Georgia Hosts Major NATO Troop Drills While Touting Bid To Join The Alliance

Georgia Hosts Major NATO Troop Drills While Touting Bid To Join The Alliance

Tyler Durden

Wed, 09/09/2020 – 04:15

Yet another provocation sure to increase tensions between Russian and NATO has begun this week in the form of war games hosted by the Republic of Georgia.

On Monday the Noble Partner 2020 military exercises kicked off, which involves close to 3,000 NATO troops from the US, Britain, France and Poland. Centered on the capital of Tibilisi, the games will simulate an external invasion of the caucuses country.

The US Army began training exercises last week ahead of the main part of the games, which will go through September 18.

The small country of Georgia is of course not a NATO member, though has since the 2008 Russo-Georgian War been increasingly cooperative and favored by the Atlantic military alliance.

Georgia has bid for membership in the alliance, though the long running South Ossetia and Abkhazia disputes are seen as preventing that, given NATO membership would most certainly trigger broader war with Russia. NATO leaders in 2008 pledged that Georgia “will become a NATO member” but the Russian issue looms too large to actually pull the trigger.

Anytime Georgia hosts war games, it stands accused by the Kremlin of modeling exercises on the prior Russo-Georgian War. Russia also sees such games as a threat given the immediate vicinity to its border. 

Via The Washington Times

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia sought to sidestep any accusations, describing the drills as “a guarantee of peace in our country” and “are not directed against anyone,” in an opening address to troops.

PM Gakharia further called the games “the most important component of efforts to make Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration achievable.”

No doubt such overt pro-NATO talk, again part its longstanding bid to join the military alliance, is also sure to rattle and anger Russia.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3hld1jz Tyler Durden

Navalny False-Flag Authors Invent New Twist To Cover Lies

Navalny False-Flag Authors Invent New Twist To Cover Lies

Tyler Durden

Wed, 09/09/2020 – 03:30

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

So now the Navalny poison episode takes on a new twist with German military intelligence subsequently claiming they found traces of Novichok on a bottle of water the Russian dissident had purportedly been drinking from. Rather, it sounds more like the authors of this false-flag operation have “bottled” – meaning became unnerved by the absurdities inherent in their own narrative.

Last week the German government announced that a Bundeswehr military laboratory had detected Novichok in the body fluids of Sergei Navalny. That promptly led to charges that the Kremlin was responsible for the attempted murder of Navalny using the Soviet-era nerve poison.

The trouble for the German side was that their narrative soon ran into contradictions from the Russian toxicologists who first treated Navalny when he apparently fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20. The Russian medics said they had tested Navalny for a whole range of poisons, including organophosphate-type chemicals which attack the nervous system. The Russian doctors affirmed they found no poison traces. They concluded Navalny’s coma was induced by an existing medical condition, presumably diabetes. Furthermore, the doctors at the hospital in Omsk where Navalny was taken to on August 20, said they have original samples of his body fluids.

It’s the latter detail which seems to have obliged the Germans to elaborate their narrative with the new element of a poisoned bottle of water. If indeed the Russians have Navalny’s biological samples showing no presence of toxins then the German version falls apart as a fabrication. That could only mean that the claimed detection of Novichok by the Germans was the result of deliberate contamination of his body fluids while he was being treated in the hospital in Berlin where he was airlifted to on August 22 from Russia.

It is reported by Der Spiegel that Navalny’s family relatives kept the alleged bottle after he fell sick on the flight from the Siberian city Tomsk. They purportedly did not hand the bottle over to the Russian toxicologists in Omsk, but rather provided the bottle instead to the Germans when Navalny arrived in Berlin two days later.

This “bottle twist” is a convenient and necessary foil to avoid the potentially damning contradiction from the Russian side. The Germans can now claim to have evidence that was not available to the Russians.

But such a ploy creates more questions that still make the German narrative implausible, if not absurd.

If Novichok was used in poisoning Navalny, the 44-year-old dissident would most likely be dead by now. Also, the aides and flight attendants who came into close contact with him during his flight would have shown symptoms of poisoning. It is inconceivable that a bottle contaminated with the deadly nerve agent could have been transported by Navalny’s family to Germany without them being stricken.

The strange Navalny affair has an unerring resemblance to the equally outlandish Skripal affair. Yet the latter is cited as a precedent for the former in order to “substantiate” incrimination of Russia. The alleged Novichok weapon seems to have an amazing ability to lose its deadly potency on bystanders. The immediate victims apparently go into mysterious comas and are not seen or heard of again in public, detained in secret by the British and now German government. There is also the curious introduction of bottles in both cases: the perfume bottle which allegedly conveyed the Novichok weapon in the Skripal incident in England in March 2018, and now the water bottle in the Navalny incident.

As with the alleged assassination attempt on MI6 double agent Sergei Skripal, the latest incident involving Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny is undoubtedly a false-flag provocation to foment Western sanctions and hostility against Moscow.

Immediately following reports of alleged German detection of Novichok in Navalny’s body, there were predictable calls for the cancellation of the Nord Stream-2 gas project between Russia and Germany. It is no secret that pro-Washington German politicians have long been opposed to the ambitious energy trade with Russia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has up to now been resolute in wanting Nord Stream-2 completed in spite of immense pressure from the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress to abandon it. The American agenda is transparently to replace Russian gas energy supplies with American exports.

