

Forgotten diseases are returning

Recent reports from these last few days have been, for someone who understands the importance of the endemic diseases that had been under control, spreading quickly.

I am talking about serious stuff: Tuberculosis, Diptheria, Leishmaniasis. There have been adults and children who died because of these things. The diseases themselves, under normal conditions can be healed. But without the appropriate medications and proper nutrition, they become deadly.

Leishmaniasis

One of the worst endemic diseases that has been reported (this information arrived via social networking from confirmed, known sources) is Leishmaniasis. This is a parasite to which you should pay a lot of attention. With the lack of proper balanced feeding, a person’s natural defenses get lower, and it is much easier for them to get sick.

Traditionally there were programs all over the country to fumigate and keep the vectors under control. However, the last fumigation was a long time ago and this allowed the vectors to spread themselves again, reaching densely populated areas, and now without any modern medication to contain it.

Rodents, canines, are affected too. The main transmission vector is the mosquito, and their first manifestation is a skin lesion in the place of the bite. There are several forms of the disease, and most of them are deadly. This is a disease associated with the malnourishment, population displacement, poor living conditions, weak immune systems, and a general lack of resources. This is the exact scenario we have been living through and the description of an SHTF situation. It affects the liver and has permanent consequences if not treated properly.

Ehrlichiosis

Another disease we have present in our area is the Ehrlichiosis, a tropical variation of Lyme disease. Fortunately, we could find the antibiotics for this as well, but of course at incredible prices. Thankfully with a 2^nd income, it could be obtained. My wife got better after weeks of feeling sick once we knew what it was.

In a funny side note, we had to go to a veterinary lab, as it was the only one in town that was able to do such testing. This gave me floor for a LOT of imaginative, creative jokes to her. Lol.

We used the recipes to buy some extra blisters packs of medication, just in case, for our medicine box will be donated once the family can come with me.

Tuberculosis

Another disease that had an incredible increase is tuberculosis. It is known that tuberculosis is linked to malnutrition (source) and it is becoming increasingly widespread in Venezuela. As it is more or less known,  improper nutrition is the main cause of this once-eradicated sickness in Venezuela. The cases were very few, and widely spread, mainly among drug addicts, homeless people, or even patients of psychiatric hospitals. This is a bacteria, and the infection damage is located especially in lungs.

A weakened immune system makes it easy for the disease to take hold. There are a lot of ways to prevent our defenses from getting too low, but proper nutrition is the best prevention. Whole foods, of course, provide more leverage to our immune system than processed foods.

Mosquito-transmitted diseases

Another important and significant increase has been in the mosquito-transmitted diseases. With the main insecticides factories financially strangled, their production is scarce, and the well-known government mafia takes over whatever they can.

Finding a can of insecticide is not easy. This is another item that should be stockpiled. It is not going to lose efficiency. I could afford to buy a fumigation machine, able to provide a clouding of droplets with a very small size, the needed size to float in the air for hours (I don´t remember how many microns, I think about 0.5 or so). It is useful for house fumigation as well as greenhouse or crops, despite being electrical. It does not use a heating element, so it is much more simple to maintain and fix, and this allows to use a wider variety of insecticides that do not need to be burned to remain as a cloud for keeping their effectiveness.

Salmonella

Our recent experience with salmonella last week opened our eyes to how bad sanitation conditions have become. Of course, this is to be expected. There are no cleaning products at affordable prices, and therefore the hygiene decreases significantly, and salmonella is a disease very closely linked to hygiene.

According to my research for this article, salmonella can be transmitted by infected hens, even before teggshellell is formed, and this seemed to us something very likely because the chicken farmers can’t afford the mandatory vaccines or medications for the animals.

Another salmonella infection source is raw poultry. We noticed that in the place we buy our fresh poultry and cheese, these are stored in the same freezer. This is not what we could call ideally sanitary, but it is our first time facing such an illness.

According to our doctor, that same day there were 2 other cases of salmonella before our son. This is alarming, to me. Never had seen even one case, except very rare instances, and suddenly three persons in a row in a doctor’s office?

