Gabbard Urges Trump: Don’t Drag Us Into War At Bidding Of Islamist Dictator Of Turkey
Tulsi Gabbard has once again gone on the offensive, skewering Washington mainstream foreign policy and the Trump administration’s refusal to stand up to “dictator” Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Trump reportedly told Erdogan in a phone call last week as the Idlib crisis escalates, now in an open state of war between the Turkish and Syrian armies, and with Russia supporting the latter, that the US “reaffirmed” its support for Turkey in Idlib. Ankara is now demanding greater support from NATO as well, after Russian jets were widely believed behind last Thursday’s massive air strike which killed 33 Turkish soldiers.
Congresswoman and Democratic presidential hopeful Gabbard attacked this stance in a weekend video statement, urging Trump instead to make clear that “the United States will not be dragged into a war with Russia by the aggressive Islamist expansionist dictator of Turkey via NATO.”
.@realDonaldTrump needs to make it clear to NATO and Erdogan that the United States will not be dragged into a war with Russia by the aggressive, Islamist, expansionist dictator of Turkey, a so-called “NATO” ally. #StandWithTulsipic.twitter.com/Fbjv7m3jcm
She also slammed the mainstream media’s efforts to renew holding up al-Qaeda terrorists on the ground in Idlib as mere “rebels” and “freedom fighters” — saying it’s a disgrace to men and women in uniform who signed up to fight terrorists in the wake of 9/11.
“Turkey’s been supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists from behind the scenes for years,” she pointed out.
“Turkey’s Erdogan wants to create an Islamist caliphate in Syria, reestablish the Islamist Ottoman Empire, and is working with al-Qaeda and other terrorists to achieve his goal.”
“He wants to be the caliph,” she added, explaining further he’s not a “friend” of America, but remains one of the most dangerous dictators in the world.
She ended by urging the American people to get behind passage of her Stop Arming Terrorists Act, which seeks to remove all support to terrorist factions in Syria as well as aid to those state actors like Turkey which back them.
Notably, she also called out President Trump for contradicting past accurate statements which highlighted the terrorist links of Syria’s so-called “moderate rebels”.
In June 2019, President Trump appointed ormer Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as the Acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but was this appointment valid? Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia thinks not, and issued an opinion today (yes, Sunday) declaring the appointment unlawful.
The introductory portion of Judge Moss’s opinion in L.M.-M v. Cuccinelli is as follows:
Under the Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution, the President must obtain “the Advice and Consent of the Senate” before appointing any principal officer of the United States and, unless Congress vests the appointment power in the President, a court, or a department head alone, before appointing any inferior officer as well. U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. This requirement is “more than a matter of ‘etiquette or protocol’; it is among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.” Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651, 659 (1997) (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 125 (1976) (per curiam)). By dividing authority between the President and the Senate, the Appointments Clause serves as a check on both branches of government and a means of “promot[ing] . . . judicious choice[s] of [persons] for filling the offices of the union.” The Federalist No. 76, at 454–59 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). “The constitutional process of Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, however, can take time,” raising the prospect that the duties and functions assigned to an office requiring Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation (referred to as a “PAS” office) can go unperformed if the President and Senate “cannot promptly agree on a replacement.” NLRB v. SW General, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 929, 934–35 (2017). Recognizing this reality, Congress has, since the early days of the Republic, authorized “the President to direct certain officials to temporarily carry out the duties of a vacant PAS office in an acting capacity, without Senate confirmation.” Id. at 934.
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (“FVRA”), 5 U.S.C. § 3345 et seq., represents the “latest version of that authorization.” SW General, Inc., 137 S. Ct. at 934. Subject to exceptions not relevant here, it sets forth the exclusive means of temporarily filling vacancies in PAS offices. The default rule under the FVRA is that the “first assistant” to the vacant office automatically serves as the acting official when a vacancy arises. 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1). That default rule applies unless the President, and only the President, directs that (1) a person who has been confirmed by the Senate to serve in another PAS office or (2) an officer or employee of the agency in question, who has worked for that agency in a senior position for at least 90 of the 365 days preceding the vacancy, “perform the functions and duties of the vacant office temporarily in an acting capacity.” Id. § 3345(a)(2) and (3). The question presented in this case is whether the acting Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), Kenneth Cuccinelli II, was appointed in conformity with the FVRA.
The relevant events began on June 1, 2019, when Lee Francis Cissna, the Senate-confirmed Director of USCIS, resigned, and, as the FVRA prescribes, his “first assistant,” Deputy Director Mark Koumans, automatically assumed the post of acting Director. . . . Koumans’s tenure, however, was short-lived. Nine days after Director Cissna’s resignation, the then-serving acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, appointed Cuccinelli “to serve as the Principal Deputy Director of [USCIS],” . . . a position that did not exist prior to Cuccinelli’s appointment. . . . That same day, acting Secretary McAleenan also revised USCIS’s order of succession, designating the newly created position of Principal Deputy Director as “the First Assistant and most senior successor to the Director of USCIS.” . . . These two changes—both of which occurred after the vacancy arose—allowed Cuccinelli to leapfrog Koumans to become USCIS’s acting Director.
But neither of these changes was designed to endure. Acting Secretary McAleenan specified that Cuccinelli’s appointment as Principal Deputy Director “will remain in effect until the earlier to occur of (1) the appointment of a Director of USCIS by the President of the United States, or (2) the express revocation of this appointment.” . . . And acting Secretary McAleenan specified that the revised order of succession, which re-designated the Principal Deputy Director position as the “first assistant” to the Director, “will terminate automatically, without further action, upon the appointment of a new Director of USCIS by the President.” . . . . In other words, as soon as the vacant office is filled, the status quo will be restored.
