Rumors about a federal investigation into Los Angeles city hall have been circulating for months now, and on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI carried out a search of the Department of Water and Power and City Hall.
A spokesman for the FBI confirmed the search.
“There is a search taking place at the DWP building. The affidavit in support of the search warrant is under seal by the court,” said Rukelt Dalberis, an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles. Law enforcement sources said the FBI was also at Los Angeles City Hall.
A champagne-colored van was parked outside the DWP headquarters with a placard saying “FBI” and “Official Business.”
An FBI van was parked outside City Hall East, which serves as the headquarters for City Atty. Mike Feuer ‘s office and several government agencies.
A spokesman for the City Attorney’s Office refused to confirm whether the FBI agents had entered the City Attorney’s office.
The mayor’s office released a statement saying Eric Garcetti’s office welcomed the investigation.
Alex Comisar, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Garcetti, said in a statement: “We were notified earlier this morning that federal search warrants were being executed today. The mayor believes that any criminal wrongdoing should be investigated and prosecuted. His expectation is that any city employee asked to cooperate will do so fully and immediately.”
DWP Commissioner Christina Noonan declined to comment, saying she had been advised to refer all questions to a department spokesman.
LADWP spokesman Joe Romallo did not return multiple calls seeking comment.
Federal investigators have cast a wide net for information about foreign investment in Los Angeles real estate developments. Among those named in the warrant were Councilman Jose Huizar, Curren Price, the former head of he Department of Building and Safety and high-level appointees of Garcetti and Council President Herb Wesson.
Recently, the developers of projects in Councilman Jose Huizar’s district have received grand jury subpoenas demanding they turn over communications with the councilman and other current and former staffers.
The DWP has been struggling with its own series of scandals, including the fallout from a billing system that sent out wildly inaccurate bills to customers, prompting a flood of lawsuits.
The warrant also named executives of Chinese firms bankrolling new residential and hotel towers on Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. It doesn’t say whether the FBI has gathered evidence of criminal activity.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GplWk3 Tyler Durden
Three years ago Monday WikiLeaks published a trove of highly embarrassing emails that had been leaked from inside the Democratic National Committee. As has been the case with every leak revealed by WikiLeaks, the emails were authentic. These particular ones, however, could not have come at a worse time for top Democratic Party officials.
The emails made it unmistakably clear that the DNC had tipped the scales sharply against Democratic insurgent Bernie Sanders, giving him a snowball’s chance in hell for the nomination. The posting of the DNC emails is also widely seen as having harmed the the electoral prospects of Hillary Clinton, who could not escape responsibility completely, while a handful of the very top DNC officials were forced to immediately resign.
Relatively few Americans read the actual emails, their attention diverted to the incessant media-fostered question: Why Did the Russians Hack the DNC to Hurt Hillary? For the millions of once enthusiastic Democrats who favored Sanders, however, the disclosure that the nomination process had been fixed came as a bitter pill, leaving a sour taste in their mouths and a passive-aggressive reluctance to promote the candidacy of one they considered a usurper. Having had a huge stake in Bernie’s candidacy, they had little trouble seeing through the diversion of attention from the content of the emails.
Clinton Prevails
A mere four days after the WikiLeaks release, a well orchestrated Democratic Convention nominated Clinton, while many Sanders supporters loudly objected. Thus, she began her campaign under a cloud, and as more and more Americans learned of the fraud that oozed through the DNC email correspondence — including the rigging of the Democratic primaries — the cloud grew larger and darker.
On June 12, 2016, six weeks before the convention, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had announcedin an interview on British TV, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication.”
Independent forensic investigations demonstrated two years ago that the DNC emails were not hacked over the Internet, but had been copied onto an external storage device — probably a thumb drive. Additional work over recent months has yielded more evidence that the intrusion into the DNC computers was a copy, not a hack, and that it took place on May 23 and 25, 2016.
The DNC almost certainly knew what had happened — not only that someone with physical access to DNC computers had copied thousands of emails, but also which ones they had copied, and thus how prejudicial to the Clinton campaign they would be when they saw the light of day.
And so, candidate Clinton, the DNC, and the mainstream media (forever quoting anonymous “current and former intelligence officials”) appear to have colluded, deciding the best defense would be a good offense. No one knew how soon WikiLeaks would publish the emails, but the DNC offense/defense would surely have to be put in place before the convention scheduled to begin on July 25. That meant there were, at most, six weeks to react. But it only took two days. As early as July 24, about 48 hours after the leaks were published, and a day before the convention, the DNC first blamed Russia for hacking their emails and giving them to WikiLeaks to sabotage Clinton.
A Magnificent Diversion
Granted, it was a stretch — and the DNC would have to hire a pliable cybersecurity firm to back up their claim. But they had good reason to believe that CrowdStrike would perform that service. It was the best Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook and associates could apparently come up with. If they hurried, there would be just enough time to prepare a PR campaign before the convention and, best of all, there was little doubt that the media could be counted on to support the effort full bore.
