The Moment We’ve All Waited For: Mile Long Asteroid Could Finally End Humanity On Earth
We can only imagine how much the Dow Jones Industrial Average would rally on news of the end of humanity. Thankfully we won’t be around to witness it.
In upbeat news today, there’s a mile long asteroid floating around out that that experts say could finally end life on Earth.
The asteroid was linked to a one inch meteor that streaked a fireball through the sky of Japan three years ago and could eventually threaten humanity if it breaks up. The catch: it would likely happen millions of years from now, according to Fox News.
Toshihiro Kasuga, a visiting scientist at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and Kyoto Sangyo University, said in a release Wednesday: “The potential breakup of the rock could be dangerous to life on Earth. Those resulting asteroids could hit the Earth in the next 10 million years or so.”
The fireball that was seen over Kyoto in April 2017 was a one inch meteor that broke off of the asteroid, scientists later determined.
(2019/10/20) Fireball That Flew Over Japan in 2017 Was Tiny Piece of Giant Asteroid that Might One Day Threaten Earth | Live Science https://t.co/RP0YcC2UAy
In the early morning of April 28, 2017, a small fireball crept across the sky over Kyoto, Japan.
Kasuga said: “We uncovered the fireball’s true identity. The 2017 fireball and its parent asteroid gave us a behind-the-scenes look at meteors.”
The asteroid is known as 2003 YT1, and according to scientists is made up of two parts: “the larger rock measures 1.2 miles and is orbited by a 690-foot piece.”
“The parent body 2003 YT1 could break up and those resulting asteroids could hit the Earth in the next 10 million years or so, especially because 2003 YT1 has a dust production mechanism,” Kasuga concluded.
The asteroid was first discovered in 2003 and has a history of “cracking and releasing dust particles into space”.
In the video below, Truthstream Media discusses one of the most dangerous and ideologically insane root organizations of modern globalism and the “new world order – The Fabian Society.
The Fabians are notorious for their obsession with incremental tyranny and the erasure of individual and national sovereignty.
Though other organizations like the Council On Foreign Relations have now taken over at the forefront of the globalist effort, the Fabians were the foundation, the beginning of the modern push towards an everlasting totalitarian empire ruled by the elites. Understanding their history and tactics helps us to understand exactly what is taking place today.
The “Brave New Word” is being established now, and it must be stopped…
The first of the two articles of impeachment on which Donald Trump is about to be tried by the Senate focuses on “abuse of power.” In my view, Trump’s scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in order to pressure that country’s government into investigating a political adversary is also a violation of the Constitution and criminal law. An abuse of power can also be an illegal and criminal act. But the article does not require proof of illegality for conviction.
Despite claims to the contrary by newly appointed Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz, there is overwhelming evidence that the original meaning of the Impeachment Clause permits impeachment and removal for abuses of power that are not criminal or otherwise illegal. That is actually one of those points on which there is a fairly broad consensus among constitutional law scholars across the political spectrum. For good summaries of the relevant evidence, see recent analyses by Gene Healy of the Cato Institute, and prominent conservative legal scholar Michael Stokes Paulsen (here, here, and here).
But critics of the abuse of power standard nonetheless contend it should be rejected. They fear it would create a slippery slope under which presidents can be impeached and removed for frivolous or vague reasons. Dershowitz, for example, worries that abuse of power is a “vague, open-ended” criterion that could lead to a “slippery slope.”
Unlike Dershowitz, my co-blogger Josh Blackman admits that “Congress can convict a president for conduct that is not criminal.” But he too fears that impeachment for abuse of power depends on “subjective judgment” and therefore “the predicates of the Trump articles will set a dangerous precedent, as impeachment might become—regrettably—a common, quadrennial feature of our polity.”
On this view, almost any president can potentially be accused of “abuse of power” by political adversaries in Congress. And then he might be impeached and removed for relatively trivial misconduct, or even just because of partisan animosity or policy differences with Congress.
I. Why the Slippery Slope Argument Against Impeachment is Overblown.
Such concerns are to some degree understandable. Every president has partisan adversaries who who would be happy to “get him” if they can. Nonetheless, slippery slope fears about impeachment are misplaced. If anything, there is much more reason to fear that presidents who richly deserve to be removed will get away with serious abuses of power.
The biggest reason why we need not worry much about frivolous impeachment and removal is that removal requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate, as well as a majority in the House of Representatives to impeach. The former is almost always impossible to achieve unless many senators from the president’s own party vote to convict him. They are highly unlikely to do so for frivolous reasons. Michael Paulsen expounds on this and some other constraints on abusive impeachment in greater detail here.
Of course, it’s possible that skilled partisans will find an impeachment charge that is simultaneously frivolous yet also appealing to swing voters. But that risk is endemic to political life, and is not unique to impeachment. In a world where voters are often ignorant and biased, there is no way to prevent politicians from sometimes successfully damaging opponents’ reputations with dubious charges.
