Month: March 2018

A U.S. Military helicopter has crashed in western Iraq near the border with Syria, U.S. Central Command said in a late Thursday statement. 

March 15, 2018

Release Number 20180315-28

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S. military aircraft crashes in western Iraq

TAMPA, Fla. – A U.S. military aircraft has crashed in western Iraq with U.S. service members aboard. 

Rescue teams are responding to the scene of the downed aircraft at this time.

Further details will be released when available. 

An investigation will be initiated to determine the cause of the incident.

ABC news reports that at least some aboard were killed, according to a U.S. official.

The helicopter is believed to be a HH-60 Black Hawk variant, known as the Pave Hawk, which crashed near al-Qaim, near Anbar province close to the Syrian border.

Seven people were aboard, and fatalities are “likely” according to Reuters. 

A US military HH-60 helicopter has “gone down” in western Iraq near the border with Syria, according two US defense officials. They caution these are early reports & that the helicopter was carrying 7 personnel but was not on a combat mission – @barbarastarrcnn reports

— Dianne Gallagher (@DianneG) March 15, 2018

 

LATEST: All 7 people aboard U.S. HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter that went down in western Iraq are U.S. Air Force airmen. The crash is believed to be the first fatal helicopter crash in Iraq since the U.S. began fighting ISIS there in 2014. https://t.co/sG8uozvjW1 pic.twitter.com/YxPnuGNsPW

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) March 15, 2018

Last month the U.S. Air Force Central Command announced it would be sending A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, along with HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters and MQ-9  Reaper unmanned aircraft to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar as part of President Trump’s South Asia strategy as well as for ongoing operations in Afghanistan.

Officials said that the helicopter was reportedly not on a combat mission. 

HH-60 Pave Hawk

The Pave Hawk was designed to conduct day or night personnel recovery operations into hostile environments to recover isolated personnel during war. The HH-60G is also tasked to perform military operations other than war, including civil search and rescue, medical evacuation, disaster response, humanitarian assistance, security cooperation/aviation advisory, NASA space flight support, and rescue command and control.

It is a highly modified version of the Black Hawk, which features upgraded communications and navigation suite that includes integrated inertial navigation/global positioning/Doppler navigation systems, satellite communications, secure voice, and Have Quick communications. 

All HH-60Gs have an automatic flight control system, night vision goggles with lighting and forward looking infrared system that greatly enhances night low-level operations. Additionally, Pave Hawks have color weather radar and an engine/rotor blade anti-ice system that gives the HH-60G an adverse weather capability. 

Pave Hawk mission equipment includes a retractable in-flight refueling probe, internal auxiliary fuel tanks, two crew-served 7.62mm or .50 caliber machineguns, and an 8,000-pound (3,600 kilograms) capacity cargo hook. To improve air transportability and shipboard operations, all HH-60Gs have folding rotor blades. 

Pave Hawk combat enhancements include a radar warning receiver, infrared jammer and a flare/chaff countermeasure dispensing system. 

HH-60G rescue equipment includes a hoist capable of lifting a 600-pound load (270 kilograms) from a hover height of 200 feet (60.7 meters), and a personnel locating system that is compatible with the PRC-112 survival radio and provides range and bearing information to a survivor’s location. 

Pave Hawks are equipped with an over-the-horizon tactical data receiver that is capable of receiving near real-time mission update information.  (af.mil)

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The United States is monitoring reports of a large underground North Korean military base in Syria which could be used for “advanced weaponry and nuclear-related work,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. 

Regional news reports that North Korea is close to completing construction of the base near the town of Qardaha, Syria – the hometown of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Long tunnels have been built during the last seven years in a deep valley in Qardaha under the supervision of North Korean experts.

According to Zaman Al Wasl’s satellite images and a military source the underground facility has been under construction for seven years, started by the beginning if the Syrian revolution in March 2011.

A part of the base is being constructed inside a large tunnel in the mountainous area that lies on the Mediterranean Sea. Just a small part is located outside. –Zaman Al Wasl

The site can be seen here.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon that they are monitoring these reports. 