On July 2, 2019, three weeks after assuming his new office, Cuccinelli issued a memorandum announcing a revised policy for scheduling credible-fear interviews in expedited removal proceedings. AR 113. Under the revised policy, USCIS (1) reduced the time allotted for asylum seekers to consult with others prior to their credible-fear interviews from 72 or 48 hours to “one full calendar day from the date of arrival at a detention facility,” (“reduced-time-to-consult directive”), and (2) prohibited asylum officers from granting asylum seekers extensions of time to prepare for their credible-fear interviews, “except in the most extraordinary of circumstances,” (“prohibition-on-extensions directive”). Although not reflected in the memorandum, Plaintiffs assert that Cuccinelli also cancelled “[t]he in-person [legal] orientation process that was” previously “in place” at the Dilley Detention Center in Dilley, . . . (“in-person-orientation directive”). Before its cancellation, according to Plaintiffs, that policy “allowed asylum seekers to ask questions about their legal rights, provided the only means of transmitting information to asylum seekers who cannot read, and facilitated understanding for asylum seekers with special needs, including disabilities or competency issues.” . . . Taken together, Plaintiffs refer to these revised policies as the “Asylum Directives.”
Plaintiffs, five individual native Honduran asylum seekers (two adults and three of their minor children) and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (“RAICES”), a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to refugees, challenge the lawfulness of the Asylum Directives on multiple grounds. First, they allege that Cuccinelli was not lawfully appointed to serve as the acting Director of USCIS and that, as a result, the Asylum Directives must be set aside under the Appointments Clause, the FVRA, 5 U.S.C. § 3348(d)(1), the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §706(2)(A), and as ultra vires. . . . Second, they allege that the Asylum Directives themselves are inconsistent with various statutory and regulatory requirements, including an asylum applicant’s statutory right to “consult with a person or persons of the alien’s choosing prior to the [credible-fear] interview,” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(iv), and the regulatory authority of asylum officers freely to reschedule credible-fear interviews whenever the asylum seeker “is unable to participate effectively . . . because of illness, fatigue, or other impediments,” 8 C.F.R. § 208.30(d)(1). . . . Third, they contend that the Asylum Directives are arbitrary and capricious because USCIS failed to consider how the Directives harm asylum seekers, acted based on “animus toward immigrants” and failed to provide an adequate justification for the policy changes. Fourth, they further allege that USCIS failed to comply with the APA’s notice-and-comment and advanced-notice requirements. Fifth, Plaintiffs maintain that the Asylum Directives discriminate against asylum seekers with “trauma-related and other mental impairments” in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. Finally, they allege that the Asylum Directives violate the First Amendment by interfering with the ability of the individual Plaintiffs and RAICES “to communicate and [to] associate” with one another regarding the individual Plaintiffs’ legal rights.
As explained below, the Court is satisfied that at least one Plaintiff has Article III standing and that the Court has statutory jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ challenges to the reduced-time-to-consult and prohibition-on-extensions directives. The Court is not persuaded, however, that it has statutory jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ challenge to the in-person-orientation directive. On the merits, the Court concludes that Cuccinelli was not lawfully appointed to serve as acting Director and that, as a result, he lacked authority to issue the reduced-time-to-consult and prohibition-on-extensions directives. The remedy for that deficiency, moreover, is compelled by the FVRA and the APA: the Asylum Directives must be set aside. Finally, having reached that conclusion, the Court need not—and does not—reach Plaintiffs’ alternative legal challenges.
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In June 2019, President Trump appointed ormer Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as the Acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but was this appointment valid? Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia thinks not, and issued an opinion today (yes, Sunday) declaring the appointment unlawful.
The introductory portion of Judge Moss’s opinion in L.M.-M v. Cuccinelli is as follows:
Under the Appointments Clause of Article II of the Constitution, the President must obtain “the Advice and Consent of the Senate” before appointing any principal officer of the United States and, unless Congress vests the appointment power in the President, a court, or a department head alone, before appointing any inferior officer as well. U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. This requirement is “more than a matter of ‘etiquette or protocol’; it is among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.” Edmond v. United States, 520 U.S. 651, 659 (1997) (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 125 (1976) (per curiam)). By dividing authority between the President and the Senate, the Appointments Clause serves as a check on both branches of government and a means of “promot[ing] . . . judicious choice[s] of [persons] for filling the offices of the union.” The Federalist No. 76, at 454–59 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). “The constitutional process of Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, however, can take time,” raising the prospect that the duties and functions assigned to an office requiring Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation (referred to as a “PAS” office) can go unperformed if the President and Senate “cannot promptly agree on a replacement.” NLRB v. SW General, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 929, 934–35 (2017). Recognizing this reality, Congress has, since the early days of the Republic, authorized “the President to direct certain officials to temporarily carry out the duties of a vacant PAS office in an acting capacity, without Senate confirmation.” Id. at 934.
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (“FVRA”), 5 U.S.C. § 3345 et seq., represents the “latest version of that authorization.” SW General, Inc., 137 S. Ct. at 934. Subject to exceptions not relevant here, it sets forth the exclusive means of temporarily filling vacancies in PAS offices. The default rule under the FVRA is that the “first assistant” to the vacant office automatically serves as the acting official when a vacancy arises. 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1). That default rule applies unless the President, and only the President, directs that (1) a person who has been confirmed by the Senate to serve in another PAS office or (2) an officer or employee of the agency in question, who has worked for that agency in a senior position for at least 90 of the 365 days preceding the vacancy, “perform the functions and duties of the vacant office temporarily in an acting capacity.” Id. § 3345(a)(2) and (3). The question presented in this case is whether the acting Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), Kenneth Cuccinelli II, was appointed in conformity with the FVRA.