Navalny’s apparent poison-assassination fits neatly with this strategic American agenda. Given the allegiance of German military intelligence and certain politicians to the transatlantic axis it is not difficult to conceive of how a false-flag provocation against Moscow could be orchestrated.

The problem is that in their haste to set up Navalny as a victim in order to sabotage Nord Stream-2, the authors overlooked the unfortunate anomaly of Russian doctors potentially disproving the claim of detecting Novichok in Navalny’s body. Realizing their clumsy mistake, the authors are obliged to invent another twist in the story involving a contaminated water bottle. In terms of credibility, however, their invention doesn’t hold water.

This has grave implications for the survivability of Navalny. As an opposition figure long lionized and exaggerated by the West as the nemesis of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny is more valuable dead than alive as a propaganda weapon. With its false-flag narrative failing, the temptation may be to up the ante dramatically by amending the script of Navalny “succumbing” to Novichok.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32am9Ty Tyler Durden

Embattled Lukashenko Raises Possibility Of Fresh Elections In First Hint At Compromise

Embattled Lukashenko Raises Possibility Of Fresh Elections In First Hint At Compromise

Tyler Durden

Wed, 09/09/2020 – 02:45

Embattled Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has remained defiant after weeks of mass protests have brought parts of the country, especially the capital of Minsk, to a standstill, following his disputed August 9 reelection to a sixth term. He’s actually been seen walking the presidential compound grounds in combat fatigues while holding an automatic rifle, to show just how serious he is about resisting the unrest increasingly at the gates of his residence

But on Tuesday he showed the first signs he might be willing to compromise as both domestic and international pressures grow toward holding a fresh election. The opposition claims the Aug.9 election was “rigged” as exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya urges “international pressure on this regime” while issuing regular messages from neighboring Lithuania

Lukashenko was quoted in Interfax as saying Tuesday that he may have “overstayed” his time in office and that he would “not exclude early presidential elections” in a significant first sign of possibly softening his stance. 

Putin recently indicated he would host Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow “in the next couple of weeks”. Source: AFP

However, he underscored in the comments that he remains the only leader capable of carrying out any need reform, saying the possibility of a rerun of the contested election would only be accomplished after constitutional reform takes place. 

“We are ready to carry out the reform of the Constitution; after that I do not exclude early presidential elections,” Lukashenko said according to Interfax news agency.

Notably he also rebuffed calls to hold cooperative dialogue with Belarus’ opposition Coordination Council, saying “I do not know who these people are.” This after European Union leaders are urging “dialogue” between the two sides. 

Previously Lukashenko has made statements suggesting a replay of the Ukraine crisis, warning that “NATO is at the gates” and that he’d never given into the demands of foreign forces. At the same time he’s held out the possibility of Russian security services support if the situation unravels and Belarus comes under threat of NATO.

It should be noted that indeed NATO military drills are currently being conducted across the border in Lithuania; however, NATO leadership has stressed the games were “pre-planned” and are not directly connected to the crisis. 

Lithuania’s defense ministry has stressed the war games are “pre-planned and not associated with any events in the region.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3id1S5f Tyler Durden

Sweden: The Violence Is “Extremely Serious”

Sweden: The Violence Is “Extremely Serious”

Tyler Durden

Wed, 09/09/2020 – 02:00

Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

Things in Sweden have now deteriorated to such a degree that on August 29, the Swedish police published a statement titled “The trends in violence are extremely serious.” It said:

“Recently, there have been serious incidents and serious acts of violence linked to criminal networks, in which several people have been murdered and others seriously injured…

“In Stockholm, two people were murdered in the past week, and in Gothenburg, criminal groups have tried to demonstrate power by controlling vehicles entering certain districts. Earlier in August, an innocent 12-year-old girl was murdered… [during a gang incident], and in other parts of the country there are conflicts between various criminal networks and other ruthless crime, as well. On Friday night, a violent riot also occurred in Malmö where several police officers were injured…”

Sweden’s National Police Chief, Anders Thornberg, made what sounded like a plea for help from the rest of society: “Swedish police are in a tough operational situation. It is now a matter of society joining forces behind the police,” he said.

“We will continue to fight organized crime with all the tools we have available. Other good forces in society, everything from municipal officials and civil society to law enforcement agencies and not least the general public, also need to focus on facing the current situation. The police must ensure that the criminals are arrested and can be prosecuted. The criminals need to disappear from our streets and squares so that no more ruthless crimes are committed…

The everyday life many police officers face when they go to work right now is worrying and very tiring. We work intensively, around the clock, despite this, the severe violence continues. The police are there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We do not give up and we do not back down, but the situation is currently very stressful.”

The police statement did not mention that two boys were raped, tortured and nearly buried alive in a cemetery close to Stockholm. The atrocity added to the growing number of so-called “humiliation crimes“. These are crimes where the victim is not only robbed, but also violently humiliated to demonstrate the power of the perpetrator. Another such humiliation crime, for instance, took place in Gothenburg in October 2019, when a criminal gang forced their victim to kiss the gang leader’s feet, while they filmed him. After that, they stomped on his face until he lost consciousness.

