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Google Assistant – the company’s ‘AI’ equivalent to Siri or Alexa – can make life easier in all sorts of ways, including setting reminders, controlling smart home devices, booking rental cars and more. 

And the service – which Google says is on at least a billion devices, is powered by a giant apparatus of underpaid, overworked human subcontractors who manage the entire operation, according to The Guardian‘s Julia Wong.  This ‘army’ of contractors often work massive amounts of overtime for free in the hopes of becoming a full-time Google employee with all the perks and benefits that come with it.

“It’s smoke and mirrors if anything,” said one current Google employee – who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Artificial intelligence is not that artificial; it’s human beings that are doing the work.” 

The Google employee works on Pygmalion, the team responsible for producing linguistic data sets that make the Assistant work. And although he is employed directly by Google, most of his Pygmalion coworkers are subcontracted temps who have for years been routinely pressured to work unpaid overtime, according to seven current and former members of the team.

These employees, some of whom spoke to the Guardian because they said efforts to raise concerns internally were ignored, alleged that the unpaid work was a symptom of the workplace culture put in place by the executive who founded Pygmalion. That executive was fired by Google in March following an internal investigation. –The Guardian

Current and former employees noted Google’s reliance on around 100,000 temporary workers, vendors and contractors (known internally as TVCs), who produce a large amount of the company’s work. Those who collect or create data for much of its technology are not directly employed by Google; from the drivers who roam around the earth for Google Maps, or YouTube’s content moderators who train the company’s filters to catch banned content, to people who endlessly flip pages of physical books to scan into the Google Books libraries. 

This has created two tiers of workers at Google; highly compensated, full-time employees, vs. low-wage contract workers who are found using staffing firms. The employees said this dichotomy is “corrosive” , “highly problematic” and “permissive of exploitation.” 

“It’s like a white-collar sweatshop,” said one Google employee. “If it’s not illegal, it’s definitely exploitative. It’s to the point where I don’t use the Google Assistant, because I know how it’s made, and I can’t support it.“

The disparity in wages and benefits between Google employees and contract workers is stark. Alphabet recently reported median pay of $246,804, and employees enjoy perks such as free meals, on-site yoga classes, free massages and generous benefits.

Amid increasing activism by Googlers and contract workers, Google recently announced improved minimum standards for US-based contract workers, including a minimum of eight paid sick days, “comprehensive” health insurance, and a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour by 2020. (A full-time job at that wage pays $31,200 a year; by comparison, Google charges its own employees $38,808 a year to place an infant in its onsite daycare facilities.) –The Guardian

On Tuesday, the New York Times noted that Google’s use of underpaid contractors extends far beyond just the Google Assistant team. 

As of March, Google worked with roughly 121,000 temps and contractors around the world, compared with 102,000 full-time employees, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times. 

It’s time to end the two-tier system that treats some workers as expendable. From rideshare drivers, to cafeteria workers, to the many contractors who build and maintain tech products: we all contribute, and we all deserve a share. (4/4)

— Google Walkout For Real Change (@GoogleWalkout) March 27, 2019

An ‘army’ of cunning linguists are teaching their replacements

Much of what is driving modern advancements in computing and user experiences involves the study of language. As the Guardian notes, it’s taken decades to go from monotonously programming a clunky VCR – to simply telling your digital assistant what you want, when you want it. In short, Silicon Valley has gone to great lengths to understand natural human speech, in all its variations. 

And all of this has been developed using a combination of humans feeding massive data sets into machine learning systems. 

Take, for example, the straightforward task of asking the Assistant to set a timer to go off in five minutes, a former employee on Pygmalion explained. There are infinite ways that users could phrase that request, such as “Set a timer for five minutes”; “Can you ring the buzzer in five minutes?”; or “Configurar una alarma para cinco minutos.” The Assistant has to be able to convert the spoken request into text, then interpret the user’s intended meaning to produce the desired outcome, all practically instantaneously.

The technology that makes this possible is a form of machine learning. For a machine learning model to “understand” a language, it needs vast amounts of text that has been annotated by linguists to teach it the building blocks of human language, from parts of speech to syntactic relationships. –The Guardian

In order to feed the systems, Pygmalion was created in 2014. The brainchild of longitme Google executive Linne Ha, the division was tasked with creating linguistic data sets required for Google’s neural networks to adapt to dozens of languages. Programming is a “painstaking” and labor-intensive process, requiring the careful creation of “handcrafted” data sets in order for the digital systems to function properly. 