Some might fear that a hostile House can tie up the president with impeachment investigations even if there is no chance of conviction (and perhaps even if the House never actually votes to impeach). But a hostile Congress can already harass administrations with questionable investigations, even if impeachment is not the purpose of the inquiry in question. Congressional Republicans effectively proved that with their two-year long Benghazi investigation, which was far longer and more costly than the Mueller and Ukraine investigations of Trump, despite the fact that impeachment was never a serious possibility in the Benghazi case.
Perhaps this possibility is precluded by the fact that the text of the Impeachment Clause is limited to “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (emphasis added). But the difference between a “high” crime and a minor one is at least as subjective as that between an abuse of power and ordinary, supposedly non-abusive, policymaking. Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment remember how Republicans claimed that Clinton’s offenses were grave affronts to the republic, while Democrats argued that they were minor, or at least nowhere near serious enough to justify impeachment. Whether a crime is “high” enough to justify impeachment is at least as subjective as the abuse of power standard is. If the word “high” does serve as an effective safeguard, it can do so with abuses of power no less than crimes, by limiting impeachment to serious abuses, as opposed to petty, insignificant ones.
Ultimately, the main safeguard against slippery slopes here is the combination of the need for a two-thirds majority in the Senate for removal and the danger of political backlash. It may not be a perfect safeguard, but it is very formidable nonetheless.
II. Barring Impeachment for Abuse of Power Creates Slippery Slope Risks of its Own.
Limiting impeachment to specific criminal or otherwise illegal conduct creates a slippery slope risk of its own. It creates a risk that the president can avoid impeachment even for grave abuses. Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz gave a great example of such when he admitted that, under his approach, a president could not be impeached for the following conduct:
“Assume Putin decides to ‘retake’ Alaska, the way he ‘retook’ Crimea. Assume further that a president allows him to do it, because he believed that Russia has a legitimate claim to ‘its’ original territory… That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable? Not under the text of the Constitution.”
If impeachment is strictly limited to statutory crimes and misdemeanors, a president could also avoid impeachment for gross violations of the Constitution that do not amount to crimes. For example, he could order his subordinates to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion, to violate freedom of speech, and so on. Such presidential misconduct is illegal, but generally not a crime.
Over the last several decades, presidents have all too often engaged in serious violations of the Constitution and grave abuses of power and gotten away with it. President Obama launched two wars without constitutionally congressional authorization—as serious a breach of the constitutional separation of powers as any. He got away with it. Donald Trump has gotten away with his brutal—and illegal—family separation policy, and with massive cruelty of his travel ban motivated by religious bigotry. Even if you agree with the Supreme Court’s dubious ruling that the judiciary was required to defer to the president on the latter policy, it was still a gross abuse of power. Each of these examples was actually a far more severe abuse of power than the Ukraine case, especially if judged by the scale of the harm caused to innocent people.
Presidents have strong incentives to abuse their power and violate laws any time it seems likely to promote their partisan and electoral interests, or advance their policy agendas. Impeachment for abuse of power can provide a counterweight, albeit perhaps a fairly modest one.
III. Which Danger is Greater?
Let us assume the worst: if impeachment for abuse of power is allowed, occasionally a “good” president will get the axe even if he or she didn’t really deserve it. That strikes me as a price well-worth paying for putting a tighter leash on presidents who genuinely abuse their power.
In criminal cases, there is good reason to avoid conviction unless the charge against the accused is an offense clearly delineated by law, and guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason why is that the defendant stands to lose her liberty or property—or even her life. By contrast, the risk facing an impeached president is removal from a position of enormous power.
Unlike unjust deprivation of life, liberty, or property, removal from power doesn’t violate anyone’s human rights. When real human rights are at stake, it may make sense to allow ten guilty people to go free, in order to save even one innocent from conviction. When it comes to positions of power, almost the opposite is true: Removing ten “normal” politicians is more than justified if that is the only way to get rid of one who engages in grave abuses of power. It’s not as if we suffer from a shortage of ambitious politicians who would be happy to take the places of those who get removed.
Imprecise delineation of standards is also far less problematic when it comes to removal from power than criminal punishment. If criminal laws are vague, people will fear to use their liberty, lest they accidentally run afoul of the law. Such a “chilling effect” on liberty can be deeply problematic. If standards for impeachment are vague, the president might shy away from exercises of power that might be abuses, even if it is not entirely clear whether they really are. Such a chilling effect on power is more a feature than a bug, especially in a context where numerous other incentives incline presidents towards overreaching.
But perhaps the above underrates the harm caused by removing a “good” president. Such removal, it is said, is tantamount to “reversing” the outcome of an election. Not so. A true reversal of an election would bring to power the president’s opponents. Thus, Trump’s election would be reversed by impeachment if his removal would bring Hillary Clinton to power. In reality, of course, impeachment elevates the president’s own vice president, who comes from the same party, and usually has a similar policy agenda. Elevating Mike Pence to the presidency may or may not be a good idea. But no one is likely to confuse him with Hillary Clinton—and not just because of the difference in gender. It is possible to imagine scenarios where the president and VP both get impeached and removed, thereby elevating the Speaker of the House of Representatives (who will often belong to the opposing party).
