NASA Gas Detector Plane Identifies “Super-Emitters” Across California
NASA has made a surprising discovery in California after it flew a plane across the state outfitted with specialized gas-imaging sensors. The new data, published this week in the scientific journal Nature, found that a third of California’s methane emissions can be traced to several “super-emitters.”
In the last several years, NASA teamed up with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Energy Commission, discovered most methane emissions in California are from industrial facilities, such as landfills, large dairy farms, and oil and gas fields.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, flew a plane with the Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer – Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) over 300,000 facilities across California.
The team found 550 sources emitting highly concentrated methane into the atmosphere. At least 55 of these sources were considered “super-emitters” because of the high-volume of methane that was detected.
The study said the 55 “super-emitters” were responsible for at least a third of California’s total methane emission.
Of the 270 surveyed landfills, about 30 were observed to emit high amounts of methane and responsible for 40% of all emissions detected during the survey.
“These findings illustrate the importance of monitoring point sources across multiple sectors [of the economy] and broad regions, both for improved understanding of methane budgets and to support emission mitigation efforts,” said the lead scientist on the study, Riley Duren, a research scientist at the University of Arizona and an Engineering Fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In total, landfills accounted for 41% of the methane emissions, dairy and manure farms were 26%, and oil and gas operations 26%.
The survey marks the first time the federal government has flown a surveillance aircraft over any state to monitor methane emissions of facilities.
The release of this report could induce lawmakers to slap businesses that are considered “super-emitters” with methane taxes.
“A prominent Republican who advises President Donald Trump called America’s 5G strategy ‘the biggest strategic disaster in U.S. history,'”wrote China-watcher David Goldman recently.
Many people will regard that as an exaggeration, but America’s failure to have a 5G strategy will almost certainly prove to have historic consequences.
“5G” is shorthand for the fifth generation of wireless communication.
“In the very near future, dominating the wireless world will be tantamount to dominating the world,” wrote Newt Gingrich in Newsweek in February. That is not an exaggeration.
Why not? With speeds 2,000 times faster than existing 4G networks, 5G will permit near-universal connectivity to homes, vehicles, machines, robots, and everything plugged into the Internet of Things (IoT).
Moreover, with just about everything connected to everything else China will filch the world’s information. That is not a theoretical concern. For instance, nightly from 2012 to 2017, China surreptitiously downloaded data from the Chinese-built-and-donated headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa.
Chinese parties have already been criminally taking American information, intellectual property and data for decades, worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year. This continuing crime is essential to China’s implementation of numerous industrial policies, especially the controversial “Made in China 2025” initiative, a decade-long program to achieve dominance in technology sectors, including 5G.
Theft is by no means the full extent of the harm. China, with control of 5G, will be in a position to remotely manipulate the world’s devices. In peacetime, Beijing could have the ability to drive cars off cliffs, unlock front doors, and turn off pacemakers. In war, Beijing could paralyze critical infrastructure.
“China’s game,” Goldman wrote in an e-mail, “is to control the broadband, and then the e-commerce, and then the e-finance, and then all the tech startups servicing the ‘ecosystem,’ and then the logistics.”
As he told me this year, “The world will become a Chinese company store.”
There is no mystery to how Beijing thinks it will grab control of the store. The Chinese will use Huawei Technologies.
Huawei, built on stolen U.S. technology, is the world’s leading telecom-equipment manufacturer and is fast becoming the world’s 5G provider. As Goldman writes, “Huawei has signed equipment agreements with every telecom provider on the Eurasian continent.”
Beijing, since Huawei’s founding in 1987, has been subsidizing sales of the company’s equipment and otherwise promoting its wares. No prizes for guessing why. As Senator Marsha Blackburn told Fox News in July, Huawei is Beijing’s “mechanism for spying.” For instance, Beijing pilfered data from the African Union through Huawei servers located in the building the Chinese donated.
So, Huawei is a dagger aimed at the heart of America, and as the unnamed adviser quoted by Goldman suggests, the threat is a mortal one.
There are various strategies for meeting China’s 5G challenge, but the most direct one is crippling Huawei. The Trump administration has taken steps to do so, but now that effort is on the verge of collapse.
In fact, the Commerce Department looks set to support that dangerous Chinese firm. On Sunday, in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Bangkok, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said his department will “very shortly” grant exemptions from its Entity List designation to allow sales to Huawei.
“We’re in good shape, we’re making good progress, and there’s no natural reason why it couldn’t be,” Ross told the business channel.
In May, Ross’s Commerce Department added the Chinese telecom-equipment provider to its Entity List, so that American businesses needed prior approval to sell or license to Huawei the products and technology covered by U.S. export regulations. Since then, Commerce has granted two 90-day waivers from these prohibitions. The second waiver will expire November 19.
