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How Seattle’s New Tax To Fight Homelessness Could Ruin Its Economy

Authored by Travis Brown, op-ed via MSN.com,

In a shortsighted effort to fight homelessness, Seattle’s city council has approved a new employee “head tax” on companies based in the city. The policy pits growth and progress against each other in a zero-sum game that will do far more harm than good.

The head tax is exactly what it sounds like: a straight levy of $0.14 per hour per employee—about $275 a year for a full-time worker—targeting every business in Seattle with revenues of $20 million or more. The proposal’s backers aim to raise around $48 million per year to fund various affordable housing initiatives in order to combat homelessness and provide low-income families with affordable options in the city.

These are laudable aims, but it’s hard to imagine a more destructive strategy for realizing them. The potential damage to Seattle’s economy from this blunt instrument runs into the billions of dollars. Some may believe that California businesses could still flee their high-tax environment for Seattle, but in reality, Seattle is competing with many other cities for this income. One example is Phoenix, which has posted the best income growth of any Metropolitan Statistic Area (MSA) since 1992. Phoenix has capitalized on its proximity to California by luring businesses and people with a low-tax environment that nets them $1,539 in income every single minute. Compared to Seattle, this is nearly $1,200 more per minute, or $70,348 more per day. The numbers are staggering, and Seattle can’t risk putting itself further behind.

Seattle’s $20 million benchmark for the new tax refers to gross receipts, not income, meaning it will hit high-volume, low-margin businesses (think grocery stores or construction wholesalers) just as hard as more lucrative counterparts, promising price increases for consumers as businesses pass along costs. Service industries with big headcounts are firmly in the crosshairs, threatening this key employment category for young and low-skilled workers. The list includes Starbucks — no surprise, there are quite a few coffee shops in Seattle — as well as big retailers like Walmart and grocery store chains, both national and regional. Other big, low-margin employers, including logging and agricultural cooperatives, are also on the hook. And the relatively low cutoff means hundreds of medium-sized enterprises are on the hook too.

Not that soaking the city’s global champions is a good idea, either—it’s a disaster, jeopardizing thousands of current and potential future jobs, as Seattle’s biggest employers and most dynamic companies look elsewhere for expansion. Exhibit A is Amazon’s decision, announced earlier this month, to halt construction of a new office tower just north of downtown, citing the proposed tax, which will cost the online retailer over $10 million per year. Although construction has resumed, Amazon blasted the “hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here,” it said, making it clear that Seattle’s relationship with its biggest employer is hanging by a thread. Amazon employs over 40,000 people in Seattle, or over 10% of the city’s current total workforce of 384,000, but the new tax on jobs provides no incentive to grow that number, and every reason to shrink it.

Amazon isn’t the only big employer eyeing the exits. Real estate portal Zillow, another new economy trailblazer, faces millions in additional tax burden. Alaska Airlines, Expedia, PayScale, Whitepages Inc., and Coinstar opposed the tax in vain, pleading in an open letter to the city council and mayor that taxing companies for creating jobs is like “telling a classroom that the students who do the most homework will be singled out for detention.” It may not be long until these tech companies pack their bags and move south for a city like Las Vegas, which boasts the second-largest wealth growth of any MSA since 1992, gaining $1,048 of income per minute thanks to its zero-income tax policy.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this exercise in illogic is the city government’s failure to enact other commonsense measures to combat homelessness: zoning reforms and infrastructure improvements to facilitate construction of affordable housing; shifting funds from underperforming shelters to ones that deliver; and coordination of the city’s homeless strategy with other municipalities in King County. In a statement from Starbucks opposing the head tax, senior exec John Kelly emphasized that priority should be given to a raft of much-needed reforms, including revamping the shelter system and more outreach to homeless families, lamenting that “we’re missing the opportunity to reform and to focus on a compassionate need of hundreds of children sleeping in cars in Seattle… Our strong belief is quite simply reform first.”

Kelly and other advocates for reform are right. Seattle and other cities across America urgently need to tackle social ills like homelessness. But economic self-immolation is not the way to do it.

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Trump Demands DOJ Surrender Documents On FBI Campaign “Infiltrator” To Congress

President Trump has called for the DOJ to “release or review” a cache of documents that will allow Congressional investigators to get to the bottom of revelations that the FBI sent an informant to infiltrate the Trump campaign. That informant, identified as 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, a U.S. citizen living in London who approached four campaign aides during the 2016 US election for purposes of espionage on behalf of the FBI, according to reports last week in the New York Times and Washington Post. 

es·pi·o·nage

noun

  1. the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information.

    synonyms: spying, infiltration;

Halper – a longtime FBI and CIA asset whose former father-in-law was former Deputy CIA Director Ray Cline, notably got caught spying on the Carter administration during the 1980 election, “reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush,” according to The Intercept.

The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering. –The Intercept

In a Saturday afternoon tweet, President Trump said “If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” adding “Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp!“

How did we get to Stefan Halper again?

August 22, 2017, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson told Congressional investigators that former MI6 spy Christopher Steele said the FBI had corroborated parts of the salacious and unverified “Trump-Russia’ dossier with “a human source from inside the Trump organization.“ 

March 25 of this year, the Daily Caller exclusively reported that Cambridge professor Stefan Halper had met with Trump aide George Papadopoulos and “two other campaign advisers,” including Carter Page. In September 2016, Halper contacted Papadopoulos and lured him to London for work on a foreign policy paper for the sum of $3,000. Halper reportedly asked “George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?” The Trump aide reportedly told Halper he didn’t know anything about them, and the topic was dropped.

George Papadopoulos, Stefan Halper, Carter Page

May 8, a fierce battle between House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and the DOJ’s Rod Rosenstein over the cache of documents detailing the “human source” came to a head, after The Washington Post reported that Nunes had been denied access to the intelligence – which had already been seen by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The White House agreed with the DOJ that the materials were too hot to give Congress – and “could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI.”