Such scenarios are great fodder for political thriller novels. But if it is extremely difficult to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove a president in favor of a successor of the same party, it is virtually impossible to do so in order to elevate a political opponent such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Michael Stokes Paulsen offers some additional responses to the “overturning elections” argument here.
Ultimately, the real danger we face is not that too many good presidents will be removed from power unfairly, but that too many grave abuses of power will go unpunished and undeterred. I am not optimistic that impeachment alone can solve this problem. The supermajority requirement that prevents frivolous impeachment also prevents it in all too many cases where it is amply justified. But the threat of impeachment for abuse of power can at least help at the margin.
Let presidents—even “good” ones—lose more sleep over the possibility of impeachment. The rest of us will then be able to sleep a little easier, knowing we are that much more secure against abuses of government power.
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The first of the two articles of impeachment on which Donald Trump is about to be tried by the Senate focuses on “abuse of power.” In my view, Trump’s scheme to withhold aid from Ukraine in order to pressure that country’s government into investigating a political adversary is also a violation of the Constitution and criminal law. An abuse of power can also be an illegal and criminal act. But the article does not require proof of illegality for conviction.
Despite claims to the contrary by newly appointed Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz, there is overwhelming evidence that the original meaning of the Impeachment Clause permits impeachment and removal for abuses of power that are not criminal or otherwise illegal. That is actually one of those points on which there is a fairly broad consensus among constitutional law scholars across the political spectrum. For good summaries of the relevant evidence, see recent analyses by Gene Healy of the Cato Institute, and prominent conservative legal scholar Michael Stokes Paulsen (here, here, and here).
But critics of the abuse of power standard nonetheless contend it should be rejected. They fear it would create a slippery slope under which presidents can be impeached and removed for frivolous or vague reasons. Dershowitz, for example, worries that abuse of power is a “vague, open-ended” criterion that could lead to a “slippery slope.”
Unlike Dershowitz, my co-blogger Josh Blackman admits that “Congress can convict a president for conduct that is not criminal.” But he too fears that impeachment for abuse of power depends on “subjective judgment” and therefore “the predicates of the Trump articles will set a dangerous precedent, as impeachment might become—regrettably—a common, quadrennial feature of our polity.”
On this view, almost any president can potentially be accused of “abuse of power” by political adversaries in Congress. And then he might be impeached and removed for relatively trivial misconduct, or even just because of partisan animosity or policy differences with Congress.
I. Why the Slippery Slope Argument Against Impeachment is Overblown.
Such concerns are to some degree understandable. Every president has partisan adversaries who who would be happy to “get him” if they can. Nonetheless, slippery slope fears about impeachment are misplaced. If anything, there is much more reason to fear that presidents who richly deserve to be removed will get away with serious abuses of power.
The biggest reason why we need not worry much about frivolous impeachment and removal is that removal requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate, as well as a majority in the House of Representatives to impeach. The former is almost always impossible to achieve unless many senators from the president’s own party vote to convict him. They are highly unlikely to do so for frivolous reasons.
Of course, it’s possible that skilled partisans will find an impeachment charge that is simultaneously frivolous yet also appealing to swing voters. But that risk is endemic to political life, and is not unique to impeachment. In a world where voters are often ignorant and biased, there is no way to prevent politicians from sometimes successfully damaging opponents’ reputations with dubious charges.
Some might fear that a hostile House can tie up the president with impeachment investigations even if there is no chance of conviction (and perhaps even if the House never actually votes to impeach). But a hostile Congress can already harass administrations with questionable investigations, even if impeachment is not the purpose of the inquiry in question. Congressional Republicans effectively proved that with their two-year long Benghazi investigation, which was far longer and more costly than the Mueller and Ukraine investigations of Trump, despite the fact that impeachment was never a serious possibility in the Benghazi case.
Perhaps this possibility is precluded by the fact that the text of the Impeachment Clause is limited to “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (emphasis added). But the difference between a “high” crime and a minor one is at least as subjective as that between an abuse of power and ordinary, supposedly non-abusive, policymaking. Those of us who lived through the Clinton impeachment remember how Republicans claimed that Clinton’s offenses were grave affronts to the republic, while Democrats argued that they were minor, or at least nowhere near serious enough to justify impeachment. Whether a crime is “high” enough to justify impeachment is at least as subjective as the abuse of power standard is. If the word “high” does serve as an effective safeguard, it can do so with abuses of power no less than crimes, by limiting impeachment to serious abuses, as opposed to petty, insignificant ones.