“We are aware of reports regarding possible DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] assistance to Syria to rebuild its chemical weapons capabilities,” a State Department official, speaking on background, told the Free Beacon. “We take these allegations very seriously and we are working assiduously to prevent the Assad regime from obtaining material and equipment to support its chemical weapons program.”

“The United States has long expressed its deep concerns about both the assistance the DPRK provides to Syria’s weapons programs and Syria’s ongoing possession and use of chemical weapons—both activities in defiance of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.” – State Dept. Official via Free Beacon

Two weeks ago, CNN reported that North Korea has been sending chemical weapon supplies to Syria – including chemical resistant tiles, valves and thermometers, according to a UN Security Council diplomat speaking on the condition of anonymity. 

The same report also claims North Korean missile experts visited Syria in 2016 and 2017, after the chemical weapons supplies had been sent to the Middle Eastern state.

During one of the trips, the technicians stayed at Syrian military facilities. A UN member state reported to the panel of experts that scientists from North Korea may still be operating in Barzeh, Adra and Hama. –CNN

If this report isn’t simply propaganda from outlets interested in complicating President Trump’s upcoming denuclearization talks with North Korea, it means that potentially deadly munitions, including chemical weapons, could be dangerously close to the Mediterranean.

That said, there were also reports that Saddam Hussein hid chemical weapons in Syria after nobody could find them – rumors which were later disproven. 

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Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

The Queen of England has a pre-written speech prepared for the outbreak of World War 3.  As tensions between Russia and the United Kingdom continue to flare, the Queen’s speech is sparking fears of a nuclear war.

An Austrailian news source, News.Com.Au, reported that some people already fear a nuclear war is more likely that during the Cold War era. The speech was prepared for her back in the 1980s. It was originally revealed in 2013, but no one paid much attention until now. The address was written in the event nuclear war does occur, and she needs to address the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

The speech was released by the government under the 30-year rule, and is reflective of the time it was written, with a “planned” broadcast date of March 4, 1983. It was drawn up as part of a wargaming exercise.  The script for a hypothetical broadcast has the monarch describing the threat to the “brave country” as “greater” than any other in history. It also mentions the Queen’s son Prince Andrew, then in the Royal Navy. The speech, devised by Whitehall officials at one of the most fraught Cold War periods, was never recorded.

Although it was only a simulation, the text of the Queen’s address (written as if broadcast at midday on Friday 4 March 1983) seeks to prepare the country for the ordeal of World War III. According to the BBC, it starts off by referring to the Queen’s traditional Christmas address:

The horrors of war could not have seemed more remote as my family and I shared our Christmas joy with the growing family of the Commonwealth. Now, this madness of war is once more spreading through the world and our brave country must again prepare itself to survive against great odds.

I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father’s [George VI’s] inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939 [at the start of the World War II].

Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me.

But whatever terrors lie in wait for us all, the qualities that have helped to keep our freedom intact twice already during this sad century will once more be our strength. My husband and I share with families up and down the land the fear we feel for sons and daughters, husbands and brothers who have left our side to serve their country.

My beloved son Andrew is at this moment in action with his unit and we pray continually for his safety and for the safety of all servicemen and women at home and overseas. It is this close bond of family life that must be our greatest defense against the unknown. If families remain united and resolute, giving shelter to those living alone and unprotected, our country’s will to survive cannot be broken.

As we strive together to fight off the new evil, let us pray for our country and men of goodwill wherever they may be. God Bless you all.

It’s a little eerie, to say the least, that the UK, now neck deep in tensions with Russia had prepared a Cold War speech for their Queen. The current crisis with Russia began on March 4, when former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury, England. UK Prime Minister Theresa May claimed they had been poisoned by a nerve agent called Novichok, one of the world’s deadliest.

While the pair remains in hospital, their prognosis is grim. And more importantly, what continues to be missed by most mainstream media outlets is that Skripal had connections to the Trump dossier author, Christopher Steele. Skripal had a close relationship with an unnamed security consultant who worked for Christopher Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence.

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The Obama administration ordered the removal of over 500,000 fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in late 2016, according to testimony from Acting FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich.

Bowdich confirmed a November report from the Washington Post which set the figure at “tens of thousands,” after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked him if more than 500,000 names were dropped from the database. 