Commerce, it appears, will not issue another across-the-board waiver but will instead grant exemptions to specific companies. Ross said he has received 260 waiver requests.
Granting waivers would be a grave mistake. “The United States,” Brandon Weichert of The Weichert Report told me, “is letting China off the hook.”
Ross and others argue that the individual exemptions are justified because Huawei can obtain items either from China itself — Huawei has developed its Kirin chipset, said to be comparable to Qualcomm products — or from other countries. He argues that U.S. companies might as well be the ones making the sales. At issue are semiconductors from principally Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
Ross is thinking too small. The United States, instead of trying to make sales, should be stopping everyone from selling to Huawei.
America has the power to cut off all sales. Japan and South Korea are formal military allies of the United States, and Taiwan, although no longer a treaty partner, is even more dependent on Washington for its security. Because Huawei poses a critical threat to everyone, it is not clear why Washington should not pull out all the stops to get Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese suppliers to cut off the Chinese company.
Taipei says Washington has not asked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the giant chip supplier, to end sales to Huawei. The issue, therefore, is why has the United States not even made a request.
Up to now, the Trump administration has been trying to persuade, sometimes nudging friends and partners. American officials have, for instance, said they might reduce intelligence sharing with countries maintaining Huawei gear in their 5G networks.
That is too mild. Given the importance of the issue, the Trump administration should be forcing others — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — to make a choice: sell to Huawei or sell to the world’s largest market, America’s. Last year, America’s merchandise trade deficit with Japan was $67.2 billion. The comparable figures were $17.8 billion for South Korea, and $15.2 billion for Taiwan.
U.S. officials have been telling other countries not to buy Huawei 5G gear, but if they should not be buying Huawei, then Americans should not be supplying that Chinese company either.
Let’s put Huawei out of business, not support its efforts to harm us.
Self-Driving Uber That Killed Pedestrian In 2018 Couldn’t Detect Jaywalkers, NTSB Says
An Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian in March 2018 had what are being called “serious software flaws” that led to the tragic incident.
The vehicle reportedly didn’t have the ability to recognize jaywalkers, according to a new report from engadget, who cited a report prepared by the NTSB. The safety agency blamed Uber’s software for not being able to recognize the victim of the accident as a pedestrian crossing the street. The vehicle didn’t calculate that it could potentially collide with the woman until just 1.2 seconds before impact, at which point it was too late to brake.
The NTSB said that Uber’s system “did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians.”
In fact, the report says that the system detected her about 6 seconds before impact, but didn’t classify her as a pedestrian:
Although the [system] detected the pedestrian nearly six seconds before impact … it never classified her as a pedestrian, because she was crossing at a location without a crosswalk [and] the system design did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians.
After recognizing the pedestrian (too late) the vehicle then wasted a second trying to calculate an alternative path or allowing the driver to take control. Uber has since eliminated this function in a software update.
Uber vehicles have failed to identify roadway hazards in at least two other cases, the report notes. In one, a vehicle struck a bicycle lane post that had bent into a roadway. In another, a driver was forced to take control of the vehicle to avoid an oncoming vehicle. The driver still wound up striking a parked car.
In the 7 months leading up to the pedestrian accident, Uber vehicles had been involved in 37 accidents, 33 of which involved other vehicles striking Uber test cars.
Uber began using “significantly revised software” in December 2018 when it began testing again. Simulating the Arizona incident with the new software, Uber said it would have now detected the pedestrian 289 feet before impact and would have had four seconds to brake before impact at a speed of 43.2 mph.
“The average stopping distance for a human is about 130 feet at that speed, including reaction time,” the report notes. This means that the vehicle would have likely been able to stop and avoid the accident.
Meanwhile, the NTSB plans on meeting on November 19 to determine the cause of the accident. Prosecutors have absolved Uber of liability but are still weighing the idea of criminal charges against the driver.
You can read the full NTSB report on the incident here.
2012 was a big year for black holes. Or, rather, for our understanding of them. First, Scientific American published a moderately terrifying paper titled “Black Holes are Everywhere” and then a team of researchers at Princeton University numerically solved the Einstein-hydrodynamic equations in order to determine that black holes are, in fact, way easier to create than previously thought. Their findings showed that the formation of a black hole requires considerably less energy than previous calculations suggested. Meanwhile, perhaps at least partly because of these revelations, concern over the world-destroying possibility–no matter how unlikely–of a man-made particle collider opening up an Earth-swallowing black hole has remained omnipresent in the larger conversation around atomic research.