Ultimately, the main safeguard against slippery slopes here is the combination of the need for a two-thirds majority in the Senate for removal and the danger of political backlash. It may not be a perfect safeguard, but it is very formidable nonetheless.
II. Barring Impeachment for Abuse of Power Creates Slippery Slope Risks of its Own.
Limiting impeachment to specific criminal or otherwise illegal conduct creates a slippery slope risk of its own. It creates a risk that the president can avoid impeachment even for grave abuses. Trump defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz gave a great example of such when he admitted that, under his approach, a president could not be impeached for the following conduct:
“Assume Putin decides to ‘retake’ Alaska, the way he ‘retook’ Crimea. Assume further that a president allows him to do it, because he believed that Russia has a legitimate claim to ‘its’ original territory… That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable? Not under the text of the Constitution.”
If impeachment is strictly limited to statutory crimes and misdemeanors, a president could also avoid impeachment for gross violations of the Constitution that do not amount to crimes. For example, he could order his subordinates to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion, to violate freedom of speech, and so on. Such presidential misconduct is illegal, but generally not a crime.
Over the last several decades, presidents have all too often engaged in serious violations of the Constitution and grave abuses of power and gotten away with it. President Obama launched two wars without constitutionally congressional authorization—as serious a breach of the constitutional separation of powers as any. He got away with it. Donald Trump has gotten away with his brutal—and illegal—family separation policy, and with massive cruelty of his travel ban motivated by religious bigotry. Even if you agree with the Supreme Court’s dubious ruling that the judiciary was required to defer to the president on the latter policy, it was still a gross abuse of power. Each of these examples was actually a far more severe abuse of power than the Ukraine case, especially if judged by the scale of the harm caused to innocent people.
Presidents have strong incentives to abuse their power and violate laws any time it seems likely to promote their partisan and electoral interests, or advance their policy agendas. Impeachment for abuse of power can provide a counterweight, albeit perhaps a fairly modest one.
III. Which Danger is Greater?
Let us assume the worst: if impeachment for abuse of power is allowed, occasionally a “good” president will get the axe even if he or she didn’t really deserve it. That strikes me as a price well-worth paying for putting a tighter leash on presidents who genuinely abuse their power.
In criminal cases, there is good reason to avoid conviction unless the charge against the accused is an offense clearly delineated by law, and guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason why is that the defendant stands to lose her liberty or property—or even her life. By contrast, the risk facing an impeached president is removal from a position of enormous power.
Unlike unjust deprivation of life, liberty, or property, removal from power doesn’t violate anyone’s human rights. When real human rights are at stake, it may make sense to allow ten guilty people to go free, in order to save even one innocent from conviction. When it comes to positions of power, almost the opposite is true: Removing ten “normal” politicians is more than justified if that is the only way to get rid of one who engages in grave abuses of power. It’s not as if we suffer from a shortage of ambitious politicians who would be happy to take the places of those who get removed.
Imprecise delineation of standards is also far less problematic when it comes to removal from power than criminal punishment. If criminal laws are vague, people will fear to use their liberty, lest they accidentally run afoul of the law. Such a “chilling effect” on liberty can be deeply problematic. If standards for impeachment are vague, the president might shy away from exercises of power that might be abuses, even if it is not entirely clear whether they really are. Such a chilling effect on power is more a feature than a bug, especially in a context where numerous other incentives incline presidents towards overreaching.
But perhaps the above underrates the harm caused by removing a “good” president. Such removal, it is said, is tantamount to “reversing” the outcome of an election. Not so. A true reversal of an election would bring to power the president’s opponents. Thus, Trump’s election would be reversed by impeachment if his removal would bring Hillary Clinton to power. In reality, of course, impeachment elevates the president’s own vice president, who comes from the same party, and usually has a similar policy agenda. Elevating Mike Pence to the presidency may or may not be a good idea. But no one is likely to confuse him with Hillary Clinton—and not just because of the difference in gender. It is possible to imagine scenarios where the president and VP both get impeached and removed, thereby elevating the Speaker of the House of Representatives (who will often belong to the opposing party).
Such scenarios are great fodder for political thriller novels. But if it is extremely difficult to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove a president in favor of a successor of the same party, it is virtually impossible to do so in order to elevate a political opponent such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Michael Stokes Paulsen offers some additional responses to the “overturning elections” argument here.
Ultimately, the real danger we face is not that too many good presidents will be removed from power unfairly, but that too many grave abuses of power will go unpunished and undeterred. I am not optimistic that impeachment alone can solve this problem. The supermajority requirement that prevents frivolous impeachment also prevents it in all too many cases where it is amply justified. But the threat of impeachment for abuse of power can at least help at the margin.
Let presidents—even “good” ones—lose more sleep over the possibility of impeachment. The rest of us will then be able to sleep a little easier, knowing we are that much more secure against abuses of government power.
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“There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold.”