May 9, the DOJ reversed course, allowing Nunes and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to receive a classified briefing on the documents (not the documents themselves, as Trump referred top in his tweet). 

May 10, journalist Kimberly Strassel, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, penned an op-ed in the WSJ in which she said she knew who the informant was.

May 11, journalist Paul Sperry noted an entry in Stefan Halper’s Wikipedia page that read “He has been exposed as a CIA and M-16 spy behind the FBI Russiagate investigations of the Trump Campaign and is an informant to the Mueller Special Prosecutor investigation” – which was quickly taken down.

Sperry also tweeted “In summer 2016, Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel assets.” 

May 15, the Daily Caller reported that Congressional investigators were reviewing Glenn Simpson’s August 2017 testimony regarding the “human source from within the Trump organization.”

May 16, the New York Times revealed that “at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos.” The Wednesday report also disclosed the existence of “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” – the FBI’s code name for their early Trump-Russia investigation, which they say originated after the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told authorities that the Trump aide bragged in May 2016 that he knew the Russians had Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Alexander Downer, George Papadopoulos

Given Sperry’s tweet above, it strongly suggests that then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI agent Peter Strzok and Secretary of State John Kerry were working with the informant (Halper) to set “Russian espionage traps” for members of Trump’s campaign as part of Operation Crossfire Hurricane.

Finally, on Friday, May 18, the Washington Post and New York Times published reports which don’t mention the informant’s name, but included enough detail to easily identify him as Halper even without the Daily Caller‘s article from March.

For example, The New York Times describes the informant as “an American academic who teaches in Britain,” who “made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.” While The Post reports “For years, the professor has provided information to the FBI and the CIA.“

These descriptions corroborate the March report from the Daily Caller which described Halper as a “Cambridge professor with connections to the CIA” who contacted Papadopoulos “Two months before the 2016 election.“

Halper has ostensibly been a spook for decades – enlisted by the FBI in the summer of 2016 to spy on members of the Trump campaign. As such, he was probably sweating bullets on November 9, 2016 – the day Hillary was supposed to have won the election.

Meanwhile, the MSM seems to be splitting hairs over the definition of “spy” and “informant,” as they are trying to sell the FBI/DOJ spy operation as simply “helping” Trump by looking out for pesky Russian moles his campaign.

At the end of the day, according to all accounts – the US Intelligence community was categorically, by definition, spying on the Trump campaign no matter how hard the MSM tries to spin things.

And now we wait to see if the DOJ will hand over those documents.

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Hunger Hoaxes Hinder Food-Stamp Reform

Authored by James Bovard, op-ed via The Hill,

The Trump administration is pushing radical changes in the food stamp program as part of the farm bill. Reform efforts may be derailed by activists who vastly exaggerate hunger and portray food handouts as the epitome of social justice. But federal food handouts have already done far too much damage to Americans’ health.

Food stamps are now feeding 42 million people. Twitter activists created a #HandsOffSNAP hashtag to seek to block any efforts at reform. But, while politicians portray food stamps as a nutrition program (Congress changed the name to Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, in 2008), they are actually a blank check to buy more calories.

Food stamps have long been a dietary disaster. Walter Willett, chair of Harvard University’s Department of Nutrition, observed, “We’ve analyzed what (food stamp) participants are eating and it’s horrible food. It’s a diet designed to produce obesity and diabetes.” A 2017 public health study found that food stamp recipients were twice as likely to be obese as eligible non-recipients. Similarly, a 2015 USDA report revealed that food stamp recipients are more likely to be obese than eligible non-recipients (40 percent vs. 32 percent).

Food stamps are a perpetual bailout for the junk food industry. A 2016 USDA report revealed that soft drinks are the most common commodity purchased in food stamp households. Together, “sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar” account for 20 percent of food stamp expenditures. Food stamp recipients consume twice as many of their daily calories from sugar-sweetened beverages as do higher incomes groups (12 percent vs. 6 percent), according to a 2015 study in Preventive Medicine.

A federal program designed simply to boost calorie consumption makes no sense at a time when obesity is rampant. Forty-four percent of low-income women are obese; the rate is even higher for black (56 percent) and Hispanic (49 percent).

Food stamps are justified to prevent hunger but the federal government does not even attempt to collect data on how many Americans actually go hungry.  The National Academy of Sciences urged USDA to create a hunger gauge in 2006 but the agency has done nothing on that score. Instead, USDA conducts annual surveys measuring a vaporous notion of “food security” — which can simply mean uncertainty about being able to afford groceries in the future or not being able to afford the organic food one prefers. Though USDA stresses that the survey is not a measure of hunger, its results (and those of similar surveys) are perennially twisted to maximize teeth-gnashing.

According to the Share Our Strength No Hungry Kids’ campaign, “1 in 6 kids in the U.S. face hunger.” According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, “one in five children go to bed and awaken hungry.” A sparsely-responded food security survey released last month by Temple University sociologist Sara Goldrick-Rah implied that 36 percent of college students were suffering from hunger (the report is titled “Still Hungry and Homeless in College”). The tactic helped spur ludicrous headlines claiming her report showed “starvation” among students.

After equating food insecurity with hunger, handout advocates acknowledge that food insecurity is connected to weight gain. Throughout most of human history, hungry people were portrayed as gaunt, if not emaciated. But nowadays, a profusion of XXL shirt sizes is apparently proof that more free food is needed more than ever before. Blaming obesity on hunger or food insecurity is a way for these advocates to absolve millions of overweight people for every Big Gulp Pepsi they ever drank.  