Clinton: Already blaming the Russians at DNC 2016 convention. (Wikipedia)
When WikiLeaks published the emails on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, the propagandists were ready to deflect attention from the damning content of the DNC emails by repeating incessantly that the Russians hacked the emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to hurt Clinton.
It pretty much worked like a charm. The late Senator John McCain and others were quick to call the Russian “hack” an “an act of war.” Evidence? None. For icing on the cake, then-FBI Director James Comey decided not to seize and inspect the DNC computers. Nor, as we now know, did Comey evenrequire a final report from CrowdStrike.
Eight months after the convention, in remarks at the Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress on April 6, 2017, Clinton’s PR director, Jennifer Palmieri, could scarcely contain her pride that, after a difficult start, she was ultimately successful in keeping the Russian bear front and center.
Transcribed below (verbatim) are some of Palmieri’s more telling remarks when asked to comment, from her insider perspective, on “what was actually going on in late summer/early fall.”
“…I did appreciate that for the press to absorb … the idea that behind the stage that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was too fantastic for people to, um, for the press to process, to absorb…. But then we go back to Brooklyn and heard from the — mostly our sources were other intelligence, with the press who work in the intelligence sphere, and that’s where we heard things and that’s where we learned about the dossier and the other story lines that were swirling about … And along the way the administration started confirming various pieces of what they were concerned about what Russia was doing. … [Emphasis added.]
“And we did finally get to the point on October 7, when the administration came out with a very stunning [memorandum]. How stunning it was for both the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Homeland Security to put out a statement – a long statement – that said with high confidence that Russia was interfering in the election and they were also directing the timing of the leaks. And it named the institutions – WikiLeaks, DC Leaks, and Guccifer – as being Russian-led, and how stunning that was to be that certain and that public. … So I do think that the answer for the Democrats now … in both the House and the Senate is to talk about it more and make it more real ….”
And so, the Magnificent Diversion worked as intended.
Recognizing Liminal Time
But not all journalists fell for it.
Patrick Lawrence (once of The Nation, now of Consortium News) was onto the ruse from the start. He says he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25, 2016, the day the Democratic convention began, and that he dashed off an article “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative. The title of his article, pointed out to me a few months ago by VIPS member Todd Pierce, was “How the DNC fabricated a Russian hacker conspiracy to deflect blame for its email scandal … a disturbing resemblance to Cold War red-baiting.”
Lawrence’s off-the-cuff ruminations, which Salon published the next day are extraordinarily prescient and worth reading in full. He instinctively recognized the email disclosure-cum-media-obfuscation campaign as a liminal event. Here are some excerpts, reprinted here with Lawrence’s permission:
”Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections … Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …
The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale … in favor of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were everywhere … Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction. …
The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook … appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” He knows this … because “experts” — experts he will never name — have told him so.
…the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess — and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave). Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise. …[Emphasis added.]
Trump, to make this work, must be blamed for his willingness to negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins. Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the Russians has transgressed the American code. … I am developing nitrogen bends … Which way for a breath of air?”
Sad Sequel
A year later Lawrence was commissioned by The Nation to write an investigative report on the so-called “Russian hack.” On August 9, 2017, after he interviewed several Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among others, The Nation published his findings in an article entitled “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.”
Again, Lawrence got it right — this time relying less on his own experience and intuition than on applied science as practiced by real technical experts with no axes to grind. But, sadly, that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate narrative, and a furor erupted among Hillary followers still licking their wounds over her loss. It proved simply too much for them to entertain the notion that Clinton was quite capable, with help from the likes of Mook, to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory — without any help from Vladimir Putin.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30RtC6x Tyler Durden
One pedestrian has died and another is in “life that threatening condition” after a Tesla ran a red light and caused a two car accident in downtown San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, according to CBS.
The incident took place at the intersection of Taylor and O’Farrell Streets at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The Tesla was being rented out by its owner using the Getaround car sharing app.
The woman driving the Tesla was reportedly speeding and ran a red light, police said, citing surveillance footage. An investigator said the car was doing “at least 45 mph” when it entered the intersection and was broadsided by a Mini-Cooper. After the accident, the Tesla hit two pedestrians walking in the crosswalk.
The victims were tourists visiting from Clovis, California and were transported to San Francisco General Hospital with life-threatening injuries. The husband was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was identified as 39-year-old Benjamin Dean.
.@SFPD investigating a fatal crash at Taylor & O’Farrell St.
Per SFPD: A woman driving the black @Tesla up Taylor St ran the red light, Mini Cooper hit the Tesla, causing the Tesla to spin around, hitting a Clovis couple in the crosswalk. Husband died, wife seriously hurt@KPIXtvpic.twitter.com/ScxnQthzIU
Both of the drivers were uninjured and police said alcohol and drugs didn’t seem to be factors in the collision. A USB thumb drive was collected from the Tesla’s computer to determine if the driver was using the vehicle’s Autopilot feature. A CBS camera caught the driver being placed into custody. The 22-year-old driver has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and running a red light.