As originally planned, Google employs just a handful of full-time employees in Pygmalion – while outsourcing an “army” of subcontracted linguists around the world, according to documents reviewed by The Guardian. At present, there are 40-50 full time Googlers and around 200 temporary workers contracted through global staffing firms such as Adecco. The workers include associate linguists who annotate data sets, and project managers who oversee that work. 

All of the contract workers have at least a bachelor’s degree in linguistics, though many have master’s degrees and some have doctorates. In addition to annotating data, the temp workers write “grammars” for the Assistant, complex and technical work that requires considerable expertise and involves Google’s code base. Their situation is comparable to adjunct professors on US college campuses: they are highly educated and highly skilled, performing work crucial to the company’s mission, and shut out of the benefits and security that come with a tenured position. –The Guardian

“Imagine going from producing PhD level research and pushing forward the state of knowledge in the world to going to an annotation type job, where all you’re doing all day is annotating data; it’s very click, click, click,” said one former Pygmalion project manager. “Everyone was trying to prove themselves because everyone was trying to work for Google. The competitive edge that happened among colleagues as TVCs was severe.”

Wages for contract workers on the Pygmalion team are well above the new minimum standard, usually starting around $25 an hour for associate linguists and going up to $35 an hour for project managers. But contractors complain about subpar benefits and other indignities.

The former project manager described Adecco’s benefits plan as “the worst health insurance I have ever had”. A current contract worker earning less than $60,000 annually said they were paying $180 each month in premiums for an individual plan with a $6,000 deductible. For families, the deductible is $12,000, according to documents reviewed by the Guardian. Google declined to comment on Adecco’s pay and benefits. 

Googlers earn significantly more, and those on individual plans contribute between $0 and $53 for their health insurance and have a much lower deductible ($1,350), according to documents reviewed by the Guardian. Googlers with families pay up to $199 every two weeks, with a $2,700 deductible. –The Guardian

Accusations of wage theft

The high-pressure, labor-intensive work being done to program Google’s machine learning systems “created the incentive for temps to perform unpaid work,” according to the report, while managers took advantage of this by making clear that overtime would not be approved while at the same time assigning “unrealistic amounts of work” to employees. 

The pressure to complete assignments was “immense”, said one Googler. “In this mixed stream of messages, I think a lot of people had to make their own calls, and given the pressure, I think people made different calls.”

The Googler described the overall effect as “gaslighting”, and recalled receiving messages from management such as, “If the TVCs want to work more, let them work more.” All seven current and former employees interviewed by the Guardian said they had either experienced or witnessed contract workers performing unpaid overtime. –The Guardian

“To my knowledge, no one ever said, you need to work TVCs above their contracts, but it was set up so that it was the only way to get the expected work done, and if anyone raised concerns they would be openly mocked and belittled,” said one Google employee. 

“The 40-hour thing was just not respected,” said one former associate linguist. “It was made clear to us that we were never to log more than 40 hours, but we were never told not to work more than 40 hours.”

“The work that they assign often takes more than 8 hours,” they added. “Every week you fill out a timesheet. One person one time did submit overtime, and they were chastised. No punishment, but definitely told not to work overtime.“

“Working off the clock is the very definition of wage theft,” said seasoned labor and employment attorney, Beth Ross, who said that both Google and Adecco could face liability for unpaid wages and damages under both state and federal laws. 

According to one associate linguist, “People did [unpaid overtime] because they were dangled the opportunity of becoming a full-time employee, which is against company policy,” adding “There’s a particular leveraging of people’s desire to become full time.” 

“When I was hired, I was very explicitly told that there is no ladder,” said one current contractor. “This is not a temp-to-hire position. There is no moving up’ … But the reality on the team is very much one where there is clearly a ladder. A certain percentage of the associate linguists will get project manager. A certain percentage of project managers get converted to full time. We watch it happen, and they dangle that carrot.“

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VVcSIM Tyler Durden

Authored by Tim Daiss via OilPrice.com,

By now, after two-and-a-half years in office, it’s obvious that President Trump’s relations with Riyadh are dictating his foreign policy, even at the expense of further enraging a Democratic-controlled Congress intent on removing him from office.