The relevant events began on June 1, 2019, when Lee Francis Cissna, the Senate-confirmed Director of USCIS, resigned, and, as the FVRA prescribes, his “first assistant,” Deputy Director Mark Koumans, automatically assumed the post of acting Director. . . . Koumans’s tenure, however, was short-lived. Nine days after Director Cissna’s resignation, the then-serving acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, appointed Cuccinelli “to serve as the Principal Deputy Director of [USCIS],” . . . a position that did not exist prior to Cuccinelli’s appointment. . . . That same day, acting Secretary McAleenan also revised USCIS’s order of succession, designating the newly created position of Principal Deputy Director as “the First Assistant and most senior successor to the Director of USCIS.” . . . These two changes—both of which occurred after the vacancy arose—allowed Cuccinelli to leapfrog Koumans to become USCIS’s acting Director.
But neither of these changes was designed to endure. Acting Secretary McAleenan specified that Cuccinelli’s appointment as Principal Deputy Director “will remain in effect until the earlier to occur of (1) the appointment of a Director of USCIS by the President of the United States, or (2) the express revocation of this appointment.” . . . And acting Secretary McAleenan specified that the revised order of succession, which re-designated the Principal Deputy Director position as the “first assistant” to the Director, “will terminate automatically, without further action, upon the appointment of a new Director of USCIS by the President.” . . . . In other words, as soon as the vacant office is filled, the status quo will be restored.
On July 2, 2019, three weeks after assuming his new office, Cuccinelli issued a memorandum announcing a revised policy for scheduling credible-fear interviews in expedited removal proceedings. AR 113. Under the revised policy, USCIS (1) reduced the time allotted for asylum seekers to consult with others prior to their credible-fear interviews from 72 or 48 hours to “one full calendar day from the date of arrival at a detention facility,” (“reduced-time-to-consult directive”), and (2) prohibited asylum officers from granting asylum seekers extensions of time to prepare for their credible-fear interviews, “except in the most extraordinary of circumstances,” (“prohibition-on-extensions directive”). Although not reflected in the memorandum, Plaintiffs assert that Cuccinelli also cancelled “[t]he in-person [legal] orientation process that was” previously “in place” at the Dilley Detention Center in Dilley, . . . (“in-person-orientation directive”). Before its cancellation, according to Plaintiffs, that policy “allowed asylum seekers to ask questions about their legal rights, provided the only means of transmitting information to asylum seekers who cannot read, and facilitated understanding for asylum seekers with special needs, including disabilities or competency issues.” . . . Taken together, Plaintiffs refer to these revised policies as the “Asylum Directives.”
Plaintiffs, five individual native Honduran asylum seekers (two adults and three of their minor children) and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (“RAICES”), a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to refugees, challenge the lawfulness of the Asylum Directives on multiple grounds. First, they allege that Cuccinelli was not lawfully appointed to serve as the acting Director of USCIS and that, as a result, the Asylum Directives must be set aside under the Appointments Clause, the FVRA, 5 U.S.C. § 3348(d)(1), the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §706(2)(A), and as ultra vires. . . . Second, they allege that the Asylum Directives themselves are inconsistent with various statutory and regulatory requirements, including an asylum applicant’s statutory right to “consult with a person or persons of the alien’s choosing prior to the [credible-fear] interview,” 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(B)(iv), and the regulatory authority of asylum officers freely to reschedule credible-fear interviews whenever the asylum seeker “is unable to participate effectively . . . because of illness, fatigue, or other impediments,” 8 C.F.R. § 208.30(d)(1). . . . Third, they contend that the Asylum Directives are arbitrary and capricious because USCIS failed to consider how the Directives harm asylum seekers, acted based on “animus toward immigrants” and failed to provide an adequate justification for the policy changes. Fourth, they further allege that USCIS failed to comply with the APA’s notice-and-comment and advanced-notice requirements. Fifth, Plaintiffs maintain that the Asylum Directives discriminate against asylum seekers with “trauma-related and other mental impairments” in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. Finally, they allege that the Asylum Directives violate the First Amendment by interfering with the ability of the individual Plaintiffs and RAICES “to communicate and [to] associate” with one another regarding the individual Plaintiffs’ legal rights.
As explained below, the Court is satisfied that at least one Plaintiff has Article III standing and that the Court has statutory jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ challenges to the reduced-time-to-consult and prohibition-on-extensions directives. The Court is not persuaded, however, that it has statutory jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ challenge to the in-person-orientation directive. On the merits, the Court concludes that Cuccinelli was not lawfully appointed to serve as acting Director and that, as a result, he lacked authority to issue the reduced-time-to-consult and prohibition-on-extensions directives. The remedy for that deficiency, moreover, is compelled by the FVRA and the APA: the Asylum Directives must be set aside. Finally, having reached that conclusion, the Court need not—and does not—reach Plaintiffs’ alternative legal challenges.
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Since the outbreak of Coronavirus in Wuhan, the Chinese Communist Party has concealed the epidemic from the local government to the central government and shirked from its responsibility. Recently, Caixin, a Beijing-based media group published a shocking report that the Hubei Provincial Health and Medical Commission ordered the destruction of Coronavirus samples. Soon after the story was gagged with the article subsequently taken down.