This is highly suspicious, at a minimum.

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Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Thursday that it is important to respond to the nerve-agent attack, blamed on Russia, “in a measured way.”

Stoltenberg said the “serious attack” involving the use of a weapons-grade nerve agent in Salisbury in southwest England “is unacceptable. It has no place in a civilized world,” telling reporters that the attack seems to be part of a “reckless pattern of Russian behavior over many years.”

Stoltenberg says he supports the U.K. government’s findings that Russia was behind the poisoning, which NATO says marked the first offensive use of a nerve agent on the territory of the alliance since its founding:

“The substance used is one of the most toxic ever developed. This is the first offensive use of a nerve agent on alliance territory since NATO’s foundation. All of us agree that the attack was a clear breach of international norms and agreements. This is unacceptable. It has no place in a civilised world.”

And the NATO boss was quick to point out just how terrible Russia is…

“The attack in Salisbury has taken place against the backdrop of a reckless pattern of Russian behavior over many years.

The illegal annexation of Crimea and military support to separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The military presence in Moldova and Georgia against these countries’ will.

Meddling in Montenegro and elsewhere in the western Balkans.

Attempts to subvert democratic elections and institutions. And the military build-up from the north of Europe to the Middle East.

Russia has been modernizing its armed forces over the last decade.”

NATO’s chief says Britain has not requested any explicit help in the wake of the poisoning of a former Russian spy and he sees no need to activate the alliance’s collective defence clause.

“Well, there’s been no request for Article 5 and it’s for nations to ask for that. NATO is ready to provide support and we’ve expressed our political support to UK, allies are also there to provide support in the conduct of the investigation and to call on Russia to answer the questions which have been posed by the United Kingdom, but I think it’s important to react in a proportionate, measured and defensive way and there has been no call for Article 5.”

NATO’s Article 5 is an all-for-one, one-for-all, clause which rallies all nations in the 29-member alliance to the aid of an ally under attack. It has only ever been used once, by the U.S. after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

But, with a straight face, Stoltenberg said that the 29-nation NATO is keen to avoid another Cold War with Russia:

“NATO will not mirror Russia tank for tank, missile for missile or drone for drone. We do not want a new cold war. And we don’t want to be dragged into a new arms race. An arms race has no winners. It is expensive, it is risky, it is in nobody’s interest.”

On a final note, it seems the Organization has adopted a social media friendly hashtag to enable the world to concentrate its commitment to keeping everyone safe… #WeAreNATO – brilliant

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Via Paul Joseph Watson,

An official University of California list of racist “microaggressions” asserts that saying “I’m not racist” is racist.

The university guide defines microaggressions as, “everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”

Examples listed on the university’s official website include telling someone, “you speak English very well,” telling an Asian person that they are good at math, and insisting that “America is a melting pot”.

Using the phrase, “I’m not racist, I have several black friends” is also listed as an example of “racism”.

Radio host Dennis Prager highlighted some other examples, which include saying, “There is only one race, the human race,” and also remarking, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”

Thinking that, “America is the land of opportunity” is also racist, according to the guide.

From the official University of California list of racist “microaggressions”:
• “There is only one race, the human race.”
• “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
• “America is the land of opportunity.”https://t.co/xxrsMrq6Xu

— Dennis Prager (@DennisPrager) March 12, 2018

A white woman who clutches her purse or bag when approached by a black or Latino person is also committing a racist microaggression, according to the guide. Asking non-white people why they are being quiet or loud is also racist.

We’ve previously reported on other universities that use similar guidelines for “microaggressions,” including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which launched a campaign that claimed using the term “politically correct” as a pejorative is a politically incorrect “microaggression”.

A “Bias-Free Language Guide” posted on the University of New Hampshire website also asserted that the word “American” is “problematic” because it “assumes the U.S. is the only country inside [the continents of North and South America].”

Other discouraged words and phrases included, “obese,” “normal,” “mothering,” “fathering,” “homosexual,” “illegal alien,” and “senior citizens.”

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