“Sweden is losing control of its own territory,” Ivar Arpi, a Swedish columnist, recently told the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

“These heinous crimes and humiliations are connected to a ghetto culture… Journalists do not like to write about it, politicians do not want to talk about it and researchers do not want to touch it. There is a systematic ignorance.”

In the riot that took place in Malmö on August 28, an estimated 300 people burned car tires, shot fireworks and threw stones at the police. The riot occurred close to Rosengård, a so-called “vulnerable area”, populated mainly by immigrants. Video footage posted to social media showed the rioters shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Mohammed is returning” — a reference to the massacre of the Jews of Khaybar by the Islamic prophet Mohammed and his followers in the year 628, in what is today Saudi Arabia. The Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities released a statement in reaction to the riot, saying:

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time a crowd has chanted similar threats against Jews in Malmö. The Council of Swedish Jewish Communities takes this incident extremely seriously and calls on the police and other responsible authorities to prosecute those individuals who have thereby committed incitement against an ethnic group.”

According to Swedish media, the riot was a reaction to the burning of a Koran earlier in the day in one part of Malmö and the kicking of a Koran in a central square in the city by followers of the small Danish anti-Islam party, Stram Kurs. The leader of the party, Rasmus Paludan, has previously toured Denmark with his anti-Islam protests.

Paludan’s demonstrations frequently feature a “Koran stunt.” In it, he either throws a Koran around, burns it or puts bacon on it. Dan Park, a Swedish street artist, who has been convicted of inciting hatred against an ethnic group, had invited Paludan to Malmö to participate in a demonstration. Paludan was stopped at the Swedish border and denied entry by Swedish police, who told him that he was banned from entering the country for two years.

“We believe that his actions and freedom of entry would be a threat to fundamental societal interests,” said Mattias Sigfridsson, Malmö’s Acting Police Chief. Asked whether the decision did not go against the freedom of expression, Sigfridsson said:

“We see it as the opposite. We do our utmost to protect the democratic values ​​that exist. The public gathering for which we have denied permission today would have been a danger to safety and order at the event”.

“I think it is those who react to what I do, who constitute a threat,” Paludan told Swedish media. The decision to ban Paludan’s demonstration was upheld by the Swedish Administrative Court. It held that while the freedom of assembly and demonstration are constitutionally protected rights and that there is therefore a very limited scope to refuse permission to demonstrate, the threat from the demonstration was so serious that it justified banning him. The Koran burning that ensued despite the police decision happened in contravention of the ban. Three people were arrested and charged with incitement, reportedly for kicking around a Koran in central Malmö.

In the Gothenburg suburb of Angered, a criminal gang set up roadblocks and manned them with masked armed men who checked the identities of people driving in and out of the area. According to Berlingske Tidende, the roadblocks were set up by a gang centered around the Ali Khan family, who deal in financial fraud and other crimes. The clan has been reported to the police more than 200 times but the police have had to close almost all cases because the gang threatens the victims and witnesses to stay silent.

Also recently in Gothenburg, a teacher at the Lövgärdes School reported two armed men moving around outside the school and notified the police, but by the time they arrived the men had disappeared. When the teacher drove home from school later that day, he was kidnapped and beaten.

The leader of the main Swedish opposition party, Moderaterna (The Moderate Party), Ulf Kristersson, now says that he wants to make it a crime to be member of a gang.

“Several children have died only this year in stabbings and shootings,” Kristersson wrote in a Facebook post.

“This weekend, two boys were subjected to terrible atrocities in a cemetery in Solna for an entire night. On Tuesday, a teacher in Gothenburg was kidnapped and beaten after contacting the police.

“What we now experience almost daily is not normal — not for Sweden or for Europe. Almost all of us who live here know that. The development is destroying Swedish trust and cohesion, the violence is threatening the system. The criminal gangs terrorize entire residential areas and kill children and adults who happen to be in the way. They set up their own roadblocks and control people’s everyday lives. They are like Sweden’s domestic terrorists — and must therefore be met with the full force of our democracy. Pattern-breaking measures that really lead to change, not just adjustments in the margin.

“Sweden should start by making it a crime to be part of a criminal gang, in the same way that it should be a crime to be part of a terrorist organization. It would thus give the police new opportunities to act against the activities we have seen in Gothenburg in recent days, such as establishing roadblocks or arranging meetings in which various criminal gangs participate.”

In other news, the Västra Skrävlinge church in Malmö was recently vandalized seven nights in a row. Windows were smashed and statues broken, including a statue of Jesus that was smashed to pieces. The perpetrators are unknown, but the Sweden Democrats Party in Malmö has asked the Church of Swedish to look deeper into the matter, adding in a statement:

“Considering the vandalism of Västra Skrävlinge Church that we have seen and the systematic vandalism we see in our cemeteries, this is an area that the Church of Sweden must work with. Unfortunately, there is a grudge against Christian culture among certain groups and the Church of Sweden in Malmö cannot be passive while the Christian cultural heritage is vandalized.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2R8l6ND Tyler Durden

China’s Dark Turn

Chinaprotest_1161x653

“I’m more anti-China than you!” 

That’s a new theme of this election.

Joe Biden says, “We will never again be at the mercy of China!” Donald Trump replies, “China would own our country if Joe Biden got elected!”