Were Coronavirus Samples Destroyed By Chinese Health Commission?
Gene sequence detected and reported at the end of December
On February 26, Caixin published a shocking article titled “Tracking the Source of New Coronavirus Gene Sequencing“. Caixin sources told GreatGameIndia on condition of anonymity that the article was taken down due to mounting pressure from the Chinese authorities. The article was archived on the web but even the archived version redirects to an error page. So, we decided to publish the Caixin report in full translated into English from Chinese (found at the above link).
Archived version of the deleted Caixin report “Tracking the Source of Novel Coronavirus Gene Sequencing” also redirects to an error page
As of February 24, more than 2660 people have died and more than 77,000 people have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, a novel coronavirus similar to SARS. When was it found? Caixin reporters conducted interviews from various sources and sorted out relevant papers and database materials. By piecing together all sorts of information, the full picture is gradually emerging.
The Caixin article stated that there were no less than 9 unknown pneumonias before the end of December last year. Samples of the cases were collected from various hospitals in Wuhan. Gene sequencing showed that the pathogen was a SARS-like Coronavirus (similarity is about 80% and infectious). These test results were returned to the hospital and reported to the Health and Medical Commission and the Center for Disease Control.
A private enterprise in Huangpu district of Guangzhou, analysed the gene sequence of the virus on December 26. The results of the study found that it was most similar to the bat SARS Coronavirus, with an overall similarity of about 87% and a similarity with SARS of about 81%.
The company officials communicated with the hospital and CDC by telephone on December 27 and 28, and even went to Wuhan to report all the results of the analysis in person to the hospital management and CDC on December 29 and 30.
Zhang Jixian, director of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Xinhua Hospital of Hubei Province, received four consecutive unexplained pneumonia cases on December 26. On December 27, Zhang Jixian reported the discovery of four “unknown viral pneumonias” to the hospital, which was inturn reported by the hospital to Jiang Han District Center for Disease Control.
From December 28th to 29th, Xinhua Hospital treated 3 patients from the South China Seafood Market. They had similar symptoms of viral pneumonia. At 1 pm on December 29th, Xia Wenguang, deputy director of Xinhua Hospital, convened ten experts to discuss the seven cases. The experts agreed that the situation was unusual. Xia Wenguang reported directly to the disease control department of the provincial and municipal health committees.
On December 29, the industry leader Huada Gene (Shenzhen, China) completed a case of gene sequencing, and the results showed that the virus and SARS gene sequence similarity was as high as 80%. On January 1, the company’s three sample test reports were reported to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.
On December 30, Beijing Boao Medical Laboratory reported the patient report to the doctor, and the test result was – “SARS Coronavirus”.
Health and Medical Commission of Hubei Province ordered destruction of Coronavirus case samples
The Caixin report said that it was not until January 9th that the Chinese Communist Party officially declared the pathogen a “new Coronavirus.”
The report also quoted a person from a gene sequencing company who disclosed that on January 1, 2020, he “received a phone call from an official of the Health and Medical Commission of Hubei Province, informing him that samples of cases of new Coronavirus in Wuhan could not be re-examined. Existing case samples must be destroyed and sample information cannot be disclosed. Relevant papers and related data cannot be released to the public. If you detect it in the future, you must report to us.”
This article from Caixin has now been deleted, but has been circulated widely overseas and in Chinese social media attracting a strong response from the administration.
Beijing authorities concealed the epidemic
In fact, not only the authorities in Wuhan and Hubei provinces and related medical units were involved in the Coronavirus coverup, but also the National Health and Medical Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese authorities concealed the epidemic.
On January 5th, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center detected a new SARS-like Coronavirus and sequenced it to obtain the entire genome sequence of the virus. On the same day, the center immediately reported to the National Health Commission of the Communist Party of China and “suggested to take corresponding prevention and control measures in public places.”
The report states that the virus shares 89.11% homology with SARS Coronavirus and is named Wuhan-Hu-1 Coronavirus.
On January 5, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center reported to the National Health Commission of the Communist Party of China, asking for the prevention of Coronavirus
Numerous such internal circulars, notifications and reports of studies warning the Chinese administrations were sent out in the weeks leading to the outbreak which were not only ignored but actively suppressed from reaching to people. We have cataloged these findings in our scientific investigation on the origin of Coronavirus – the COVID19 Files – from five major areas, including epidemiological investigation, virus gene comparison, cross-species infection research, key “intermediate hosts” and the findings on the Wuhan P4 lab.
However, the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Health Commission of the Communist Party of China declared that the epidemic was “preventable and controllable” until January 19, and “the possibility of limited transmission from person to person was not ruled out”.
On February 3rd, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying said that since January 3rd, the Chinese Communist Party has notified the United States of a total of 30 outbreak information and control measures. Immediately after the remarks were published, it was strongly condemned.
When Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying’s remarks appeared in the press, it immediately aroused the anger of the Chinese people
However, it was not until January 20th that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang made public statements on the prevention and control of the epidemic for the first time. Zhong Nanshan, a CCP expert, acknowledged for the first time that the new Coronavirus was “person-to-person.”
On January 26, the Communist Party of China set up a task force for epidemic prevention and control with Li Keqiang as the leader. It was after more than two months since the outbreak.
Wuhan pneumonia cases were discovered by the Communist Party of China CDC, Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CPC Health and Medical Committee, and the Hubei Health and Medical Committee by December 1st, and the relevant results were published in international journals.
