Recent protests in Hong Kong, along with the resulting fall out from international corporations questioned for their relationships with mainland China, has placed a renewed focus on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. This has led to several articles identifying ways in which Western countries have learned from the CCP, including Europe’s growing embrace of web censorship and growing interest in the social credit system rolled out in 2018. Given that it wasn’t that long ago that it was common to see Western leaders and neoliberal commentators openly envy aspects of the Chinese political system, these concerns are certainly worth exploring. What should be of equal interest, however, is the ways China may be learning from the West.
The next weapon the CCP may plan to wield against its citizens is a War on Cash.
As Joseph Salerno, among others, has noted for years now, a successful War on Cash would represent a new escalation in government’s long history of weaponizing currency against the population. Moving far beyond the clipping of coins as a means of stealth tax collection, the purpose of a War on Cash is not simply to strengthen a government’s grasp on the wealth of its citizens – but the move becomes a highly effective means of tracking any who find themselves in the crosshairs of the state.
These features make a cashless society attractive for any government – which explains why it has become an increasingly popular goal for politicians, bureaucrats, and central bankers in the West. This is precisely why we’ve seen the cause promoted from such influential economists as Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, Marvin Goodfriend, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon who was once nominated to the Fed by Donald Trump, as well as various economic ministers. The governments of Australia and Sweden have made a cashless society an explicit policy goal within their countries, while some central banks — such as the ECB — have begun phasing out higher denomination bills as an opening move in their own cashless campaigns.
Of course, the international perspective of the Swedish government is quite different than that of China’s — and understandably so. For all of Sweden’s issues, there are no comparisons to the CCP’s brutal child policies or its treatment of religious minorities. What should be understood, however, is that a successful move to a cashless society would give the Swedish government similar tools over its population as those the Communist Party seeks over its dominion. While the former may ground their policy aims in “combating drug trafficking” and “convenience,” the end result in both cases is a new terrifying weapon in the hands of the state.
Luckily, it’s easier for the government to desire a cashless society than it is to create it, and we’ve seen countries like Sweden rethink their approach. There is reason to think that China may be less apprehensive. Not only is the government more powerful, but it is also more desperate.
Given the surveillance power of a cashless society, the potential of joining a social credit system with a digital yuan makes sense. What’s just as important for China is to help further tighten the CCP’s grip on its struggling economy.
As I’ve noted before, lost in the attention paid to Trump’s trade war with China, China’s financial system is showing signs of a growing strain. Not only have we seen escalating bank failures and the creation of new bailout devices for failing firms, but some companies have resorted to paying their workers with IOUs as they run short on cash. Meanwhile, Chinese local governments are now defaulting on debts to contractors. Given the importance of economic growth to the CCP’s control of the country, its understandable why we’ve seen President Xi forge new high-tech weapons to be used against the population.
Interestingly, China’s desperation is being confused by some as a sign of strength. For example, some have misunderstood the underlying motives for the CCP’s renewed interest in cryptocurrency.
While much has been made of Chinese media giving Bitcoin a front-page treatment, the tight control the CCP has over its financial system makes actual use of private crypto extremely difficult. Instead, the stage is being set for moving the yuan to the blockchain. While some have sold this as some novel challenge against the dollar — even suggesting that the Bank of China could try to peg it to gold — this is, as Daniel Lacalle explained, a delusion.
This is not a trump card to be used against Uncle Sam, but a new tool of CCP oppression against is own people. As noted by Jason Burack, a market analyst that has been closely following Chinese economic news, “throughout history, governments have always hijacked technology and used it for nefarious purposes.”
At this point, the CCP successfully waging a War on Cash is mere speculation — though a recent move to allow tourists access to digital payment systems such as AliPay might help pave the way for that transition. It would be a policy change very much in character with the authoritarian regime in Beijing — and one that has long been sold as “benign” by the more “liberal” globalist elite.
Baltimore Taxpayers Fund Lyft-Rides For Inner-City Poor Facing “Food Deserts”
With more than a quarter of all Baltimore City residents living in a food desert, meaning there’s no supermarket in a walkable distance, the taxpayers are now funding a new program that will pay for their Lyft ride to the grocery store.
Starting Monday, residents in South and West Baltimore City, some of the most impoverished areas in the country, can register online for Lyft and get government-subsidized trips to participating grocery stores, reported The Baltimore Sun.