Trump’s last pro-Saudi move came on Friday week the fire-brand president declared a national emergency because of tensions with Iran and swept aside objections from lawmakers to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Jordan. The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it would push ahead with 22 military sales to the three Middle Eastern countries, drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle for circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major military weapons sales.

Not only has the move infuriated Congress over what they see as presidential abuse of power, but it comes as Congress grows increasingly agitated over human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been implicated in the controversial killing of Saudi dissident journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October. The paper trail for the crime was traced all the way back to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Even then, Trump stood by his Saudi allies and the Royal family though it created a considerable backlash from both Democrats and Republicans and even internationally.

The Trump administration is also being called on the carpet for continued U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s military actions in neighboring Yemen which has resulted in a large number of civilian casualties. The Royal family has also strengthened its grip domestically with a top-down authoritative rule over any hint of dissent. Last month, Saudi Arabia put to death 37 so-called terrorists, most of them Saudi citizens, for what they said were terror-related crimes. CNN reported that one was even crucified – a troubling prospect from Western and U.S. lawmakers that tie any kind of political and military support to a country’s human rights record.

Congressional angst

All of these developments have led to Congressional angst over Saudi Arabia and the president’s incessant support for the kingdom. However, Trump’s playbook sees Saudi Arabia not only as a key ally in the Middle East but as internal in helping keep global oil prices in check. Perhaps more importantly, Riyadh is key in Trump’s policy to drive Iran to its knees economically and force it to the bargaining table over its nuclear, ballistic missile and Middle Eastern hegemony purists. Yet, looking at the past 40-year record from Iran, it’s a gambit that could backfire and lead to a U.S.-Saudi military confrontation with Iran – a prospect that would roil global oil markets and hit economic growth at the same time it’s slowing due to ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions.

Moreover, Trump’s move on Friday effectively snubbed Congress which has recently blocked military arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said “President Trump is only using this loophole because he knows Congress would disapprove … There is no new ‘emergency’ reason to sell bombs to the Saudis to drop in Yemen and doing so only perpetuates the humanitarian crisis there.”

So great is the angst in Congress over Trumps’ Saudi weapons sales move that ardent Trump supporter Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham even criticized it. “I’ve got a real problem with going back to doing business as usual with Saudi Arabia,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Jordan is a great ally. The [United Arab Emirates] has been problematic in Yemen but are a good ally. Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, but [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] was, in my opinion, involved in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, and he’s done a lot of other disruptive things, so I don’t support the arms sales now,” he continued.

Trump’s end game (peace and oil)

Yet, amid criticism from both sides of the aisle, Trump’s end game may at the end of the day justify its means. The president sees Iran as a major threat to not only Middle Eastern security but its nuclear development is a systemic global threat. Trump sees a strong Saudi Arabia, even with its obvious and multiple imperfections and problems, as a counterweight in the region. Without a strong Saudi Arabia, or even worse if there was regime change in the kingdom, the prospect for peace in the Middle East and the impact on global oil markets would be unprecedented in its damage. Trump may be unorthodox in how he governs, and no doubt creates considerable and seemingly never-ending blunders, but his end game should be kept in mind by both U.S. lawmakers and a watching global audience.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2W4KtAc Tyler Durden

While the 2019 IPO market, until recently red hot and on pace for a record year…

… only to suffer the dismal initial offerings from cash furnaces Lyft and Uber which crippled investor demand for massively overvalued Silicon Valley unicorns, may soon suffer a knockout blow after WeCommunityAdjustEBITDA WeWork goes public in the near future, the whimsical provider of disruptively money-losing office space is taking a look at Plan B should its shares sink, and according to Bloomberg, is in talks with banks about arranging a $2.75 billion credit line ahead of its planned IPO, with JPMorgan as lead arranger.

In April, WeWork said it had filed paperwork confidentially with for an IPO, with its upcoming offering expected to be the biggest of the year after Uber. And yet, red flags emerged earlier this year when WeWork’s largest backers, include SoftBank, earlier this year decided against taking a controlling stake.

While securing a revolving line of credit from Wall Street often precedes an IPO as companies going public “reward banks that make big credit commitments with roles in their IPOs, with lenders sometimes offering better terms on the financing in return” according to Bloomberg, considering the size of the upcoming IPO one wonders if this is not a precaution in case of some unexpected adverse developments in the coming weeks – i.e., a market crash – crushes sentiment for new offerings (thanks Uber) and forces WeWork to WeMakeDue with what liquidity the company manages to raise post haste.