A far more accurate gauge of Americans’ food deprivation is available from international data. The United Nations estimated last year that fewer than 2.5 percent of Americans are undernourished and that 1.4 percent suffered from severe food insecurity. This report tracks with a 2012 Journal of the American Medical Association analysis that noted that “seven times as many (low-income) children are obese as are underweight.”

The Trump administration proposes replacing much of the food stamp program with boxes of government-issued food. Though a similar program helped protect people against severe hunger prior to the creation of food stamps, switching to food distribution at this point would likely be confusing, if not counterproductive.

It would be far more effective to reform food stamps based on the Womens Infant Children program, which provides coupons only for specific relatively healthy foods. A 2014 Stanford University studyconcluded that prohibiting the use of food stamps for sugary drinks would prevent 141,000 kids from becoming fat and save a quarter million adults from Type 2 diabetes. Restricting food stamp purchases for junk food (a popular bipartisan reform with the nation’s governors and mayors) would have far greater health benefits.

The latest controversies around food stamps are a reminder that hysteria is a poor substitute for hard facts. There is no constitutional right to free junk food. America can aid the truly hungry without creating an illusory safety net that does more to spur obesity than to improve diets.

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Mnuchin: US-China Trade War “On Hold”, But NAFTA Still “Far Apart”

In what looks to us like confirmation that the US has officially kicked the can down the road, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that China and the US were putting a trade war “on hold” as the two sides work to hammer out a comprehensive trade agreement that will be acceptable to both sides.

Mnuchin, who was in Beijing last week for trade talks with top Chinese officials, emphasized that Trump isn’t giving up on holding China accountable – the process is just taking longer than some had hoped.

“Right now Chris we’re going to put the trade war on hold…we made very meaningful progress and we agreed on a framework. The framework includes their agreement to substantially reduce the trade deficit by increasing their purchases of goods,” Mnuchin said, adding the two sides have agreed to numerical targets but the he didn’t want to disclose them.

“We’re putting the trade war on hold, right now, we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to executive the framework,” Mnuchin said.

Mnuchin’s comments come after China and the US on Saturday released a joint statement in which China proposed to “significantly increase purchases” of US goods.

Moving on to the subject of ZTE, which President Trump said he’d work to get ZTE “back into business” at the request of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Mnuchin said that “President Xi asked President Trump” to look into the situation at the Chinese telecoms giant, which isn’t a surprise, he said. Still, Mnuchin insisted that Trump wants us to be “very tough” on ZTE.

“The president wants us to be very tough on ZTE. And all he did was ask the secretary to look into this,” Mnuchin said, referring to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Of course, while “no trade war with China” is the headline that the Trump administration wants investors to focus on, the real news is that there might not be a Nafta deal until next year as Mnuchin says we’re still “far apart” on Nafta.

Mnuchin added that Trump is more concerned with striking a good deal on Nafta than rushing something through this year.

“The president is more determined to have a good deal than he’s worried about any deadline…So, whether we pass it in this Congress or we pass it in the new Congress, the president is determined that we renegotiate NAFTA.“

Still, that doesn’t mean Trump won’t follow through on threats to withdraw from the pact or take other action, if he decides that’s the best option, Mnuchin indicated.

“He has all his alternatives. I’m just saying right now we’re focused on negotiating a good deal and we’re not focused on specific deadlines,” Mnuchin said.

“We’re still far apart, but we’re working every day to renegotiate this agreement.”

The Trump administration blew a Thursday deadline set by House Speaker Paul Ryan for finishing the agreement. Ryan had said the Office of the US Trade Representative would need to wrap up negotiations by May 17 in order for Congress to vote on it this year because of various statutorily mandated notification and consultation periods involved in the consideration of trade deals. However, Ryan later said there might be some “wiggle room”, hinting at a two-week extension of Congress’s Nafta deadline.

That represents a significant de-escalation from when the US had threatened to slap $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports to punish Beijing for violating American intellectual property. China has vowed to retaliate by slapping tariffs on everything from US soybeans to airplanes. Yet a meeting between Vice Premier Liu He and President Trump in Washington, as well as the meeting between Mnuchin and other US officials with senior Chinese officials in Beijing, has significantly dampened tensions as the US has likely realized that it can’t just strong-arm China into doing what it wants.

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Italy Is Forming The Epicenter Of The EU’s Fateful Shift

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Clarity is here in Italian coalition talks.  And the markets hate what they see.  So does Brussels.

Five-year Italian debt blew out over 1%, CDS spreads have moved over 20 basis points in a week. The markets are trying to scare these outsiders now in charge in Italy to soften their stances on reform and maintain a status quo which is destroying a great country and culture.

The League and Five Star Movement leaked demands for $250 billion in debt relief from the ECB.  There was also a demand for developing a mechanism for countries to leave the euro, according to a, now discredited, report from Reuters.

The final proposal doesn’t have any of this inflammatory language, but don’t think the leak wasn’t part of their negotiating strategy or part of where they are ultimately going to push things.

Because the rest of the proposal is already hostile enough to Brussels (see below).  And with ECB President Mario Draghi now signaling the need to consolidate European sovereign debt under its umbrella, it isn’t necessary at the moment.

Here’s Martin Armstrong’s take:

So everyone else understands what this is about, the ECB President Mario Draghi has come out and proposed interlocking the euro countries to create a “stronger” and “new vehicle” as a “crisis instrument” to save Europe. He is arguing that this should prevent countries from drifting apart in the event of severe economic shocks. Draghi has said it provides “an extra layer of stabilization” which is a code phrase for the coming bond crash. [emphasis mine]

That tells me that Draghi understands how bad things truly are and that Italian leadership knows they have the upper hand in debt negotiations.

They are prepared to push Brussels hard to get what they want.  And well they should.  League leader Matteo Salvini understands how ruinous the euro as administered by Germany has been for Italy and most of Europe.

So, to him, if the price for Italy to stay in the EU is to force the northern countries to accept debt consolidation and write-down then so be it.