The pilot program will sponsor up to 200 residents, will cover one-way rides up to $2.50. Each rider can take as many as eight trips per month.
“Whoa, that is lovely,” Evelyn Robinson told The Sun. “I wouldn’t have to wait for someone to be available to take me or pay as much money. I could go whenever I wanted.”
For some more color on South and West Baltimore City, these areas are low-income neighborhoods, about 33% of households don’t even own vehicles, and most folks have negative net wealth. Many don’t have jobs because the local economy has been stuck in a depression for twenty years.
Instead of supermarkets on each corner of the street, there are liquor stores and methadone clinics.
To be fair, decades of deindustrialization trends have turned many parts of Baltimore into a Venezuelan-like warzone — not entirely the fault of citizens but the failure of the political class and Washington who’ve neglected the implosion of the city over the decades.
The subsidized Lyft program will also roll out in about a dozen other cities to shuttle low-income folks to grocery stores.
In the first six months of operation, Baltimore taxpayers are expected to shell out $73,000.
“This innovative ride-share pilot not only helps residents get to and from the grocery store but also reduces travel time and puts money back into the pockets of low-income residents so they are able to buy more healthy foods,” Democratic Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young said in a statement.
More than 146,000 Baltimore City residents live in food deserts, and approximately 124,500 of those residents are African Americans.
A bill prefiled in the Oklahoma Senate would prohibit state enforcement of any federal “red-flag” laws, setting the foundation to nullify any such laws in practice and effect.
Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow) filed Senate Bill 1081 (SB1081) for introduction in the 2020 legislative session. Under the proposed law, the Oklahoma legislature would “occupy and preempt the entire field of legislation in this state touching in any way federal or state extreme risk protection orders against or upon a citizen of Oklahoma to the complete exclusion of any order, ordinance or regulation by any municipality or other political subdivision of this state. “ In effect, only the Oklahoma legislature could pass any type of so-called red-flag law effective in the Sooner State.
The legislation also would declare that any federal red-flag law “which would infringe upon a citizen’s Constitutionally-protected rights including, but not limited to the right to due process, the right to keep and bear arms and the right to free speech, shall be null, void, unenforceable and of no effect in the state of Oklahoma.”
These declarations would have very little effect in practice, but SB1081 includes provisions that would make federal red-flag laws nearly impossible to enforce in Oklahoma. The proposed law would prohibit any Oklahoma agency or any political subdivision from accepting any federal grants to implement any federal statute, rule or executive order, federal or state judicial order or judicial findings that would have the effect of forcing an extreme risk protection order against or upon a citizen of Oklahoma.
It would also make it a felony offense for any individual, including a law enforcement officer, to enforce a federal red flag law. In effect, this would bar state and local police from enforcing a federal red-flag law.
EFFECTIVE
The federal government relies heavily on state cooperation to implement and enforce almost all of its laws, regulations and acts. By simply withdrawing this necessary cooperation, states and localities can nullify in effect many federal actions. As noted by the National Governors’ Association during the partial government shutdown of 2013, “states are partners with the federal government on most federal programs.”
Enforcing a red-flag law would be no different.
Based on James Madison’s advice for states and individuals in Federalist #46, a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” represents an extremely effective method to bring down federal gun control measures because most enforcement actions rely on help, support and leadership from state and local governments.
“Partnerships don’t work too well when half the team quits,” said Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center. “By withdrawing all resources and participation in the implementation and enforcement of a federal red flag law, states and even local governments can help bring these unconstitutional acts to their much-needed end.”
LEGAL BASIS
The state of Missouri can legally bar state agents from enforcing federal gun control. Refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement rests on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine.
Simply put, the federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce any federal act or program. The anti-commandeering doctrine is based primarily on five Supreme Court cases dating back to 1842. Printz v. U.S. serves as the cornerstone.
“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty”
WHAT’S NEXT
SB1081 will be officially introduced and referred to a committee when the Oklahoma legislature convenes on Feb. 2.
“Biggest Fire Loss In Fort Lauderdale History:” Two Mega Yachts Worth $24 Million Ignite In Fiery Blaze
Two large superyachts in a Fort Lauderdale marina on Sunday burned to the ground as dozens of firefighters worked for hours to contain the blaze.
Fort Lauderdale Battalion Chief Stephen Gollan told Sun-Sentinel that the yachts were valued at $24 million and were the “biggest fire loss in Fort Lauderdale history.”