It’s strange to hear competition, because just a few administrations ago, presidents were eager to celebrate China. “A future of greater trade and growth and human dignity is possible!” said George W. Bush. Bill Clinton praised China’s “positive change” and “great progress.” 

What changed? That’s the subject of my new video.

Presidents Clinton and Bush were excited about China because its dictators had finally opened up China’s economy. They got rid of price controls, broke up collective farms, allowed foreign investment and privatized state-run business. China, suddenly, prospered.

“People were so happy to finally see China being set on this path,” says Melissa Chen, who reports on China for the Spectator. The reforms “lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty for the very first time.”

Then, three years ago, Xi Jinping got himself named president for life. 

He cracked down on speech, even jokes. After someone noted his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh, all mentions of the character were deleted from China’s internet.

I had thought the internet couldn’t be censored. Bill Clinton said it would be like “trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”

“The Chinese figured out how to nail Jell-O to the wall,” says Chen. “They built an almost perfectly walled-in internet.”

China does this by employing a million censors. They block Google, Facebook, Twitter and most Western news media. A few computer-savvy Chinese citizens use forbidden apps to get around the censorship, but most don’t get to see the same internet that we see.

People caught accessing banned sites are punished. Police may barge into your home, threaten your family or just restrict your choices. 

“You can’t make doctor’s appointments,” explains Chen. “You can’t travel… they’ll block you from buying a train ticket or a plane ticket.”

Life is far worse for religious minorities such as the Muslim Uighurs. The government is waging cultural genocide against them. 

About a million Uighurs are locked up in “reeducation” camps, “sometimes for years,” says Chen. “Their family never hears back from them.”

China won’t allow reporters near the camps, but drone footage shows rows of blindfolded people with their heads shaved and their hands tied behind their backs. 

Radio Free Asia adds that China’s “reeducation” methods even include having Chinese men replace the Uighur men in families. They “come in and live with a family (and) sleep in the same bed as the wife,” says Chen.

In short, today’s China is, once again, a vicious communist dictatorship.

So, I’m amazed to watch American protesters and hear them say, “America is the world’s biggest problem.”

Even a recent New York Times editorial board member wrote that it was difficult to know whether the United States is “better, worse, or the same” as China.

That equivalence is “bonkers,” replies Chen. “There should be no doubt about the moral equivalence between the two countries.”

For one thing, we Americans are free to criticize our government.

“You can hold up a sign at a protest, saying, ‘Screw Donald Trump; the United States sucks!'” explains Chen. “You cannot do anything remotely similar in China.”

People in Hong Kong tried. Millions attended protests, often waving American flags. Chen says it shows they “have a hankering for American values. They crave this freedom that we take for granted.”

Now they, too, have been silenced by China’s government.

The American protesters who carry “democratic socialism” banners and wave Communist flags (Soviet Communists used to call people like them “useful idiots”) should know what people in Hong Kong know: Socialism leads to real government oppression.

“Why would Americans want this?” asks Chen. “Why would they be waving these Communist flags, wanting socialism?”

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3bCtRsS
via IFTTT

Are Video Arcades More Dangerous Than Casinos During a Pandemic?

slot-machines-and-arcade-games-cropped

Casinos and video arcades, both of which feature rows of electronic games that people use in close proximity to each other, pose similar risks of COVID-19 transmission. Yet in Massachusetts, casinos have been open for two months, while video arcades remain closed under an order that Gov. Charlie Baker originally issued in March.

Like many of the distinctions drawn by the COVID-19 lockdowns that all but a few governors imposed last spring, this one makes no medical sense. A federal lawsuit filed last week argues that Baker’s discrimination against video arcades is unconstitutional because it is scientifically indefensible.

Baker originally included video arcades in Phase III of his reopening plan, which took effect on July 6, but changed course without explanation on July 2. In response to a state legislator’s inquiry, the governor offered nothing but boilerplate about “the latest science” and “input from public health experts.”

You might wonder what sort of science tells us that video games played for fun are inherently more dangerous as disease vectors than video games played for the chance to win money. So does Gideon Coltof, the owner of Bit Bar, a restaurant-arcade in Salem.

Coltof notes that businesses like his can take the same precautions casinos are taking. They can erect barriers or maintain physical distance between customers, and they can wipe machines down between users.

Yet while Baker is allowing Coltof to operate his restaurant during Phase III, the governor has decreed that Coltof may not turn on his video games. For a business whose main attraction is the opportunity to play classic arcade games while eating, that restriction could be a death sentence.

If Baker’s order stands, says Coltof’s motion for a preliminary injunction, “Bit Bar likely will go out of business and will not be able to open again even after all COVID-19 orders are lifted.” Ordinary arcades are even more vulnerable to that fate, all because of Baker’s pseudoscientific whim.

The absurdity of Baker’s policy is illustrated by its implications for the Ms. Pac Man machines that Coltof uses as dining tables, which the governor says he may continue to do as long as the machines are turned off. According to Baker’s logic, Coltof’s motion notes, “this table turns into a deadly disease vector” if you “flip the switch” and turn it on.

