Rise Of The Greens = Deindustrialization Of Germany

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

The Green Party is on the rise in Europe. Ramifications are immense, starting with the deindustrialization of Germany…

Germany’s Green party killed nuclear power. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, once a strong supporter of nuclear energy, reversed course in a nod to the Greens. It did her party, nor Germany, any good.

Diesel is dead, and rightfully so, but Germany is not prepared for it. The Greens are also after coal, GMOs, and in general big business.

These Green events coupled with a false sense of invincibility are at the center of the Demise of Deutschland and its vaunted export machine.

Germany’s once seemingly untouchable national champions – from VW and Deutsche Bank to Bayer and Wirecard – have been gripped by scandal and crisis. Business rivals are asking each other how much worse it can get for Deutschland AG.

Wolfsburg-based car maker Volkswagen is trying to move on from its 2015 diesel emissions scandal but, alongside its German rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler, it could be hit with further fines by EU regulators over claims they colluded to block the development of clean air technology.

Then there’s Bavaria-based payments giant Wirecard, which has this year been hit with claims of fraud and accounting irregularities (the company has denied the allegations). And Leverkusen-based Bayer, the German chemical behemoth which acquired Monsanto for $63bn (£49.5bn) last year and now faces thousands of lawsuits over claims that Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup causes cancer.

But it is not just scandal-hit firms that are being dragged down. Last month Thyssenkrupp, the German lift company, said it would slash 6,000 jobs after abandoning plans for a merger with Tata Steel. Last week Cologne-based Lufthansa, Europe’s biggest airline, and Munich-based chipmaker Siltronic both issued profit warnings, the former squeezed by competition from low-cost rivals and rising fuel costs, and the latter hit by the US crackdown on exports to China, Germany’s major export destination.

“The issue for German companies is the over-reliance on exports which is great when global trade works [but] nowadays trade is questioned, the currency doesn’t offer incremental benefits and technological trends move away from German core skills,” says Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Evercore who used to work for Volkswagen.

Green Politics

Via Eurointelligence. My additions in [ ].

The party [CDU/CSU] is torn between its traditional support for industry and the recognition that it needs to become greener. The Greens are now polling at the same level as the CDU/CSU, and even pulled ahead in some polls. CDU/CSU are no longer guaranteed to nominate the next chancellor. This new situation is beginning to have a big impact on the internal debate.

The argument is this time not between the two parties, but within the CDU. Angela Merkel and CSU-chief Horst Söder are calling for an end to coal-fired power stations by 2030 – as opposed to the previously agreed target of 2038, also the official recommendation of the coal commission. The commission was a classic stitch-up job to protect the interests of industry, and widely greeted with dismay. This has contributed to the dramatic rise in support for the Greens since February when the results were announced.

It reminds us of the most common argument against electric cars in Germany: it cannot happen because German car makers are simply not ready to mass-produce them. What those who argue in this way have not yet woken up to is that their underlying assumptions about German industrial production are going to be challenged as part of the climate policy as well. What they have not realized yet is that the targets are very easy to achieve – through less production at home.

The CDU would have been prepared for a coalition with the Greens as junior partner – as Merkel was in 2017. With the Greens as equal, let alone senior partner, this is a completely different situation. Climate targets will be to Germany what Brexit is to the UK.

Five Events

  1. Merkel foolishly did in nuclear to appease the Greens

  2. The German Car industry lied about diesel. The Greens stepped in and killed it.

  3. The Greens will kill coal.

  4. Brexit will hurt German exports no matter what happens now.

  5. Trump tariffs on German cars are likely to be the topper.

Deindustrialization of Germany

The Greens are going to force the deindustrialization of Germany.

  • They do not want coal

  • They do not want nuclear

  • They do not want diesel

  • The do not want Round-Up

  • They do not want GMOs

  • They do not want Google, Amazon, or any other large organizations

  • They do want low-skill immigration

Green Irony

The Green victory leading to the demise of nuclear forced more use of dirtier coal. Now the Greens are after coal.

Killing coal as a method of producing electricity in Germany will do two things.

  1. Force up costs
  2. Shift electrical production from German coal to even dirtier coal in nearby countries.

Latest INSA Poll

Rise of the Greens

Earlier today I commented on the Rise of the Greens and how Merkel’s Coalition Partner, SPD, Vanishes Into Irrelevance.