Gollan said the cause of the fire is unknown, but said the yachts were docked in the marina, pending renovation work.
“We haven’t even begun the investigation yet,” Gollan told the Sun-Sentinel Sunday night. “[Monday] morning we plan to go in with ourselves and other resources from [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] and begin our investigation.” he added.
Gollan said the fire broke out early Sunday morning on Trinity Yachts, a 161-foot superyacht, worth around $12 to $16 million.
Northwestern winds at the time of the incident spread the fire to an adjacent 107-foot Christensen yacht, valued around $6 to $7 million.
Over 60 firefighters from several different fire departments fought the fire on both yachts for 5 hours on Sunday morning.
A dramatic video of the fire was posted on the Fort Lauderdale Fire Reserve’s Facebook page.
“At 04:30 on Saturday November 16th, FLFR crews responded to a report of two large yachts on fire in the 2500 block of State Road 84. Upon arrival the fire was located at Universal Marine on the docks closest to the New River.
Due to the large volume of fire and the difficulty of access, a second alarm was immediately requested. Over the next five hours more than 60 fire fighters and 3 fire boats would battle this blaze, preventing it from spreading to other yachts in the marine.
Thankfully no one was injured during this intense fire,” the fire department said.
Gollan said investigators would be reviewing video surveillance on Monday to see if the fire was intentionally set. He said if the fire turns out to be an accident — it would be tough to determine the cause considering the significant damage on both vessels.
CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled “25 times Trump was soft on Russia”, in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case that the US president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions.
The items within the CNN article consist mostly of times in which Trump said some words or failed to say other words; “Trump has repeatedly praised Putin”, “Trump refused to say Putin is a killer”, “Trump denied that Russia interfered in 2016”, “Trump made light of Russian hacking”, etc. It also includes the completely false but oft-repeated narrative that “Trump’s team softened the GOP platform on Ukraine”, as well as the utterly ridiculous and thoroughly invalidated claim that “Since intervening in Syria in 2015, the Russian military has focused its airstrikes on anti-government rebels, not ISIS.”
NEW ANALYSIS: We tallied 25 times Trump was SOFT ON RUSSIA. Examples: He praised Putin. Denied Russian meddling. Said Russia can keep Crimea. Reluctant to impose new sanctions. Attacked NATO. Congratulated Putin’s election. Withdrew from Syria. (1/4) https://t.co/3gWqYMjHwS
CNN’s 25 items are made up almost entirely of narrative and words; Trump said a nice thing about Putin, Trump said offending things to NATO allies, Trump thought about visiting Putin in Russia, etc. In contrast, the 25 items which I am about to list do not consist of narrative at all, but rather the actual movement of actual concrete objects which can easily lead to an altercation from which there may be no re-emerging. These items show that when you ignore the words and narrative spin and look at what this administration has actually been doing, it’s clear to anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty that, far from being “soft” on Russia, Trump has actually been consistently reckless in the one area where a US president must absolutely always maintain a steady hand. And he’s been doing so with zero resistance from either party.
It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it’s a fact that neither of America’s two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in the shuffle. Trump’s opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony, and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is neither. Observe:
1. Implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a more aggressive stance toward Russia
Last year Trump’s Department of Defense rolled out a Nuclear Posture Review which CNN itself called “its toughest line yet against Russia’s resurgent nuclear forces.”
“In its newly released Nuclear Posture Review, the Defense Department has focused much of its multibillion nuclear effort on an updated nuclear deterrence focused on Russia,” CNN reported last year.
This revision of nuclear policy includes the new implementation of so-called “low-yield” nuclear weapons, which, because they are designed to be more “usable” than conventional nuclear ordinances, have been called “the most dangerous weapon ever” by critics of this insane policy. These weapons, which can remove some of the inhibitions that mutually assured destruction would normally give military commanders, have already been rolled off the assembly line.
2. Arming Ukraine
For years, neocons and arms industry darlings like @RepAdamSchiff have sought to re-arm Ukraine and escalate the conflict in Donbas. By stirring up Russiagate, they finally got their deadly deal. My latest: https://t.co/pyJB4btOSk
Lost in the gibberish about Trump temporarily withholding military aide to supposedly pressure a Ukrainian government who was never even aware of being pressured is the fact that arming Ukraine against Russia is an entirely new policy that was introduced by the Trump administration in the first place. Even the Obama administration, which was plenty hawkish toward Russia in its own right, refused to implement this extremely provocative escalation against Moscow. It was not until Obama was replaced with the worst Putin puppet of all time Uthat this policy was put in place.