– William Shakespeare
Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to see whether this volatile black cloud floating amongst us will breakout into a thunderstorm of nuclear war or harmlessly pass us by. The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters back and forth at the whim of one man. It is only normal then, that during such times of crisis, we find ourselves trying to analyze and predict the thoughts and motives of just this one person. The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a true hero for his fellow countrymen and undeniably an essential key figure in combating terrorism in Southwest Asia, was a terrible crime, an abhorrently repugnant provocation. It was meant to cause an apoplectic fervour, it was meant to make us who desire peace, lose our minds in indignation. And therefore, that is exactly what we should not do.
In order to assess such situations, we cannot lose sight of the whole picture, and righteous indignation unfortunately causes the opposite to occur. Our focus becomes narrower and narrower to the point where we can only see or react moment to moment with what is right in front of our face. We are reduced to an obsession of twitter feeds, news blips and the doublespeak of ‘official government statements’.
Thus, before we may find firm ground to stand on regarding the situation of today, we must first have an understanding as to what caused the United States to enter into an endless campaign of regime-change warfare after WWII, or as former Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Col. Prouty stated, three decades of the Indochina war.
An Internal Shifting of Chess Pieces in the Shadows
It is interesting timing that on Sept 2, 1945, the very day that WWII ended, Ho Chi Minh would announce the independence of Indochina. That on the very day that one of the most destructive wars to ever occur in history ended, another long war was declared at its doorstep. Churchill would announce his “Iron Curtain” against communism on March 5th, 1946, and there was no turning back at that point. The world had a mere 6 months to recover before it would be embroiled in another terrible war, except for the French, who would go to war against the Viet Minh opponents in French Indochina only days after WWII was over.
In a previous paper I wrote titled “On Churchill’s Sinews of Peace”, I went over a major re-organisation of the American government and its foreign intelligence bureau on the onset of Truman’s de facto presidency. Recall that there was an attempted military coup d’état, which was exposed by General Butler in a public address in 1933, against the Presidency of FDR who was only inaugurated that year. One could say that there was a very marked disapproval from shadowy corners for how Roosevelt would organise the government.
One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously existing foreign intelligence bureau that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared over. The OSS would be replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence purge and the internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows. In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National Security Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended function was to serve as the President’s principal arm for coordinating national security, foreign policies and policies among various government agencies.
“In 1955, I was designated to establish an office of special operations in compliance with National Security Council (NSC) Directive #5412 of March 15, 1954. This NSC Directive for the first time in the history of the United States defined covert operations and assigned that role to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform such missions, provided they had been directed to do so by the NSC, and further ordered active-duty Armed Forces personnel to avoid such operations. At the same time, the Armed Forces were directed to “provide the military support of the clandestine operations of the CIA” as an official function.”
What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence bureau with the military, and that the foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the President, as we will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC’s policies.
An Inheritance of Secret Wars
“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
– Sun Tzu
On January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States. Along with inheriting the responsibility of the welfare of the country and its people, he was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.
JFK was disliked from the onset by the CIA and certain corridors of the Pentagon, they knew where he stood on foreign matters and that it would be in direct conflict for what they had been working towards for nearly 15 years. Kennedy would inherit the CIA secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration’s March 1960 approval of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach operations) to a 3,000 man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office.
This was a massive change in plans that was determined by neither President Eisenhower, who warned at the end of his term of the military industrial complex as a loose cannon, nor President Kennedy, but rather the foreign intelligence bureau who has never been subject to election or judgement by the people. It shows the level of hostility that Kennedy encountered as soon as he entered office, and the limitations of a President’s power when he does not hold support from these intelligence and military quarters.
Within three months into JFK’s term, Operation Bay of Pigs (April 17th to 20th 1961) was scheduled. As the popular revisionist history goes; JFK refused to provide air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade and the land invasion was a calamitous failure and a decisive victory for Castro’s Cuba. It was indeed an embarrassment for President Kennedy who had to take public responsibility for the failure, however, it was not an embarrassment because of his questionable competence as a leader. It was an embarrassment because, had he not taken public responsibility, he would have had to explain the real reason why it failed. That the CIA and military were against him and that he did not have control over them. If Kennedy were to admit such a thing, he would have lost all credibility as a President in his own country and internationally, and would have put the people of the United States in immediate danger amidst a Cold War.
What really occurred was that there was a cancellation of the essential pre-dawn airstrike, by the Cuban Exile Brigade bombers from Nicaragua, to destroy Castro’s last three combat jets. This airstrike was ordered by Kennedy himself. Kennedy was always against an American invasion of Cuba, and striking Castro’s last jets by the Cuban Exile Brigade would have limited Castro’s threat, without the U.S. directly supporting a regime change operation within Cuba. This went fully against the CIA’s plan for Cuba.
Kennedy’s order for the airstrike on Castro’s jets would be cancelled by Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, four hours before the Exile Brigade’s B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua, Kennedy was not brought into this decision. In addition, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, the man in charge of the Bay of Pigs operation was unbelievably out of the country on the day of the landings.