The FBI purged the names from the database after the Justice Department changed its legal interpretation of “fugitive from justice” to say it pertains only to wanted people who have crossed state lines.

What that means is that those fugitives who were previously prohibited under federal law from purchasing firearms can now buy them, unless barred for other reasons. –WaPo

“That was a decision that was made under the previous administration,” Bowdich testified.

“It was the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that reviewed the law and believed that it needed to be interpreted so that if someone was a fugitive in a state, there had to be indications that they had crossed state lines,” said Bowdich. “Otherwise they were not known to be a fugitive under the law in the way it was interpreted.”

Since its creation in 1998, the NICS system has prevented 1.5 million people from purchasing a firearm, including 180,000 denials to fugitives from justice, according to government statistics. 

While the FBI had a broad definition of “fugitive,” meaning anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) definition narrowed the definition to anyone with a warrant who has crossed state lines. The DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, urged the Justice Department to address the disagreement in terms “as soon as possible.” 

Shortly before President Trump took office, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel went with the ATF definition.

“Any one of these potentially dangerous fugitives can currently walk into a licensed gun dealer, pass a criminal background check, and walk out with a gun,” Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray on Wednesday. The Giffords organization, founded by former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, called on the FBI and ATF to “correct this self-inflicted loophole” and recover all guns illegally purchased this year because of the purge of names from the database. –WaPo

“The Justice Department is committed to working with law enforcement partners across the country to help ensure that all those who can legally be determined to be prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm be included in federal criminal databases,” a Justice Department official told the Washington Post last November. 

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Just released CCTV footage from the February 14 Parkland, FL school shooting shows Broward County Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson drive up to the high school building as a gunman massacred 17 students and staff members – only to hop off, unholster his gun, and run behind a concrete wall for cover.

 

#BREAKING: Broward County Sheriff’s Office releases security video showing Deputy Scot Peterson’s actions during the February 14 shooting. pic.twitter.com/gs9kAbfgRq

— Ryan Saavedra 🇺🇸 (@RealSaavedra) March 15, 2018

 

Peterson’s ample stomach can be seen poking around the corner as he fails to protect and serve. 

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office released the video on Thursday showing the disgraced deputy remaining outside the building during the shooting.

“The video speaks for itself. His actions were enough to warrant an internal affairs investigation, as requested by Sheriff Scott Israel on Feb. 21. After being suspended without pay, Peterson chose to resign and immediately retired rather than face possible termination,” the department said in a brief statement with the video’s release.

Peterson, 54, dubbed the “Broward coward,” was blasted by Sheriff Scott Israel a week after the shooting, telling reporters that Peterson should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer,” adding that the deputy’s failure to act left him “devastated. Sick to my stomach. There are no words.” 

In response, Petersen issued a statement through his attorney denying any wrongdoing – and said that he thought the shots were being fired from outside the school. 

He lied

Internal radio dispatches released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Thursday reveal Peterson immediately focused on Building 12 and radioed that gunfire was happening “inside.” 

What’s more – Peterson warned his fellow officer to stay away – despite wounded students and staff inside who required assistance. Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) policy requires deputies to engage an active shooter and eliminate the threat. 

“Do not approach the 12 or 1300 building, stay at least 500 feet away,” shouted a panicked Peterson as people screamed in the background. 

The records appear to support Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s contention that Peterson, a longtime school resource officer, should have entered Building 12 to engage Cruz and try to prevent deaths. They also appear to show that other deputies may have refrained from rushing into the school at the direction of Peterson and a Parkland captain. The response by the agency has been the subject of national scrutiny, and is currently under review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. –Miami Herald

BSO police union president Jeff Bell welcomed the release of the audio and timeline of events. 

“It certainly backs up that he never went into the school,” Bell said of Scot Peterson. “At one point he says to keep back 500 feet. Why would he say that?”

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Fresh off his move to Los Angeles, and a profile in the New York Times where he defended President Donald Trump and lashed out at the pervasive groupthink that drove him out of Silicon Valley, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel sat for an interview with Maria Bartiromo at the Economic Club of New York.