The “Ultrarelativistic Black Hole Formation” study from Princeton University, published in 2013, developed new computer models which they utilized to show that the formation of a black hole would actually require less than half the energy — 2.4 times less, to be precise — than previous research had determined. The study reports that the researchers found that “the threshold for black hole formation is lower (by a factor of a few) than simple hoop conjecture estimates, and, moreover, near this threshold two distinct apparent horizons first form postcollision and then merge.”
(Click to enlarge)
Credit: W. E. East and F. Pretorius, Phys. Rev. Lett. (2013)
As a report at Phys.org explains, “Researchers know that it is theoretically possible to create black holes because of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity—particularly the part describing the relationship between energy and mass—increasing the speed of a particle causes its mass to increase as well.” This is what drove the Princeton researchers to form a computer model based on Einstein’s original hydrodynamic equations. The model “provides a virtual window for viewing what happens when two particles collide—they focus their energies on each other and together create a combined mass that pushes gravity to its limit and as a result spawns a very tiny black hole. That result was expected—what was surprising was that the team found that their model showed that such a collision and result would require 2.4 times less energy than has been previously calculated to produce such a tiny black hole.”
And our galaxy is positively chock-full of them. It’s not just the famous supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, but scores of smaller black holes as well. Scientific American’s “Black Holes are Everywhere” tells readers that “most of the holes in our galaxy are perhaps 4 or 5 solar masses, and they’re teeny, with horizons of only about 12 km in radius. But there have to be tens of thousands of them, the inevitable remnants of the short lives of huge stars.”
This news fed into fears that “Mad Scientists Performing Universe-Breaking Experiments” were flying a bit too close to the sun (so to speak) by conducting experiments at the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with the potential to open up microscopic black holes with potentially disastrous consequences. These concerns surfaced before the LHC — an underground accelerator which forms a ring with a diameter of 5 miles near Geneva, Switzerland — was ever switched on. A 2008 report from NASA succinctly titled “The Day the World Didn’t End” tells readers that bringing the accelerator online “did not trigger the creation of a microscopic black hole. And that black hole did not start rapidly sucking in surrounding matter faster and faster until it devoured the Earth, as sensationalist news reports had suggested it might.”
The fear around these larger-than-life experiments was so potent and widespread that CERN has an entire page on their website dedicated to the Frequently Asked Question “Will CERN generate a black hole?“ and even the Princeton scientists addressed it in their academic report, noting that even with the new calculations finding that black holes require much less energy to open up than previously thought, opening up a black hole big enough to collapse the earth would still require billions of times more energy than the LHC is capable of generating. What’s more, even if and when a black hole did open up in the collider, it would disappear just as quickly thanks to an effect called Hawking radiation.
While fears of the Armageddon-causing potential of these microscopic black holes may have been overblown, however, the fact that the particle can open up these tiny black holes was then and remains now an absolute truth. Even CERN’s FAQ page concedes that “The LHC will not generate black holes in the cosmological sense. However, some theories suggest that the formation of tiny ‘quantum’ black holes may be possible.” Of course, the page goes on to reassure concerned readers that “the observation of such an event would be thrilling in terms of our understanding of the Universe; and would be perfectly safe.”
Nevertheless, there are still some scientists who think we are right to be worried about these experiments that are probing the boundaries of physics. Just last year the well-respected (not to mention knighted) British scientist Sir Martin Rees published a warning to take fears around the LHC seriously in his book “On the Future.” As paraphrased by NBC’s science news site MACH, “the particles crashing about inside an accelerator could unleash bits of ‘strange matter’ that shrink Earth into a ball 300 feet across. In another [scenario], the experiments could create a microscopic black hole that would inexorably gnaw away at our planet from the inside. In the most extreme scenario Rees describes, a physics mishap could cause space itself to decay into a new form that wipes out everything from here to the farthest star.” Rees himself recognizes that these scenarios are extremely unlikely, but in the author’s own words, “given the stakes, they should not be ignored.”
And now that the Event Horizon Telescope has successfully captured the first-ever image of a black hole, scientists are dreaming up ever more radical future experiments. Let’s just hope that as scientists continue to push against the limitations of human knowledge and ability the headlines continue to read “The Day the World Didn’t End.” Or that we continue to have headlines at all.
In Latest Saudi Shakedown, Aramco “Taps” Prince Al-Waleed For IPO Money
Back in November 2017, a number of prominent Saudi Arabian princes, government ministers, and business people were arrested in Saudi Arabia a few weeks after the creation of an anti-corruption committee led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Among them was one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest men, billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who along with the other arrested individuals was confined in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton and was only released months later after he pledged an unknown amount of money to the Saudi treasury. While the Crown Prince dubbed the arrests an anti-corruption exercise, it was plain that Saudi Arabia, then facing a gaping budget deficit had engaged in nothing short of a massive extortive shakedown.