The owner of the car, Albert Kim, said that he rented his car to a woman at about 4PM on Saturday. He said he was notified by an app that his car had been in an accident on Sunday.
He said:
“The Tesla app sent me a message that my car was in an accident, not drivable, and was in an accident. I didn’t believe it. I accepted that risk because based on probability, it might happen, but nobody is protected from it, even if you’re a perfect driver. There is a probability that you might make a mistake. That’s why I’m not mad at the driver. I might actually pray for her, you know, she’s now in a difficult situation.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2y5579y Tyler Durden
Oil prices plunged last week, dragged down by fears of slowing demand, and shrinking geopolitical risk premia.
An unexpected increase in inventories underscored the downside risk to oil prices. The EIA reported a drawdown in crude stocks, but a huge 9.25 million barrel combined increase in gasoline and diesel inventories, which surprised traders. Also, gasoline demand plunged by 0.5 mb/d in the week ending on July 12, although week-to-week changes are typical and make the data a bit noisy.
Crude prices sold off on the news, falling by nearly 3 percent on Thursday.
The data release renewed fears of a slowdown in demand. But cracks in U.S. demand are larger than one week’s worth of data. “The [year-on-year] increase in demand for the year to 11 July was just 29 thousand barrels per day (kb/d), up 0.1%,” Standard Chartered wrote in a note.
“Demand will have to be strong for the rest of the year if consensus forecasts for 2019 growth are to be achieved.”
The investment bank sees U.S. oil demand only rising by 89,000 bpd this year, while the EIA expects a stronger 248,000-bpd increase. Standard Chartered says U.S. oil demand “appears consistent with a slowing economy.”
The worrying thing for the oil market is that the U.S. economy has held up better than elsewhere.
In China, GDP growth has slowed to its weakest pace in nearly three decades. India, which is widely seen as the most important source of oil demand growth in the medium- and long-term, has also disappointed.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that global oil demand only grew by 0.45 mb/d in the second quarter. That contributed to a surprise 0.5 mb/d supply/demand surplus in the second quarter. As recently as June the IEA anticipated the oil market would see a 0.5 mb/d deficit.
The agency said that there were many reasons for tepid demand in recent months.
“European demand is sluggish; growth in India vanished in April and May due to a slowdown in LPG deliveries and weakness in the aviation sector; and in the US demand for both gasoline and diesel in the first half of 2019 is lower year-on-year,” the IEA wrote in its July Oil Market Report.
Nevertheless, the IEA stuck with its full-year forecast for demand growth at 1.2 mb/d, arguing that economic growth would rebound in the second half of 2019. Some of that optimism hinges on a resolution to the U.S.-China trade war, which seems a bit speculative. Reports suggest that trade negotiations are “stalled” while the Trump administration wrestles with how to handle Chinese tech giant Huawei. The Trump-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G20 conference in June was supposed to lead to a restart in trade talks, but as the Wall Street Journal reports, no meetings have been scheduled as of yet. The WSJ also said that the Trump administration “appears to have resigned itself to a drawn-out battle.”
That certainly calls into question the optimism surrounding the IEA’s demand growth figures. “Both IEA and EIA remain optimistic in assuming an economic rebound in 2H19 and see global demand growth nearly tripling from ~0.6 mb/d y/y in 1H19 to ~1.5-1.8 mb/d y/y in 2H19,” said Allyson Cutright, Senior Analyst at Rapidan Energy Group. “While we do see some pickup in 2H19, in particular in China due to macroeconomic stimulus and eased restrictions on gasoline-cars, the overall trend in agency revisions is still probably headed down.”
Weak demand and rising supply are creating a perfect storm heading into 2020. The IEA said that the “call on OPEC” could fall by 0.8 mb/d next year, and even that is based on the agency’s rather optimistic demand growth figures.
As a result, OPEC+ has a serious problem on its hands. On the one hand, it can continue to cut production in order to prevent oil prices from collapsing. But that would require mustering up consensus and taking on deeper sacrifice. The alternative is not much better. OPEC+ can keep the current production cuts in place (or abandon them altogether) and let prices crash.
“Our balances have long assumed OPEC+ would have to extend and deepen cuts next year and project Saudi Arabia will be the brunt of the additional cuts,” Allyson Cutright of Rapidan Energy Group said.
“Our most recent update sees Saudi Arabia need to cut production toward the low-9 mb/d range next year, and that’s assuming decent economic growth.”
Rapidan is betting that OPEC+ will opt for cutting, which might be just enough to head off a price slide. “However, if a recession develops or US sanctions on Iran are removed, then the deluge of new oil would more likely prove too large for OPEC+ to manage and oil prices would bust,” Cutright said.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yo4fvm Tyler Durden
If this story sounds like it was ripped from the plot of “House of Cards,” well, we’ll concede that it has all of the necessary elements of a best-selling spy novel. In a story published in Monday’s WSJ, the paper recounts the story of Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, who has been holed up in an 18th-floor apartment at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City, where he has been living while his application for asylum moves through the US legal system.
