After announcing last month that it would be sending 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East, the Pentagon revealed late Wednesday that 500 of those troops would be heading to the Prince Sultan Air Base, situated in the desert east of Riyadh. It’s the latest sign that the Trump Administration is continuing its military buildup in the region, which has so far included fighter jets, B-52 bombers, an aircraft carrier strike force, Navy destroyers and – of course – more troops.
Citing two senior defense officials, CNN reported that a small number of troops were already in the area, and initial preparations were being made for a Patriot missile defense battery as well as improvements to a runway and airfield. US security assessments have determined that the area would be ideal for US troop deployment because it would be difficult for Iran to target with missiles.
Satellite images obtained by CNN revealed the initial deployment to the air base in mid-June. Other images showed more preparations being made at the site earlier this month.
The deployment will strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia, which had been temporarily strained in the wake of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as some lawmakers tried to prevent the US from selling arms to the kingdom, which has historically been one of the biggest purchasers of American arms. However, the Trump Administration is taking steps to expedite arms sales to the US’s Middle East allies, including Saudi Arabia.
However, the Pentagon has apparently dramatically scaled back plans to deploy 10,000 troops to the region to “monitor Iran”.
One of CNN’s sources said Congress has been given an informal heads up about the deployment, and would be formally notified next week.
Ultimately, the US hopes to be able to fly stealth, fifth-generation F-22 jets from the base.
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Less than a month after Congress passed and Trump signed a $4.6 billion emergency spending bill to address the still-raging humanitarian crisis at the border, the Pentagon has authorized the deployment of another 1,100 active-duty troops and 1,000 Texas National Guardsmen – which will increase the number of American military personnel at the southwestern border by 45%.
The new arrivals will join the roughly 4,500 personnel currently stationed at the border.
Richard Spencer, who has temporarily assumed the role of acting defense secretary while Mark Esper, President Trump’s nominee to permanently fill the position, faces confirmation hearings in the Senate.
According to the Pentagon’s announcement, the additional troops will assist in securing points of entry and provide support in migrant holding facilities.
These facilities will include the one in Donna, Texas that Vice President Mike Pence visited last week.
Mexico has also recently deployed more troops to its side of the border, as President Trump’s tariff threats still loom large over the bilateral relationship between the two neighboring countries.
The deployment comes as the Trump Administration is trying to push through a policy that would restrict which migrants are allowed to declare asylum by requiring them to declare asylum in at least one country during their route to the US.
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Trump was in the middle of criticizing Rep. Ilhan Omar for her history of anti-semitic remarks and other offensive comments about the 9/11 hijackers and the US forces who participated in the infamous 1993 “Black Hawk Down” mission in Somalia when the crowd burst into a chant of “send her back” – a reference to Trump’s Sunday tweet saying the members of the “squad” should “go back” from the “crime infested places from which they came” if they’re unhappy with how the country is being run. He also criticized Omar for comparing America to Al Qaeda and advocating on behalf of recruits attempting to join ISIS.
“Representative Omar blamed the United States for the terrorist attacks on our country, saying terrorism is a reaction to our involvement in other peoples’ affairs,” Trump said. “She smeared U.S. servicemembers involved in ‘Black Hawk Down’ — in other words, she slandered the brave Americans who were trying to keep peace in Somalia.”
In a tweet that resurfaced a few months back, Omar accused American soldiers of killing “thousands” of Somalis during the “Black Hawk Down” mission.
“Omar minimized the Sept. 11 attacks on our homeland, saying ‘some people did something,” Trump added. “I don’t think so. ‘Some people did something?’ Yeah, some people did something, alright. She pleaded for compassion for ISIS recruits attempting to join the terrorist organization. She was looking for compassion. Omar laughed that Americans speak of Al Qaeda in a menacing tone, and remarked that, ‘You don’t say ‘America’ with this intensity. You say ‘Al Qaeda,’ makes you proud. Al Qaeda! Makes you proud. You don’t speak that way about America.'”