What recourse does a business owner have when confronted by such livelihood-killing capriciousness? Coltof’s lawyer, Marc Randazza, argues that Baker’s distinction between casinos and video arcades is a content-based restriction on speech, which makes it presumptively unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has recognized that video games are a form of constitutionally protected speech. “There is no meaningful distinction between the permitted and forbidden games other than their content,” Coltof’s motion says.

Content-based speech restrictions are subject to “strict scrutiny,” which means they must be “narrowly tailored” to further a compelling government interest. It is hard to see how Baker’s arbitrary policy can satisfy that test.

In fact, Randazza argues, the governor’s edict would fail even the highly deferential “rational basis” test, which requires only that a challenged rule be “rationally related” to a legitimate government purpose. “There are no facts that would support the assertion that a casino with electronic gambling machine kiosks is a safer environment than a restaurant-arcade that uses similar video game machine kiosks in a similar layout,” the motion says.

For the same reason, Randazza claims, Baker’s policy violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. That provision, which requires that similarly situated people be treated alike, has extra force when the government interferes with a fundamental right such as freedom of speech.

If you’re not a fan of Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, or Q*bert, this case might not strike a chord with you. But Coltof’s complaint poses the same question that Americans across the country have been asking for months: Are there any limits to what the government can get away with by invoking public health?

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ZmvsxQ
via IFTTT

China’s Dark Turn

Chinaprotest_1161x653

“I’m more anti-China than you!” 

That’s a new theme of this election.

Joe Biden says, “We will never again be at the mercy of China!” Donald Trump replies, “China would own our country if Joe Biden got elected!”

It’s strange to hear competition, because just a few administrations ago, presidents were eager to celebrate China. “A future of greater trade and growth and human dignity is possible!” said George W. Bush. Bill Clinton praised China’s “positive change” and “great progress.” 

What changed? That’s the subject of my new video.

Presidents Clinton and Bush were excited about China because its dictators had finally opened up China’s economy. They got rid of price controls, broke up collective farms, allowed foreign investment and privatized state-run business. China, suddenly, prospered.

“People were so happy to finally see China being set on this path,” says Melissa Chen, who reports on China for the Spectator. The reforms “lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty for the very first time.”

Then, three years ago, Xi Jinping got himself named president for life. 

He cracked down on speech, even jokes. After someone noted his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh, all mentions of the character were deleted from China’s internet.

I had thought the internet couldn’t be censored. Bill Clinton said it would be like “trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”

“The Chinese figured out how to nail Jell-O to the wall,” says Chen. “They built an almost perfectly walled-in internet.”

China does this by employing a million censors. They block Google, Facebook, Twitter and most Western news media. A few computer-savvy Chinese citizens use forbidden apps to get around the censorship, but most don’t get to see the same internet that we see.

People caught accessing banned sites are punished. Police may barge into your home, threaten your family or just restrict your choices. 

“You can’t make doctor’s appointments,” explains Chen. “You can’t travel… they’ll block you from buying a train ticket or a plane ticket.”

Life is far worse for religious minorities such as the Muslim Uighurs. The government is waging cultural genocide against them. 

About a million Uighurs are locked up in “reeducation” camps, “sometimes for years,” says Chen. “Their family never hears back from them.”

China won’t allow reporters near the camps, but drone footage shows rows of blindfolded people with their heads shaved and their hands tied behind their backs. 

Radio Free Asia adds that China’s “reeducation” methods even include having Chinese men replace the Uighur men in families. They “come in and live with a family (and) sleep in the same bed as the wife,” says Chen.

In short, today’s China is, once again, a vicious communist dictatorship.

So, I’m amazed to watch American protesters and hear them say, “America is the world’s biggest problem.”

Even a recent New York Times editorial board member wrote that it was difficult to know whether the United States is “better, worse, or the same” as China.

That equivalence is “bonkers,” replies Chen. “There should be no doubt about the moral equivalence between the two countries.”

For one thing, we Americans are free to criticize our government.

“You can hold up a sign at a protest, saying, ‘Screw Donald Trump; the United States sucks!'” explains Chen. “You cannot do anything remotely similar in China.”

People in Hong Kong tried. Millions attended protests, often waving American flags. Chen says it shows they “have a hankering for American values. They crave this freedom that we take for granted.”

Now they, too, have been silenced by China’s government.

The American protesters who carry “democratic socialism” banners and wave Communist flags (Soviet Communists used to call people like them “useful idiots”) should know what people in Hong Kong know: Socialism leads to real government oppression.

“Why would Americans want this?” asks Chen. “Why would they be waving these Communist flags, wanting socialism?”

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3bCtRsS
via IFTTT

Are Video Arcades More Dangerous Than Casinos During a Pandemic?

slot-machines-and-arcade-games-cropped

Casinos and video arcades, both of which feature rows of electronic games that people use in close proximity to each other, pose similar risks of COVID-19 transmission. Yet in Massachusetts, casinos have been open for two months, while video arcades remain closed under an order that Gov. Charlie Baker originally issued in March.

Like many of the distinctions drawn by the COVID-19 lockdowns that all but a few governors imposed last spring, this one makes no medical sense. A federal lawsuit filed last week argues that Baker’s discrimination against video arcades is unconstitutional because it is scientifically indefensible.

Baker originally included video arcades in Phase III of his reopening plan, which took effect on July 6, but changed course without explanation on July 2. In response to a state legislator’s inquiry, the governor offered nothing but boilerplate about “the latest science” and “input from public health experts.”