However, the Chinese Communist Party has been concealing the epidemic, suppressing doctors and people who spread the truth of the epidemic, and spreading a false narrative that the epidemic is “preventable and controllable” and is not “person-to-person”.
The claims of the Caixin report that gene sequencing studies carried out by the Chinese administration found that COVID-19 Coronavirus is almost 80% similar to SARS gives further credence to GreatGameIndia‘s report on how Chinese Biowarfare agents smuggled SARS Coronaviruses from Canada and weaponized it – Coronavirus Bioweapon. Further, the Canadian Scientist Frank Plummer who received these SARS Coronavirus samples of the first patient from Saudi Arabia was found dead in mysterious conditions in Nairobi, Kenya within 11 days of the publication of our report.
Anti-Greta Knocks ‘Climate Alarmists’ During CPAC Speech
A 19-year-old European activist dubbed the ‘anti-Greta’ slammed “climate alarmists” on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, according to Bloomberg.
Self-proclaimed “climate realist” Naomi Seibt, who has roughly 60,000 followers on YouTube, told a panel sponsored by the Illinois-based Heartland Institute think tank: “The climate has always been changing, and so it’s ridiculous to say we deny climate change.”
“Man vastly overestimates his power if he thinks he can, with CO2 emissions, destroy the climate.”
Very impressive CPAC speaker… 19-y-o German “climate realist” Naomi Seibt: Climate alarmists should be more humble. They want to drive us into energy poverty which is a way to control us. I see a dangerous socialist totalitarianism at the root of this pic.twitter.com/gg6B8qrav3
Seibt dismissed allegations she is being used by climate skeptics to woo young people and counter Thunberg, the Swedish activist who has won international acclaim for arguing the world needs to rapidly throttle the greenhouse gas emissions fueling a warming world. “I am not the puppet of the right wing or the climate deniers or the Heartland Institute either,” Seibt said. –Bloomberg
Seibt has come under fire after a video began circulating on Friday of her saying “The normal German consumer is at the bottom, so to speak. Then the Muslims come somewhere in between. And the Jew is at the top. That is the suppression characteristic,” remarks she said were taken out of context, and that she was expressing her view that it is “wrong to comment on different races differently and view them differently.”
The propagandists have all gone dead silent on the WikiLeaks founder they previously were smearing with relentless viciousness, because they no longer have an argument. The facts are all in, and yes, it turns out the US government is certainly and undeniably working to exploit legal loopholes to imprison a journalist for exposing its war crimes. That is happening, and there is no justifying it.
So the narrative managers, by and large, have gone silent.
Which is good. Because it gives us an opening to seize control of the narrative.
It’s time to go on the offensive with this. Assange supporters have gotten so used to playing defense that it hasn’t fully occurred to us to go on a full-blown charge. I’ve been guilty of this as well; I’ll be letting myself get bogged down in some old, obsolete debate with someone about some obscure aspect of the Swedish case or something, not realizing that none of that matters anymore. All the narrative manipulations that were used to get Assange to this point are impotent, irrelevant expenditures of energy compared to the fact that we now have undeniable evidence that the US government is working to set a precedent which will allow it to jail any journalist who exposes its misdeeds, and we can now force Assange’s smearers to confront this reality.
“Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”
That’s the debate now. Not Russia. Not Sweden. Not whether he followed proper bail protocol or washed his dishes at the embassy. That’s old stuff. That’s obsolete. That’s playing defense.
Now we play offense: “Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”
Demand an answer. Call attention to them and demand that they answer. Dig them out of their hidey holes and make them answer this. Drag them out into the light and make them answer this question in front of everyone. Because that is all this is about now.
Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t get tricked into debating defensively. Force the issue: the US government is trying to establish and normalize the practice of extraditing and imprisoning journalists for exposing its misdeeds. That is the issue to focus on.
You will find that anyone who dares to stick their head above the parapet and smear Assange now gets very, very squirmy if you pin them down and force them to address this issue. Because they cannot answer without admitting that they are wrong. And that they’ve been wrong this entire time. It’s a completely unassailable argument.
We now have two and a half months to prepare for the second half of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing: all of March, all of April, and half of May. We’re going to need all that time to seize control of the narrative and make it very, very clear to the world that a very important decision is about to be made by the powerful on our behalf, if we don’t make that decision for them.
This really is do or die time, humans. If we allow them to extradite and imprison Julian Assange for practicing journalism, that’s it. It’s over. We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or authoritarian dystopia. It’s impossible to hold power accountable if you’re not even allowed to see what it’s doing.
If we, the many, don’t have the spine to stand up against the few and say “No, we get to find out facts about you bastards and use it to inform our worldview, you don’t get to criminalize that,” then we certainly won’t have the spine it will take to wrest control of this world away from the hands of sociopathic plutocrats and take our fate into our own hands.
We are deciding, right now, what we are made of. And what we want to become.
This is it. This is the part of the movie where we collectively choose the red pill or the blue pill.
We are collectively being asked a question here, and our answer to that question will determine the entire course we will take as a species.
So what’s it going to be, humanity?
Truth, or lies?
Light, or darkness?
A world where we can hold power to account with the light of truth, or a world where power decides what’s true for us?
A world with free speech and a free press, or a world where journalists are imprisoned whenever they expose the evils of the most powerful institutions on this planet?
A world where we all actively fight to free Assange and get the job done, or a giant, irreversible leap toward the end of humanity as we know it?
Do we free Assange?
Or do we sit complacent with our Netflix and our KFC and trust the authority figures to do what’s best?
Joe Biden’s strong showing in South Carolina’s primary has put an end to Pete Buttigieg’s attempt to offer himself up as a more moderate alternative to the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.).