“And obviously and importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds.”
Shouts of “traitor” could also be heard from the audience.
Trump never acknowledged the chant, or any other commentary from the audience about Omar.
Omar responded to reports about the rally by tweeting out a verse from a poem by black American poet Maya Angelou.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Others offered more harshly worded responses, with Shaun King calling the incident “one of the single most racist moments in modern American political history.”
This is one of the single most racist moments in modern American political history. As Trump began attacking my friend Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the crowd began chanting “SEND HER BACK, SEND HER BACK.” It’s utterly despicable and dangerous. We are here. We are in THAT time. UGLY. pic.twitter.com/6M0PBXe4Lr
Director John Favreau denounced Trump’s performance as “one of the most chilling and horrifying things I’ve ever seen in politics.”
The crowd at Trump’s rally chanting “send her back” after the President viciously and dishonestly attacked Ilhan Omar is one of the most chilling and horrifying things I’ve ever seen in politics.
By early Thursday morning, the hashtag #IStandWithIlhan had become the No. 1 trending hashtag. Omar, who was born in Somalia, is the only member of the progressive “squad” who immigrated to the US. She, and her fellow squad member Rashida Tlaib, are the first two Muslim women elected to the US Congress.
Together, we will continue unleashing the power of American enterprise, so every American can know the dignity of work and the pride of a paycheck. With your help, we will elect a Republican Congress to create a safe, modern, fair, and LAWFUL system of immigration! #MAGA2020pic.twitter.com/zxy6zRLGu1
The Republican Party is the Party for ALL Americans. We are the Party of the American Worker, the American Family & the American Dream. This is the proud banner the Republican Party will carry into the Republican National Convention next summer in the great city of Charlotte, NC! pic.twitter.com/T39INp0N8N
Just returned to the White House from the Great State of North Carolina. What a crowd, and what great people. The enthusiasm blows away our rivals on the Radical Left. #2020 will be a big year for the Republican Party!
As an international private currency, Libra will be in competition with publicly issued currencies.
It could have large and fruitful repercussions on the global monetary policy, especially with reference to those countries where central banks are still heavily subject to political influence and tend to pursue inflationary monetary policies.
The introduction of the Libra project to the public has generated a lot of fuss over the consequences this cryptocurrency may have for the stability of the global financial system.
At first, we need to clear the ground from the most common mistaken facts about Libra running over the news. As detailed in this white paper, Libra will be a fully backed digital currency, it will be issued solely upon demand, and its value will be given by a basket of reserves whose composition will be diversified, privileging safe assets and stable international currencies (as thoroughly described in thetechnical part of the white paper dedicated to the functioning of the reserve mechanism).
Thus, despite the rumors, we know as a fact that Libra will not:
run its own monetary policy, since it will not be in control of its money supply;
create commercial-banks money, since it will not leverage on its costumers’ deposits to create new units of Libra operating under a fractional-reserve scheme like regular commercial banks do;
be pegged to any existing currency, since it will not take a specific commitment to fluctuate in a stringent range vis-a-vis any currency or basket of currencies.
Lastly, the fear that a sudden bank-run may cause the collapse of the Libra is either irrational or it confirms early critics have not yet understood the basic functioning of the project. In fact, the fully backed-ness of Libra would make it much safer than commercial-banks deposits we daily accept as means of payment, because Libra would be always redeemable—at least—into legal-tender currency; this redeemability would not be just theoretical (as it occurs with commercial-banks money and fractional-reserve banking) but also practical, because a unit of Libra could be created if, and only if, a unit of monetary base (i.e., legal-tender currency) or a claim on it (i.e., a unit of commercial-banks deposits) were conferred in exchange for that very unit of Libra.
In other words, while commercial-banks money (that is, deposits) can be created out of thin air—simply granting a loan—Libra would be instead created if, and only if, backed by a formerly existing unit of money—either of the central bank or of commercial ones (recall: money of commercial banks are deposits, which entitle the owner to claim a unit of monetary base, i.e., legal-tender currency).