The Greens will win. Expect a Pyrrhic victory. They will not save the planet.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZLEWAx Tyler Durden

Italy’s Salvini Calls Blocked Migrant Vessel A ‘Pirate Ship’; Tells Berlin And Amsterdam To Take Refugees

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called a NGO migrant transportation vessel a “pirate ship,” and suggested that Germany and The Netherlands should split the 43 passengers who were picked up off the coast of Libya, according to Newsweek. 

“Does the European Union want to solve the Sea Watch problem? Easy,” Salvini wrote on Facebook, “Dutch ship, German NGO: Half of the immigrants in Amsterdam, the other half in Berlin. And seize the pirate ship.“

A group of 10 migrants who were among the original contingent of those currently aboard Sea-Watch 3 were allowed to disembark at Lampedusa by Italy for medical reasons back on June 12. Three unaccompanied minors, the youngest of them just 12, remain onboard.

Salvini argues that his country has taken in too many of the migrants picked up by rescue boats, and that only a fraction are genuinely fleeing war. He had already once refused entry to Sea-Watch 3, only to have the decision overturned by the ECHR in May. Sea-Watch 3 landed at Lampedusa with the 65 migrants it had rescued from a rubber dinghy in the waters off Libya before the ship was impounded for three weeks. It was then released back to the NGO by Italian authorities. –Newsweek

According to the European Commission, 27,800 refugees have been resettled across Europe between 2015 and 2017 through various EU assistance programs. From 2018 to today, another 32,071 have been resettled – with a target of 50,000 by October of this year. The programs allow people to make the journey into Europe without making the perilous journey byland and sea, as tens of thousands of people have died after boarding ramshackle boats in an attempt to cross the Mediterranean. 

Italy’s frustration over accepting a flood of migrants is undoubtedly responsible in large part for the election of Salvini – a hard-line nationalist who has taken aggressive measures to stem the tide of migrant boats docking in Italian ports. Salvini has repeatedly called on other European nations to shoulder the burden. 

According to European Commission spokeswoman Tove Ernst, officials are watching the Sea Watch situation closely. 

“For the Commission, this situation shows once again that predictable and sustainable solutions are urgently needed in the Mediterranean,” Ernst told Newsweek, adding that the Commission had encouraged EU member states to “agree on temporary arrangements following disembarkation.” 

“We renew our call on all Member States to facilitate and speed up this crucial work,” Ernst added. “In the meantime, until such arrangements are in place, we also call on Member States to bear the humanitarian imperative in mind and contribute to a swift resolution. Whilst we welcome that Italy has proceeded with the evacuation of a number of persons from Sea-Watch 3 for medical reasons, a solution for the remaining people on board is still needed.” 

Sea Watch is exhausted

Newsweek also reports that those aboard Sea-Watch 3 are “struggling in difficult conditions,” while the organization posted a video on Twitter Monday showing a man named Hermann, who says he escaped torture in a Libyan prison and that the group is exhausted. 

“We cannot hold and longer. We are like in a prison because we are deprived of everything. We cannot do anything. We cannot even walk, go a bit further, because the boat is small and we are plenty. There is no space anymore,” he says. 

Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s famous quote on killing Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi is incomplete: 

“We came, we saw, he died, and then a flood of migrants poured into Europe through a destabilized Libya.” 

Ghadaffi, of course, promised to stop all of this for a mere €5 billion a year. 

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UN Demands Western Countries Take Back Imprisoned ISIS Terrorists

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit.news,

The United Nations has demanded that western countries take back captured ISIS terrorists who are currently imprisoned in Syria and Iraq.

According to U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, the ISIS fighters and their family members, which number around 55,000, “should face fair prosecution or be freed.”

States “must assume responsibility for their nationals” even if they have committed unspeakable atrocities while engaging in jihad, according to Bachelet.

A debate about whether to allow so-called ‘ISIS bride’ Shamima Begum to re-enter the UK raged earlier this year.

While the media largely helped Begum spin the narrative that she made a harmless mistake and was a victim herself, her true activities and beliefs were appalling.