Two years later Saudi Arabia is engaging in a similar shakedown, only this time instead of very broad “uses of funds”, it hopes to narrow down the extorted money solely for one purpose – to get more “willing” Aramco anchor investors.
And just like in 2017, Prince Al-Waleed – one of the largest investors in Twitter – is once again in the crosshairs.
As Bloomberg reports, one day after China tentatively agreed to invest $5 to $10 billion in the Aramco mega IPO which has so far found precisely zero anchor investors, Saudi Arabia was “negotiating commitments” from its wealthiest citizens to buy stock in the Aramco initial public offering. Translation: MbS gave his oligarchs a choice – invest in Aramco, or spend some more time in the Riyadh Ritz Carlton. Among those Riyadh has reportedly approached include the Olayan family and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal to low-profile tycoons in the oil producer’s backyard.
Following polite but stern and “convincing” discussions with MbS and his goon squad, the billionaire Olayans, who own a major stake in Credit Suisse, are said to be considering buying several hundred million U.S. dollars worth of Aramco shares, according to the people. Prince Alwaleed – who knows too well what happens if he disagrees with the Crown Prince – has also “held talks” to commit a significant amount to the IPO.
Many others have also been ordered to “volunteer” their funds for the upcoming IPO according to Bloomberg: Aramco representatives have been seeking an investment from the Almajdouie family, whose businesses range from distributing Hyundai cars in the kingdom to a large logistics operation. They have also approached members of the Al-Turki clan, who are involved in fields from real estate to general trading, food distribution and ports.
Even though Bloomberg claims that so far there’s no certainty the wealthy investors will place orders, we beg to differ and suggest that when told by the government to buy, they will buy… and will do so at any valuation, even an insane one. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has long insisted the state oil company is worth $2 trillion, a figure that many Western fund managers have balked at, with some proposing a valuation as low as $1 trillion (or less, depending on the price of oil).
For those readers who care more about Donald Trump, Obama’s legacy or the Republican/Democrat parties rather than the Rule of Law and what remains of the US Constitution, the following scenario should be a Giant Wake up Call.
As the result of an anonymous “whistleblower” Complaint filed against President Trump on August 12, the House Intel Committee conducted a series of closed door hearings that violated Sixth Amendment protections while relying on an anonymous WB.
Right away, those hearings morphed into an impeachment inquiry that took on the spectacle of a clumsy kerfuffle not to be taken seriously – except they were.
There is an essential Ukraine backstory which began with the US initiating the overthrow of its democratically elected President Yanukovych in 2014.
Fast forward to Russiagate followed by Ukrainegate and an impeachment inquiry with Trump telling newly elected Ukraine President Zelensky in their now infamous July 25th conversation:
I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation in Ukraine; they say Crowdstrike. The server they say, Ukraine has it<.”
In a nutshell, possession of the CrowdStrike server is crucial to revealing the Democratic hierarchy’s role in initiating Russiagate as the Democrats are having a major snit-fit that now threatens the constitutional foundation of the country.
On October 31st the House voted to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry based on still mysterious Whistleblower’s allegations. At the time, there was still no confirmation of who the shadowy Whistleblower was or whether a Whistleblower even existed.
It is a fact that most whistleblowers bring the transgression proudly forward into the public light for the specific purpose of exposing the deeds that deserve to be exposed. At great personal cost, they then provide a credible case for why this offense is illegal or a violation of the public trust and deserves to be made public.
This alleged WB, however, defies the traditional definition of a WB who most often experiences the wrong-doing first hand and from a personal vantage while revealing said wrong-doing as a function within an agency of their employment.
This WB’s identity has been protected from public disclosure by TPTB, shrouded in mystery and suspicion as if fearful of public scrutiny or that his ‘truth’ would crumble under interrogation and not be greeted with unanimity. What is clear is that this WB had no direct experience but only second-hand knowledge of events which is defined as ‘hear say’ evidence. While inadmissible in a Court of law, why should ‘hear say’ be allowed when the subject is as profound as impeachment of a President?
Real-life CIA whistleblower Jon Kiriakou who served 22 months in prison, suggested this “whistleblower is not a whistleblower but a anonymous CIA analyst within the Democratic House staff.” When was the last time a real whistleblower was ‘protected’ by the government from public exposure.
There has been no explanation as to why this informant’s identity is necessarily been kept secret – and not just from the public but from Members of Congress especially as Republican Members have been unable to question him.
There has been no further information regarding a second “Whistleblower” who allegedly came forward to corroborate the first WB although why it is necessary to corroborate that which has already been publicly revealed remains questionable.