Col. Prouty, who was Chief of Special Operations during this time, elaborates on this situation:
“Everyone connected with the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion knew that the policy dictated by NSC 5412, positively prohibited the utilization of active-duty military personnel in covert operations. At no time was an “air cover” position written into the official invasion plan…The “air cover” story that has been created is incorrect.”
As a result, JFK who well understood the source of this fiasco, set up a Cuban Study Group the day after and charged it with the responsibility of determining the cause for the failure of the operation. The study group, consisting of Allen Dulles, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Adm. Arleigh Burke and Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the only member JFK could trust), concluded that the failure was due to Bundy’s telephone call to General Cabell (who was also CIA Deputy Director) that cancelled the President’s air strike order.
Kennedy had them.
Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay of Pigs op was a failure because of the CIA’s intervention into the President’s orders. This allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum #55 on June 28th, 1961, which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Prouty states,
“When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert operation business. This proved to be one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy’s coffin.”
If this was not enough of a slap in the face to the CIA, Kennedy forced the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell.
In Oct 1962, Kennedy was informed that Cuba had offensive Soviet missiles 90 miles from American shores. Soviet ships with more missiles were on their way towards Cuba but ended up turning around last minute. Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev, which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. Criticisms of JFK being soft on communism began to stir.
NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy, was released on Oct 11th, 1963, and outlined a policy decision “to withdraw 1,000 military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963” and further stated that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel [including the CIA and military] by 1965.” The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY ’65. Kennedy was winning the game and the American people.
This was to be the final nail in Kennedy’s coffin.
Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not just be seen as a tragic loss but, more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful military coup d’état that it was and is. The CIA showed what lengths it was ready to go to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District Attorney of New Orleans at the time, Jim Garrison’s book. And the excellently researched Oliver Stone movie “JFK”)
Through the Looking Glass
On Nov. 26th 1963, a full four days after Kennedy’s murder, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of Kennedy’s policy under #263. And on March 4th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.
The Vietnam War, or more accurately the Indochina War, would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy’s death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans.
Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would involve the world would begin full force on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold War. A war that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees the toppling of Russia and China. Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam Hussein was being backed by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979.
It had been understood far in advance by the CIA and US military that the toppling of sovereignty in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran needed to occur before Russia and China could be taken over. Such war tactics were formulaic after 3 decades of counterinsurgency against the CIA fueled “communist-insurgency” of Indochina. This is how today’s terrorist-inspired insurgency functions, as a perfect CIA formula for an endless bloodbath.
Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to ‘pay the price’.
Therefore, when a drone stroke occurs assassinating an Iranian Maj. Gen., even if the U.S. President takes onus on it, I would not be so quick as to believe that that is necessarily the case, or the full story. Just as I would not take the statements of President Rouhani accepting responsibility for the Iranian military shooting down ‘by accident’ the Boeing 737-800 plane which contained 176 civilians, who were mostly Iranian, as something that can be relegated to criminal negligence, but rather that there is very likely something else going on here.
I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked, draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a compromised situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a simple matter that the President alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing.
One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC as “terrorist” occurring in April 2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC at the time. This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001 AUMF, where the US military can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani’s assassination and Bolton went so far as to tweet “Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.” Bolton has also made it no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible impeachment trial.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown conference recently, but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that though West Points’ cadet motto is “You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.”, his training under the CIA was the very opposite, stating “I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses. (long pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes.
US Officials Admit Covert Tech Program Is Fueling Iran Protests
After major protests hit multiple cities across Iran in November following a drastic government slash in gasoline subsidies which quickly turned anti-regime, broad internet outages were reported — some lasting as long as a week or more nationwide — following Tehran authorities ordering the blockage of external access.
And during smaller January protests over downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, more widespread internet outages were reported recently, likely as Iranian security services fear protest “crackdown” videos would fuel outrage in western media, and after months ago Mike Pompeo expressly urged Iranians in the streets to send the State Department damning videos that would implicate Tehran’s leaders and police.
But now Washington appears to have initiated the “Syria option” inside Iran: covertly fueling and driving “popular protests” to eventually create conditions for large-scale confrontation on the ground geared toward regime change.
Image source: Zuma Press/DW.com
Financial Times reports Washington’s ‘covert’ efforts are now increasing, and are more out in the open:
US government-funded technology companies have recorded an increase in the use of circumvention software in Iran in recent weeks after boosting efforts to help Iranian anti-regime protesters thwart internet censorship and use secure mobile messaging.
The outreach is part of a US government program dedicated to internet freedom that supports dissident pressure inside Iran and complements America’s policy of “maximum pressure” over the regime. A US state department official told the Financial Times that since protests in Iran in 2018 — at the time the largest in almost a decade — Washington had accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other and the outside world.