It was revealed that Begum literally stitched bombs into suicide vests to ensure they exploded when taken off during her time alongside ISIS jihadists in Syria.

Begum was also a member of the “hisba” enforcement group, which handed out brutal punishments to those found flouting ISIS laws on how to dress and behave. She also pointed an automatic weapon at women in Syria for “wearing brightly colored shoes”.

Begum also said during interviews that seeing decapitated heads in trash cans didn’t faze her because the victims were “enemies of Islam”.

Should such individuals really be allowed to return to the west? Yes, according to the UN.

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The Depressing State of the 2020 Presidential Race

So many people want to be president. Unfortunately, many have terrible ideas.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) wants companies to prove they pay men and women equally. “Penalties if they don’t!” she says. But there are lots of reasons, other than sexism, why companies pay some men more than women.

Harris also wants government to “hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms.” But “holding them accountable” means censorship. If politicians get to censor media, they’ll censor anyone who criticizes them.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) wants the post office to offer banking services. The post office? It already loses billions of dollars despite its monopoly on delivering mail. Sanders also wants to increase our national debt by forgiving $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

He wants to ban for-profit charter schools and freeze funding for nonprofit charters. That’s great news for some government-school bureaucrats and teachers unions that don’t want to compete but bad news for kids who flourish in charters when government schools fail.

Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) once sounded better about charters, saying, “When people tell me they’re against school choice…or charter schools, I say, ‘As soon as you’re willing to send your kid to a failing school in my city…then I’ll be with you.'”

Unfortunately, now that Booker is a presidential candidate, he says little about school choice. He also wants government to guarantee people’s jobs and to pay more Americans’ rent.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) wants to force everyone to buy fertility treatment insurance.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) wants to impose a wealth tax on very rich people. That would certainly benefit accountants and tax lawyers while inspiring rich people to hide more assets instead of putting them to work.

Warren also wants to ban all oil and gas drilling on federal land, have government decide who sits on corporate boards and make college free.

The Democrat who leads the betting odds, former Vice President Joe Biden, also says, “College should be free!”

Free? Colleges have already jacked up their prices much faster than inflation because taxpayers subsidize too much of college. Biden and Warren would make that problem worse.

The Republican incumbent has bad ideas, too: President Donald Trump imposes tariffs that are really new taxes that American consumers must pay. Trump says tariffs are needed because our “trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion dollars. (That means) we lost $800 billion!”

But it doesn’t mean that, Mr. President. A “trade deficit” just means foreigners sent us $800 billion more goods than we sent them.

We got their products, and in return they only got American currency, which they’ll end up investing in the U.S. That’s good for us. It’s not a problem.

Luckily, the president has good ideas, too. He says he wants to shrink the code of federal regulations back to its 1960 size. It would be great if he actually did it. Trump slowing the growth of regulation is one of the best parts of his presidency.

Some Democratic candidates have sensible ideas, too.

Cory Booker proposed legalizing marijuana.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg criticizes his opponents for their “college for all” freebie, saying, “I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that a majority who earn less because they didn’t go to college would subsidize a minority who earn more.”

And all candidates could learn from Hawaii’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D), who served in Iraq.

“I know the cost of war!” she says. “I will end the regime change wars—taking the money that we’ve been wasting on these wars and weapons and investing it in serving the needs of our people.”

Sadly, she wouldn’t give that money back to the people. She’d spend it on other big government programs.

Politicians always have ideas other than letting you keep your money.

I bet we’ll hear other bad ideas this week when 20 of the Democratic candidates debate.

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Democrats Reveal Their Hostility to the Second Amendment

The New York Times recently asked 21 Democratic presidential contenders a question about firearms, and none of them advocated gun control. Instead they called for “common-sense gun safety,” a euphemism that reflects a general caginess about how far they would go in restricting the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

“In an ideal world,” the Times asked, “would anyone own handguns?” Many of the answers reinforce the impression that the Democratic Party is increasingly hostile to the Second Amendment.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has made gun control a centerpiece of his campaign and seems to view armed self-defense as a privilege rather than a right, gave the longest response but managed to dodge the question entirely. In place of policy details, Booker offered outrage at gun violence, coupled with the snake-oil promise that “we will end this crisis by doing the kind of common-sense things that will make our nation safe.”