As Bloomberg REIT analyst Jeffrey Langbaym writes, “WeWork needs access to cash to secure, design and lease office space to sustain robust revenue growth. The company had $6 billion in cash as of early 2019 after burning through $2.3 billion in 2018.”

There is another problem: WeWork has a profit margin that is less than 100%, or as we noted in March, “WeWork Made $1.8 Billion In Revenue Last Year; It Lost $1.9 Billion.“

Still, a successful IPO should suffice to provide a cash buffer for the next few years. However, if that is unsuccessful… well that’s where the lending syndicate comes in.

To be sure, it won’t be WeWork first secured credit facility: in 2014 the company obtained a $650 million revolver also led by JPMorgan, which is set to expire in late 2020.

What makes the IPO even more unusual is that last year, WeWork sold 7 year junk bonds, which today closed at $93.50 , a decline from a peak of $99.63 earlier this month, and yielding a whopping 9.5% in a time when junk bonds above 6% are seen as especially risky.

And yet despite the credit market voting with its feet on a company which is expected to keep burning cash for the foreseeable future, equity investors have no problem with being part of a cap structure where not only is unlimited debt likely to be layered – we expect the new loan to be covenant “non-existant” – but where institutional investors already see substantial viability risk.

WeWork, which has ambitions to go beyond the office with businesses in apartment rentals and elementary schools and recently rebranded itself to just We Co., said in early May that its loss narrowed slightly to $264 million in the first quarter. As Bloomberg concludes, “its IPO will test public investors’ appetite for another tech-infused, cash-burning business after Uber’s disappointing debut.”

Or it may not: the probability of the IPO getting pulled is inversely proportional to where the S&P is at any given moment, and if Beijing wishes to force WeWork to pull the “market conditions” card, it just has to keep escalating the trade war with the US. Either that, or a critical mass of non-algo investors finally asks how a company that reported an actual EBITDA loss $193 million had the temerity to convert this number into a profit of $233 million just using non-GAAP adjustments to reach a “Community Adjusted EBITDA.”

 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wtr15w Tyler Durden

Expanding on his recent threads discussing the somewhat ominous endgame of the US-China tensions, Bridgewater CEO Ray Dalio explains in his latest note that this conflict is much more extensive than a “trade war.”

Via LinkedIn,

It is an ideological conflict of comparable powers in a small world.

It’s about:

1) China emerging to challenge the power of the U.S. in many areas and

2) these two countries having two different approaches to life­—one that’s top down and one that’s bottom up.

These conflicts extend to American and Chinese businesses, technologies, capital markets, influences over other countries, militaries, ideologies, and most everything else. They are made especially difficult because the Chinese, the Americans, and those who deal with them both are now so interdependent, with the interdependencies being both vulnerabilities of each and weapons that each can use to hurt the other. 

As someone in these negotiations wisely said, history shows that countries in conflict have seen that such conflicts can easily slip beyond their control and become terrible wars that all parties, including the leaders who got their countries into them, deeply regretted, so the parties in the negotiations should be careful that that doesn’t happen. Right now we are seeing brinksmanship negotiations, so it is a risky time.

It is widely believed that time is on China’s side so that it is in the U.S. interest to have any fight that’s going to occur happen earlier and in China’s interest to have it later. This is leading to the Trump administration’s pushing the limits. Worth keeping in mind is how Chinese and Americans fight wars differently (the Chinese more strategically by gaining relative strength and the Americans more by exchanging blows until one side gives up). While all of this enters into my thinking, what is now most important at this time of brinksmanship is seeing what actually happens next – i.e. whether we see the “tariff war” slip into an “export embargo war” intended to shut parts of the other country down. 

As explained last week in the “Beyond the Trade War: The Huawei Step,” the U.S. shutting off supplies to Huawei appears to be a step forward by the United States in weaponizing export controls.

Notably, soon after that announcement, President Xi visited the largest rare metals mine in China and a top planning organization suggested that China might reciprocate such moves by the U.S. by not selling rare metals to the U.S. Refined rare metals are a critical import that American companies don’t produce and need to get from China to produce many needed products in the U.S. such as mobile phones, magnets, night vision glasses, gyroscopes in jets, LED lights, glass, and ceramics.

I would view an increasing of export controls that are intended to shut down key areas as a major escalation of the “war.”