3. Bombing Syria
Another escalation Trump took against Russia which Obama wasn’t hawkish enough to also do was bombing the Syrian government, a longtime ally of Moscow. These airstrikes in April 2017 and April 2018 were perpetrated in retaliation for chemical weapons use allegations that there is no legitimate reason to trust at this point.
4. Staging coup attempts in Venezuela
Russia accused the United States of promoting regime change in Venezuela, warning of the “catastrophic” consequences of destabilizing one of the Kremlin’s key South American allies https://t.co/FMfPkYUPfM
Venezuela, another Russian ally, has been the subject of relentless coup attempts from the Trump administration which persist unsuccessfully to this very day. Trump’s attempts to topple the Venezuelan government have been so violent and aggressive that the starvation sanctions which he has implemented are believed to have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelan civilians.
“Signals coming from certain capitals indicating the possibility of external military interference look particularly disquieting,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “We warn against such reckless actions, which threaten catastrophic consequences.”
5. Withdrawing from the INF treaty
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has said America’s latest missile test has raised new threats and will warrant a response from Moscow.
The missile test on Sunday would have been banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.
For a president who’s “soft” on Russia, Trump has sure been eager to keep postures between the two nations extremely aggressive in nature. This administration has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to declare that “the world lost an invaluable brake on nuclear war.” It appears entirely possible that Trump will continue to adhere to the John Bolton school of nuclear weapons treaties until they all lie in tatters, with the administration strongly criticizing the crucial New START Treaty which expires in early 2021.
Some particularly demented Russiagaters try to argue that Trump withdrawing from these treaties benefits Russia in some way. These people either (A) believe that treaties only go one way, (B) believe that a nation with an economy the size of South Korea can compete with the US in an arms race, (C) believe that Russians are immune to nuclear radiation, or (D) all of the above. Withdrawing from these treaties benefits no one but the military-industrial complex.
6. Ending the Open Skies Treaty
“The Trump administration has taken steps toward leaving a nearly three-decade-old agreement designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West by allowing both sides to conduct reconnaissance flights over one another’s territories,” The Wall Street Journalreported last month, adding that the administration has alleged that “Russia has interfered with American monitoring flights while using its missions to gather intelligence in the US.”
Again, if you subscribe to the bizarre belief that withdrawing from this treaty benefits Russia, please think harder. Or ask the Russians themselves how they feel about it:
“US plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and multiply the risks for the whole world, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said,” Sputnikreports.
“All this negatively affects the predictability of the military-strategic situation and lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which drastically increases the risks for the whole humanity,” Patrushev said.
“In general, it is becoming apparent that Washington intends to use its technological leadership in order to maintain strategic dominance in the information space by actually pursuing a policy of imposing its conditions on states that are lagging behind in digital development,” he added.
“Poland signed the largest arms procurement deal in its history on Wednesday, agreeing with the United States to buy Raytheon Co’s Patriot missile defense system for $4.75 billion in a major step to modernize its forces against a bolder Russia,” Reutersreported last year.
8. Occupying Syrian oil fields
The Trump administration has been open about the fact that it is not only maintaining a military presence in Syria to control the nation’s oil, but that it is doing so in order to deprive the nation’s government of that financial resource. Syria’s ally Russia strongly opposes this, accusing the Trump administration of nothing short of “international state banditry”.
“In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under international or US law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not motivated by genuine security concerns in the region,” Reutersreported last month.
“Therefore Washington’s current actions — capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria — is, simply put, international state banditry,” Russia’s defense ministry said.
9. Killing Russians in Syria
Reports have placed Russian casualties anywhere between a handful and hundreds, but whatever the exact number the US military is known to have killed Russian citizens as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last year.
Within weeks of taking office, Trump was already sending Abrams battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and other military hardware right up to Russia’s border as part of a NATO operation.
“Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America’s dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine,” the Defense Department said in a statement.