Similar efforts had long been in place with anti-Assad groups prior to the outbreak of conflict in Syria in 2011, WikiLeaks cables previously revealed.
The US State Department is now openly boasting it’s enacted this program for Iran, which includes “providing apps, servers and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned websites, install anti-tracking software and navigate data shutdowns,” according to FT.
Confirmed: Drop in internet connectivity registered at #Sharif University, Tehran from 11:50 UTC where students are protesting for colleagues and alumni killed on flight #PS752; national connectivity remains stable despite sporadic disruptions on third day of #Iran protests📉 pic.twitter.com/LjaNNd4Ut2
And dangerously, many Iranians may not even realize they could be in some instances relying on such US-funded countermeasures to circumvent domestic internet blockages:
“Many Iranians rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) that receive US funding or are beamed in with US support, not knowing they are relying on Washington-backed tools.”
Iran is on occasion known to round of citizen-journalists and accuse them of being CIA assets— thusthe State Department’s open boasting about its program, which is further connected to a broader $65.5 million “Internet Freedom program” in troubled spots throughout the world — could only serve to increase this trend.
“We work with technological companies to help free flow of information and provide circumvention tools that helped in [last week’s] protest,” one US state department official told the FT. “We are able to sponsor VPNs — and that allows Iranians to use the internet.”
So there it is: US officials explicitly admitting they were actively assisting in organizing recent protestswhich followed Soleimani’s killing and the Ukrainian airliner shoot down.
I have asked the Iranian protestors to send us their videos, photos, and information documenting the regime’s crackdown on protestors. The U.S. will expose and sanction the abuses. https://t.co/korr5p0woA
At least one circumvention software is actually identified in the report as being produced by Canada-based Psiphon, which receives American government funds. Of course the company sees its role more as facilitating “free flow of information” and less as essentially a willing asset in pursuing covert regime change in Tehran.
Interestingly, the revelation comes just as other US-funded propaganda campaigns related to Iran are coming to light:
One of the most viral videos about Iran last week — and a reason #IraniansDetestSoleimani was trending — was made by a lobbyist who had worked for a militia group in Libya https://t.co/fN7v6Vztyo
Environmental concerns are a frequent talking point drawn upon by politicians and scientists alike, and for good reason. Irrespective of economic or social status, climate change has the potential to affect us all.
While public urgency surrounding climate action has been growing, it can be difficult to comprehend the potential extent of economic disruption that environmental risks pose.
Front and Center
Today’s chart uses data from the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Report, which surveyed 800 leaders from business, government, and non-profits to showcase the most prominent economic risks the world faces.
According to the data in the report, here are the top five risks to the global economy, in terms of their likelihood and potential impact:
With more emphasis being placed on environmental risks, how much do we need to worry?
According to the World Economic Forum, more than we can imagine. The report asserts that, among many other things, natural disasters are becoming more intense and more frequent.
While it can be difficult to extrapolate precisely how environmental risks could cascade into trouble for the global economy and financial system, here are some interesting examples of how they are already affecting institutional investors and the insurance industry.
The Stranded Assets Dilemma
If the world is to stick to its 2°C global warming threshold, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, a significant amount of oil, gas, and coal reserves would need to be left untouched. These assets would become “stranded”, forfeiting roughly $1-4 trillion from the world economy.
Growing awareness of this risk has led to a change in sentiment. Many institutional investors have become wary of their portfolio exposures, and in some cases, have begun divesting from the sector entirely.
The financial case for fossil fuel divestment is strong. Fossil fuel companies once led the economy and world stock markets. They now lag.
– Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis
The last couple of years have been a game-changer for the industry’s future prospects. For example, 2018 was a milestone year in fossil fuel divestment:
Nearly 1,000 institutional investors representing $6.24 trillion in assets have pledged to divest from fossil fuels, up from just $52 billion four years ago;
Ireland became the first country to commit to fossil fuel divestment. At the time of announcement, its sovereign development fund had $10.4 billion in assets;
New York City became the largest (but not the first) city to commit to fossil fuel divestment. Its pension funds, totaling $189 billion at the time of announcement, aim to divest over a 5-year period.
A Tough Road Ahead
In a recent survey, actuaries ranked climate change as their top risk for 2019, ahead of damages from cyberattacks, financial instability, and terrorism—drawing strong parallels with the results of this year’s Global Risk Report.
These growing concerns are well-founded. 2017 was the costliest year on record for natural disasters, with $344 billion in global economic losses. This daunting figure translated to a record year for insured losses, totalling $140 billion.
Although insured losses over 2019 have fallen back in line with the average over the past 10 years, Munich RE believes that long-term environmental effects are already being felt:
Recent studies have shown that over the long term, the environmental conditions for bushfires in Australia have become more favorable;
Despite a decrease in U.S. wildfire losses compared to previous years, there is a rising long-term trend for forest area burned in the U.S.;
An increase in hailstorms, as a result of climate change, has been shown to contribute to growing losses across the globe.