You might wonder what sort of science tells us that video games played for fun are inherently more dangerous as disease vectors than video games played for the chance to win money. So does Gideon Coltof, the owner of Bit Bar, a restaurant-arcade in Salem.

Coltof notes that businesses like his can take the same precautions casinos are taking. They can erect barriers or maintain physical distance between customers, and they can wipe machines down between users.

Yet while Baker is allowing Coltof to operate his restaurant during Phase III, the governor has decreed that Coltof may not turn on his video games. For a business whose main attraction is the opportunity to play classic arcade games while eating, that restriction could be a death sentence.

If Baker’s order stands, says Coltof’s motion for a preliminary injunction, “Bit Bar likely will go out of business and will not be able to open again even after all COVID-19 orders are lifted.” Ordinary arcades are even more vulnerable to that fate, all because of Baker’s pseudoscientific whim.

The absurdity of Baker’s policy is illustrated by its implications for the Ms. Pac Man machines that Coltof uses as dining tables, which the governor says he may continue to do as long as the machines are turned off. According to Baker’s logic, Coltof’s motion notes, “this table turns into a deadly disease vector” if you “flip the switch” and turn it on.

What recourse does a business owner have when confronted by such livelihood-killing capriciousness? Coltof’s lawyer, Marc Randazza, argues that Baker’s distinction between casinos and video arcades is a content-based restriction on speech, which makes it presumptively unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has recognized that video games are a form of constitutionally protected speech. “There is no meaningful distinction between the permitted and forbidden games other than their content,” Coltof’s motion says.

Content-based speech restrictions are subject to “strict scrutiny,” which means they must be “narrowly tailored” to further a compelling government interest. It is hard to see how Baker’s arbitrary policy can satisfy that test.

In fact, Randazza argues, the governor’s edict would fail even the highly deferential “rational basis” test, which requires only that a challenged rule be “rationally related” to a legitimate government purpose. “There are no facts that would support the assertion that a casino with electronic gambling machine kiosks is a safer environment than a restaurant-arcade that uses similar video game machine kiosks in a similar layout,” the motion says.

For the same reason, Randazza claims, Baker’s policy violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. That provision, which requires that similarly situated people be treated alike, has extra force when the government interferes with a fundamental right such as freedom of speech.

If you’re not a fan of Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, or Q*bert, this case might not strike a chord with you. But Coltof’s complaint poses the same question that Americans across the country have been asking for months: Are there any limits to what the government can get away with by invoking public health?

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ZmvsxQ
via IFTTT

Whitney: Is BLM The Mask Behind Which The Oligarchs Operate?

Whitney: Is BLM The Mask Behind Which The Oligarchs Operate?

Tyler Durden

Tue, 09/08/2020 – 23:40

Authored by Mike Whitney,

Here’s your BLM Pop Quiz for the day: What do “Critical Race Theory”, “The 1619 Project”, and Homeland Security’s “White Supremacist” warning tell us about what’s going on in America today?

  1. They point to deeply-embedded racism that shapes the behavior of white people

  2. They suggest that systemic racism cannot be overcome by merely changing attitudes and laws

  3. They alert us to the fact that unresolved issues are pushing the country towards a destructive race war

  4. They indicate that powerful agents — operating from within the state– are inciting racial violence to crush the emerging “populist” majority that elected Trump to office in 2016 and which now represents an existential threat to the globalist plan to transform America into a tyrannical third-world “shithole”.

Which of these four statements best explains what’s going on in America today?

If you chose Number 4, you are right. We are not experiencing a sudden and explosive outbreak of racial violence and mayhem. We are experiencing a thoroughly-planned, insurgency-type operation that involves myriad logistical components including vast, nationwide riots, looting and arson, as well as an extremely impressive ideological campaign. “Critical Race Theory”, “The 1619 Project”, and Homeland Security’s “White Supremacist” warning are as much a part of the Oligarchic war on America as are the burning of our cities and the toppling of our statues. All three, fall under the heading of “ideology”, and all three are being used to shape public attitudes on matters related to our collective identity as “Americans”.

The plan is to overwhelm the population with a deluge of disinformation about their history, their founders, and the threats they face, so they will submissively accept a New Order imposed by technocrats and their political lackeys. This psychological war is perhaps more important than Operation BLM which merely provides the muscle for implementing the transformative “Reset” that elites want to impose on the country. The real challenge is to change the hearts and minds of a population that is unwaveringly patriotic and violently resistant to any subversive element that threatens to do harm to their country. So, while we can expect this propaganda saturation campaign to continue for the foreseeable future, we don’t expect the strategy will ultimately succeed. At the end of the day, America will still be America, unbroken, unflagging and unapologetic.

Let’s look more carefully at what is going on.

On September 4, the Department of Homeland Security issued a draft report stating that “White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States”. According to an article in Politico:

…all three draft (versions of the document) describe the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups…. John Cohen, who oversaw DHS’s counterterrorism portfolio from 2011 to 2014, said the drafts’ conclusion isn’t surprising.

“This draft document seems to be consistent with earlier intelligence reports from DHS, the FBI, and other law enforcement sources: that the most significant terror-related threat facing the US today comes from violent extremists who are motivated by white supremacy and other far-right ideological causes,” he said….