Julián Castro, Barack Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development, was more forthright, saying “people would not own handguns” in his ideal world and arguing that handgun bans have made other countries safer. Unfortunately, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court “has ruled that people do have a right to bear arms,” so “for the time being” people who disagree with that decision will have to be satisfied with milder measures.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) also was open to the idea of banning handguns, which would be plainly inconsistent with the Second Amendment as the Court has interpreted it. “The fact of the matter is that handguns cause a lot of deaths around the country,” Moulton said, and “we can have a good debate about whether they should be allowed to be free.”

Former Maryland congressman John Delaney seemed to share Castro and Moulton’s distaste for the right to arms. “We don’t live in an ideal world,” he said. “We live in a country where we have the Second Amendment, which I support.” Delaney simultaneously supports the Second Amendment and wishes it did not exist.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also contradicted herself, insisting that “I have never come out for banning guns,” even while bragging about her support for banning so-called assault weapons, which are distinguished from other firearms by arbitrarily selected features that do not affect their lethality. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) did her one better, saying he favored “banning and buying back”—i.e., confiscating—”15 million assault rifles.”

Only five of the candidates—Swalwell, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg—acknowledged that people might legitimately want to own handguns for self-defense, which the Supreme Court has recognized as “the core lawful purpose” protected by the Second Amendment. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dismissed the idea that handguns are useful for that purpose, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) allowed only that handguns “would be acceptable” if they were “used in a sportsman-type way.”

Showing a similar misunderstanding, Klobuchar said her test for any given gun control proposal is whether it will “hurt my Uncle Dick in the deer stand.” With all due respect to Klobuchar’s Uncle Dick, the fundamental human right of self-defense is more important than his hobby.

This fuzziness about what the Second Amendment means is especially disconcerting in light of the candidates’ vague policy prescriptions. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said guns should be “much, much more judiciously owned,” for instance, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that “we have to handle guns in an entirely different fashion.”

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) rejected “a false choice which suggests you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away.” In her view, then, you can be in favor of the Second Amendment and want to take everyone’s guns away, which is hardly reassuring given all the Democrats who supposedly support the right to arms but do not understand what it entails.

© Copyright 2019 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Washington Requests Extradition Of Corrupt Chinese Official Arrested In Sweden

Investors probably cringed when they scanned over a headline Tuesday morning about the US requesting the extradition of a Chinese national from Sweden, given that the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada at the behest of American prosecutors last year is still casting a pall over trade talks.

But Washington’s decision to request extradition for Qiao Jianjun, the former chief of a government grain storage facility, comes just days after a similar request by Beijing was turned down. Qiao, as it turns out, is one of mainland China’s most wanted fugitives, and is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars, according to the SCMP.

Qiao

Qiao Jianjun

The court in Stockholm, where Qiao was arrested last year, was unwilling to extradite him to Beijing for humanitarian reasons. Sweden’s top court “made a preliminary decision not to extradite” Qiao to China on Tuesday last week, according to his lawyer, and he was released the next day, but the court has yet to discuss the case with the government in Stockholm.

American prosecutors first brought money laundering charges against Qiao in 2015 after he moved some of his ill-gotten gains to the US. In the years since, he has become one of China’s most wanted corruption suspects. He has been on the run since November 2011. California prosecutors also indicted him on charges of immigration fraud and international transport of stolen funds.

“The indictment also alleges that Qiao engaged in fraudulent grain transactions while serving as the grain storehouse director, and Qiao and [his ex-wife] had money transferred out of China, with approximately $500,000 being used to purchase the Newcastle property [in Washington],” according to a 2015 US court document.

Days after he was released after winning his extradition hearing against Beijing, police issued an order for Qiao’s arrest on Sunday and he was temporarily detained around lunchtime in the Stockholm district of Racksta. He is being held in a prison in the nearby town of Solna. Qiao has been “provisionally arrested” pending a hearing on the extradition request, though no time frame has been given.

A spokeswoman for Sweden’s home affairs minister confirmed on Monday that a district court would make a preliminary evaluation of the US extradition request and decide whether Qiao should remain in detention.