If they won’t agree to that, then Italy’s new leadership is prepared to back to the people and say, “We tried.  Screw them. Let’s walk.”

All of this says to me they sand-bagged the press and the political establishment to get to this point.

Reconciling Divisions

The coalition proposal is a mishmash of right and left policy prescriptions that will drive the IMF and Brussels mad.  But, these two very different parties have to come to some agreement if they are to wrest control of Rome from the insanity of the status quo in Europe, which serves no one’s ends except the globalists which stand behind the public faces of the EU – Juncker, Merkel, Tusk, Macron, etc.

The League is a former secessionist party that served the northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy with talks of fiscal responsibility and far lower taxes.  The while Five Star Movement has grown out of the hollowing out of Southern Italy’s economy and social fabric from political rot emanating from both Rome and Brussels.

One is calling for lower taxes and regulation, the other wants generous pensions and universal income.  These are not easy differences to overcome. But they have, to no one’s satisfaction. That, however, is the price for such an eclectic mix of policy positions.

That said, they are clearly together on the two most important issues facing Italy’s future, immigration and Italy’s place within the EU.

Both parties want to put Italy first.  And the legislative program now proposed looks to be in that vein, while not looking (at first glance) too radical. From Zerohedge’s writeup this morning:

  • Seeks 15% and 20% tax rates for companies and people

  • Seeks guaranteed minimum income for poorer Italians

  • Universal basic income of €780 per person per month, funded in part through EU

  • Seeks end to Russia sanctions

  • No mention of a referendum on membership of either the EU or the euro

  • Agreement to meet the goals of the Maastricht Treaty

  • No plans to ask the ECB to cancel debt

  • Calls for airline Alitalia to be relaunched

  • Seeks to scrap Fornero pension reform

  • Flat tax to become a dual rate with deductions

  • Seeks a strong contribution to EU immigration policy

  • Plan calls for redefining of lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s mission

The highlighted ones are the most important, while the markets focus on the tax changes and universal income.

Forget those.  If Italy can get the EU to lift Russian sanctions, take immigration policy away from Angela Merkel and provide a blueprint for dealing with insolvent Italian banks those would be titanic wins.

These are the issues at the heart of the EU’s foundational problems – its lack of banking cohesion and anti-democratic bureaucracy.

The Soft Sell To Italeave

So, while all of this looks like they’ve caved on the most extreme positions, in effect, they have not.  Italy’s budget is getting crushed by the cost of Merkel’s Migrants.  Both parties obviously feel that growth can return to the Italian economy within the euro by radically lowering taxes to reprice Italian labor lower.  This would put it at an advantage relative to Germany while remaining within the euro.

Then issuing a new parallel currency, the Mini-BOT, to circulate domestically to lessen the need for euros within the domestic economy and free up Italy’s budget issues with respect to its debt servicing needs.

What I’ll say about that is with yields spiking, the Mini-BOT better get off the ground soon because Italy’s debt servicing is extremely low thanks to the ECB’s negative interest rate policy (NIRP).  And once the dollar begins rising here the decisions for debt relief and consolidation may be out of any one group’s hands.

Merkel’s Out of Time

The problem now is time.  Donald Trump’s pressure policy on Iran and Russia is creating the kind of uncertainty no one can forecast.  It is forcing a decision on European leadership to come together and declare opposition to Washington’s diktats and forge an independent identity while at the same time look to truly end the cultural divisions and distrusts which have led to this moment thanks to a lack of fiscal unanimity.

It is clear to me Italy’s new leadership understands this with the sum and substance of these policy points.  It believes it can re-align Italy’s domestic policies in Italy’s favor while forcing Brussels to face the responsibility of leading Europe forward in a way which is far more equitable than in years past.

Perhaps that’s why Angela Merkel visited Russian President Vladimir Putin for a second time in two weeks after only sending representatives for the past four years.  They weren’t just talking about the Iran deal.

No that meeting was all about getting Germany out from under Trump’s thumb while not incurring his wrath.  Putin’s long-game of diplomatic patience was the right path from the beginning.  It’s always bet to let your opponent bluff and bluster, beat their chests and make demands they can’t enforce.

Eventually those watching realize it is all just hot air.  And as time passes the cost of resistance to the bully falls and the benefits of joining a new group rise.  For Germany it is energy.  Russian Gas and Iranian oil are necessary for Germany to maintain its competitiveness and Trump is undermining both of these with his lack of diplomacy.

Merkel’s refusal of his proposed tariff concessions to ditch the Nordstream 2 pipeline and buy more expensive LNG from Cheniere Energy was more important than people think.  There’s no reason for Merkel to believe that U.S. policy under Trump or any future president won’t do an about face.  Meanwhile, pipelines are practically forever.

And Merkel is savvy enough to put her ego aside over having been outmaneuvered by Putin over Ukraine and hold the line on Nordstream 2.

The Big Reversal

Merkel has an out here. And Italy just handed it to her.  I’m not sure she’s smart enough to see it.

The ECB wants debt consolidation and greater control.  For the EU to survive this is necessary.   Germans and the rest of the northern countries don’t want to be seen bailing out the “Club Med” countries.  That would be interpreted as yet another submission to Washington and New York.  Merkel cannot go through horrific debt relief talks like she did with Greece in 2015.  It would destroy what’s left of her political capital.  If she stands tall against Trump over Iran, however, she gains a lot.  The uncertainty over how Trump will react sends the euro down, pressuring the ECB to finally move on dealing with the debt.

Europeans want normalized relations with Russia and open trade, especially German industry.  There are tens of billions in investments in Russia and Crimea waiting for the sanctions to end to travel to Russia, especially with such a weak Ruble, thanks to Trump’s moronic sanctions.