Building independence will happen regardless of what is negotiated because both sides have learned that they need to be protected against being squeezed in the years of increasing tensions ahead. That is a big deal because it is a major, multi-year undertaking that will take resources away from other development. Uncertainties over tariffs and future developments are causing many businesses who produce in China to export to the U.S. (or who might be affected by the fight between the U.S. and China) to rethink whether they would be better off producing in another country. These forces will be major disruptors to the specific people, companies, and governments affected by them. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KivRuq Tyler Durden

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed on Wednesday that Facebook’s refusal to remove an altered video of her proves that company was actively contributing to Kremlin interference in the 2016 US election. 

Facebook announced this week its refusal to remove a video of Pelosi which was intentionally slowed down to make her sound drunk. 

Facebook told CNN that they wouldn’t remove the manipulated video because they don’t have a policy that content must be accurate. Facebook did, however, downgrade the video’s status – slowing it’s spread after fact-check partner LeadStories published an opinion. 

Of note, this is a completely different video than the edited montage of Pelosi stammering her way through a news conference which President Trump tweeted last Friday. 

“PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE” pic.twitter.com/1OyCyqRTuk

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019

In comments to KQED News, Pelosi slammed Facebook for refusing to remove the ‘drunk’ video of her. 

“We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians. I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I think it’s wrong,” she said. “I can take it … But [Facebook is] lying to the public,” said Pelosi, adding “I think they have proven — by not taking down something they know is false — that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election.“

Who knew President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg were Kremlin agents! 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JL5bDq Tyler Durden

Though stocks finished off their lows on Wednesday, it’s obvious that investors weren’t happy with Robert Mueller’s remarks. The main benchmarks sunk after Mueller’s statement, as investors perceptively assessed that the special counsel was effectively exhorting Congress to screw its courage to the sticking post and move ahead with impeachment.

With the prospects for impeachment looking greater than ever (even as Pelosi and Schumer continue to resist), it’s easy to see how this could further destabilize markets.

But offering a novel connection between two of the most dominant political narratives of the year, one analyst argued that Mueller’s statement might make it more difficult for the White House to negotiate an amicable resolution to the trade fight while also convincing China to harden its stance.

In comments emailed to Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Veda Partners’ Director of Economic Policy Henrietta Treyz claimed that Mueller’s remarks may have hardened China’s stance in the trade negotiations by providing “at least a scant amount of optimism that Trump could be out of office soon”…making Beijing “less likely to capitulate, if they were planning to.”

“The positions of both sides just got a little bit more entrenched,” said Treyz, who believes the market’s midday dip was inspired by Mueller’s comments.

Mueller’s comments likely made it harder for Trump to back down by giving him “an extra story line” beyond the investigations. Trump’s voters would “likely see him as weak if he backed down now.”

Treyz added that the trade war is the “most pressing thing” for markets right now, adding that she expects more selling pressure ahead because investors haven’t fully priced in the third and fourth tranche escalations that could follow over the summer.

While Treyz makes a compelling argument for why the impeachment scrutiny might force Trump to stay the course on trade, if stocks continue to erase more of their Q1 gains and move closer to the 2,300-2,400 level, the pressure on the White House to capitulate might soon become unbearable.

Then again, now that the  departures of two senior NY Fed officials have left the PPT in limbo, who is even left to trigger the ‘Trump put?’

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/30UXZtu Tyler Durden

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

If you only tuned into US politics within the last couple of years this will come as a major surprise, but believe it or not there was once a time when both major parties weren’t constantly claiming that imminent revelations are about to completely destroy the other party any minute now. Used to be they’d just focus on beating each other in elections and making each other look bad with smears and sex scandals; now in the age of Trump they’re both always insisting that some huge, earth-shattering revelation is right around the corner that will see the leaders of the other party dragged off in chains forever.

Enthusiastic Trump supporters have been talking a lot lately about the president’s decision to give Attorney General Bill Barr the authority to declassify information regarding the shady origins of the discredited Russiagate hoax, including potentially illicit means used to secure a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign staff. For days online chatter from Trump’s base has been amping up for a huge, cataclysmic bombshell in the same language Russiagaters used to use back before Robert Mueller pissed in their Wheaties.

“There is information coming that will curl your hair,” Congressman Mark Meadows told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “I can tell you that the reason why it is so visceral — the response from the Democrats is so visceral right now — is because they know, they’ve seen documents. Adam Schiff has seen documents that he knows will actually put the finger pointing back at him and his Democrat colleagues, not the president of the United States.”