But just because Washington appears to have the upper hand with Sweden doesn’t mean Beijing will give up the fight to have Qiao returned to China. Though whether President Trump might seek  to use Qiao as a ‘bargaining chip’ remains to be seen.

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The Depressing State of the 2020 Presidential Race

So many people want to be president. Unfortunately, many have terrible ideas.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) wants companies to prove they pay men and women equally. “Penalties if they don’t!” she says. But there are lots of reasons, other than sexism, why companies pay some men more than women.

Harris also wants government to “hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms.” But “holding them accountable” means censorship. If politicians get to censor media, they’ll censor anyone who criticizes them.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) wants the post office to offer banking services. The post office? It already loses billions of dollars despite its monopoly on delivering mail. Sanders also wants to increase our national debt by forgiving $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.

He wants to ban for-profit charter schools and freeze funding for nonprofit charters. That’s great news for some government-school bureaucrats and teachers unions that don’t want to compete but bad news for kids who flourish in charters when government schools fail.

Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) once sounded better about charters, saying, “When people tell me they’re against school choice…or charter schools, I say, ‘As soon as you’re willing to send your kid to a failing school in my city…then I’ll be with you.'”

Unfortunately, now that Booker is a presidential candidate, he says little about school choice. He also wants government to guarantee people’s jobs and to pay more Americans’ rent.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) wants to force everyone to buy fertility treatment insurance.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) wants to impose a wealth tax on very rich people. That would certainly benefit accountants and tax lawyers while inspiring rich people to hide more assets instead of putting them to work.

Warren also wants to ban all oil and gas drilling on federal land, have government decide who sits on corporate boards and make college free.

The Democrat who leads the betting odds, former Vice President Joe Biden, also says, “College should be free!”

Free? Colleges have already jacked up their prices much faster than inflation because taxpayers subsidize too much of college. Biden and Warren would make that problem worse.

The Republican incumbent has bad ideas, too: President Donald Trump imposes tariffs that are really new taxes that American consumers must pay. Trump says tariffs are needed because our “trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion dollars. (That means) we lost $800 billion!”

But it doesn’t mean that, Mr. President. A “trade deficit” just means foreigners sent us $800 billion more goods than we sent them.

We got their products, and in return they only got American currency, which they’ll end up investing in the U.S. That’s good for us. It’s not a problem.

Luckily, the president has good ideas, too. He says he wants to shrink the code of federal regulations back to its 1960 size. It would be great if he actually did it. Trump slowing the growth of regulation is one of the best parts of his presidency.

Some Democratic candidates have sensible ideas, too.

Cory Booker proposed legalizing marijuana.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg criticizes his opponents for their “college for all” freebie, saying, “I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that a majority who earn less because they didn’t go to college would subsidize a minority who earn more.”

And all candidates could learn from Hawaii’s Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D), who served in Iraq.

“I know the cost of war!” she says. “I will end the regime change wars—taking the money that we’ve been wasting on these wars and weapons and investing it in serving the needs of our people.”

Sadly, she wouldn’t give that money back to the people. She’d spend it on other big government programs.

Politicians always have ideas other than letting you keep your money.

I bet we’ll hear other bad ideas this week when 20 of the Democratic candidates debate.

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Democrats Reveal Their Hostility to the Second Amendment

The New York Times recently asked 21 Democratic presidential contenders a question about firearms, and none of them advocated gun control. Instead they called for “common-sense gun safety,” a euphemism that reflects a general caginess about how far they would go in restricting the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

“In an ideal world,” the Times asked, “would anyone own handguns?” Many of the answers reinforce the impression that the Democratic Party is increasingly hostile to the Second Amendment.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has made gun control a centerpiece of his campaign and seems to view armed self-defense as a privilege rather than a right, gave the longest response but managed to dodge the question entirely. In place of policy details, Booker offered outrage at gun violence, coupled with the snake-oil promise that “we will end this crisis by doing the kind of common-sense things that will make our nation safe.”

Julián Castro, Barack Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development, was more forthright, saying “people would not own handguns” in his ideal world and arguing that handgun bans have made other countries safer. Unfortunately, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court “has ruled that people do have a right to bear arms,” so “for the time being” people who disagree with that decision will have to be satisfied with milder measures.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) also was open to the idea of banning handguns, which would be plainly inconsistent with the Second Amendment as the Court has interpreted it. “The fact of the matter is that handguns cause a lot of deaths around the country,” Moulton said, and “we can have a good debate about whether they should be allowed to be free.”