Only Poland and the Baltics don’t.  But, they don’t matter.  It only takes one finance minister to vote against extending Russian sanctions to end them.  If Merkel stands up to the U.S. on Iran, it makes it easier for Italy to force Germany to stop bullying everyone into maintaining them.

Italy drops the bombshell to end the Russian sanctions in July.  Merkel “reluctantly” goes along with this.  Nordstream 2 worries go away. The EU and Russia form a united front against more U.S. belligerence in Ukraine.

During Monte dei Paschi debt restructuring talks Merkel and Draghi introduce new mechanisms for debt consolidation as a model for the future.

Do I think this is the most likely scenario?  No. But it is one that could come to pass if Merkel reads the shifting political winds properly.  If she begins thinking in Germany’s best long-term interests then some version of this is exactly what she’ll do.

And she’ll have the hated euroskeptics from Italy to thank for saving her legacy and Europe from further political and economic marginalization.

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Trump Erupts In Angry Tweetstorm: “When Does This Witch Hunt STOP”, Slams Hillary, Podesta

With the “Russian collusion” narrative disintegrating fast, as even the biggest Russiagate cheerleaders exit stage left now that the public’s attention has shifted to the FBI itself for having created the narrative after planting at least one infiltrator – Stefan Halper – in the Trump campaign, overnight the NYT tried to pivot the collusion story away from Russia and toward the middle east, reporting that Trump advisers met with an emissary for two Gulf nations during the campaign, a meeting arranged by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, suggesting countries beyond Russia may have offered help.

Erik D. Prince, the founder of Blackwater, arranged the meeting with Donald Trump Jr., George Nader and Joel Zamel

And while the NYT claims that “the meeting was convened primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months — past the election and well into President Trump’s first year in office, according to several people with knowledge of their encounters” who we assume are more FBI moles in the Trump administration, it quietly admits deep inside the piece, that once again there is no actual evidence of anything improper: “It is unclear whether such a proposal was executed, and the details of who commissioned it remain in dispute“

So, in what appears to have been a late start to his usual Sunday morning tweeting, an especially angry president Trump erupted on his favorite social network, lashing out at a variety of recent developments.

First, after late on Saturday the president called on the DOJ to allow members of Congress to review documents related to the FBI spy, saying “If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” in his first Sunday tweet, referning the NYT story about “gulf emissaries”, Trump blasted the “failing and crooked NYT” for moving attention to the rest of the world after it found nothing on Russia:

Things are really getting ridiculous. The Failing and Crooked (but not as Crooked as Hillary Clinton) @nytimes has done a long & boring story indicating that the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt has found nothing on Russia & me so now they are looking at the rest of the World!

Following up by an angry outburst, asking “at what point does this soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP! They have found no Collussion with Russia, No Obstruction.”…

… At which point Trump pivoted to his old nemesis, Hillary Clinton, asking why “they aren’t looking at the corruption in the Hillary Clinton Campaign where she deleted 33,000 Emails, got $145,000,000 while Secretary of State, paid McCabes wife $700,000 (and got off the FBI hook along with Terry M) and so much more. Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam.”

An increasingly irritated Trump then warns that GOP candidates will be hurt in the midterms by the special counsel’s investigation, which it it is now indeed looking at the rest of the World, “they should easily be able to take it into the Mid-Term Elections where they can put some hurt on the Republican Party.” Meanwhile, Trump blasted, “Don’t worry about Dems FISA Abuse, missing Emails or Fraudulent Dossier!“

Going back again to Hillary, Trump appropriately asks whatever “happened to the Server, at the center of so much Corruption, that the Democratic National Committee REFUSED to hand over to the hard charging (except in the case of Democrats) FBI?” The same server that was inspected only by the Ukraine-linked cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, whose founder and boss, Dmitry Alpervotich sits on the board of the rabidly anti-Trump, anti-Russia Atlantic Council, and for some reason nobody else has had access to, even though as Trump notes, “[the FBI] broke into homes & offices early in the morning, but were afraid to take the Server?“

Trump concluded the 6-part tweetstorm by asking why the “Podesta brother” hasn’t been charged and arrested like others, and whether it is because “he is a VERY well connected Democrat working in the Swamp of Washington, D.C.”

While previously these tweets may have been summarily ignored by the public increasingly habituated to Trump’s angry weekend tweetstorm outbursts, in light of the recent news that the FBI was indeed spying secretly on Trump, which as the president correctly assessed was “really a big deal”, perhaps it is time for the DOJ to finally look at the other side of it aisle for criminality and collusion, especially since as Politico’s Jake Sherman notes, the “justice department is run by a Republican, Jeff Sessions, who the president appointed.”

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Hungary’s Unique Solution To The Soros Strategy

Via FreeWestMedia.com,

It is well-known that Hungary put up a border fence, but how does it really work to keep migrants out? It appears to be a multiple-layer border fence stopping illegal migration to the country almost totally. The legal framework is nothing short of astounding.

The main ruse of all Soros-funded NGOs is constant litigation. Today, most illegal immigrants enter countries in the EU legally but overstay or violate whatever visa they may have obtained.

When the illegals get detained waiting for a deportation trial, lawyers employed by NGOs funded by billionaire George Soros, have unlimited funds to plead for their release.

The litigation overcrowds detention centers, because the longer the deportation legal process takes, the fewer deportations can be carried out.

If the detention center overflows, the authorities have no other option but to let the low-risk migrants back into the population where they disappear. This is called catch-and-release, done to prevent the system from becoming overburdened.

The genius solution of the Viktor Orbán government to this particular problem, is that the border fence is not actually on the border. It is situated a few meters from it. So there is a strip of land which is legally Hungary, before the migrants hit the fence.

In some zones, the border fence cuts deep into Hungarian territory, creating large areas of Hungary outside of the fence. These are called “transit zones”.