Tonight the former South Bend, Ind., mayor announced he was suspending his campaign, a day after he came in fourth in South Carolina’s primary, getting fewer votes than Tom Steyer, who dropped out Saturday night.
“Our goal has always been help unify Americans to beat Donald Trump and to win the era for our values,” Buttigieg said in his concession speech Sunday evening. But after acknowledging that his path to victory has narrowed following a poor performance in South Carolina, he announced his own campaign was over. He didn’t throw his support behind a particular candidate, but said he would “do everything in my power to make sure we have a new Democratic president in the White House come January.”
Buttigieg drew remarkable attention for a candidate who had held no previous federal office, was only 38 years old, and a fairly thin political resume. He barely edged out Sanders in Iowa to win the most delegates in that state, but did not fare as well in subsequent races.
Buttigieg is openly gay and married, and the mix of his sexuality and his unwillingness to rush as far to the left as candidates like Sanders and Warren caused friction with other vocal LGBT activists and writers. He inspired a number of think pieces about whether he was “gay enough,” chin-stroking, self-absorbed essays that were barely about Buttigieg at all but really about the person writing it and the gap between the writer’s experiences and Buttigieg’s. The worst vitriol aimed at Buttigieg came not from religious conservatives but from those who were clearly upset that the first major openly gay candidate for president wasn’t some fire-breathing radical looking to smash capitalism and arrest Wall Street. (Spencer Kornhaber at The Atlantic highlights some of the worst here.)
As for his actual positions, Buttigieg was a mixed bag for those who prioritize liberty. His most admirable position was his call for the decriminalization of all drug possession. He didn’t go as far as calling for full legalization, but his platform was very clear that he opposed incarceration for drug use.
Buttigieg also used his experience as a military veteran, a Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, to call for the removal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the ending of our current wars. He called for future Congressional Authorizations for Use of Military Force to come with automatic three-year sunsets.
And he at least acknowledged that too much national debt was a bad thing (though he didn’t really propose how to cut it and had his own plan for massive spending increases), his health care plan didn’t call for forcing everybody to give up private insurance into a nationalized system, and his free college proposal had an income cap for participants. That marked him as a “moderate” in this election, which just shows how much that Overton Window has been shifted among the Democratic electorate.
On the “bad ideas” side, Buttigieg pandered to unions, calling for employees in the gig economy be allowed to unionize, even though such a plan would essentially gut the system, cause labor costs to skyrocket, and make it extremely hard for people to work as freelancers.
If his government spending plans and intervention plans seemed modest, it was only in comparison with the extremely expensive, intrusive proposals from the likes of Warren and Sanders. In reality, Buttigieg was very much a big government, big spending guy who seemed reasonable compared to those who insisted that the government could provide everything to everybody by taxing the rich and attacking Wall Street.
Buttigieg’s worst proposal is one he shared with fellow failed candidate Rep. John Delaney (D–Md.), a year of national service by young Americans when they reach 18. He stopped short of saying he’d make it legally mandatory (unlike Delaney), but nevertheless said he believed that forcing young adults to work for the government for a year would foster “social cohesion,” showing how little he understood many of his fellow Americans.
In the end, his campaign did remarkably well given his initial lack of name recognition or concrete history of success to point to. If nothing else, he shows that there is a good chunk of Democrats out there still who have some hard limits about how much of our economy and personal lives they think government should control. But the open gleeful viciousness in the way he’s been attacked by people looking to drag the party further to the left toward more socialism is indicator of a party fracture that’s going to last for a while.
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‘Losing A Billion Dollars A Month’ – No Rebound In Sight Amid Global Shipping Slump
America’s seaports are now starting to feel the chilling effects of supply chain disruptions from China, warned Noel Hacegaba, the Deputy Executive Director of Administration and Operations for the Port of Long Beach, California.
Hacegaba said the Port of Long Beach, the second-largest containerized port in the US – is experiencing weakness in volume, down 6% YoY in January, and down another 6% YoY in February. For the quarter, he said the port could see a decline of 12% YoY.
He warned that economic paralysis in China has led to blank sails of containerships across shipping lanes between China and the US.
World Maritime News adds more color onto blank sailings and economic loss that is shocking the global shipping industry right down to the haul.
So far, 105 blank sailings between Asia to North America and Europe have been recorded from January 20 to February 10. The shuttering of dozens of manufacturing hubs in China for virus containment purposes has left the country’s factory output well below full capacity in February, and likely depressed into March.
Data from the UK-based maritime research consultancy, Drewry, said, “the cancellation of 105 sailings per month represents a shortfall in revenue of roughly USD 1 billion (105 x 10,000 TEU x USD 1,000), of which a portion will be made up later via full ships and extra loaders, but the short term damage to carrier profits is large.”
Drewry said port operations in China remained down 20 to 40% during the period. It said ports in the US are only now starting to feel the shock, which is what Hacegaba described last week was beginning at West Coast ports.
Drewry warned that the plunge in container volume in China would severely weigh on global port volumes for the quarter:
“Cargo owners and shipping lines are desperate for a swift resolution that will see Chinese factories resume production and start churning out the goods and parts that grease the global supply chain. It is inevitable that world port throughput will suffer a large contraction in 1Q20, but the question is now whether we can expect a v-shaped recovery later this year or something else entirely?”