Hardliners like Steve Bannon have taken up Guo’s cause – he claims to be one of China’s most-wanted dissidents – but a recent legal dispute raised questions about what, exactly, Guo is doing in the US.
Chinese businessman Guo Wengui
Here’s the problem: Guo contracted a well-known security firm to dig into a list of names whom Guo alleged were Chinese agents out to kill him. But the firm, Washington, DC-based Strategic Vision, soon developed a sneaking suspicion that Guo might be a Chinese spy using the firm’s services to root out US agents working counter-intelligence. SV sued Guo, and in the latest filings, submitted on Friday, the firm accused Guo of hiring investigators to put American personnel in safety.
Strategic Vision is owned by the widow of a once-powerful Senator, Malcolm Wallop, a now-deceased Republican from Wyoming.
Mr. Guo asked the company to investigate the financial history, social-media presence and travel details of a list of Chinese nationals he claimed were linked to top Chinese Communist Party officials, according to a court document filed by Strategic Vision. He wired the company $1 million to start the project, according to filings from both sides in the dispute.
Strategic Vision, based in Virginia, is owned by French Wallop, who was married to now-deceased Wyoming Sen. Malcolm Wallop, a Republican. The company said in Friday’s court filing that Mr. Guo’s representation that he wanted to destabilize the Chinese Communist Party was “in alignment with Strategic Vision’s worldview.”
SV soon discovered that the first 15 names on Guo’s list were “Records Protected” individuals, which suggests that they might have been intelligence assets working on behalf of the federal government.
Strategic Vision enlisted investigators who are former intelligence or law-enforcement personnel to perform the research, according to Friday’s filing. The filing said investigators determined the first 15 names provided by Mr. Guo had been designated by the U.S. as “Records Protected” individuals, for whom certain information wasn’t subject to disclosure. Such a designation is used in highly classified and access-restricted government databases, former intelligence officials said. The immigration status about such designees is often blocked in restricted government databases, and can suggest the person may be a foreigner who is assisting the U.S. government, experts said.
Strategic Vision said it concluded Mr. Guo was seeking information on Chinese nationals who may have been helping the U.S. government in national-security investigations or who were involved in other sensitive matters, according to the filing.
In the filing, SV determined that Guo “was not the dissident he claimed to be.”
“Guo never intended to use the fruits of Strategic Vision’s research against the Chinese Communist Party,” the court filing said. “That is because Guo was not the dissident he claimed to be. Instead, Guo Wengui was, and is, a dissident-hunter, propagandist, and agent in the service of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.”
Mr. Guo’s lawyer, Mr. Podhaskie, denied the allegations. “Mr. Guo is the most-wanted dissident worldwide by the Chinese Communist Party and has been their most outspoken and vitriolic critic since his arrival in the United States,” he said in his statement.
Still, the Chinese government has purportedly frozen Guo’s assets and threatened his family. Guo is subsisting on a massive pile of cash he managed to smuggle out of China with him.
Since then, Chinese authorities have frozen his assets and threatened his family, according to Mr. Guo. Still, he settled at the Sherry-Netherland in 2015, paying $67.5 million for the apartment overlooking Central Park. He has continued to travel frequently and got a membership at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
In 2017, after saying he had applied for U.S. asylum, Mr. Guo told the Journal he had set aside more than $150 million for legal fees to continue his fight against Beijing.
Mr. Podhaskie said in his statement that “certain of Mr. Guo’s assets in China valued at approximately USD$30 billion have been sold for pennies on the dollar” by Chinese Communist Party officials and that Mr. Guo “has never taken a penny out of China or Hong Kong since he began speaking out” against them.
But will the Trump Administration decide to use Guo as a bargaining chip in its trade talks with China? It’s not outside the realm of possibility.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30Lqhpq Tyler Durden
The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) wants to make it a whole lot easier to throw journalists in jail if they say or write the wrong things. According to Tech Dirty, the CIA is pushing for an expansion of a 37-year-old law that would deter journalists from covering national security issues or reporting on leaked documents (such as those Julian Assange posted to Wikileaks and is rotting in a jail cell for).
Assange’s arrest should outrage everyone across party lines and awaken the masses to what the government really is, and it’s anything but transparent and benevolent.
The government wants only to maintain its grip around the necks of the public to remain in control of everyone they have claimed ownership of. Sharing the truth about what the government does is a danger to the power-hungry elitists and they will make sure we all know it is not to be tolerated.
Thanks to a disillusioned CIA case officer’s actions in 1975, there are currently a few limits to what can or can’t be reported about covert operatives working overseas.
In 1975, Philip Agee published a memoir about his years with the CIA. Attached to his memoir — which detailed his growing discontentment with the CIA’s clandestine support of overseas dictators — was a list of 250 CIA agents or informants. In response to this disclosure, Congress passed the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which criminalized disclosing the identity of covert intelligence agents.