Early in the discussion, Bartiromo asked Thiel – who famously opened for Trump at the Republican National Convention – what he thought about Trump’s performance.

In response, he explained that he’s extremely happy with the president’s performance during his first year in office. While the media has been hyperfixated on the latest leak from the Russia probe, Trump has quietly been slashing regulations and questioning orthodoxies like the economic benefits of free trade.

“That’s why, if he runs again, he will be reelected,” Thiel said.

Though “it’s probably the case that Democrats will do quite well in the midterms.”

He also pointed out the irony that people in the Bay Area describe him as a “contrarian” for supporting Trump…

“Supporting Trump was the least contrarian thing I ever did…nearly half the country voted for him. But within the context of Silicon Valley it was viewed as extremely contrarian.”

“The one thing that I liked about Trump and still very much like about him is a willingness to ask questions and to reframe the debate and not be bound by these strictures.

“There are any of a number of issues where it’s good to rethink things.”

Later in the conversation, Bartiromo asked Thiel about the “Gawker situation.” Thiel, who sounded uncharacteristically willing to discuss an episode about which he has been famously reticent, explained that Gawker’s argument in its own defense was, in reality, an insult to journalism. Thiel said that just because Gawker billed itself as a news site doesn’t automatically extend first amendment protections to everything it publishes.

“I’m very proud to have supported Hulk Hogan in a successful lawsuit… The claim that a pornographer pays someone for sex tapes, and a journalist gets to publish sex tapes without paying people… that’s what in effect what Gawker was arguing.”

“We have a first amendment, we believe in free speech, but that doesn’t mean you get to steal a sex tape made in the privacy of a bedroom and post it on the Internet for everybody to see. We have a first amendment…but we also have a fourth amendment that protects us from unreasonable search and seizure…so that’s the legal framing.”

The Gawker lawsuit demonstrated to America why defining the scope of privacy protections in the digital age is so important. Today, the conventional wisdom is that Americans have tacitly surrendered their right to privacy by participating in the digital world. But Thiel says this notion is anathema to the preservation of a free society.

There was a brief discussion of trade, in which Thiel briefly pointed out that US is in a much stronger position to bargain with China and EU than vice versa…

“Quite unclear where China can reciprocate with tariffs on US. We’re exporting so little. US no longer is a monopoly exporter in any single area.”

“With Germany, it’s a very similar thing, hard to know how you retaliate in a way that hurts them more than it hurts US.“

The Silicon Valley billionaire then added that Peter Navarro has sold 1 million copies of his book “Zero To One” in China vs. 40,000 in India, which Thiel says is one way to show how one country is thinking about entrepreneurship versus the other.

When Bartiromo raising the European Union’s decision to introduce the “first ever” regulations of Google, Facebook and other giant tech platforms. Thiel sees good reasons and bad reasons for this threat of regulation:

“The good reasons are these privacy concerns and the bad reasons are there are no successful tech companies in Europe and they are jealous of the US so they are punishing us.”

Additionally, Thiel acknowledged that “privacy in a digital era deserves to be rethought” but said that “as a libertarian I always dislike regulation.”

Intriguingly, amid all the hype and anxiety surrounding investment, Thiel explained why, as an investor, he wasn’t particularly interested in artificial intelligence: because of its bad reputation.

“The thing that struck me is how uncharismatic AI is at the point. Basically, it’s going to take our jobs and, once it takes our jobs, at the singularity [the theoretical point at which superhuman artificial intelligence is created, triggering an unprecedented cascade of technological change] it’s just going to kill everybody.“

“I’m not sure that dystopian view is necessarily correct but that’s actually what most people believe,” he said, adding that when considering investments he tends to ask whether technologies are good and how they are going to make the world better…

“The answers for things like AI are quite weak,” he said.

Bartiromo then steered the conversation toward bitcoin, and mentioned that, the last time she had spoken to Thiel, that he had expressed reservations about a lot of cryptocurrencies, but was optimistic about the long-term prospects of bitcoin. Thiel explained that he’s owned bitcoin for a long time, and has been consistently bullish.

Though he doubts it’ll ever be successful as a medium for payments, Thiel believes bitcoin could endure as a store of value that, much like gold, could serve as a hedge against inflation.