11. War ships in the Black Sea
The US Navy is ramping up its presence in the Black Sea as part of a bid to counter Russia’s increased presence there, a US military official tells CNN https://t.co/ZlfdLqUbQypic.twitter.com/rBi7j3X1sL
Trump approved new sanctions against Russia on August 2017. CNN reports the following:
US President Donald Trump approved fresh sanctions on Russia Wednesday after Congress showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the new measures,” CNN reported at the time. “Congress passed the bill last week in response to Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea and military operations in eastern Ukraine. The bill’s passage drew ire from Moscow — which responded by stripping 755 staff members and two properties from US missions in the country — all but crushing any hope for the reset in US-Russian relations that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had called for.”
“A full-fledged trade war has been declared on Russia,” said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in response.
13. More sanctions
“The United States imposed sanctions on five Russian individuals on Wednesday, including the leader of the Republic of Chechnya, for alleged human rights abuses and involvement in criminal conspiracies, a sign that the Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Russia,” The New York Timesreported in December 2017.
“Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet,” reads a Vice headline from April of last year.
“The sanctions target seven oligarchs and 12 companies under their ownership or control, 17 senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank,” Vice reports. “While the move is aimed, in part, at Russia’s role in the U.S. 2016 election, senior U.S. government officials also stressed that the new measures seek to penalize Russia’s recent bout of international troublemaking more broadly, including its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and military activity in eastern Ukraine.”
Each new round of sanctions on Russia is an opportunity to remind ourselves that serious pundits & cable news hosts have openly posited — like, not just pondered in their in minds or anonymous chat rooms — that Trump is a Kremlin operative and/or subjected to Kremlin blackmail: https://t.co/DdS89M76Mj
“The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on a dozen individuals and entities in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” The Hillreported in November of last year. “The group includes a company linked to Bank Rossiya and Russian businessman Yuri Kovalchuk and others accused of operating in Crimea, which the U.S. says Russia seized illegally in 2014.”
17. Oh hey, more sanctions
“Today, the United States continues to take action in response to Russian attempts to influence US democratic processes by imposing sanctions on four entities and seven individuals associated with the Internet Research Agency and its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. This action increases pressure on Prigozhin by targeting his luxury assets, including three aircraft and a vessel,” reads a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from September of this year.
18. Secondary sanctions
Secondary sanctions are economic sanctions in which a third party is punished for breaching the primary sanctions of the sanctioning body. The US has leveled sanctions against both China and Turkey for purchasing Russian S-400 air defense missiles, and it is threatening to do so to India as well.
19. Forcing Russian media to register as foreign agents
Both RT and Sputnik have been forced to register as “foreign agents” by the Trump administration. This classification forced the outlets to post a disclaimer on content, to report their activities and funding sources to the Department of Justice twice a year, and could arguably place an unrealistic burden on all their social media activities as it submits to DOJ micromanagement.
20. Throwing out Russian diplomats
Worst. Putin Puppet. Ever.
“Isn’t it weird how when you ignore the narratives being promoted by both sides and just look at the raw behavior, being a ‘Putin puppet’ looks exactly the same as being a dangerously aggressive Russia hawk?”#Russia#diplomatshttps://t.co/7t2w89ZOuC
The Trump administration joined some 20 other nations in casting out scores of Russian diplomats as an immediate response to the Skripal poisoning incident in the UK.
21. Training Polish and Latvian fighters “to resist Russian aggression”
“US Army Special Forces soldiers completed the first irregular and unconventional warfare training iteration for members of the Polish Territorial Defense Forces and Latvian Zemmessardze as a part of the Ridge Runner program in West Virginia, according to service officials,” Army Timesreported this past July.
“U.S. special operations forces have been training more with allies from the Baltic states and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014,” Army Times writes. “A low-level conflict continues to simmer in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region between Russian-backed separatists and government forces to this day. The conflict spurred the Baltics into action, as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia embraced the concepts of total defense and unconventional warfare, combining active-duty, national guard and reserve-styled forces to each take on different missions to resist Russian aggression and even occupation.”
22. Refusal to recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation
Key point:Trump agreed to send more forces to Poland to defend it against Russia.
What Happened: U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to deploy approximately 1,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Reuters reported Sept. 23.
Why It Matters: The deal, which formalizes the United States’ commitment to protecting Poland from Russia, provides a diplomatic victory to Duda and his governing Law and Justice ahead of November elections. The additional U.S. troops will likely prompt a reactive military buildup from Moscow in places like neighboring Kaliningrad and, potentially, Belarus.