“Lone offenders and small cells of individuals motivated by a diverse array of social, ideological, and personal factors will pose the primary terrorist threat to the United States,” the draft reads. “Among these groups, we assess that white supremacist extremists …will pose the most persistent and lethal threat.”..(“DHS draft document: White supremacists are greatest terror threat” Politico)

This is nonsense. White supremacists do not pose the greatest danger to the country, that designation goes to the left-wing groups that have rampaged through more than 2,000 US cities for the last 100 days. Black Lives Matter and Antifa-generated riots have decimated hundreds of small businesses, destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of merchants and their employees, and left entire cities in a shambles. The destruction in Kenosha alone far exceeds the damage attributable to the activities of all the white supremacist groups combined.

So why has Homeland Security made this ridiculous and unsupportable claim? Why have they chosen to prioritize white supremacists as “the most persistent and lethal threat” when it is clearly not true?

There’s only one answer: Politics.

The officials who concocted this scam are advancing the agenda of their real bosses, the oligarch puppet-masters who have their tentacles extended throughout the deep-state and use them to coerce their lackey bureaucrats to do their bidding. In this case, the honchos are invoking the race card (“white supremacists”) to divert attention from their sinister destabilization program, their looting of the US Treasury (for their crooked Wall Street friends), their demonizing of the mostly-white working class “America First” nationalists who handed Trump the 2016 election, and their scurrilous scheme to establish one-party rule by installing their addlepated meat-puppet candidate (Biden) as president so he can carry out their directives from the comfort of the Oval Office. That’s what’s really going on.

DHS’s announcement makes it possible for state agents to target legally-armed Americans who gather with other gun owners in groups that are protected under the second amendment. Now the white supremacist label will be applied more haphazardly to these same conservatives who pose no danger to public safety. The draft document should be seen as a warning to anyone whose beliefs do not jibe with the New Liberal Orthodoxy that white people are inherently racists who must ask forgiveness for a system they had no hand in creating (slavery) and which was abolished more than 150 years ago.

The 1619 Project” is another part of the ideological war that is being waged against the American people. The objective of the “Project” is to convince readers that America was founded by heinous white men who subjugated blacks to increase their wealth and power. According to the World Socialist Web Site:

“The essays featured in the magazine are organized around the central premise that all of American history is rooted in race hatred—specifically, the uncontrollable hatred of “black people” by “white people.” Hannah-Jones writes in the series’ introduction: “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country.

This is a false and dangerous conception. DNA is a chemical molecule that contains the genetic code of living organisms and determines their physical characteristics and development….Hannah-Jones’s reference to DNA is part of a growing tendency to derive racial antagonisms from innate biological processes.where does this racism come from? It is embedded, claims Hannah-Jones, in the historical DNA of American “white people.” Thus, it must persist independently of any change in political or economic conditions…

…No doubt, the authors of The Project 1619 essays would deny that they are predicting race war, let alone justifying fascism. But ideas have a logic; and authors bear responsibility for the political conclusions and consequences of their false and misguided arguments.” 

– “The New York Times’s 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history”, World Socialist Web Site

Clearly, Hannah-Jones was enlisted by big money patrons who needed an ideological foundation to justify the massive BLM riots they had already planned as part of their US color revolution. The author –perhaps unwittingly– provided the required text for vindicating widespread destruction and chaos carried out in the name of “social justice.”

As Hannah-Jones says, “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country”, which is to say that it cannot be mitigated or reformed, only eradicated by destroying the symbols of white patriarchy (Our icons, our customs, our traditions and our history.), toppling the existing government, and imposing a new system that better reflects the values of the burgeoning non-Caucasian majority. Simply put, The Project 1619 creates the rationale for sustained civil unrest, deepening political polarization and violent revolution.

All of these goals conveniently coincide with the aims of the NWO Oligarchs who seek to replace America’s Constitutional government with a corporate Superstate ruled by voracious Monopolists and their globalist allies. So, while Hannah-Jones treatise does nothing to improve conditions for black people in America, it does move the country closer to the dystopian dream of the parasite class; Corporate Valhalla.

Then there is “Critical Race Theory” which provides the ideological icing on the cake. The theory is part of the broader canon of anti-white dogma which is being used to indoctrinate workers. White employees are being subjected to “reeducation” programs that require their participation as a precondition for further employment The first rebellion against critical race theory, took place at Sandia Labs which is a federally-funded research agency that designs America’s nuclear weapons. According to journalist Christopher F. Rufo:

“Senator @HawleyMO and @SecBrouillette have launched an inspector general investigation, but Sandia executives have only accelerated their purge against conservatives.”

Sandia executives have made it clear: they want to force critical race theory, race-segregated trainings, and white male reeducation camps on their employees—and all dissent will be severely punished. Progressive employees will be rewarded; conservative employees will be purged.” (“There is a civil war erupting at @SandiaLabs.” Christopher F Rufo)

It all sounds so Bolshevik. Here’s more info on how this toxic indoctrination program works:

“Treasury Department …

The Treasury Department held a training session telling employees that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” and demanding that white staff members “struggle to own their racism” and accept their “unconscious bias, White privilege, and White fragility.”