“The technology that people like to talk about is the blockchain technology, and I’m somewhat skeptical about how that translates into good investments, but the one use-case of cryptocurrency as a store of value may actually have quite a bit of a ways to go. I would be long bitcoin and neutral to skeptical of just about everything else at this point, with a few possible exceptions.

“The question with something like bitcoin is whether it can become a store of value. And the thing it would replace is something like gold. The analogy is it’s like bars of gold in a vault that never move and you get it and it’s a hedge of sorts against the whole world falling apart.”

“The objections that people have to bitcoin are also objections to gold. It’s this weird currency that’s not backed by any government. Same thing is true of gold. It’s not clear what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is. Same thing is true of gold. It may well be a bubble, but – and most bubbles are unstable and end – one of my friends has this line that ‘money is the bubble that never pops’, so if it is a bubble, then it is money.”

“If everybody decided that a $100 bill was worthless then you wouldn’t want to have a $100 bill.”

There are a lot of crazy dynamics in the crypto world, but one thing that’s different from the dot-com bubble of the late 90s is there aren’t any Wall Street bankers involved… yet – one reason why bitcoin strikes Thiel as “deeply contrarian.”

At the very least, both Wall Street and Silicon Valley were both late to the bitcoin party. While this isn’t a reason to be bullish in and of itself, it’s definitely a factor worth considering. And while there are risks surrounding the influence that miners exert, as well as the unraveling of privacy protections. But, Thiel says, there will likely be only one online equivalent to gold…and right now, bitcoin is the only crypto product that fits that bill.

Thiel offers some parting advice: “Never bet against Elon.” and “don’t compete with Amazon.”

When Thiel first invested in Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, he was sceptical that it would be able to build a reusable rocket.

“I have known Elon for 18 years and you should never bet against Elon,” he said.

“I thought it was inconceivable that it could be done … and they have actually pulled it off,” he said.

The company to watch, he said, was Amazon, which has expanded into a broad range of industries, from infrastructure and logistics to retail and healthcare.

“Amazon is the most ferocious company in the US at this point. It’s probably the company you don’t want to be competing against,” he said.

“I can’t think of any other company even close to Amazon.”

Finally, Thiel circled back to Silicon Valley and the politically-correct folly of it all…

“It’s striking how what had always been a very liberal place has become almost a one-party state,” he said.

“When you have complete unanimity that tells you that political correctness may have gone a little bit too far.”

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Authored by Tom Luongo,

The events of the past two weeks have been stunning.   Since Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new ‘doomsday’ weapon systems at his State of the Union address, the West has gone completely bonkers.

In the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “I simply don’t have any normal terms left to describe all this,”

With the U.K. expelling Russian diplomats over the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury last week, the push to isolate Russia and create conditions for a World War is here.

The questions are Who is behind this?  And Why?

Theresa May’s response is a joke.  This is a woman who can’t stand up to EU shakedown artists over the mildest of disagreements in Brexit talks but can grandstand to high heaven over an incident with no evidence of Russian action.

This situation is straight out of the neoconservative play book, creating a horrific incident and rushing a government into a confrontation and major policy decision.

And these are happening all over the world right now.

Covering Fire

If you look at the circumstances of Skripal’s associations in light of the collapsing Russia-Gate story in the U.S., the Who?  becomes obvious.  As Moon of Alabama first pointed out, Skripal was an associate of both Pablo Miller and Christopher Steele, both former MI-6 agents working for Orbis Business Intelligence.

What motive would the Russians have for taking out Skripal in such a sloppy manner on the eve of Presidential elections?

They wouldn’t.   In the same way that the Assad government had everything to lose last April over the chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikoun, Russia has nothing to gain by killing Skripal and his daughter today.

But, if Skripal was in the position to corroborate the worst fears about the Dossier, then it makes sense to ties up loose ends.

This is a false flag.  It’s far more plausible than the drivel Theresa May peddled to Parliament.

Anyone with three brain cells to rub together knows this in their heart of hearts.  So, why play coy?

Answer these questions.  Where is Christopher Steele?  Why hasn’t he testified?  If he refuses, why isn’t he being hounded by the media to answer questions about his Trump Dossier?