24. Withdrawing from the Iran deal
Russia has been consistently opposed to Trump’s destruction of the JCPOA. In a statement after Trump killed the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “deeply disappointed by the decision of US President Donald Trump to unilaterally refuse to carry out commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, adding that this administration’s actions were “trampling on the norms of international law”.
Trump has been threatening Germany with sanctions and troop withdrawal if it continues to support a gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2.
“Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he’s looking at sanctions to block the project he’s warned would leave Berlin ‘captive’ to Moscow,” Bloombergreports. “The US also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany.”
“We’re protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany” for its gas, Trump told the press.
I could have kept going, but that’s my 25. The only reason anyone still believes Trump is anything other than insanely hawkish toward Russia is because it doesn’t benefit anyone’s partisanship or profit margins to call it like it really is. The facts are right here as plain as can be, but there’s a difference between facts and narrative. If they wanted to, the political/media class could very easily use the facts I just laid out to weave the narrative that this president is imperiling us all with dangerous new cold war provocations, but that’s how different narrative is from fact; there’s almost no connection. Instead they use a light sprinkling of fact to weave a narrative that has very little to do with reality. And meanwhile the insane escalations continue.
In a cold war, it only takes one miscommunication or one defective piece of equipment to set off a chain of events that can obliterate all life on earth. The more things escalate, the greater the probability of that happening. We’re rolling the dice on armageddon every single day, and with every escalation the number we need to beat gets a bit harder.
We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the US and Russia should stop and establish detente immediately. The fact that outlets like CNN would rather diddle made-up Russiagate narratives than point to this obvious fact with truthful reporting is in and of itself sufficient to discredit them all forever.
Is This Boeing Blowback Or Anger At Lack Of Support For Aramco?
On the second day of the Dubai Airshow, also the same day Saudi Aramco canceled an IPO tour across the US, several Saudi airline carriers made a surprising move to order less Boeing planes, and in one case, even opted to buy Airbus planes instead.
Saudi Aramco canceled an IPO roadshow across the US over the lack of institutional support for the deal.
Bankers wanted comprehensive reports on oil reserves, something that Aramco has hidden from institutional investors. This made it very hard for bankers to value the deal, which created too many uncertainties about valuation.
As a result, numerous Wall Street banks moved to the sidelines, something that has undoubtedly upset Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MbS) and has likely resulted in a blowback as Saudi airline carriers have just said they will order fewer Boeing planes.
The world’s eyes are on Dubai once again this week as we host the biggest @DubaiAirshow in terms of volume of deals and international participation, with more than 1,300 exhibitors. pic.twitter.com/iegveG2YAN
When it came time for Saudi airline flynas on Monday to order Boeing 787-8 jets at the airshow, the carrier instead chose to exercise its option to purchase 40 Airbus A320neo, reported Reuters. Coincidence, or is this a blowback for Wall Street banks’ lack of support for the Aramco IPO?
Another Saudi carrier, called Etihad Airways, said on Monday that they would purchase less 787 Dreamliners than initially thought. Another coincidence, or is another subliminal message from the kingdom to the US?
Meanwhile, at the airshow, Boeing executives weren’t selling many planes but focused on calming fears amid two 737Max crashes that killed 346 people in the last year.
Airbus has so far been the big winner at the airshow, already raking in $30 billion worth of new orders as of Monday afternoon.
Left-leaning HBO host Bill Maher said that he believes the divisiveness among Americans could potentially spark another civil war.
The comedian and staunch critic of President Trump made the declaration on his latest HBO show Friday.
“Lately we’ve been hearing more and more about a second Civil War, which sounds impossible in this modern affluent country. It is not,” said the “Real Time with Bill Maher”.
Maher is not the first person to predict a civil war due to the political discourse in American culture. President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser Pastor Robert Jeffress earlier rebuked by liberal critics for an eerily similar prediction.
….If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews
The liberal outrage from this Tweet was massive. Maher seems to have faced no such backlash for his comments. However, the 63-year-old has been among the president’s most vocal critics on cable television since before Trump even entered the White House. He has regularly compared him to authoritarian dictators, and he has argued repeatedly that he does not believe Trump will relinquish the office if voted out in 2020 – an assertion the president has referenced during recent re-election campaign rallies.
“We all talk about Trump as an existential threat, but his side sees Democratic control of government the exact same way. And when both sides believe the other guy taking over means the end of the world, yes, you can have a civil war,” Maher continued.