For some color on why container volumes in China and likely the rest of the world will collapse this quarter, we specifically outlined in semi-official data from China that business conditions are printing at depression levels (as a reminder, China has been responsible for 60% of the world’s credit creation in the last decade – if China’s catches the flu – so does everyone):
And for confirmation of China’s economic paralysis, China’s National Statistics Bureau reported Friday night the latest, February PMIs and they were absolutely catastrophic:
Manufacturing PMI crashed to 35.7 in Feb, far below the 45.0 consensus estimate, and sharply down from 50.0 in January. A record low.
Non-Manufacturing PMI plummets to 28.9, also far below the 50.5 consensus, estimate, and down nearly 50% from the 54.1 in Jan. This too was a record low.
Putting these numbers in context, the collapse in China’s economy will continue to weigh on global supply chains that are entirely dependent on the Asian country as a manufacturing source.
“Whatever the outcome, COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of global supply chains that are overly dependent on a single manufacturing source. We suspect that shippers will look to broaden their sourcing options as a form of insurance,” Drewry said.
The nightmare scenario is that the virus outbreak shocks the world into recession as containerized volumes collapse along with trade growth would be devastating for the shipping industry:
“Under this scenario, we anticipate a prolonged downturn for freight rates and an elevated risk of a carrier bankruptcy. To avoid such a prospect, carriers would be forced to revisit the playbook from the financial crash of a decade before and undertake large scale capacity withdrawal in the form of mass idling and demolitions,” Drewry concludes.
And for all those expecting that Beijing will unleash another massive stimulus to kick-start the economy at any cost, it seems that the likelihood of another round of massive stimulus appears low, which means markets are underestimating the scale of the growth slump.
The outbreak in South Korea and Japan may be the next big concern for American ports, as creaking global supply chains has underlined the fragility of the global economy.
“This Crisis Will Spill Over Into Disaster” – Dr.Doom Sees 40% Collapse In “Delusional” Stock Market
“The Democratic field is poor, but Trump is dead. Quote me on that!”
That’s Nouriel Roubini’s take on how the escalating global health crisis will morph into a financial crisis (it’s starting) and a political crisis…
In an interview with Germany’s Der Speigel, Dr.Doom – who correctly predicted the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble in addition to the 2008 financial crisis along with the ramifications of austerity measures for debt-laden Greece – believes that coronavirus will lead to a global economic disaster and that U.S. President Donald Trump will not be re-elected as a result.
DER SPIEGEL: How severe is the coronavirus outbreak for China and for the global economy?
Roubini: This crisis is much more severe for China and the rest of the world than investors have expected for four reasons: First, it is not an epidemic limited to China, but a global pandemic. Second, it is far from being over. This has massive consequences, but politicians don’t realize it.
DER SPIEGEL: What do you mean?
Roubini: Just look at your continent. Europe is afraid of closing its borders, which is a huge mistake. In 2016, in response to the refugee crisis, Schengen was effectively suspended, but this is even worse. The Italian borders should be closed as soon as possible. The situation is much worse than 1 million refugees coming to Europe.
DER SPIEGEL: What are your other two reasons?
Roubini:Everyone believes it’s going to be a V-shaped recession, but people don’t know what they are talking about. They prefer to believe in miracles. It’s simple math: If the Chinese economy were to shrink by 2 percent in the first quarter, it would require growth of 8 percent in the final three quarters to reach the 6 percent annual growth rate that everyone had expected before the virus broke out. If growth is only 6 percent from the second quarter onwards, which is a more realistic scenario, we would see the Chinese economy only growing by 2.5 to 4 percent for the entire year. This rate would essentially mean a recession for China and a shock to the world.
DER SPIEGEL: And your last point?
Roubini:Everyone thinks that policymakers will react swiftly but that’s also wrong. The markets are completely delusional. Look at fiscal policy: You can do fiscal stuff only in some countries like Germany, because others like Italy don’t have any leeway. But even if you do something, the political process requires a great deal of talking and negotiating. It takes six to nine months, which is way too long. The truth is: Europe would have needed fiscal stimulus even without the corona crisis. Italy was already on the verge of a recession, as was Germany. But German politicians aren’t even thinking about stimulus, despite the country being so exposed to China. The political response is a joke – politicians are often behind the curve. This crisis will spill over and result in a disaster.
DER SPIEGEL: What role do the central banks have to play?
Roubini: The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are already in negative territory. Of course, they could lower rates on deposits even further to stimulate borrowing but that wouldn’t help the markets for more than a week. This crisis is a supply shock that you can’t fight with monetary or fiscal policy.
DER SPIEGEL: What will help?
Roubini:The solution needs to be a medical one. Monetary and fiscal measures do not help when you have no food and water safety. If the shock leads to a global recession, then you have a financial crisis, because debt levels have gone up and the U.S. housing market is experiencing a bubble just like in 2007. It hasn’t been a time bomb so far because we have been experiencing growth. That is over now.
DER SPIEGEL: Will this crisis change the way the Chinese people think of their government?
Roubini: Businesspeople tell me that things in China are much worse than the government is officially reporting. A friend of mine in Shanghai has been locked in his home for weeks now. I don’t expect a revolution, but the government will need a scapegoat.
DER SPIEGEL: Such as?
Roubini: Already, there were conspiracy theories going around about foreign interference when it comes to swine flu, bird flu and the Hong Kong uprising. I assume that China will start trouble in Taiwan, Hong Kong or even Vietnam. They’ll crack down on protesters in Hong Kong or send fighters over Taiwanese air space to provoke the U.S. military. It would only take one accident in the Strait of Formosa and you would see military action. Not a hot war between China and the U.S., but some form of action. This is what people in the U.S. government like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Vice President Mike Pence want. It’s the mentality of many people in D.C.