When a migrant is caught inside Hungary, he is instantly transferred to the transit zone, through one of the gates. This act is not deportation, but detention as the migrant is still in Hungary.

Lawyers from these NGOs can do nothing to intervene since there are no legal remedies available to migrants inside Hungary, technically speaking.

The migrant is able is approach one of the barracks set up inside these zones where he could present an asylum request, wait for its processing and the subsequent court appeal if he is rejected.

The point is that while the migrant is waiting, he is outside of the fence, so he is not actually in Hungary, although legally he is.

The zone has no fence on the border side, so migrants are free to leave that way – back to where they came from. This measure obviously prevents overcrowding. Most migrants do not wait around for their trials, but go back to try to cross the border somewhere where it is easier to get into the EU.

But by not being present for a trial, the case is then dismissed.

So is does not matter how long it takes before a migrant is legally deported from Hungary, because he never entered Hungary and never burdened the state, since most of them leave the zone.

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Thousands In Sweden Have Implanted Microchips Under Their Skin

More than 3,000 people in Sweden have implanted tiny microchips beneath their skin to replace their credit card information, identification, keys, train tickets, among other everyday items, Agence France-Press announced Sunday.

The implant, which is about the size of a grain of rice, utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, also found in credit cards, debit cards, key fobs, and smartphones. This technology is considered “passive,” which means the microchip stores data that can be read by other devices but cannot read data themselves.

This might resemble an Orwellian nightmare to many, but in Sweden, residents are flocking to get these implanted microchips by “convenience over concerns of potential personal data violations,” AFP explained.

Governments in Europe quietly experimented with embedding the small chip in humans in 2015 in Sweden, and several other countries in the region, before the recent rollout.

“Swedes have gone on to be very active in microchipping, with scant debate about issues surrounding its use, in a country keen on new technology and where the sharing of personal information is held up as a sign of a transparent society,” AFP notes.

Ulrika Celsing is one of 3,000 Swedes with a microchip implanted in her hand — a process called “biohacking.” The 28-year-old told AFP, “It was fun to try something new and to see what one could use it for to make life easier in the future.”

Celsing explained that the microchip has turned into an “electronic handbag” and has even replaced her gym card.

She can even book a train ticket online, and then use her hand like a ticket to board a train.

Swedish rail company is trialing letting passengers use biometric chips as tickets. (Source: The Independent) 

While the tiny microchips can store personal data that can be extracted by other devices, they are considered passive — which means the chip cannot read data themselves. Meanwhile, some still have concerns that the progression of this technology could jeopardize personal security.

“I don’t think our current technology is enough to get chip hacked,” Celsing told AFP. “But I may think about this again in the future. I could always take it out then.”

” Sweden has a track record on the sharing of personal information, which may have helped ease the microchip’s acceptance among the Nordic country’s 10 million-strong population. Citizens have long accepted the sharing of their personal details, registered by the social security system, with other administrative bodies, while people can find out each others’ salaries through a quick phone call to the tax authority,” AFP said.

There are still serious privacy and security concerns associated with biohacking Swedes. Regarding privacy, corporations will have unprecedented access to personal data of consumers and or employees.

In the fast-approaching dystopic future, corporations and government could soon be collecting private data on their citizens via implanted microchips.

Also, the security risk behind any wireless technology leaves the device vulnerable to hackers, who will eventually discover wireless methods to steal personal data stored on the microchip.

However, Jowan Osterlund, a piercings specialist and advocate of biohacking Swedes, “brushes off fears of data misuse and conspiracy theories,” said AFP.

Osterlund argues if Swedes carried their data on them all the time, they would be in better control of where their data went. He has been an organizer of “implant party,” a gathering where the piercings specialist injects microchips into millennials.

Jowan Osterlund (R), a piercings specialist and self-proclaimed champion of chip implantation, brushes off fears of data misuse and says if we carried all our personal data on us, we would have better control of their use. (Source: AFP) 

The needle used to implant the microchip into one’s body. (Source: AFP)

Around 3,000 Swedes have had microchips inserted into their hands that can hold entry codes, buy train tickets and access specific vending machines or printers. (Source: AFP) 

What could go wrong?… Sweden is in the beginning innings of biohacking its civilian population and ushering in a dystopic future, where government and corporations will have an unprecedented amount of data on its population. In other words, the country is turning its citizens into cyborgs.

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Brussels Rises In Revolt Against Washington: A Turning Point In US-European Relations

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The May 16-17 EU-Western Balkans summit did address the problems of integration, but it was eclipsed by another issue. The meeting turned out to be a landmark event that will go down in history as the day Europe united to openly defy the US. The EU will neither review the Iran nuclear deal (JPCOA) nor join the sanctions against Tehran that have been reintroduced and even intensified by America. Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the JPCOA was the last straw, forcing the collapse of Western unity. The Europeans found themselves up against a wall. There is no point in discussing further integration or any other matter if the EU cannot protect its own members. But now it can.

President Trump has his own reasons to shred the Iran deal, but he needs Europe to strong-arm Tehran into signing a “better” agreement. Were it to do so, the US administration would make it look like a big victory. Washington does not shy away from threatening its allies with punitive measures but the EU is standing tall, deepening the rift. As European Council President Donald Tusk put it, “With friends like Trump, who needs enemies?” According to him, the US president has “rid Europe of all illusions.” Mr. Tusk wants Europe to “stick to our guns” against new US policies. Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the EU Commission, believes that “Europe must take America’s place as global leader” because Washington has turned its back on its allies. Washington “no longer wants to cooperate.” It is turning away from friendly relations “with ferocity.” Mr. Juncker thinks the time is ripe for Europe “to replace the United States, which as an international actor has lost vigor.” It would have been unthinkable not long ago for a top EU official to say such things and challenge the US global leadership. Now the unthinkable has become reality.