The IIPA did what it could to protect journalists by limiting the definition of “covert agent” to agents serving overseas and then only those who were currently working overseas when the disclosure occurred. It also required the government to show proof the person making the disclosure was “engaged in a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose” covert agents. The law was amended in 1999 to expand the coverage to include covert agents working overseas within five years of the disclosure. –Tech Dirty
The CIA wants all of these protections for journalists removed, including the word “overseas.” This would allow the CIA (and all other intelligence agencies) to designate whoever they want as “protected” by the IIPA in perpetuity, and jail those who report about things the government wants to keep from the prying eyes of the public.
Under the proposed law, any journalist who, say, revealed the names of “covert” CIA officers that had engaged in torture or ordered drone strikes on civilians would now be subject to prosecution — even if the newsworthy actions occurred years or decades prior or the officer in question has always been located in the United States.
In fact, the CIA explicitly referenced the revelations of the agency’s Bush-era torture program in its argument to Congress for IIPA expansion. The New York Times’s Charlie Savage obtained the CIA’s private memo in which it lobbied members of Congress. Under the memo’s “justification” section, the CIA wrote:
“Particularly with the lengths organizations such as WikiLeaks are willing to go to obtain and release sensitive national security information, as well as incidents related to past Agency programs, such as the RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation — a euphemism used to describe the CIA’s illegal torture program] investigation, the original congressional reasoning mentioned above for a narrow definition of ‘covert agent’ no longer remains valid.” –Gen Medium
Democrats, such as Adam Schiff, are helping make sure journalists rights are trampled and the public doesn’t get any information the government doesn’t want them to have. When you take a good look at his record, Schiff has always favored the secrecy of intelligence agencies over journalists’ rights.
No administration should have the power to prevent journalists from publishing illegal acts undertaken by the government. Ever. For any reason.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JV1mcp Tyler Durden
— Adriano Mérola Marotta (@AdrianoMerola) July 22, 2019
Venezuelan information minister Jorge Rodrigues said an “electromagnetic attack caused the nationwide blackout” and power companies along with government officials, are in the process of restoring the nation’s power grid.
Back in March, the country experienced the most damaging rolling blackout in decades that brought the country, already devastated by an economic crisis, even closer to outright collapse.
“It terrifies me to think we are facing a national blackout again,” said Maria Luisa Rivero, a 45-year-old business owner from the city of Valencia, in the central state of Carabobo.
“The first thing I did was run to freeze my food so that it does not go bad like it did like the last time in March. It costs a lot to buy food just to lose it,” she said.
Wide spread blackout in Venezuela: States affected by the power failure: – Capital District, Anzoátegui, Aragua, Carabobo, Cojedes, Falcón, Guárico, Lara, Mérida, Miranda, Monagas, Táchira, Sucre, Vargas, Yaracuy, Zulia https://t.co/OAOOFyGl4g via @gabyarellanoVE#Venezuelapic.twitter.com/UkMxLKDUFJ
Netblocks, a civil society group observing internet traffic around the world, sent out several alerts via Twitter starting around 5:45 pm est. about widespread power loss across Venezuela that disrupted the country’s internet.
The group said even state television, a key source of government propaganda, was brought offline.
Netblocks tweeted a photo of internet outage broken down by region:
The latest disruption comes a little more than four months after widespread blackouts crippled the country for about one week in March.
As of Monday evening, most of Venezuela’s 23 states have no internet connectivity.
In the previous blackout, we documented how cryptocurrency transaction volumes plummeted throughout the region. Some residents were prepared for the chaos, they set up local transaction networks via powerful WiFi repeaters powered by generators.
NetBlocks diffscans, which tracks the entire IP address space of a country in real-time, indicates the latest internet outages occured during the same time of the power cuts, labels the incident impact as severe for most of the states.
“Internet outages caused by electricity grid disruptions have a distinct network pattern used by NetBlocks to determine and attribute the root cause of an outage, a process known as attribution which follows detection and classification stages,” NetBlocks said in a blog post.
Widespread power outages and no internet connectivity have occurred just before Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, is expected to launch nationwide anti-Maduro protests on Tuesday.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JIjXcG Tyler Durden
In recent weeks we have seen numerous probing attempts and provocations in and around the Strait of Hormuz — whether false flags or actual events — intended to raise the profile of the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, and renewed US sanctions versus Iran. Iran is pushing the issue with the United States, and is apparently offering a sacrificial pawn on the board (or perhaps knight!) by seizing two British oil tankers alleged to be operating illegally in the Strait of Hormuz.
While it is too soon to predict how the United States and its allies Israel and Saudi Arabia (both sworn enemies of Iran) will react, let’s explore the reasons why any US reactionary response will be largely symbolic, even if that involves a token strike versus Iran.
Global alliances have shifted
Turkey has defacto announced its withdrawal from NATO, by its purchase of S-400 missiles. That purchase and collaboration with Russia guarantees its departure from NATO, even if Turkey has not publicly announced such a withdrawal. Furthermore, while Turkey’s military bases host US aircraft and operations, Turkey says it will not allow its bases to be used in any attack on Iran, by the US.