The Ball Is In Our Court
It’s clear that the environmental issues we face are beginning to have a larger real impact. Despite growing awareness and preliminary actions such as fossil fuel divestment, the Global Risk Report stresses that there is much more work to be done to mitigate risks.
How companies and governments choose to respond over the next decade will be a focal point of many discussions to come.
A Pew Research Center 2017 survey gives us some estimates: Black gun ownership is lower than white gun ownership—but not by much. For whites, 36% of respondents report that they own a gun personally, and 49% report that they live in a household in which someone (whether they or someone else) owns a gun. For blacks, the numbers are 2/3 of that: 24% and 32%. (The numbers are lower for Hispanics, 15% and 21%.) In raw numbers, there are about 40 million blacks in the U.S., so about 13 million (or likely about 10 million adults) live in gun-owning households.
This seems to closely track different gun ownership based on ideology. Blacks generally vote about 90% in general elections for Democratic candidates, so it’s fair to say that they are generally Democrats or lean Democrats. Among all respondents who said they were Democrats or leaned Democrat, the numbers were 20% personal gun ownership, 30% household. Assuming that the great majority of blacks fall in this political category, white and black gun ownership among Democrats and Democrat-leaners seems to be virtually identical.
But in any event, there are lots of black gun owners out there, just as there are lots of Democrat gun owners. I can’t speak to what fraction of gun rights activists or gun rights enthusiasts are black—it’s certainly possible that black gun owners are on average less likely to focus on this issue politically than white gun owners. But it seems pretty likely that many black gun owners do care in considerable measure about their right to own guns, whatever fraction of them might or might not show up to, say, gun rights rallies. (Naturally, this tells us nothing about what is good gun policy; I am speaking here only of demographics.)
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Stocks, Bond Yields Tumble As Fears Over Coronavirus Outbreak Spread
Dow futures are down over 100 points, AsiaPac equity markets are down harder, and Treasuries are well bid along with gold after a Chinese officials confirmed the coronavirus can be spread by human-to-human contact, and the deadly disease is spreading to other asian nations.
“Now we can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon,” Zhong Nanshan, a scientist who is leading a government-appointed expert panel on the outbreak, said in an interview on state-run television on Monday.
As The New York Times reports, cases have been reported outside China.
The authorities in Thailand detected the new coronavirus last week in two Chinese women who had flown from Wuhan to Bangkok on separate trips. The government said the women, aged 74 and 61, were in good condition.
In Japan, a Chinese man who returned from Wuhan on Jan. 6 was also confirmed to have the disease. He was discharged after five days in a hospital.
South Korea confirmed its first case of the coronavirus on Monday in a 35-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan who arrived on Sunday at Incheon International Airport, which serves Seoul.
The woman was found with a fever, muscle pain and other symptoms while going through customs and was immediately quarantined for tests, said Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The woman was traveling with five other people intending to spend the Lunar New Year holidays in South Korea and Japan, Ms. Jung said. South Korean officials were running tests on anyone believed to have come in contact with the woman in the plane, she said.
And fear of a SARS 2.0 outbreak have sparked risk-off trades in early Asia trading.
“There are now sufficient cases that it’s not going to die out by chance,” said Neil Ferguson, a public health expert at Imperial College London who has studied the new virus.
“The real question now is, how efficiently can this virus spread from person to person?”
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down notably…
As are US futures…
Bonds are bid…
Along with gold…
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said on Monday that the outbreak “must be taken seriously” and that every possible measure should be taken to contain it, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.
A Pew Research Center 2017 survey gives us some estimates: Black gun ownership is lower than white gun ownership—but not by much. For whites, 36% of respondents report that they own a gun personally, and 49% report that they live in a household in which someone (whether they or someone else) owns a gun. For blacks, the numbers are 2/3 of that: 24% and 32%. (The numbers are lower for Hispanics, 15% and 21%.) In raw numbers, there are about 40 million blacks in the U.S., so about 13 million (or likely about 10 million adults) live in gun-owning households.
This seems to closely track different gun ownership based on ideology. Blacks generally vote about 90% in general elections for Democratic candidates, so it’s fair to say that they are generally Democrats or lean Democrats. Among all respondents who said they were Democrats or leaned Democrat, the numbers were 20% personal gun ownership, 30% household. Assuming that the great majority of blacks fall in this political category, white and black gun ownership among Democrats and Democrat-leaners seems to be virtually identical.
But in any event, there are lots of black gun owners out there, just as there are lots of Democrat gun owners. I can’t speak to what fraction of gun rights activists or gun rights enthusiasts are black—it’s certainly possible that black gun owners are on average less likely to focus on this issue politically than white gun owners. But it seems pretty likely that many black gun owners do care in considerable measure about their right to own guns, whatever fraction of them might or might not show up to, say, gun rights rallies. (Naturally, this tells us nothing about what is good gun policy; I am speaking here only of demographics.)
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