The process of shifting away from America does not boil down to just words of indignation and open defiance. Plans are underway to take practical steps. For instance, the EU is to ditch the use of the US currency in its payments for Iranian oil. It can be done. Russia and Iran have already launched an oil-for-goods exchange program in order to leave the greenback behind. The bloc plans to activate a 1996 law (the blocking statute), which bans European businesses from compliance with US sanctions on Iran. The legislation protects “against the effects of the extra-territorial application of legislation adopted by a third country.”

The EU-Iran discussions have already been held. And it is America’s closest ally who is to deal the first powerful blow against US global dominance. This is a demonstration of the “no retreat, no surrender” spirit before the not-yet-unleased war is in full swing.

True, this applies to only a relatively small sector of business activities, and Iran’s $400-billion market can’t be compared to the $18-trillion US market, but the important factor here is the show of political will to stand up to America’s challenge. This rift is taking place amid a looming trade war over aluminum and steel, the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem with no regard for the allies’ opinion, and the controversy over Europe’s NATO spending.

On May 15, the EU defense heads gathered at a meeting of the European Union Military Committee to discuss deeper integration and an independent defense policy, which envisages greater efficiency to reduce expenditures, given the US demands to increase those outlays under the auspices of NATO. The PESCO agreement is the backbone of the EU defense policy and it’s purely European.

Sandra Oudkirk, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy, has just threatened to sanction the Europeans if they continue with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to bring gas in from Russia across the Baltic Sea. That country is also seen by the US as an adversary and its approach is by and large the same – to issue orders for Europe to adopt a confrontational policy, doing as it is told without asking too many questions.

Iran and Nord Stream 2 unite Moscow and Brussels in their opposition to this diktat. On May 17, Iran signed a provisional free-trade-zone agreement with a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) that seeks to increase the current levels of trade valued at $2.7 billion. The deal lowers or abolishes customs duties. It also establishes a three-year process for reaching a permanent trade agreement. If Iran becomes a member of the group, it would expand its economic horizons beyond the Middle Eastern region. So, Europe and Russia are in the same boat, both holding talks with Iran on economic cooperation.

President Donald Trump has just instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to prepare a list of new sanctions against the Russian Federation for its alleged violations of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This is the agreement the US has so egregiously and openly breached. But nobody in Europe has announced that they want US nuclear-tipped intermediate- range weapons on their territory that will be a target for a potential retaliatory strike by Russia. It’s an example of yet another European problem with having the decision-making process located in Washington.

If Europe is resolved to fend off US attempts to dictate its policy on Iran, why should it reconcile itself to the pressure to keep the sanctions against Russia intact? May 17 marked a turning point in the US-European relationship. Europeans joined ranks to resist a policy that encroaches on their right to decide their own fate. It’s Europe, not the US, who is negatively affected by the punitive measures, creating deep divisions within the EU at a time when that group is faced with many problems. The time is ripe for Brussels to stop this sanctions-counter-sanctions mayhem and stake out its own independent policies on Russia, Iran, defense, and other issues, that will protect European, not US, national interests. May 17 is the day the revolt started and there is no going back. Europe has said goodbye to trans-Atlantic unity. It looks like it has had enough.

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“May The Better Liar Win” – How Democracy Ended

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

What killed democracy was constant lying to the public, by politicians whose only way to win national public office is to represent the interests of the super-rich at the same time as the given politician publicly promises to represent the interests of the public — “and may the better liar win!” — it’s a lying-contest.

When democracy degenerates into that, it becomes dictatorship by the richest, the people who can fund the most lying. Such a government is an aristocracy, no democracy at all, because the aristocracy rule, the public don’t. It’s the type of government that the French Revolution was against and overthrew; and it’s the type of government that the American Revolution was against and overthrew; but it has been restored in both countries.

First here will be discussed France:

On 7 May 2017, Emmanuel Macron was elected President of France with 66.1% of the vote, compared to Marine Le Pen’s 33.9%. That was the second round of voting; the first round had been: Macron 24.0%, Le Pen 21.3% Fillon 20.0%, Melenchon 19.6%, and others 15%; so, the only clear dominator in that 11-candidate contest was Macron, who, in the second round, turned out to have been the second choice of most of the voters for the other candidates. Thus, whereas Le Pen rose from 21.3% to 33.9% in the second round (a 59% increase in her percentage of the vote), Macron rose from 24.0% to 66.1% in the second round (a 275% increase in his percentage of the vote). In other words: Macron didn’t just barely win the Presidency, but he clearly dominated both rounds; it was never at all close.

But once in office he very quickly disappointed the French public:

On 11 August 2017, Le Figaro bannered (as autotranslated by Google Chrome) “A hundred days later, Macron confronted with the skepticism of the French”, and reported that 36% were “satisfied” and 64% were “dissatisfied” with the new President. 

On 23 March 2018, Politico bannered “Macron’s approval ratings hit record low: poll” and reported that, “Only 40 percent of the French population said they have a favorable opinion of Macron, a drop of 3 percentage points from last month and 12 percentage points from December, while 57 percent said they hold a negative opinion of the president.” 

On 22 April 2018, Europe 1 reported that 44% were “satisfied” with Macron, and 55% were “dissatisfied” with him; and that — even worse — while 23% were “very dissatisfied” with him, only 5% were “very satisfied” with him.

So, clearly — and this had happened very quickly — the French public didn’t think that they were getting policies that Macron had promised to them during his campaign. He was very different from what they had expected — even though he had won the Presidency in a landslide and clearly dominated both rounds. That plunge in support after being elected President required a lot of deceit during his campaign.

Second, is US:

The situation in the US was very different in its means, but similar in its outcome: it was a close election between two candidates, each of whom had far more of the electorate despising him or her than admiring him or her. Neither of the two candidates in the second round was viewed net-favorably by the public.