“There is some information in these transcripts that I think has the potential to be a game changer, if it’s ever made public,” former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy told Fox News, referring to FBI transcripts of recorded interactions with surveilled individuals.

“Sources tell me there will be bombshells [of] information,” tweeted Fox News contributor Sara A Carter of the coming decassifications.

.⁦@RepMarkMeadows⁩ Says ‘Declassification is right around the corner’ I certainly hope so because the American people deserve the truth – all of it. Sources tell me there will be bombshells if information. | https://t.co/0EpNJ2GZfG

— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) May 22, 2019

Democrats and Democrat-aligned media are responding with similarly apocalyptic language, playing right along with the same WWE script.

“While Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice, Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies,” griped congressman, Russiagater and flamboyant drama queen Adam Schiff, adding, “The coverup has entered a new and dangerous phase. This is un-American.”

“President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that led to the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A.,” the New York Times warns.

“National security veterans fear a declassification order could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources,” frets Politico.

“William Barr’s New Authority to Declassify Anything He Wants Is a Threat to National Security,” blares a headline from Slate.

New from me: Trump’s declassification order has set up a showdown between DOJ and the intelligence community that could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources. https://t.co/iUFVCeWRe0

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2019

Both sides are wrong and ridiculous. Democrats are wrong and ridiculous for claiming a tiny bit of government transparency is dangerous, and Republicans are wrong and ridiculous to claim that game-changing bombshell revelations are going to be brought to the light by these declassifications. Just like with the Mueller report and the “bigger than Watergate” Nunes memo before it, there may be some interesting revelations, but the swamp of DC corruption will march on completely uninterrupted.

Readers keep asking me to weigh in on this whole declassification controversy, but really I have no response to the whole thing apart from boredom and a slight flinch whenever I think about Adam Schiff’s bug-eyed stare. There’s just not much going to come of it.

This is not to suggest that the intelligence communities of the US and its allies weren’t up to some extremely sleazy shenanigans in planting the seeds of the Russiagate insanity which monopolized US political attention for over two years, and it’s not to suggest that those shenanigans couldn’t be interpreted as crimes. Abuse of government surveillance and inflicting a malignant psyop on public consciousness are extremely egregious offenses and should indeed be punished. And, in a sane world, they would be.

But we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where partisan divides are for show only and the powerful protect each other from ever being held to account. Having the swamp of Trump’s Justice Department investigate the swamp of Obama’s intelligence community isn’t going to lead anywhere. Swamp creature Bill “Iran-Contra coverup” Barr isn’t going to be draining the swamp any more than swamp creature Robert “Saddam has WMDs” Mueller. The swamp cannot be used to drain itself.

Dems and allied pundits have been screaming for years that we must know every last detail about “Russian interference” in 2016, and have launched multiple exhaustive investigations pursuant to this. But now they scream that we MUST NOT know about CIA/FBI conduct in 2016. Very odd

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 27, 2019

It is possible that some important information will make its way to public view, like Russiagate’s roots in UK intelligence, for example. But no powerful people in the US or its allied governments will suffer any meaningful consequences for any offenses exposed, and no significant changes in government policy or behavior will take place. I fully support declassifying everything Trump wants declassified (as well as the rest of the 99 percent of classified government information which is only hidden from public view out of convenience for the powerful), but the most significant thing that can possibly come of it is a slightly better-informed populace and some political damage to the Democrats in 2020.

The only people who believe these inquiries will help fix America’s problems are those who believe there are aspects of the DC power structure which are not immersed in swamp. Trump supporters believe the Trump administration is virtuous, so they believe the Justice Department is preparing to hold powerful manipulators to legal accountability rather than cover for them and treat them with kid gloves. Democrats believed that a former FBI Director and George W Bush crony was going to bring the Executive Branch of the US government to its knees, because they thought that swamp monster was in some way separable from the swamp. It doesn’t work that way, cupcake.

If people want to rid their government of the swamp of corruption, they’re going to have to do it themselves. No political insider is going to rise to the occasion and do it for you. They can’t. You can’t drain the swamp when you’re made of swamp, any more than you can wash yourself clean with a turd-soaked loofah.