Now ask the more salient question, who benefits from this?  Not Russia.  Not the U.K. people.  Not Europe.

The Neocon Cornered Snake

Look.  The neocons are cornered.  All of their major pushes to destroy Russia and Iran and control central Asia are collapsing.  The EU is fast approaching a political crisis.  The U.K. is still a loyal subject but the White House has a cancer at its center, Donald Trump. The window has nearly closed on regime change in Russia.  In effect, it’s now or never.

Review my recent articles on this subject. There is a throughline if you are willing to see it and it’s quite clear.

Point #1:  Trump is winning.  He won on taxes.  He won on DACA. He won on Russia-Gate. He won on NAFTA and tariffs.  He beat Gary Cohn and Goldman-Sachs.  He fired Tillerson who looks more and more like a conventional neocon plant with every review of his record.  He’s meeting with North Korea.

Point #2: Putin is winning.  U.S.-backed opposition in Syria is collapsing.  Nordstream 2 is going through.  Ukraine will freeze to death.  China buys their oil and gas, invests in their Uranium and oil industries.  He’s winning the diplomatic war in Afghanistan. He’s put Netanyahu on a leash.

These two men are the vanguard standing against the American/European globalist empire.  The Skripal poisoning was intended to be sloppy.  It was a perfectly executed inept operation, intended to move the emotional needle and direct British frustration outward.

But, this response from the U.K. has been brewing for months.  Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has been running his mouth about Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine.  British Defense Secretary hyperventiliated recently that the Russians were plotting to kill thousands of Britons by selling them gas, apparently.

Now, let’s look at the rhetoric surrounding Eastern Ghouta, a replay of Aleppo.  This time, however, instead of actually gassing people to make the Russians look bad, apparatchiks like Nikki Haley and French President Emmanual Macron wag their fingers threatening everyone not to do so.

Meanwhile, the SAA finds a chemical weapons factory in a village just liberated from ISIS/Al-Qaeda.

But, facts are fungible right, Mrs. Haley?

So, if in the next few days there’s a chemical weapons attack in Ghouta will you believe the Russians and Syrians did it because Nikki Haley told you they might? Will it make any sense to you for them to act like this if the world is watching and ready to pounce?

Or will you retain your sanity and realize any chemical attack was a staged provocation to achieve a cynical political goal?

But, Haley, the ultimate neocon mouthpiece has gone one step further.

“We also warn any nation that is determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and inhuman suffering, most especially the outlaw Syrian regime, the United States remains prepared to act if we must,” Haley said.

The US diplomat proposed a new UN ceasefire resolution that “will take effect immediately upon adoption by this Council. It contains no counterterrorism loopholes for Assad, Iran and the Russians to hide behind”.

Thankfully for the people of Syria, the resolution failed.  Because, as always, the U.S. only proposes a ceasefire in places where it or its proxies, in this case Al-Qaeda-linked separatists, are losing badly. Then the downtime is used to re-equip, reset and reinforce.

Since the deployment of the SAA’s Tiger forces to eastern Ghouta the pocket of resistance has been drawn and quartered.

And, moreover, why is Haley introducing ceasefire resolutions to the U.N. outlawing ‘counterterrorism’ when it is the explicitly-stated goal of her boss, Donald Trump, to combat ISIS terrorists in Syria and nothing else?

No wonder Lavrov has no words.

The SAA and Russian Air Force have no need to use chemical weapons.  In fact, it has been Haley and the U.S. that have blocked Russian attempts to create humanitarian corridors, similar to events in Aleppo, to allow civilians to get out of harm’s way.

Losing in North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine.  Support in Europe for integration failing.

The most likely conclusion one can rationally draw from this is that the cornered neocon snake is lashing out in desperation hoping to take as many of us with them as possible.

The Full-Court Press

In the past two weeks we’ve seen a number of incidents meant to punish Russian oligarchs and harm Russian business interests in Europe in the run up to the Presidential election this weekend.

The first was the idiotic decision by the Stockholm Arbitration Court ordering Gazprom to pay $4.6 billion to Ukraine because Ukraine is in difficult economic circumstances.  In other words a socialist arbitration court ordered money redistributed from those according to their means to those according to their needs.