For all these reasons — sticking to what we really know about Libra so far — Libra will have a value which will be stable in time with respect to the main reserve-currencies of the world. The relatively stable value of Libra, together with its worldwide accessibility, is what we believe may have positive and interesting repercussions. Libra may become a safe, accessible, cheaply storable reserve of value for those people living in countries that experience unbearable high levels of inflation to this day.
Moreover, the analogies between Libra and the first steps of the Hayekian proposal of “Denationalization of Money” (1976) are strikingly patent, insofar as Libra:
is a privately issued medium of exchange;
is subject to a 1:1 reserve system, in which money-creation out of thin air is not allowed;
remains fully redeemable in terms of existing legal-tender currencies.
Therefore, Libra — if not impeded by governmental legislative power — would provide consumers with a medium of exchange whose inflation would be the weighted average of the safest legal-tender currencies of the globe, thus naturally displaying a potential standard deviation of its value — that is, deflation or (more likely) inflation — closer to them than to that of more volatile currencies. After a while, highly inflated legal-tender currencies (especially in those countries with relevant governmental interference and political influence over central bank’s activity) would be gradually less demanded in exchange for goods and services and, were governments not to forbid payments denominated in terms of Libra-units (that is, were they to allow Libra to exist as a full-fledged means of payment), then Libra could (analogously to what is postulated by the Grisham’s Law, but —somehow — in reverse) drive governmental money out of the payment-mechanism and prompt agents to hold to Libra for payment-purposes.
Thus, citizens would be induced to hoard governmental money only in order to pay taxes — since government would not, most likely, forego their privilege of imposing which unit of account taxes are to be paid in, that is, which unit of account is decreed to be legal-tender currency — and would be given the opportunity to access a slightly more competitive money-market.
For example, were Libra allowed to circulate alongside the publicly issued currencies in countries such as Turkey or Argentina, which at present experience high level of inflation, citizens of these countries will soon start to be interested in storing their wealth in Libra-coins, which is what has in part already happened with Bitcoin or major international currencies — like the dollar. The advantage Libra could have over Bitcoin is that it promises to deliver far better in price stability, while the advantage it could have over the dollar is that it has the potential to flow freely over the internet, overcoming the capital control barriers and all sort of government limitations.
Surely, critics point out that the currencies of said countries will not be accepted as a collateral for the issuing of Libra, hence these people will not be the early adopters of the currency. Nevertheless, Libra may eventually get to these countries from the international trade, via inflows of capital or (more likely) goods and services purchasing; and, since money transfers in Libra would be far cheaper and easier to handle, Libra could then start to be adopted as an alternative currency by more and more people inside the country. In such a scenario, people will express their preference for Libra instead of their local currency, and that will represent an incentive to the local central banks not to act inflationary so to restore the confidence in their own currency, displaying the fruits competition could bear also in a traditional public dominated market — as that of currencies currently is.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XZaFNk Tyler Durden
British fund manager Neil Woodford – who has been faced with an avalanche of redemption requests – is kicking off asset sales by trying to offload his unlisted biotech investments, according to Reuters.
The process could take months, according to the source behind the scoop.
As we have reported in the past, Woodford has left thousands of investors without access to their savings after suspending its flagship $4.63 billion equity income fund about a month and a half ago after overwhelming redemption requests.
The biotech assets are set to be sold as part of a structured auction which could last up to three months. This means that investors looking to redeem could face another several quarters before they have access to their money. Boutique investment bank PJT has been hired to handle the sale but has yet to sign onto an official mandate. They are expected to start the process later this month and declined to comment for the story.
The sale is going to first address Woodford’s illiquid assets that will be bundled into multiple portfolios to be auctioned off. Woodford is also going to sell some of its listed, but illiquid assets, in addition to liquid investments on public exchanges which will also be packaged into different portfolios and auctioned off separately.