The only upheaval that is worth buying stock in is the kind which moves from the bottom up. If you really want change, it’s not going to come from the US president or any longtime government insider. It’s going to come from real people looking to each other and agreeing to say that enough is enough, and use the power of their numbers to flush the corrupt power structure down the toilet where it belongs. It will mean ceasing to imbue the fake partisan divide with the power of belief, and it will mean unplugging from official authorized narratives about what’s going on in the world and circulating our own narratives instead.

All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can’t see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don’t understand what you’re looking at.

*  *  *

Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.

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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JJQ8tD Tyler Durden

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Wednesday remarks have put new pressure on House Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump – an option that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly warned would be a trap going into the 2020 election due to the fact that the GOP-held Senate would “vindicate” Trump even if the House impeached. 

Mueller, who officially resigned from the DOJ to return to private life – said that he wouldn’t appear before Congress to discuss the findings from the Justice Department’s multi-year, $25 million investigations into the 2016 election. 

“I hope and expect that this will be the only time I will speak to you about this matter,” Mueller told reporters in Washington, adding “the report is my testimony” and “I would not provide information beyond that which is already public.”  

Of note, Mueller said that he didn’t question Attorney General William Barr’s handling and release of the Special Counsel’s report, contradicting statements by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and turncoat Republican Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) – the latter of whom said Barr “deliberately misrepresented key aspects.” 

Robert Mueller specifically stated he had no questions about AG Barr’s handling of releasing the OSC Report – this proves Pelosi and Amash lied about Barr

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 29, 2019

To impeach, or not to impeach 

By specifically pointing out that the special counsel didn’t levy charges at Trump due to longstanding DOJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president, Mueller effectively laid out a path to impeachment for Democrats to follow. 

“It wasn’t lack of evidence. It was DOJ policy” tweeted Rep. Val Demings (R-FL). 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller just said that “charging the president with a crime was not an option we could consider” under DOJ policy.

It wasn’t lack of evidence. It was DOJ policy.

He said that this “deserves the attention of every American.” He’s right. Congress must act.

— Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) May 29, 2019

Mueller’s refusal to testify also puts House Democrats in a tough spot. With a growing number of Democratic lawmakers pushing for leadership to launch impeachment proceedings, Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York are now left to decide whether Mueller gave them enough ammunition to move forward without his testimony, which Pelosi said would have been useful. 

Pelosi on Mueller testimony: “Yes, I think it would be useful for him to testify before Congress,”

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) May 29, 2019

Rep. Eric Swalwell told CNN that “Seeing is believing…hearing Bob Mueller raise his right hand, testify to Congress, seeing the news capture that, that would be quite illuminating for most Americans.” In other words, Mueller’s refusal to testify will now be blamed for robbing Democrats of their opportunity to impeach, if they choose not to move forward with that option. 

House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell on hearing Mueller’s testimony: “Seeing is believing…hearing Bob Mueller raise his right hand, testify to Congress, seeing the news capture that, that would be quite illuminating for most Americans” https://t.co/LGa45W2peP pic.twitter.com/Yac6o7Tmqt

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 29, 2019

In Wednesday comments, Nadler was far more confrontational than Pelosi – saying that “All options are on the table and nothing should be ruled out” in terms of impeachment, adding “not event the president of the United States is above the law.”

Staging a press conference Wednesday afternoon in New York, Nadler was similarly vague, sidestepping questions about whether he will compel Mueller’s testimony with a congressional subpoena.

“Mr. Mueller told us a lot of what we need to hear today,” Nadler said.

Before Mueller’s remarks, at least 37 House Democrats were on record backing the launch of an impeachment inquiry into Trump. Afterward, Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) added their names to the list, though most Democratic lawmakers responded by holding firm to Pelosi’s favored approach of continuing with investigations without making the leap to impeachment. –The Hill

“We must remain committed to aggressively investigating the president’s wrongdoing and we will not rest until the American people have answers,” insisted Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), vice chairwoman of the Democratic Caucus – who apparently presumes guilt until proven innocent. 

So Democrats are left with a special counsel who won’t testify, and who just gave the left plenty of ammunition to impeach since Mueller implied that Trump may have committed crimes. And if they do launch impeachment proceedings, they might reach the Senate just in time for Trump to be vindicated in the court of public opinion. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HK52xK Tyler Durden

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

The mainstream media has been using the term “uncharted territory” to describe the unusual tornado outbreaks that have been happening in the middle of the country, but I don’t think that truly captures the historic nature of what we are witnessing.  Over the last 30 days, there have been more than 500 tornadoes in the United States.  That is not normal.  In fact, Tuesday was the 12th day in a row when at least eight tornadoes were spawned, and that is a new all-time record.  Community after community in the Midwest now looks like a “war zone”, and billions upon billions of dollars of damage has already been done.  But this crisis is far from over, because forecasters are telling us that more powerful storms will roar through the middle of the country on Wednesday.