Iraq, an ally of Iran, has likewise stated that it will not allow its territory to be used as a base for attacking Iran.
Next, Imran Khan’s Pakistan has moved away from its alliance with the US to court China. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner, and China has guaranteed security to Pakistan for Kashmir. Thus, no bases in Pakistan will be provided to the United States for any attack on Iran.
China and Russia have warned Washington too that it must not attack Iran. Iran has guarantees from Russia, China, Pakistan, Turkey, and even Japan and India that its economic future is secure… despite US sanctions.
So, only Saudia remains as a host for US aggression versus Iran. But Saudia has much to lose by hosting US aggression, especially with Russia pushing OPEC+. And even the largely defunct Arab League opposes US aggression versus Iran, from any Saudi base.
Iran will fight back
Next, consider the military force that Iran has at its disposal. From advanced Grad rockets to the Kornet, expect an announcement soon that S-400’s and other advanced armaments will be provided to Iran to ensure its right to defend itself. That, in conjunction with an already formidable array of defensive weapons to secure Iran’s borders and sea lanes will guarantee a formidable defense.
The United States cannot afford another new war
While the Federal Reserve may print the USD at will, a new war – especially a major war versus Iran – will weaken the US economically, despite the gamed casino numbers we see daily from Wall Street.
If the US were to attack Iran, be sure that the oil market will be mightily affected, causing oil prices to surge exponentially. Gold too will surge. Indeed, such an oil and gold price effect may be the prick needed to deflate the multi-quadrillion inflated USD bubble of public debt and derivative speculation that can burst again… just as it burst in 2008-2009. But this time when the financial collapse occurs, and as Donald Trump has warned, the new collapse will render the financial collapse of 2008-2009 to be a picnic.
The US is not capable of defeating Iran in a conventional war
This time, there is no “coalition of the willing” to posture and pretend that the US has many and varied allies engaged in some just cause to rid the world of evil, as it proclaimed in 1994 versus North Korea, and in 2003 versus Iraq. Apparently, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands have no real grievance versus Iran right now.
But the possibility exists that France, the UK and Germany will consider Iran enough of a threat around the Strait of Hormuz to impose additional sanctions on the country, and increase Naval military patrols to accompany tankers through the Strait. The increased patrols will increase tensions in the region, but should not result in war unless the US takes the bait of Iran sacrificing a knight to leave the West’s queen exposed, ie a greater war in the Middle East which may involve Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Last time, just ten minutes prior to pulling the trigger (depending on accounts!) to consummate the Neocon’s dream for war with Iran, Trump had other ideas.
Now, let’s review the reasons the United States cannot initiate a ground war versus Iran.
Iran Strike Strategic map
Afghanistan
Most likely candidate here would be to stage US air strikes on Iran from Bagram air base. But at this time Afghanistan seeks closer ties with Iran on trade; for example, to trade with India via Iran’s Chabahar port.
And while the US could stage air strikes from Bagram, to launch a ground attack from this region would be a virtual impossibility. That is, due to mountainous terrain and firmly entrenched and well-armed IRGC mountain troops, neighboring.
Furthermore, it is exceedingly likely that Dostum/Ghani would forbid any attack by the US on Iran from Afghanistan, that would result in a major new war. And note that Dostum is pushing for the removal of US troops from Afghanistan, including its air bases.
As a matter of conjecture, it is likely that the US presented Dostum / Ghani with an enticing “deal” to host US forces for staging their new war on Iran. And while initially accepting Trump’s deal, it is thought that with such high stakes for Afghanistan it would have ultimately been rejected. (An interesting bit of propaganda along these lines appears here.)
There is noise too from Trump about withdrawing from Afghanistan, but that eventuality is highly unlikely.
Turkmenistan
The “Hermit Kingdom” proves even more problematic for the US than Afghanistan, for attacking Iran. There is little infrastructure, no existing US air base, only a “secret base” proposed by various alt media sources. While such a base could be used for US harassment vs Iran, to initially stage a new US war versus Iran from Turkmenistan is exceedingly unlikely. Especially so, since Turkmenistan (a former Soviet republic) has very close relations with China, and China has already warned the US to refrain from attacking Iran.
US State is so concerned with Khan and his shifting alliance to Iran and China, the department recently released a counter to allegations re deteriorating US – Pak relations.
Based on its history and current leadership, Pakistan will not allow the United States to use Pakistan as a base for a ground war versus Iran.
United Arab Emirates
The US RQ-4 shot down by Iran on June 19th was launched from the UAE via a US military base there. This base is alleged to be devoted to US action versus ISIL, but is thought to be a major US base for reconnaissance on Iran.
The UAE is hostile to Iran, but has no land bridge with Iran, being directly across the Strait of Hormuz. Its location on the strait would certainly close the Strait in a full-blown US war, for which the UAE would be blamed as an accomplice. The UAE has trade relations with Arab states too, that prevent it from being used as initial staging for a US war of aggression versus Iran.