Investors including HarbourVest Partners and Coller Capital are expected to bid for parts of the portfolio, though both parties declined to comment. Existing investors in the fund’s top 10 holdings will have preemptive rights and will need to be approached first before trying to lure third parties into the deal. Hedge funds Lansdowne Partners, Odey Asset Management and Redmile own shares in names that Woodford owns.
There’s no official deadline to finalize the divestitures and some major holdings could still be sold individually.
The source said:
“Price is the main thing here. It’s all about getting the best value.”
Meanwhile, Woodford himself said on July 1:
“My view is that we won’t have to take big discounts”.
Healthcare and biotech were favorite sectors of Woodfords’ and made up nearly a quarter of the fund’s portfolio.
But “unicorn” companies like drug discovery company BenevolentAI and DNA sequencing technology firm Oxford Nanopore are difficult to value because they often have few orders and no revenue. Six Woodford biotech holdings produced losses last year.
Valuing these firms was, and will continue to be, “quite an art form”, according to Nooman Haque, managing director, life sciences and healthcare, at Silicon Valley Bank.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JH3eoQ Tyler Durden
It’s illegal to allow poison ivy to grow in New York City. But when residents complained about patch of the plant growing on Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) property that was spilling over onto a sidewalk, the city’s response was to put up a sign warning people about the plant. After a local media site ran a story about the problem, the MTA finally agreed to remove the poison ivy patch.
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It’s illegal to allow poison ivy to grow in New York City. But when residents complained about patch of the plant growing on Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) property that was spilling over onto a sidewalk, the city’s response was to put up a sign warning people about the plant. After a local media site ran a story about the problem, the MTA finally agreed to remove the poison ivy patch.
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If you connected all the dots to the various United Nations (U.N.) Agendas, would you create a map of mass regionalization and an eventual Totalitarian State?
Let us count the ways…
Agenda 21: Global Regional Plans Implemented Locally
According to the author of Behind the Green Mask, Rosa Koire says that “U.N. Agenda 21 is an agenda for the 21st century. It is an inventory and control plan; inventory of all land, water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all food, all energy, all information, and all human beings in the world.” It’s about moving populations into concentrated city centers and clearing them out of rural areas under “Smart Growth.” Under the guise of “Sustainability,” Agenda 21 is the hijacking of the environmental movement.
Agenda 21 is top-down hierarchy, moving away from current government structure based on elected positions in Federal-State-County-City, to a global-regional-neighborhood structure without elections. Currently hundreds of millions of federal dollars are going to cities to create regional plans to give over control of land, and land use, to corporations. For instance, the federal government gave the Telecom Industry new powers to sidestep over the public right-of-way for the roll out of 5G technology by removing regulatory barriers that might prevent infrastructure.
In an order last year by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), If Verizon wants to build a 5G network in a city, the local government is limited in how much it can charge in application fees, and is pushed to approve permits quickly.These rules also mean cities are limited in how they can respond to residents who are upset about equipment going up near them. Many local leaders have spoken out against the FCC’s rules, dozens of whom have banded together to file a lawsuit to overturn it, which has advanced to the Tenth Circuit.
“[T]he FCC is forcing cities to race to the courthouse to defend the most basic of local government rights—the authority to manage and seek fair compensation from private users that seek to employ public assets,” Tom Cochran, the CEO and executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said in a statement.
Sustainable Development Agenda
U.N. Sustainable Development Agenda seek to redistribute wealth away from the middle class to lower the standard of living and, at the same time, reduce the population. The 17 sustainable development goals include goal #2: End hunger through the control of all food production. See my article on how the U.N. seeks to feed the world with crickets.
Sustainability is fomented through crisis, artificial scarcity, and forced conservation known as rationing. It is the excuse to partner science with religion to combat Climate Change, as the Pope described in his June 2015 encyclical. Climate Change legislation in California is tied directly to international influences of U.N. Agendas 21 and 2030 for Sustainable Development. Yet, impacts from the government’s cloud seeding and geo-engineering programs continue unabated. Smart Cities will design growth patterns, redesign cities, and herd people into stackable housing through behavior modification, zoning and land use controls, and tax on toll roads.