We can’t disagree with Maher that both sides have taken it upon themselves to become more radical in their policies. And Maher added that he could be part of the problem toward the end of his program. He said he would “try to stop” insulting people critical of liberals. He then used a backhanded insult saying:
“I’ve learned that the anti-intellectualism on the right doesn’t primarily come from stupidity, it comes from hate.”
“We are going to have to learn to live with each other or there will be blood,” Maher also said during his monologue.
“I Was Wrong. And I Am Sorry”: Bloomberg Apologizes To Black Megachurch For ‘Stop And Frisk’
As Michael Bloomberg weighs a bid for the White House next year, the former New York mayor told the congregation at a ‘black megachurch’ on Sunday that he’s sorry for his support of the city’s controversial “stop-and-frisk” program which targeted a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos.
“I was wrong. And I am sorry,” Bloomberg said at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, pandering to the black vote.
Bloomberg notably supported the practice after the ruling.
“Over time [i.e. the last few years, or weeks], I’ve come to understand something that I long struggled to admit to myself: I got something important wrong. I got something important really wrong. I didn’t understand back then the full impact that stops were having on the black and Latino communities. I was totally focused on saving lives, but as we know, good intentions aren’t good enough,” he added.
In 2011, the year with the most stop-and-frisks, 685,724 NYPD stops were recorded. Of those, 88% were innocent, while 87% were black or latino and 9% white. Over half were aged 14-24 years old according to the NY ACLU.
The 77-year-old Bloomberg has not formally entered the 2020 race, however he has taken steps to get on the ballot in states with early filing deadlines according to Reuters. If he does run, Bloomberg will be the fifth most popular candidate, and the richest – eclipsing Donald Trump’s net worth by around $50 billion.
When the US and ultimately the rest of the Western world began to engage China, resulting in China finally being allowed into the World Trade Organization in the early 2000s, no one really expected the outcomes we see today.
There is no simple disengagement path, given the scope of economic and legal entanglements. This isn’t a “trade” we can simply walk away from.
But it is also one that, if allowed to continue in its current form, could lead to a loss of personal freedom for Western civilization. It really is that much of an existential question.
Doing nothing isn’t an especially good option because, like it or not, the world is becoming something quite different than we expected just a few years ago – not just technologically, but geopolitically and socially.
China and the West
Let’s begin with how we got here.
My generation came of age during the Cold War. China was a huge, impoverished odd duck in those years. In the late 1970s, China began slowly opening to the West. Change unfolded gradually but by the 1990s, serious people wanted to bring China into the modern world, and China wanted to join it.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union collapsed and the internet was born. The US, as sole superpower, saw opportunities everywhere. American businesses shifted production to lower-cost countries. Thus came the incredible extension of globalization.
We in the Western world thought (somewhat arrogantly, in hindsight) everyone else wanted to be like us. It made sense. Our ideas, freedom, and technology had won both World War II and the Cold War that followed it. Obviously, our ways were best.
But that wasn’t obvious to people elsewhere, most notably China. Leaders in Beijing may have admired our accomplishments, but not enough to abandon Communism.
They merely adapted and rebranded it. We perceived a bigger change than there actually was. Today’s Chinese communists are nowhere near Mao’s kind of communism. Xi calls it “Socialism with a Chinese character.” It appears to be a dynamic capitalistic market, but is also a totalitarian, top-down structure with rigid rules and social restrictions.
So here we are, our economy now hardwired with an autocratic regime that has no interest in becoming like us.
They want to do this by 2049, the centennial of China’s Communist revolution.
The strategy has been well documented in Chinese literature, published and sanctioned by organizations of the People’s Liberation Army, for well over 50 years.
And just as we have hawks and moderates on China within the US, there are hawks and moderates within China about how to engage the West. Unfortunately, the hawks are ascendant, embodied most clearly in Xi Jinping.
Xi’s vision of the Chinese Communist Party controlling the state and eventually influencing and even controlling the rest of the world is clear. These are not merely words for the consumption of the masses. They are instructions to party members.
Grand dreams of world domination are part and parcel of communist ideologies, going all the way back to Karl Marx. For the Chinese, this blends with the country’s own long history.
It isn’t always clear to Western minds whether they actually believe the rhetoric or simply use it to keep the peasantry in line. Pillsbury says Xi Jinping really sees this as China’s destiny, and himself as the leader who will deliver it.