Moreover, the IMF and the EU want some of the money back they pumped into the Ukrainian basket-case in order to prop up the Poroshenko government for another year.

The second was the planned implosion of ABLV Bank in Latvia.  A bank that was one of the main links for Russian business in the European Union after the 2013 Cyprus bail-in of depositors.

That operation was also a targeted attack on Russian oligarchs to cleave their support from Putin.  With the new sanctions list created by the Treasury Department per John McCain’s sanctions bill pushed through in August of last year, the U.S. labeled ABLV a target for money-laundering and unapproved business.

Within a few days of pressuring the bank depositors began removing funds and the ECB used its expanded powers, much like they did with Banko Popular last year, to take control of the bank.

Lastly, we have this move by the feckless Brits.  The real target here is the ability of Russians to do business in the U.K., now that ABLV has been removed from the equation.  This is a clear hybrid war attack on the ability of Russian businesses to operate anywhere east of the Dneiper River in Ukraine.

And this is yet another step on the path to bring us to war with Russia because its destruction is the animating purpose for neoconservatives.  I continue to believe Trump is not on their side.   The neocons want war for the cause.  That’s why they undermine him at every turn and escalate whenever he wins the smallest victory.

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Vanessa Trump has filed for divorce (uncontested proceeding) from Don Trump Jr according to The NY Post. The couple have been married for 13 years and have 5 kids.

The Post reported Wednesday that the couple has been leading “separate lives.”

“The problems have been there for a long time, the couple had hoped to stay together during the president’s time in office, but it is getting harder to resolve their issues. He’s never there,” one friend told the paper.

“Don Jr. has been busy traveling, which has contributed to their problems. Vanessa is a devoted mother, but she is increasingly lonely and alone in the house with the children,” another friend told Page Six.

“Don and Vanessa are focused on their family, they are trying to do this quietly and privately, and when they have something to say on the record, they will do so. This has nothing to do with politics, this is a personal matter between two people,” another friend added.

Look how happy they were…

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2017 was a perfect storm for “brick and mortar” retailers who officially lost the war with Amazon, and no less than 30 retail chains filed for bankruptcy in a year in which the CEO of Urban Outfitters said the “retail bubble has now burst“…

… bringing the total number of Chapter 11 cases since mid-2015 to 50, accounting for over $20 billion in liabilities.

So is the worst over for retail, or is the sector just now approaching the eye of the hurricane?

According to the latest Moody’s research report on the retail sector, the rating agency now forecasts at least six retail & apparel issuers defaulting over the next 12 months, with most of these occurring in the first half of the year. 

While the good news is that the industry default rate is expected to peak at 12.43% this March, Moody’s cautions that the still-high default forecast for the remainder of 2018 points to more pain before this lower ratings rung in retail stabilizes. Recent defaulters include Tops Markets, which filed for Chapter 11 on February 21, which followed Bon-Ton’s filing on February 4. Charlotte Russe and Charming Charlie both defaulted in December, and Claire’s has hired restructuring advisors.

Meanwhile, the Toys “R” Us bankruptcy in September its overnight Chapter 7 liquidation has only added to pressures by accentuating potential pressures between vendors and the more stressed retailers, even as it left some 33,000 employees without a job.

The problem is that it only gets worse from there, and the rating agency expects upcoming maturities for distressed issuers will spike in 2019. Defaults are growing as many struggle with high leverage and challenged operating performance. These challenges are compounded by the biggest risk – mounting maturities –  which spike in 2019. Overall, issuers in the Caa1 and lower group face $14.9 billion in public and private maturities due 2018 through 2020 as shown in Exhibit 1. The lion’s share of these maturities (Exhibit 2) is attributable to just five issuers:

• Sears Holdings Corp. (Ca negative),
• Neiman Marcus Group LTD LLC (Caa2 negative)
• Claire’s Stores, Inc. (Ca negative),
• BI-LO Holding Finance (Caa1)
• Guitar Center Inc. (Caa1 negative).

Additionally, while the credit markets have remained open to refinancings, those with more challenged credit profiles and operating performance problems will face growing challenges in tapping the markets, especially in an environment where monetary policy is tightening.