It may be reasonably conjectured that the UAE agreed to allow US harassment strikes on Iran from its airfield there, but then withdrew that agreement abruptly.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US only for financial reasons, and a sworn enemy of Iran. Recently Saudi Arabia turned to China in an attempt to broaden trade and diversify its economy. Saudi Arabia must look to the future despite its cold war with Iran, and maintain reasonable relations with other Arab states.
Besides having no land mass directly adjacent to Iran, and based on its history, for Saudi Arabia to host US troops capable of undertaking a ground war of aggression versus Iran seems unlikely. However, the Crown Prince is a noted war hawk and apparently not averse to wars of aggression (example, Yemen) so reports of Saudi Arabia hosting a new US air base and hundreds of US troops in Saudi Arabia may present an opportunity for the US to threaten Iranby its military presence there.
Iraq
Iraq has a significant history with the US military and has lost many thousands of its people to war and sanctions imposed on it by the United States. Even though the US has a significant presence in Iraq and many US bases still present there, the Iraqi government has on numerous occasions expressed its desire that the US’s 5,200 troops leave the country.
Recently, the call for US troops to leave Iraq has become more vocal and pronounced. Analyst consensus is of course that the US continues to occupy Iraq as a means to counter Iran’s influence in the country and elsewhere.
Iraq has a strong majority who now favour Iran, for trade, political, and cultural reasons. Iraq has significant trade with Iran, and Iran leverages that trade in oil and electricity.
Many militias operate in Iraq, supportive of Iran, and anti-US. These militias are well-armed and battle-tested, and for the US to stage a ground war versus Iran from Iraq would be quite alarming to the populace generally, likely resulting in serious retaliation in Iraq, versus US forces.
So, while the US still has a significant presence in Iraq, a US attack and war on Iran based in Iraq would likely result in serious and immediate setbacks for the US.
Syria
Syria has no land border with Iran. In spite of Syrian objections, the US does host air bases to protect the terrorist region of al Tanf, and in Manbij. US harassment air raids on Iran could be launched from these bases, but a ground war could not be launched from Syria without a massive expansion of US bases there. Such an expansion would constitute a move that would surely be militarily resisted by Syrian security forces and their significant allies.
What Options Does the US Have Versus Iran?
Being a major military power, the US does have limited military options versus Iran, in addition to economic sanctions already imposed, while noting that an attack could certainly provoke the Russian or Chinese leadership to aid Iran. While the United States has never ‘won a war’ — and only in the case of Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and North Korea has the US ever been forced to flee its chosen theater — as Greer points out, there is a difference between outright losing a war, when compared to not winning one.
Even if a war is not won, the result may benefit western powers, as it has (arguably) in the case of Israel-Palestine, Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Cambodia, Panama, and perhaps even Iraq, if imposed western participation in Iraq’s oil business and production is considered.
For the US to consider Iran to be among the “attack-worthy” group noted above, the US must first consider Iran to be weak enough (economically and militarily) to be worth attacking — since an outright quick US military victory versus Iran is an odds-on impossibility. The US must also consider the response of either Russia or China to be muted, as trade and diplomatic relations continue to sour exponentially with both countries.
Neither scenario above (militarily/economically weak) really applies in Iran’s case, so any attack on Iran must be largely symbolic and unlikely to result in massive retaliation; or to provoke the Russian or China’s leadership to intervene militarily, to assist Iran in its defense.
According to the western press, the targets chosen for Trump precisely one month ago on June 19th were three military and radar installations within Iran, the destruction of which would have resulted in relatively few deaths. Will those same targets be on the cards for the US military again? We shall see.
Should Trump fire cruise missiles at those targets or bomb them from the air, it is highly likely that Russia’s or China’s leadership (China still receives significant amounts of oil from Iran) will quickly provide Iran with upgraded air defenses and possibly even warplanes. And as this author has already suggested, the latter is the greatest concern for Washington in the face of a US-led attack on Iran.
Indications that the United States will attack Iran or not, even in a limited air strike, will likely appear on social media with the usual attack dogs – Bolton and Pompeo – rattling their sabers and exhorting the usual nonsense about the “danger” Iran poses to the west… or not. So far social media is quiet on the subject, but Trump may hold his counsel and engage in a surprise move. We shall see who is surprised!
This author speculates, perhaps incorrectly, that the US will take no action versus Iran for now, assuming the UK’s oil tankers are released promptly within the next few days… probably subsequent to a joint US-UK statement/demand. Should the tanker seizure drag on, I believe the odds of a limited US strike versus Iran will rise exponentially by the day. That’s because the UK is of course a NATO participant, and the US could thus consider seizure of British ships to be militarily actionable.
What of Iran’s Motives?
The culture that invented the game of chess never makes a move without careful and calculating consideration. Iran has been forced to play black for decades now, and has done so with skill, alacrity, and will take the initiative whenever possible.
Whether Iran has sensed a particular point of weakness in the West at this time, or Iran has hidden agreements in place with significant allies to come to its defense in the event of an US attack, is of course unknown.