Former Maryland congressman John Delaney seemed to share Castro and Moulton’s distaste for the right to arms. “We don’t live in an ideal world,” he said. “We live in a country where we have the Second Amendment, which I support.” Delaney simultaneously supports the Second Amendment and wishes it did not exist.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also contradicted herself, insisting that “I have never come out for banning guns,” even while bragging about her support for banning so-called assault weapons, which are distinguished from other firearms by arbitrarily selected features that do not affect their lethality. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) did her one better, saying he favored “banning and buying back”—i.e., confiscating—”15 million assault rifles.”

Only five of the candidates—Swalwell, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg—acknowledged that people might legitimately want to own handguns for self-defense, which the Supreme Court has recognized as “the core lawful purpose” protected by the Second Amendment. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dismissed the idea that handguns are useful for that purpose, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) allowed only that handguns “would be acceptable” if they were “used in a sportsman-type way.”

Showing a similar misunderstanding, Klobuchar said her test for any given gun control proposal is whether it will “hurt my Uncle Dick in the deer stand.” With all due respect to Klobuchar’s Uncle Dick, the fundamental human right of self-defense is more important than his hobby.

This fuzziness about what the Second Amendment means is especially disconcerting in light of the candidates’ vague policy prescriptions. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said guns should be “much, much more judiciously owned,” for instance, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that “we have to handle guns in an entirely different fashion.”

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) rejected “a false choice which suggests you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away.” In her view, then, you can be in favor of the Second Amendment and want to take everyone’s guns away, which is hardly reassuring given all the Democrats who supposedly support the right to arms but do not understand what it entails.

© Copyright 2019 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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The Ongoing Restructuring Of The Greater Middle East

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via Off-Guardian.org,

So, according to the corporate media, and to President Literally Hitler, himself, while America was sleeping last Friday morning, the U.S. Air Force was just minutes away from bombing the bejesus out of some desolate outposts somewhere in the Iranian desert and launching another catastrophic military blunder in the Middle East.

At approximately 0400 Zulu time, President Hitler and his top advisors (among them, John “the Walrus of Death” Bolton) were gathered in the Pentagon’s War Room, flight paths arcing across the big board. The hotline to Vladimir Putin’s office in St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow had been activated. The full force of the U.S. military was about to be brought to bear upon a package of top-level Iranian targets with no strategic value whatsoever.

Apparently, “planes were in the air!” It was all so terribly, terribly exciting.

This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace, and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile so the U.S. military could “retaliate.”

Map showing the 40 military bases the US has been compelled to position around Iran to combat Iranian aggression.

The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they’ve been systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which … more on that in just a moment.

Nor did the incursion into Iranian airspace of this non-provacative military drone have anything whatsoever to do with the crippling economic sanctions the U.S.A. has imposed on Iran in order to completely destroy its economy and foment a coup against its leaders, who are allegedly conspiring with Hezbollah and al Qaeda to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons to launch at Israel and Saudi Arabia, and other peaceful Middle Eastern democracies, and who were possibly responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and, who knows, maybe even the Holocaust!

Iran, remember, is a “terrorist nation,” which is not playing ball with the “international community,” which is why NATO has it completely surrounded and is flying hundred million dollar military drones up and down its coastline.

Also, they don’t like homosexuals (i.e., the Iranians, not NATO, of course), and they burn big American flags on television, and are generally Hitlerian in every other way. On top of which, they’re allies of Russia, the fount of all democracy-hating, fascist evil in the world today.

Which, I don’t know, makes it kind of weird that President Hitler would want to attack them, and destroy their economy with those crippling sanctions.

I mean, why would Putin allow him to do that? What was the point of brainwashing all those African Americans with those Facebook ads if his Manchurian President Hitler Puppet was just going to let The Walrus of Death and his deep state cronies bomb his allies?

Iran callously displaying the butchered remains of the innocent $220million surveillance drone they ruthlessly murdered.