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
The 5G rollout is necessary for “The Internet of Things” in a future of A.I. where techie geeks are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter. For those that missed it, there is a new Church of The A.I. god. The latest god-bot religion is founded by former Google executive Anthony Levandowski, and comes with a website called Wayofthefuture.church. As if to drive this message home, Google’s director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, believes humans will be robot hybrids by 2030. This reflects a Transhumanist Agenda.
Humans will never be the same again, partly because for years, scientists have been using CRISPR gene-editing technology to alter DNA through vaccines and drug therapies. They hope to be able to bring extinct species back from the dead as one of their marvel feats.
The U.N. Agendas pave the way for a seamless transition from the individual to the group mindset as part of the A.I. Agenda. There will be no need for voting since there is no need for the individual voter. A Totalitarian, Transhumanist, state is being developed worldwide under a few select corporations: a fascist Corpratocracy. Agenda 21 and 2030 represents a world without borders to allow the free movement of workers, goods and services, all while reducing wages. The politically correct name for this movement?
Social Equity.
However, not yoursocial equity, but equity for corporations to exploit, manage, surveil and control individuals in tightly packed dense “stack and pack” cities. Control is a vital part of the plan.
What is at stake?
Individuality and individual sovereignty. The most important private property is your body. Lost identity falls under the mask of “unity” rhetoric. Unity, under the guise of uniformity and conformity, looks like a genderless society. Genderless means males and females no longer exist. When males and females no longer exist, there is no procreation of the human species. The agenda is depicted as U.N. Goal #5 Gender Equality. The U.N. message is this: Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
The U.N. is implementing “new legal frameworks” to grant “new rights” to groups, to end gender-based discrimination in every country. Government granted rights are merely privileges. What the U.N giveth, it can taketh away. What does the U.N goal look like in reality? The answer is disclosed in the news headlines, which are codes that set the stage for the outcome. The UN counts on you not seeing the Big Picture to connect the dots to the loss of your identity from non-gender, inter-sex birth certificates to driver’s licenses to tax-subsidized surgeries for those who want to change their gender.
The Weather Modification map includes data on the apparatus involved, agents applied and the techniques used in each event. It also includes both positive and negative results of some of the completed projects, funding sources such as government agencies and private companies. It even includes expert opinions and law cases on the topic in order for you to get a complete picture of the benefits and drawbacks of such programs.
Seize The Opportunity
Rosa Koire, in her video interview UN Agenda 2030 Exposed, suggests that there is an opportunity now to:
Stand up
Speak out
refuse to collaborate
refuse to cooperate
expose collaborators
work together to defund these plans
demand what it is the corporations want to give us.
As this is happening worldwide, most know nothing about it since the mainstream press is owned by five corporations.
You are not going to get this information from the mainstream press. So you need to be your own press. You need to educate yourself. You need to get out there and educate your neighbor, your community, your real community. You need to help your children understand that they are being indoctrinated from pre-kindergarten to post graduate school…
All of us have a responsibility to ourselves and to others. This is true community, to work for personal freedom. And always remember even if we do work as a group, we’re all individuals in those groups and we answer only to ourselves. This is essential. As free human beings are free and we need to continue to be free.. – Rosa Koire
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The global automotive collapse continues, denting the narrative of the “strong consumer”, as countries again posted poor YOY comps despite the industry starting to show signs of shakiness during mid-2018. The China/U.S. trade war and global economies that have slipped into recession have played a role in one of the largest global slowdowns in the automotive sector to date. And that trend is now accelerating in the EU.