In a once unimaginable example of CIA–Democratic collusion, it turns out that the identity of the alleged WB is not such a secret after all.
Far from the public eyes of Americans, there has been a coordinated effort to stifle any exposure of his identity; presumably to prevent any revelation of the underpinnings of exactly how this convoluted scheme of malfeasance was organized. And as his name and political history within the Obama Administration and Democratic party are publicly scrutinized, it makes perfect sense why the TPTB would prefer to prevent public hearings or keep the WB’s identity under wraps.
His identity should have been public knowledge weeks ago and yet it took Real Clear Investigations, an alt-news website to publicly reveal what has been well known within the DC bubble for some weeks.
The answer to the title question is that this WB is instead a very well connected partisan lackey and CIA operative.
The alleged WB is said to be a 33 year old CIA analyst by the name of Eric Ciaramella who was an Obama White House holdover at the National Security Council until mid 2017.
Consequently, he has deep partisan ties to former VP Joe Biden, former CIA Director John Brennan and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice as well as the DNC establishment. And here’s where it get especially interesting; Ciaramella specializes in Russia and Ukraine, is fluent in both languages, ran the Ukraine desk at the Obama NSC and had close association with Ukrainian DNC hyper-activist Alexandra Chalupa.
Ciaramella’s bio reads like a litany of the political turmoil that has consumed the nation for the last three years as it is reported that he had a role in initiating the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy while at the Obama White House and worked with Biden who was the Obama point-person on Ukraine issues in 2015 and 2016 when $3 billion USAID funding was being embezzled.
Clearly, Ciaramella has a wealth of information to share regarding the Biden Quid pro Quo scandal which is currently being muzzled by the corporate media.
With Ciaramella’s identity revealed, a former NSC staffer who was present during the Trump-Zelensky July 25th conversation testified that he saw nothing illegal in the talk. Tim Morrison told the House Intel Committee that “I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” and that the transcript of the call which was declassified and released by the White House “accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call.”
More recently, Mark Zaid, attorney for Ciaramella has said that his client would accept written questions from Republicans on the House Intel Committee and that his client “wants to be as bipartisan as possible throughout this process while remaining anonymous.”
Seriously? He’s got to be kidding.
Did the reality of being required to testify in public just recently dawn on Ciaramella or was he not expecting that his every word and utterance would be scrutinized before the entire world? Is he so unfamiliar with the Sixth Amendment that he believes a Defendant’s right to confront his accuser should not apply to him or in a Presidential impeachment inquiry?
Did he actually believe he could make anonymous impeachment accusations against the President of the US without a ripple or without having to directly face questions from House and Senate Republicans? Who did he think would protect him from public scrutiny?
Given Ciaramella’s extensive partisan history since 2015 and his national security experience with Susan Rice in the Obama White House, it will be interesting if he receives a mention in the IG report on the abuse of FISA warrants and whether Ciaramella’s name has moved to the top of the Durham interviewee list.
US Massacre In Mexico Requires Washington To Act, Here’s What Could Happen Next
On Tuesday, nine Americans – a large family of what appear to be associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – were killed during a highway ambush by drug cartel members.
The story sent shockwaves across the American press, President Trump, in a series of tweets, offered US assistance in bringing the criminals to justice. “If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively.”
A wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed, including young children, and some missing. If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these…..
….monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!
This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!
The slaughter of innocent Americans this week is a clear understanding that cartel wars in Mexico are evolving into a dangerous phase where foreigners, women, and children won’t be spared by cartels.
“There are no words for what happened to them.”
At a ranch in a valley in northern Mexico, Howarth #LeBaron gazes mournfully at his three surviving children. Days ago, they lost four siblings and their mother in a massacre blamed on a drug cartel. https://t.co/q0WABU9Jlvpic.twitter.com/VwQtwNGp1t
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has so far been more than willing to work with the Trump administration on border security but might have to readjust his approach in fighting cartels after the deaths of the Americans.
AMLO’s strategy in creating work programs and opportunities for Mexican youth isn’t working as cartel wars devastate many parts of the country.
Former anti-drug prosecutor Samuel Gonzalez told AP that “sooner or later, the government is going to have to adjust its strategy.”
Perhaps, the deaths of Americans this week is a serious wake-up call for AMLO and his administration to change the script or face tremendous backlash from the Trump administration.
“It is not that the government would have to declare war on the drug cartels, it is rather that the drug traffickers have declared war on the government,” Gonzalez said, “and in that situation the government has to respond in legitimate self-defense and with proportional force.”