DER SPIEGEL: This crisis is obviously a setback for globalization. Do you think politicians like Trump, who want their companies to abandon production abroad, will benefit?
Roubini: He will try to reap benefits from this crisis, that’s for sure. But everything will change when coronavirus reaches the U.S. You can’t build a wall in the sky. Look, I live in New York City and people there are hardly going to restaurants, cinemas or theaters, even though nobody there has been infected by the virus thus far. If it comes, we are totally fucked.
DER SPIEGEL: A perfect scare-scenario for Trump?
Roubini: Not at all. He will lose the election, that’s for sure.
DER SPIEGEL: A bold prediction. What makes you so sure?
Roubini: Because there is a significant risk of a war between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. government wants regime change, and they will bomb the hell out of the Iranians. But Iranians are used to suffering, believe me, I am an Iranian Jew, and I know them! And the Iranians also want regime change in the U.S. The tensions will drive up oil prices and lead inevitably to Trumps defeat in the elections.
DER SPIEGEL: What makes you so sure?
Roubini:This has always the case in history. Ford lost to Carter after the 1973 oil shock, Carter lost to Reagan due to the second oil crisis in 1979, and Bush lost to Clinton after the Kuwait invasion. The Democratic field is poor, but Trump is dead. Quote me on that!
DER SPIEGEL: A war against Iran is needed to beat Trump?
Roubini: Absolutely, and it’s worth it. Four more years of Trump means economic war!
DER SPIEGEL: What should investors do to brace for the impact?
Roubini:I expect global equities to tank by 30 to 40 percent this year. My advice is: Put your money into cash and safe government bonds, like German bunds. They have negative rates, but so what? That just means that prices will rise and rise – you can make a lot of money that way. And if I am wrong and equities go up by 10 percent instead, that’s also OK. You have to hedge your money against a crash, that is more important. That’s my motto: “Better safe than sorry!”
Joe Biden’s strong showing in South Carolina’s primary has put an end to Pete Buttigieg’s attempt to offer himself up as a more moderate alternative to the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.).
Tonight the former South Bend, Ind., mayor announced he was suspending his campaign, a day after he came in fourth in South Carolina’s primary, getting fewer votes than Tom Steyer, who dropped out Saturday night.
“Our goal has always been help unify Americans to beat Donald Trump and to win the era for our values,” Buttigieg said in his concession speech Sunday evening. But after acknowledging that his path to victory has narrowed following a poor performance in South Carolina, he announced his own campaign was over. He didn’t throw his support behind a particular candidate, but said he would “do everything in my power to make sure we have a new Democratic president in the White House come January.”
Buttigieg drew remarkable attention for a candidate who had held no previous federal office, was only 38 years old, and a fairly thin political resume. He barely edged out Sanders in Iowa to win the most delegates in that state, but did not fare as well in subsequent races.
Buttigieg is openly gay and married, and the mix of his sexuality and his unwillingness to rush as far to the left as candidates like Sanders and Warren caused friction with other vocal LGBT activists and writers. He inspired a number of think pieces about whether he was “gay enough,” chin-stroking, self-absorbed essays that were barely about Buttigieg at all but really about the person writing it and the gap between the writer’s experiences and Buttigieg’s. The worst vitriol aimed at Buttigieg came not from religious conservatives but from those who were clearly upset that the first major openly gay candidate for president wasn’t some fire-breathing radical looking to smash capitalism and arrest Wall Street. (Spencer Kornhaber at The Atlantic highlights some of the worst here.)
As for his actual positions, Buttigieg was a mixed bag for those who prioritize liberty. His most admirable position was his call for the decriminalization of all drug possession. He didn’t go as far as calling for full legalization, but his platform was very clear that he opposed incarceration for drug use.
Buttigieg also used his experience as a military veteran, a Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, to call for the removal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the ending of our current wars. He called for future Congressional Authorizations for Use of Military Force to come with automatic three-year sunsets.
And he at least acknowledged that too much national debt was a bad thing (though he didn’t really propose how to cut it and had his own plan for massive spending increases), his health care plan didn’t call for forcing everybody to give up private insurance into a nationalized system, and his free college proposal had an income cap for participants. That marked him as a “moderate” in this election, which just shows how much that Overton Window has been shifted among the Democratic electorate.
On the “bad ideas” side, Buttigieg pandered to unions, calling for employees in the gig economy be allowed to unionize, even though such a plan would essentially gut the system, cause labor costs to skyrocket, and make it extremely hard for people to work as freelancers.
If his government spending plans and intervention plans seemed modest, it was only in comparison with the extremely expensive, intrusive proposals from the likes of Warren and Sanders. In reality, Buttigieg was very much a big government, big spending guy who seemed reasonable compared to those who insisted that the government could provide everything to everybody by taxing the rich and attacking Wall Street.
Buttigieg’s worst proposal is one he shared with fellow failed candidate Rep. John Delaney (D–Md.), a year of national service by young Americans when they reach 18. He stopped short of saying he’d make it legally mandatory (unlike Delaney), but nevertheless said he believed that forcing young adults to work for the government for a year would foster “social cohesion,” showing how little he understood many of his fellow Americans.
In the end, his campaign did remarkably well given his initial lack of name recognition or concrete history of success to point to. If nothing else, he shows that there is a good chunk of Democrats out there still who have some hard limits about how much of our economy and personal lives they think government should control. But the open gleeful viciousness in the way he’s been attacked by people looking to drag the party further to the left toward more socialism is indicator of a party fracture that’s going to last for a while.
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