The National Credit Union Administration

The NCUA held a session for 8,900 employees arguing that America was “founded on racism” and “built on the blacks of people who were enslaved.” Twitter thread here and original source documents here.

Sandia National Laboratories

Last year, Sandia National Labs—which produces our nuclear arsenal—held a three-day reeducation camp for white males, teaching them how to deconstruct their “white male culture” and forcing them to write letters of apology to women and people of color. Whistleblowers from inside the labs tell me that critical race theory is now endangering our national security. Twitter thread hereand original source documents here.

Argonne National Laboratories

Argonne National Labs hosts trainings calling on white lab employees to admit that they “benefit from racism” and atone for the “pain and anguish inflicted upon Black people.” Twitter thread here.

Department of Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security hosted a Training on “microaggressions, microinequities, and microassaults” where white employees were told that they had been “socialized into oppressor roles.” Twitter thread here and original source documents here.” (“Summary of Critical Race Theory Investigations”, Christopher F Rufo)

On September 4, Donald Trump announced his administration “would prohibit federal agencies from subjecting government employees to “critical race theory” or “white privilege” seminar...

“It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date ‘training’ government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda,” read a Friday memo from the Office of Budget and Management Director Russ Vought. “These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce … The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions.”

The next day, September 5, Trump announced that the Department of Education was going to see whether the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project was being used in school curricula and– if it was– then those schools would be ineligible for federal funding. Conservative pundits applauded Trump’s action as a step forward in the “culture wars”, but it’s really much more than that. Trump is actually foiling an effort by the domestic saboteurs who continue look for ways to undermine democracy, reduce the masses of working-class people to grinding poverty and hopelessness, and turn the country into a despotic military outpost ruled by bloodsucking tycoons, mercenary autocrats and duplicitous elites. Alot of thought and effort went into this malign ideological project. Trump derailed it with a wave of the hand. That’s no small achievement.

Bottom line: “Critical Race Theory”, “The 1619 Project”, and Homeland Security’s “White Supremacist” warning represent the ideological foundation upon which the war on America is based. The “anti-white” dogma is the counterpart to the massive riots that have rocked the country. These phenomena are two spokes on the same wheel. They are designed to work together to achieve the same purpose. The goal is create a “racial” smokescreen that conceals the vast and willful destruction of the US economy, the $5 trillion dollar wealth-transfer that was provided to Wall Street, and the ferocious attack on the emerging, mainly-white working class “populist” movement that elected Trump and which rejects the globalist plan to transform the world into a borderless free trade zone ruled by cutthroat monopolists and their NWO allies.

This is a class war dolled-up to look like a race war. Americans will have to look beyond the smoke and mirrors to spot the elites lurking in the shadows. There lies the cancer that must be eradicated.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3bDAmvi Tyler Durden

Rich Americans Flock To Caribbean Ahead Of US Presidential Election Turmoil 

Rich Americans Flock To Caribbean Ahead Of US Presidential Election Turmoil 

Tyler Durden

Tue, 09/08/2020 – 23:20

Wealthy Americans aren’t just fleeing big cities for rural communities amid the virus pandemic, social unrest, and surge in violent crime; some of these folks are leaving the country until the dust settles. Citizenship advisers, government agencies, and real estate developers are pointing out a surge in inbound migration flow of Americans to countries in the Caribbean Sea ahead of the US presidential election. 

Forbes spoke with Mohammed Asaria, whose Range Developments is constructing six new Senses resorts in Grenada, said Americans are flocking to the Caribbean as a means to ‘hideout’ from the socio-economic implosion stateside. 

“You’ve got the election coming. That’s number one. You’ve had Covid and certain places in the U.S. have been challenged through that, and more working remotely,” Asaria said. 

Requests for long-term stays at Secret Bay in Dominica have soared 66% this year as Americans seek isolation in the mountainous Caribbean island nation.

“It’s the first time the U.S. has gone through a period like this and it’s not just the Covid-19 situation,” Gregor Nassief, its owner, told Forbes. “It is the fear of what an extreme outcome on the left or right may look like after the presidential election.”

Petra Roach, head of Global Markets for Visit Barbados, said Barbados recently unveiled a new 12-month “Welcome Stamp” program that is intended to target Americans who want to escape the chaos in the US and work remotely in a peaceful country for an extended period. Since the launch, more than 1,100 applications have been seen, nearly half of the applicants are from the US, UK, and Canada. 

To accommodate the increasing demand for long-term stays, hotels in Barbados, such as Hilton and Marriott, are now offering long-term packages for wealthy Americans. 

Hilton Barbados

As turmoil continues into late summer, wealthy Americans have already begun to apply for citizenship by investment, which means some Caribbean nations are requiring a minimum of $200,000 for investment in real estate to access citizenship. 

“We have seen an uptick in applications from the U.S. for people who want an alternative passport,” said Les Khan, chief executive of the St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit.

“We’re looking at alternatives outside of our hotels,” said Khan. “Individuals are looking for opportunities outside of those hotels and get access to our citizenship through private homes. It’s something that we’re exploring.

While some are hiding out in the Caribbean until the chaos subsides, there are other Americans who are renouncing their citizenship at a record clip as they fear the country is on a pathway towards collapse. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZkAcnG Tyler Durden