The key round of elimination of the more-attractive candidates, was in the primaries; and, after that, it became merely a choice between uglies in the general election. Any decent (or even nearly decent) person had already been eliminated, by that time. Consequently, the ultimate winner never had the high net-favorable rating from the US public, that Macron did from the French public.

America’s system of ‘democracy’ is very different than France’s:

Throughout the primaries-season — America’s first round — the most-preferred of all candidates in the race was Bernie Sanders, who, in the numerous one-on-one polled hypothetical choices versus any of the opposite Party’s contending candidates, crushed each one of them except John Kasich, who, throughout the primaries, was the second-most preferred of all of the candidates (and who performed far better than did Trump did in the hypothetical match-ups against Clinton). In the hypothetical match-ups, Sanders beat Kasich by 3.3%, whereas Kasich beat Clinton by 7.4% — that spread between +3.3% and -7.4% is 10.8%, and gives a pretty reliable indication of what the Democratic National Committee threw away when rigging the primaries and vote-counts for Hillary Clinton to win the Party’s nomination. Sanders beat Trump by 10.4%, whereas Clinton beat Trump by 3.2%. That spread was only 7.2% in favor of Sanders over Clinton; but, in any case, the DNC cared lots more about satisfying its mega-donors than about winning, when they picked Clinton to be the Party’s nominee.

(Ms. Clinton’s actual victory over Mr. Trump in the final election between those two nominees turned out to be by only 2.1% — close enough a spread so as to enable Trump to win in the Electoral College (which is all that counts), which counts not individual voters but a formula that represents both the states and the voters. Sanders would have beaten Trump in a landslide — far too big a margin for the Electoral College to have been able to go the opposite way, such as did happen with Clinton. This fact was also shown here and here. That’s what the DNC threw away.) 

Hillary Clinton received by far the biggest support from billionaires, of all of the candidates; Sanders received by far the least; and this is why the Democratic Party, which Clinton and Barack Obama (two thoroughly billionaire-controlled politicians) effectively controlled, handed its nomination to Clinton. On 7 June 2016, the great investigative journalist Greg Palast headlined and documented “How California is being stolen from Sanders right now”, and four days later a retired statistician’s review of other statisticians’ statistical analysis of data from all of the primaries and caucuses, reaffirmed their findings, that the Democratic nomination had been stolen by the Democratic National Committee, and he concluded that “the whole process has been rigged against Bernie at every level and that is devastating even though I don’t agree [politically] with him.” A more detailed study was published on 1 August 2016, titled “Democracy Lost: A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries”.

Basically, what had happened is that the most-preferred of all the candidates got deep-sixed by Democratic Party billionaires, who ultimately control the DNC, just as Republican billionaires control the RNC. The US Government is squabbles between billionaires, and that’s all. That’s what’s left of American ‘democracy’, now.

On 12 August 2016, Julian Assange noted: “MSNBC on its most influential morning program, Morning Joe, was defending Bernie Sanders. Then Debbie Wasserman Schultz [head of the DNC] called up the president of MSNBC. Amazingly, this is not reported in the US media. It is reported in the US media that they called up Chuck Todd who’s the host of Meet The Press. Something much more serious is not reported — that Debbie Wasserman Schultz herself personally called up the president of MSNBC to apply pressure in relation to positive coverage about Bernie Sanders on Morning Joe.” That was typical of what went on.

Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating, by Election Day, was 40.3%, her unfavorable was 55.3%. Donald Trump’s favorable was 39.8%, unfavorable was 53.4%. Bernie Sanders, as of the end of the primaries on 29 June 2016, was 50.8% favorable, 39.6% unfavorable, and it has been getting steadily better afterward. But the suckered Democratic Party voters (the ones who were counted, at any rate) voted slightly more for Hillary than for Bernie. Even despite Sanders’s having had support from few if any billionaires, he almost won the Democratic nomination, and that’s remarkable. He might actually have received more votes during the primaries than Hillary did, but we’ll never know.

So: America is a dictatorship by the billionaires. And this means that it operates by fooling the public. France is similar, though it achieves this via a different way. And, in both countries, deceit is essential, in order to achieve its dictatorship. Fooling the public is now what it’s all about, in either case. Democracy can never be won by fooling the public; because fooling the public means removing the public’s ability to control the government. So, calling such a nation a ‘democracy’, is, itself, deceiving the public — it’s part of the dictatorship, or else support of the dictatorship.

In former times, this system was rationalized as ‘the divine right of kings’. Now it’s rationalized as ‘the divine right of capital’. But it’s also become covered-over by yet another lie: ‘democracy’. This is a ‘democratic’ aristocracy; it is an ‘equal opportunity’ aristocracy. In it, each citizen has ‘equal rights’ as every other citizen, no matter how wealthy. It’s just a castle of lies. And its doors are actually open only to the few richest-and-well-connected.

Here, a former CIA official tries to describe how the American dictatorship works – the enforcement-part of the system, and he does (even if only by implication) also touch upon the financial sources of it.

He discusses his personal case: why he could no longer tolerate working for the CIA. But his description of how he, as an Agency official, saw the system to function, starts at 3:45 in the video. Key passages start at 12:45, and at 20:15.

Maybe any American who would email this article to friends who don’t understand how the system functions, will come under increased US surveillance, but that CIA official’s career and family were destroyed by what the system did to him, which was lots worse than just surveillance.

Remarkably, he nonetheless had the courage to persist (and thus did that video). However, when one sees how politically partisan (and so obtuse) the viewer-comments to that video are, one might be even more depressed than by the account this former CIA official presents. But, even if the situation is hopeless, everyone should at least have the opportunity to understand it. Because, if the aristocracy are the only people who understand it, there can’t be any hope for democracy, at all.

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