Since 1998, there has been an average of 279 tornadoes during the month of May.  So the fact that we have had more than 500 over the last 30 days means that we are running way, way above normal…

In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period — a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified — after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet.

The barrage continued Tuesday night, as towns and cities across the Midwest took shelter from powerful storms. Tornadoes carved a line of devastation from eastern Kansas through Missouri, ripping trees and power lines in Lawrence, Kan., southwest of Kansas City, and pulverizing houses in nearby Linwood.

According to the National Weather Service, there were more than 50 tornadoesover Memorial Day weekend alone, and at this point there have been at least 8 tornadoes in the U.S. for 12 consecutive days…

Tuesday was the 12th consecutive day with at least eight tornado reports, breaking the record, according to Dr. Marsh. The storms have drawn their fuel from two sources: a high-pressure area that pulled the Gulf of Mexico’s warm, moist air into the central United States, where it combined with the effects of a trough trapped over the Rockies, which included strong winds.

The devastation that has been left behind by these storms has been immense.  When Dayton assistant fire chief Nicholas Hosford appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, he told viewers that in his city there are “homes flattened, entire apartment complexes destroyed, businesses throughout our community where walls have collapsed”.

Countless numbers of Americans have had their lives completely turned upside down, and of course the Midwest has already been reeling from unprecedented flooding in recent months.

So far this year, much of the focus has been on the historic flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, but now severe flooding along the Arkansas River is threatening to break all-time records…

Heavy rainfall over the past few weeks is threatening all-time May records and swelling rivers to record levels in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, didn’t mince words Sunday, expecting historic, record flooding along the Arkansas River from Toad Suck Reservoir northwest of Little Rock to the Oklahoma border that could have impacts lasting well into the summer.

In fact, USA Today is plainly stating that both states are “bracing for their worst-ever flooding”…

Oklahoma and Arkansas were bracing for their worst-ever flooding as a new wave of storms forecast to roll through the region threatened to further bloat the Arkansas River that already has reached record crests in some areas.

Forecasters reported tornadoes, high winds, hail and heavy rain across the region on Monday, triggering evacuations and high-water rescues. The storms are the latest to rip through the Midwest over the past two weeks, leaving at least nine dead and a trail of damage from high winds and flooding.

Of course let us not forget what is happening along the Mississippi River either.  The flooding has been called “the worst in over 90 years”, and in some parts of the river new records are already being set…

For example, In Vicksburg, Mississippi, the river went above flood stage on Feb. 17, and has remained in flood ever since. The weather service said this is the longest continuous stretch above flood stage since 1927.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Mississippi first rose above flood stage in early January, and has been above that level ever since, the National Weather Service said. If this record-long stretch extends well into June, it would break the record from 1927, according to the Weather Channel.

And farther north, the Mississippi River at the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois saw its longest stretch above major flood stage ever recorded, even surpassing that of 1927.

None of this is “normal”, and prior to the month of May we had already witnessed the wettest 12 months in all of U.S. history.

All of this wet weather has been absolutely disastrous for Midwest farmers, and so far in 2019 agricultural production is way, way below expectations.  In the months ahead, we should all be prepared for much higher prices at the grocery store.

Unfortunately, more wet weather is on the way.  According to the Weather Channel, another series of very powerful storms will rip through the middle of the country on Wednesday…

Strong to severe thunderstorms are expected through Tuesday night from Iowa to Oklahoma, which may produce areas of locally heavy rain and flash flooding. Some clusters of storms may persist into Wednesday morning in the Ozarks.

Then, another rash of thunderstorms with heavy rain is expected Wednesday and Wednesday night from North Texas into Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri that could only trigger more flash flooding and aggravate ongoing river flooding.

Weather patterns are going absolutely crazy, and we have never seen a year quite like this in modern American history.

So what is going to happen if weather patterns get even crazier and natural disasters just continue to become even more frequent and even more powerful?

You may want to start thinking about that, because that is exactly what many people believe is going to happen.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XdusZT Tyler Durden