Jacob Hornberger, the president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, said Washington officials have been contemplating three strategies over how to respond to the massacre in Mexico:
Option 1: Have the Mexican military crackdown even more fiercely than it already has during the past 10 years of fierce military drug warfare.
Option 2: Send in the US military and the CIA into Mexico.
Option 3. Capture the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, extradite him to the United States, and jail him for the rest of his life.
Hornberger finds it hard to believe that Option 1, 2, and 3 would solve the crisis, instead, he says there’s a straightforward solution that could end all of this madness: end the war on drugs.
“As we have been saying here at The Future of Freedom Foundation for 30 years, there is one — and only one — way to get rid of drug cartels, drug gangs, and drug lords. That way is through drug legalization, complete drug legalization. Not just marijuana. All drugs, including cocaine, heroin, meth, and opioids. Ditch them all.
With drug legalization, the drug cartels, drug gangs, and drug lords are out out business overnight. Gone. Isn’t that what drug-war proponents say they would like to see? Well, that’s the only way to see it.
That’s what happened, of course, when statists decided to re-legalize booze. They finally realized that they were never going to put the booze cartels, booze gangs, and booze lords out of business by cracking down on them ever more fiercely. They finally realized that the only way to achieve that goal was through legalization. And sure enough, the re-legalization of booze put them all out of business,” Hornberger wrote.
And the probability of the US government ending the war on drugs is very low. So it’s likely that AMLO and Washington will start increasing joint military operations against cartels in the not too distant future.
This is definitely going to be an election season to remember. For most Democrats, four more years of Donald Trump in the White House is a scenario that is absolutely unimaginable, and they will be fighting like mad to keep that from happening. But of course Trump supporters are equally determined to keep him in power, and many of them are not even willing to consider the possibility that a Democrat could potentially win. If you thought that the last election was contentious, just wait until you see what happens this time around.
In the end, close to half the country is going to be bitterly, bitterly disappointed, and they will be in no mood to be governed by whoever ultimately wins. Of course the mainstream media and many of our national leaders will be gleefully stirring the pot the entire time, but when things finally explode they won’t take any responsibility. We have never seen this much anger, frustration and hatred in our political process, and there is no way that this is going to end well.
To illustrate the points that I just made, I would like to share a couple of recent surveys with you.
The first comes from the American Psychological Association. According to their survey, the upcoming election is a “significant source of stress” for 56 percent of all U.S. adults…
According to the annual “Stress in America” survey from the American Psychological Association, 56% of U.S. adults identified 2020 as a “significant” stressor.
That is an increase from the contentious 2016 match-up, when respondents were asked the same question just three months before the election, and 52% of adults reported that the presidential election was incredibly stressful.
A couple of decades ago, most of us wouldn’t even be thinking much about presidential politics at this point.
But these days covering politics has become big business for the major news networks, and that has especially been true since Trump entered the White House.
And considering how much negative coverage there is of Trump, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that the survey also found that Democrats are far more stressed about the upcoming election than Republicans are…
According to the poll, the topic of the upcoming election is proving to be more stressful for survey respondents who identified as Democrats, compared to those who identified as Republicans, by nearly 25%.
To many on the left, it will literally feel like the end of the world if Trump wins again, because they are constantly being prompted by the mainstream media to feel such negative emotions about Trump.
One other thing that the survey discovered is that over half of the respondents felt “that this is the lowest point in U.S. history they can remember”, and my guess is that it was mostly Democrats who responded that way.
But it isn’t just the politicians in Washington that we don’t like. A different survey found that Americans increasingly consider those that belong to a different political party to literally be evil…
“For example, 55% of Republicans say Democrats are ‘more immoral’ when compared with other Americans; 47% of Democrats say the same about Republicans,” Pew reports. “Majorities in both parties say those in the opposing party do not share their nonpolitical values and goals.”
That echoes language from a paper published earlier this year that found over 40 percent of Americans say the political opposition is “downright evil.” Against such evil opponents, “violence would be justified” if the opposing party wins the 2020 presidential election, according to 18 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of Republicans.
Yikes!
Numbers like that should send a chill through you, because they have very ominous implications for our future.
The ironic thing is that our politicians in Washington are mostly moderates near the middle of the current political spectrum. In most cases, they are more alike than they are different, but it is true that the two parties really do seem to enjoy fighting with one another.
But in most cases they are not actually fighting over deep ideological issues. It is very rare for any of our politicians to take a truly principled stand, and most of them that attempt to do so usually end up folding rather quickly.
Yes, the fighting has gotten a lot more intense in recent years, but all this time the actual results that we have gotten out of Washington have stayed pretty much the same.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t realize this, because they are so caught up in the strife, bitterness, discord and resentment that they see on camera. All of the drama can be quite entertaining at times, but it is not productive.