Honestly, the more I watch of this movie, the less the plot makes sense to me … but, hey, I’m just a political satirist, and not a professional Putin-Naziologist, or a geopolitical analyst, or whatever.

If I were (i.e., a geopolitical analyst), I guess I might want to take a step back and try to frame last week’s events within a broader historical context, rather than getting all worked up by the manufactured mass hysteria of the moment. If I did that, things might look a bit clearer, albeit somewhat less terribly exciting.

For example, that destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East I just mentioned above, which has been in progress since the early 1990s, regardless of who was sleeping in the White House.

The Gulf War, the Iraq War, the “Arab Spring,” Egypt, Libya, Syria, et cetera … if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and possibly even some sort of strategy.

If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.

My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the “catastrophic policy blunders” that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole “Global War on Terror,” and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran.

Take a good look at this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is “combating terrorism.”

Note how the U.S. military (i.e., global capitalism’s unofficial “enforcer”) has catastrophically blundered its way into more or less every nation depicted.

Or ask our “allies” in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask them about the horrors they’ve been suffering on account of our “catastrophic blunders.”

See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no “catastrophic policy blunders,” not for global capitalism.

The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn’t have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.

Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years of wars, “strategic” bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been a pointless waste of lives and money … but global capitalism doesn’t care about people or the “sovereign nations” they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful.

Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for business or not.

Take a look at that map again.

What you’re looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the “nation” most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary).

I know it hurts to accept the fact that “America” is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace … but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people?

If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans … not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working-class Americans, many of whom can’t afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.

OK, so I digressed a little.

The point is, “America” is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more “American” than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.

This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global capitalism doesn’t want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America … according to my crackpot theory, of course.

But, again, I’m just a political satirist, not a geopolitical analyst. What the hell do I know about anything? Probably, if we just impeach Donald Trump, or The Walrus of Death, or elect Joe Biden, or Bernie Sanders, or some other individual, we can put an end to all these catastrophic blunders that America keeps making in the Middle East.

So forget about my crackpot conspiracy theories, and let’s get back to whatever terribly exciting crisis is unfolding today. Seriously, my brain kind of hurts. I can’t wait to switch on the Internet and find out who’s threatening America at the moment … Russians, Iranians, Venezuelans, anti-Semites, Mexican migrants, Nazis? The possibilities are endless.

Ready? OK, here we go.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XvIsBz Tyler Durden

ISIS Supporter “Umm Nutella” Faces Life In Prison After Violating Deal With Feds

A New Jersey-born ISIS supporter who went by the code name “Umm Nutella” to secretly communicate with the terrorist organization faces life in prison after she violated a cooperation agreement with federal authorities, according to the New York Times. 

Sinmyah Amera Ceasar, 24, pleaded guilty in 2017 on two federal charges for aiding ISIS and other extremist groups, after she was arrested in November 2016 at JFK International Airport in order to provide material support to the radical Islamic terrorist group.

Prosecutors alleged recently unsealed court filings that Ceaser violated an agreement not to use social media or make contact with anyone linked to foreign terrorism. 

“The fbi put me under a different name because they wanted my case too be sealed,” Ceasar told a Taliban-supporting US associate in a Facebook exchange, adding “How the heck we know i was going to arrested out fo no where.” 

In another exchange with a jihadist supporter, Ceasar wrote “I’m umm nutella,” and “I’m staying on down low.” 

“Not going to go to prison for nobody anymore,” she added. 

Ceasar told federal prosecutors that she “associates her use of the name ‘Umm Nutella’ with her support for ISIS, and that if she used the name, it would signify her continued support for the group,” according to the filing in Brooklyn federal court. 

Ceasar also allegedly exchanged Facebook messages with a person who she told the FBI was associated with United Kingdom-based ISIS supporters linked to terrorist attacks.

“Be very careful as to who you trust on here especially if they send you any links that maybe incriminating,” the individual posted in June 2018, according to the court papers.

Ceasar responded on the person’s Facebook page. “Yea that’s true that how I went to prison because some the Muslims were spies 🙁” she wrote, according to prosecutors. –NBC News

“Umm Nutella” has also been charged with obstruction of justice, and has been remanded to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.  

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Li79Lp Tyler Durden