To that end, according to Pillsbury, the Chinese manipulated Western politicians and business leaders into thinking China was evolving toward democracy and capitalism. In fact, the intent was to acquire our capital, technology, and other resources for use in China’s own modernization.
It worked, too.
Over the last 20–30 years, we have equipped the Chinese with almost everything they need to match us, technologically and otherwise. Hundreds of billions of Western dollars have been spent developing China and its state-owned businesses.
Sometimes this happened voluntarily, as companies gave away trade secrets in the (often futile) hope it would let them access China’s huge market. Other times it was outright theft. In either case, this was no accident but part of a long-term plan.
Pillsbury (who, by the way, advises the White House including the president himself) thinks the clash is intensifying because President Trump’s China skepticism is disrupting the Chinese plan. They see his talk of restoring America’s greatness as an affront to their own dreams.
In any case, we have reached a crossroads. What do we do about China now?
Targeted Response
In crafting a response, the first step is to define the problem correctly and specifically. We hear a lot about China cheating on trade deals and taking jobs from Americans. That’s not entirely wrong, but it’s also not the main challenge.
I believe in free trade. I think David Ricardo was right about comparative advantage: Every nation is better off if all specialize in whatever they do best.
However, free trade doesn’t mean nations need to arm their potential adversaries. Nowadays, military superiority is less about factories and shipyards than high-tech weapons and cyberwarfare. Much of our “peaceful” technology is easily weaponized.
This means our response has to be narrowly targeted at specific companies and products. Broad-based tariffs are the opposite of what we should be doing. Ditto for capital controls.
They are blunt instruments that may feel good to swing, but they hurt the wrong people and may not accomplish what we want.
We should not be using the blunt tool of tariffs to fight a trade deficit that is actually necessary. The Chinese are not paying our tariffs; US consumers are.
Importing t-shirts and sneakers from China doesn’t threaten our national security. Let that kind of trade continue unmolested and work instead on protecting our advantages in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, autonomous drones, and so on.
The Trump administration appears to (finally) be getting this. They are clearly seeking ways to pull back the various tariffs and ramping up other efforts.
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New York Times best seller and renowned financial expert John Mauldin predicts an unprecedented financial crisis that could be triggered in the next five years. Most investors seem completely unaware of the relentless pressure that’s building right now. Learn more here.
We kick off the episode with This Week in Mistrusting Google: Klon Kitchen points to a Wall Street Journal story about all the ways Google tweaks its search engine to yield results that look machine-made but aren’t. He and I agree that most of these tweaks have understandable justifications – but you have to trust Google not to misuse them. And increasingly no one does. The same goes for Google’s foray into amassing and organizing health data on millions of Americans. It’s a nothingburger with mayo, unless you mistrust Google. Since mistrusting Google is a growth industry, the report is getting a lot of attention, including from HHS investigators. Matthew Heiman explains, and when he’s done, my money is on Google surviving that investigation comfortably. The capital of mistrusting Google, of course, is Brussels, and not surprisingly, Maury Shenk tells us that the EU has forced Google to modify its advertising protocols to exclude data on sites visited by its customers.
A Massachusetts federal district court says suspicionless device searches at borders are not okay. Matthew and I dig into the details. Bottom line: Requiring reasonable suspicion for electronics searches isn’t a tough standard, but if CBP needs a reasonable suspicion that the phone contains contraband, we aren’t going to see a lot of searches. But that’s only good news for US citizens. Searches of foreign travelers’ phones can also be justified as a search for evidence that they should not be admitted to the country, and reasonable suspicion that such evidence will be found on a phone is not hard to come by.
The US Supreme Court will be deciding whether APIs can be copyrighted (or whether copying them is fair use). I put my Supreme Court maven cred on the line, predicting that the Court is going to reverse the federal circuit and reject Oracle’s claim that it can extract hefty rent payments from Google for use of Oracle APIs.
Maury and I throw shade at the federal court’s claim that it’s arbitrary and capricious for the Trump Administration to drop an unenforceable ban on the export through publication of 3D gun plans.
Advertisement (you knew it would happen eventually): Steptoe is hosting a complimentary webinar on Tuesday, December 10. We’ll be talking about the impacts on retailers of the newly implemented California Consumer Privacy Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. This is a fast-moving area of the law. You can find out more and register here.
As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@steptoe.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug!
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of the firm.
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