Those on the left are systematically being trained to hate those on the right, and those on the right are systematically being trained to hate those on the left.
But whatever happened to “loving your enemy” and “praying for those that persecute you”?
I am not suggesting that we should ever compromise on our most important values or that most of those “representing” us in Washington deserve to be there.
However, if we do not learn how to love those that disagree with us we are never going to make it.
For those of you on the right, can you honestly say that you love Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
And for those of you on the left, can you honestly say that you love Donald Trump, his family and his supporters?
The Democrats are constantly preaching against “hate groups”, but the ironic thing is that they have become one giant hate group.
I am reminded of a dream that I recently had. In this particular dream, I was seeing things from the perspective of a member of the Trump family…
In my dream I was a member of the Trump family. I do not know which member of the Trump family I was, but I clearly understood that I was related to President Trump somehow. Obviously I am not a member of the Trump family in real life, but for the purposes of this dream I was given that unique perspective. I do not know if I was a member of the nuclear family or a member of the extended family, but Trump was in my dream and he was among the members of the Trump family that was listening to my message. In my dream I also understood that I did not have as much favor with Trump as other members of the family, and so while it was true that he listened to my message, it was also true that he was not overly receptive to it.
Quite a bit happened in the dream, but the thing that stood out to me more than anything else was how hated we were. It really had an impact on me emotionally, because I was stunned by how much people hated Trump and his family. Here is more from the dream…
Prior to receiving the warning, my dream had been mostly about interactions between Trump’s family and members of the city. I don’t remember the things that were said, but I don’t think that they were that important anyway. What I came away with was an extremely clear impression of how hated we were. I am sure that there must have been some people out there that loved us, but in the dream I did not experience that. Instead, I felt overwhelming rejection and hatred to such a degree that it really stunned me.
Do Democrats really believe that they are going to heal America by greatly hating Trump, his family and his supporters?
And do Republicans really believe that hating those on the left will turn our country in the right direction?
In the end, what we really need is a whole lot more love. Unfortunately, that is not the direction that both sides of the political spectrum are currently heading.
Michael Bloomberg Prepares To Enter The Presidential Race
PRES 2020
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing to enter the 2020 Democratic primary despite saying earlier this year he would not run for president, according to the NYT. The billionaire environmentalist has been privately weighing a bid for the White House for weeks and has not yet made a final decision on whether to run, an adviser said. But in the first sign that he is seriously moving toward a campaign, Bloomberg has dispatched staffers to Alabama to gather signatures to qualify for the primary there. Though Alabama does not hold an early primary, it has a Friday deadline for candidates to formally enter the race.
AP adds that Bloomberg opens the door to a presidential run because the field of Democratic candidates is “not well positioned” to defeat Trump. It is unclear how further splitting the vote, especially if he ends up getting more of the centrist vote, will not virtually assure a Trump landslide victory in 2020 but we’ll leave that to the DNC to manipulate. For now, however, in what is shaping up as the best trade of the day, Michael Bloomberg is up 266% on PredictIt.
A Bloomberg adviser said the former mayor has been privately mulling a White House bid for weeks and has not yet made a final decision.
As the NYT reports, “should Mr. Bloomberg proceed with a campaign, it could represent a seismic disruption in the Democratic race.” With his immense personal wealth, centrist views and close ties to the political establishment, he would present a grave and instantaneous threat to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been struggling to raise money and assemble a ideologically moderate coalition.
But Mr. Bloomberg could also reshape the race in other ways, intensifying the Democrats’ existing debates about economic inequality and corporate power, and offering fodder to the party’s rising populist wing, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who contend that the extremely rich already wield far too much influence in politics. Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly expressed discomfort with certain policies favored by both Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders.
Howard Wolfson, a close adviser to Mr. Bloomberg, said on Thursday that the former mayor viewed President Trump as an “unprecedented threat to our nation,” and noted Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy spending in the 2018 midterm elections and this week’s off-year races in Virginia. Mr. Bloomberg, he said, has grown uneasy about the existing trajectory of the Democratic primary.
“We now need to finish the job and ensure that Trump is defeated — but Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates is not well positioned to do that,” Mr. Wolfson said. “If Mike runs he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America’s biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America’s toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist.”
A former Republican who repeatedly explored running for president as an independent, Bloomberg registered as a Democrat ahead of the midterm elections last year. In his past flirtations with the presidency, Bloomberg has never before taken the step of filing to put his name on a state ballot.
While Bloomberg could still opt against running, even his preliminary steps toward a campaign may come as a blow to Joe Biden, who has been counting on strong support from centrist Democrats, traditional party donors and much of the business community to carry him forward in the race.