That Iran may be holding a surprise move in check with support from its allies must be of extreme concern to the US Hegemon. And eventually that concern must be all of ours, when the hegemon inevitably fails to intimidate and control the board with its white advantage, and its queen is taken.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yh7gxz Tyler Durden
Tesla whistleblower Karl Hansen doesn’t seem to be deterred by the intimidation tactics that the company has used against whistleblowers in the past. He’s also dead set on trying to help other whistleblowers come forward, according to The Drive.
He filed a lawsuit on July 19 in Nevada against Elon Musk for violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley act, intentional interference with business relations and breach of contract.
Hansen said:
“It’s taken a long time to get to this point, and I remain steadfast regardless of any monetary outcome. The only thing we are guaranteed to take to our graves is our name. I’ve spent a career of integrity, and won’t stand idly by when someone like Elon Musk runs roughshod over others because he happens to be a billionaire.”
He continued:
“Even though this has been and continues to be one of the most wrenching experiences of my life, it’s important for people to do the right thing, even if it means doing it alone. If you stay in the arena long enough, even by yourself, people will notice that, and the right people are going to notice your courage, and will support you.”
In his lawsuit, he says that the company interfered with his ability to find work. It’s a similar claim that some former Buffalo factory workers made, alleging Tesla “intentionally interfered with efforts to seek employment with other employers in retaliation for outspoken union support.”
Musk and Tesla’s management actively concealed and participated in misconduct including spying on employees
Thefts ranging between $37 and $150 million dollars, along with links to a Mexican drug cartel
A Tesla employee was terminated after reporting the theft of $13,000 of copper wire to law enforcement, foreshadowing Hansen’s own termination from the company shortly after briefing management about his findings into criminal activities taking place
With regard to the cartel claims, it’s also worth noting that “Pablo Escobar’s brother recently demanded $100 million in cash or Tesla shares from Musk for purportedly stealing his flamethrower idea”. Nothing to see here…
Hansen’s own termination is reminiscent of a former Tesla Director of Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability who claimed they were fired after reporting safety violations. An assembly line worker was also reportedly fired after reporting anti-gay harassment.
And, of course, whistleblower retaliation was the main theme of the Martin Tripp case:
…after Tesla identified him as the source for a Business Insider article, Tesla’s Security team gave police a tip that they’d received an anonymous call that Tripp was planning a mass shooting at the Nevada factory where he had worked. That evening, when police confronted the tearful, unarmed Tripp he expressed his terror of Musk; they concluded Tripp posed no threat, meaning he had been the victim of a ‘swatting’.
Tesla provided a comment for the article, which included the following paragraphs:
Tesla takes misconduct like Mr. Hansen’s very seriously and the company has every right to expect its employees and contractors to abide by its policies, and to be fully honest and cooperative when dealing with an internal investigation. As a result of the discovery of Mr. Hansen’s misconduct and misappropriation of confidential information, Tesla informed Mr. Hansen’s third-party employer and asked the firm to no longer assign Mr. Hansen to the Gigafactory. However, Mr. Hansen’s termination from the third-party contractor is a matter between his employer and Mr. Hansen, and does not involve Tesla.
Elon was not personally involved in the decision to request that Hansen be reassigned from the Gigafactory, and doesn’t remember having ever met Hansen and certainly wouldn’t be able to identify him out of more than 40,000 employees at Tesla.”
Certainly, he wouldn’t, right? We’d bet Mr. Hansen may disagree with this take…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ybe4ZI Tyler Durden
Perfectly echoing former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s own words during his brief press conference in May, a Justice Department official told Mueller – in response to his initiated inquiry – that his upcoming testimony to House lawmakers “must remain within the boundaries” of the public report.
As a reminder, here is what Mueller said in May:
“I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner,” Mueller said today, explaining that his report was his testimony and that Congress should not expect him to answer questions with any new information.
And here is today’s response to Mueller’s inquiry of the DoJ with regard how to proceed during his testimony…
“…the decision to testify… is yours to make… please note that there should be no testimony concerning the redacted portions of the public version of your report… any testimony must remain within the boundaries of your public report…”
Of course this will not stop Nadler and Schiff proclaiming yet more obstruction of justice allegations – even though the DoJ advice is exactly what Mueller himself already said and conforms to the law.
Additionally, Fox News reports that former special prosecutor Ken Starr had some advice for Robert Mueller ahead of his Wednesday Capitol Hill testimony, saying he should stick to the script and keep things apolitical as promised.
“I would say do what you have said you’re going to do,” Starr said on “Fox News Rundown,” in an interview that will air Tuesday.
“The report speaks for itself.”
“And I’m not going to turn myself beyond the report and I’m not going to turn myself into an instrument or a tool to further a political process, namely the possible impeachment of the president of the United States. That’s up to the people who were elected. I’m not going to play along.“
Starr also claimed the media has been soft on Mueller, as compared with what he himself experienced while investigating former President Bill Clinton, and painted the former FBI director as “overzealous.”
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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JMtf7D Tyler Durden