The drop is being attributed to a negative calendar effect due to the fact that June only counted 19 working days across the EU compared to 21 days in 2018. The five major EU markets all posted declines as a result, with France falling 8.4% and Spain falling 8.3%. However, that’s hardly the full story as individual auto manufacturers in the EU are not showing any signs of relief, according to Bloomberg:
Daimler last week issued its fourth profit warning in just over a year due to the costs of a recall and allegations of emissions-tampering in diesel cars. The carmaker also blamed weaker global markets.
BMW in May reported its first loss in a decade in the main automotive division.
Renault’s partner Nissan Motor Co. was the worst hit during the first six months of this year, registering a 24% drop in European sales.
After Nissan, Honda and Fiat-Chrysler registered the worst sales in Europe since the start of the year with 15.4% and 9.5% declines respectively.
The European data continues an ugly worldwide trend for automobiles, as the first half of 2019 saw demand for new passenger cars across the EU down 3.1% to 8.2 million registrations. Alas, things don’t look to be getting better anytime soon, either. Peter Fuss, a partner at EY consultancy said: “We’re standing in front of a difficult second half of the year. Little positive impetus for the new car market in the EU can be expected in the coming months.”
The problems in the auto market are hardly contained to the EU.
About a week ago, we reported that China was again bracing for another annual drop in auto sales. Earlier in the year, the CAAM had thought zero growth for the year was a possibility, but now it looks like vehicle sales will once again drop – even after an abysmal 2018.
The sector contracted for the 12th straight month in June and sales were down 2.8% in 2018.
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An embarrassing gaffe has severely compromised NATO defense security and readiness after a public document inadvertently revealed too much.
A NATO affiliate body called the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly published a draft report last April entitled, “A new era for nuclear deterrence? Modernization, arms control and allied nuclear forces,” specifically authored by a Canadian senator. In an egregious accidental leak, the document actually identified the locations of American nuclear weapons sites across Europe, which is considered highly classified information.
Via The Sun (UK)
Though the leaked information was quickly deleted after it came to the attention of NATO officials, the Belgian newspaper De Morgenpicked up on the mistake, after which its reporting went viral. The Belgian headline in De Morgen stated: “Finally in black and white: There are American nuclear weapons in Belgium.”
The document revealed secretive information related to the locations of some 150 US nuclear weapons at various bases, “specifically B61 gravity bombs.”
The report identified in a section titled, “NATO’s Nuclear Posture,” subsequently republished by De Morgen, the following classified information:
“These bombs are stored at six US and European bases — Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey.”
Flight test of a B61-12 guided nuclear bomb at the Nevada Test and Training Range. Image source: Screengrab of US Air Force Video.
The sanitized version of the final edition of the document was republished last week, with the nuclear weapons site information deleted.
Interestingly, Italy is estimated to maintain the largest stockpile of US nuclear bombs – somewhere between 60 and 70 – with Turkey and Germany also housing a large amount, which is worrisome in the case of Turkey given rising tensions over its Russian S-400 deal.
Such an extensive US nuclear arsenal on European soil is a remnant and continuation of the historic Cold War build-up, when Washington was locked in battle to deter Soviet expansion in Europe, which also allowed US allies to not have to pursue their own nukes.
Via Statista: “The B61 is a low to intermediate-yield strategic and tactical thermonuclear gravity bomb which deatures a two-stage radiation implosion design. It is capable of being deployed on a range of aircraft such as the F-15E, F-16 and Tornado. It can be released at speeds up to Mach 2 and dropped as low as 50 feet where it features a 31 second delay to allow the delivery aircraft to escape the blast radius.”
European newspapers this week ran shocking and alarming headlines over the revelation. Indeed it reveals a dangerous situation given the recent collapse of one crucial Cold War era treaty which kept warhead delivery systems and missiles out of Europe, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
According to a NATO official statement inThe Washington Post, the document did not originate within NATO itself, but by the group’s parliamentary assembly, specifically from one of the alliance’s founding members, Canada. The NATO statement to the Post said, “We do not comment on the details of Nato’s nuclear posture.”
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