Meanwhile, spooked by the Toys “R” Us fiasco, many others will face the risk of vendors pulling the supply plug in the wake of Toys “R” Us bankruptcy, which was triggered when certain vendors cut the company off. As companies move down the rating scale, the vendor portion of the liquidity profile can become strained as concerns over the strength of the company are magnified. Tighter repayment terms, including the dreaded “cash on delivery” (COD), can have an even more serious impact on liquidity than a looming debt maturity. Without vendors, companies don’t get merchandise, and without merchandise, there are no sales.

So in addition to the above 5, who else is on the list?

Many of the names on Moody’s distressed list, and those that have filed for bankruptcy in the past 12 months, are, or rather were, sponsor-owned. It will hardly surprise anyone that many distressed retailers are highly leveraged following sponsor-led LBOs. High leverage has proved problematic for the retail industry due to the industry’s inherent cyclicality and operating income challenges post-recession. Such pressures have been vastly aggravated the past 10 years with the rapid rise of online competition, which has severely squeezed profit margins across the board.

The debt loads assumed by many smaller retailers have created an untenable competitive reality: they are financially ill-equipped to deal with the changing retail landscape. They also lack sufficient resources to build out online  capability, keep stores fresh, and fend off pricing threats from larger competitors. The successful retail LBO stories, such as Dollar General Corp. (Baa2 stable) and BJS Wholesale Club Inc. (B3 stable), have typically been those that haven’t needed to compete online.

The exhibit below lays out the quantitative characteristics of the 20 distressed issuers in Moody’s Caa/Ca universe. Putting these metrics into perspective the debt/EBITDA Caa ”range” is 6-8x, with the EBIT/interest “range” 0.5-1x. Debt/EBITDA above 8x results in a Ca score, as does EBIT/interest below 0.5x.

And before we present the full list of upcoming maturities over the next 3 years, virtually none of which will be made, here is Moody’s brief discussion on whether the retail situation is improving.

Buoyed by favorable macroeconomic conditions, as well as the potential favorable impact from the US Corporate Tax Law change implemented by Washington in late 2017, we believe retail is improving. However, we continue to believe that a “have/ have nots” phenomenon is accelerating, with the effect akin to a teeter-totter. As the larger, better capitalized retailers continue to grow and prosper, the smaller, highly-leveraged retailers are struggling harder to compete and survive.

There are four key pillars that retailers need to have in place to remain healthy, similar to the stability that the four legs provide for a chair: capital structure, liquidity, capital spending, and competitive position. As we progress down the ratings/credit quality scale, these four “legs” tend to get more distorted in relative “length” to each other. For example, a retailer with high leverage will potentially have problems in all four of these categories, which we explain as follows:

• Capital structure: When leverage remains stubbornly high and operating performance fails to keep pace, the capital structure is  significantly weakened over time. Ultimately, the burden of too much debt always wins. A leveraged capital structure has deleterious effects for liquidity, capital investment, and competitive positioning.
• Liquidity: This is the oil that keeps the engine running. An unfriendly or onerous debt maturity schedule makes it difficult to keep the oil flowing, and as we saw with Toys “R” Us, can create enough vendor concern to cause a bankruptcy due to a trade squeeze.
• Capital spending/investment: Without money to invest, stores get tired and therefore become unattractive to shoppers. Websites lose their ability to keep up with competitors and become unattractive to visitors. Supply chains slow down, negatively impacting inventory efficiency.
• Competitive position: Competing with larger, better capitalized retailers is challenging in a static environment. Today’s retail is as volatile as ever driven by the secular shift to e-commerce, making competition the most acute it has ever been. And, in the midst of this, Walmart and Amazon are fighting the battle of the century over market share, using price as a key weapon. Virtually every other retailer runs the risk of being collateral damage in this battle, making flexibility critical, which is an asset most lower rated retailers do not own.

That was Moody’s being diplomatic. The real answer, as shown in the table below which lists the full schedule of upcoming debt maturities by retail issuer, is that unfortunately no, for most retailers except a handful of very prominent online names, the situation is not only not improving, but it’s never been worse.

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