CIA Chief Meets With King Salman Day After Saudi Twitter Spies Outed
As we reported last night the US Justice Department revealed on Wednesday that two Twitter employees spied on users on behalf of Saudi Arabia. This after the Washington Post reported that two employees working for the company in 2015 accessed the private information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts.
At least one of the accounts accessed could be related to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, given it belongs Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz,well-known to have been a close friend and confidant of Khashoggi. This means it’s likely the Saudi Twitter spies used the platform to gain information related to the hit, given they were with the US social media giant for years prior to the Oct. 2, 2018 murder.
The two Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia, via CBS screenshot.
The UN and the CIA believe the Jamal Khashoggi hit at the Saudi consulate were on orders going straight to the top, and months ago produced reports pointing the finger at crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).
As the Post reported, the case marks “first time federal prosecutors have publicly accused the kingdom of running agents in the United States,” and further it “highlights the issue of foreign powers exploiting American social media platforms to identify critics and suppress their voices.“
US Attorney David L. Anderson was quoted as saying, “The criminal complaint unsealed today alleges that Saudi agents mined Twitter’s internal systems for personal information about known Saudi critics and thousands of other Twitter users.” They were reportedly paid in cash and jewelry via Saudi sources, including at least $300,000 for their work, and expensive watches worth $20,000 each.
The two former Twitter employees, identified as Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah – the former arrested in Seattle and the latter believed to have fled US soil – along with their alleged Saudi intelligence ‘handler’ Ahmed Almutairi, who was identified as serving as the intermediary between Saudi Arabia and the Twitter staff, were no doubt central to the broader MbS campaign to muzzle critics and activists overseas.
The WSJ in a new report also highlighted the Khashoggi murder connection related to the outing of the two Twitter spies:
Social-media researchers had previously acknowledged Saudi manipulation of Twitter, but the breadth and control of messaging became more widely known last year following the Saudi journalist’s murder. Researchers have noted a disinformation campaign that attempted to distance the kingdom from the killing and discredit Qatari and Turkish media reporting on the murder.
In response to the arrests, Twitter issued an official statement claiming it has a policy of restricting access to the most sensitive account information “to a limited group of trained and vetted employees”. However, is anyone going to buy this after such a high profile outing of foreign spies at the social media giant?
A Twitter spokeswoman further pledged to enforce “platform manipulation policies globally.” This after one of the former top Riyadh officials accused by the United States of orchestrating Khoshoggi’s death, Saud al-Qahtani, is also believed to have previously been central in spearheading the kingdom’s global social media intimidation campaign aimed at Saudi dissidents and MbS critics.
.@hrw researcher @cooglea says there were “massive shifts” in the Saudi security apparatus after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to power in 2017. “We immediately saw a rapid escalation in the level of repression in Saudi Arabia.” pic.twitter.com/aIzv4g5RMz
Though the one-time close MbS confidant who was at the forefront of the “intimidation campaign” has not been named as directly involved in overseeing the Twitter spies from the kingdom, it’s likely that he had prior involvement.
The WSJ summarized the federal government’s case against the employees as follows:
In a complaint filed in federal court Wednesday in San Francisco, federal prosecutors accused two former Twitter employees and a Saudi Arabian national of acting as illegal agents of a foreign government. One of the former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo, was arrested in Seattle on Tuesday and is accused of trying to obtain personal information about Saudi Arabia’s critics, U.S. authorities said.
This included the spies using their access to gain “email addresses, dates of birth and other information about people who had published posts critical of the Saudi royal family, prosecutors said.”
* * *
Meanwhile, a mere day after the revelation of the Saudi spies embedded deep within one of the world’s largest US-based social media platforms hit headlines, guess who is in Riyadh on Thursday meeting with “our partners” the Saudis?
#Riyadh: King Salman received Gina Haspel, Director of the U.S Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss the longstanding Saudi-US partnership, and review a number of regional and international developments. pic.twitter.com/WRXuIpW4RX
Curiously, MbS is not seen in the photo op meeting with CIA Director Haspel, likely as part of the continued embarrassing fallout related to the Khashoggi murder.
But still we doubt the meeting was anything less than cordial and all smiles, and we don’t expect that Haspel brought too much pressure to bear as they discussed “the longstanding Saudi-US partnership” — even after the Saudis were caught red-handed this week.
Via Saudi state agency SPA
As Reuters noted late in the day Thursday, Riyadh has so far remained silent on the charges. The CIA has also declined to comment.
Likely the only information that will come out on the Haspel-Salman closed door meeting will be limited to the SPA press release saying the two discussed “a number of topics of mutual interest”.
