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Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

This week brought forward more evidence that we are living in a fabricated world.  The popular storyline presents a world of pure awesomeness.  The common experience, however, grossly falls short.

On Tuesday, for example, the Labor Department reported there were a record 6.6 million job openings in March.  Based on the Labor Department’s data, there were enough jobs available – exactly – for the 6.6 million Americans who were actively looking for a job.  What a remarkable feat!

In fact, this is the first time there’s been a job opening for every unemployed person since the Labor Department began keeping track of job openings nearly 20 years ago.  Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, took one look at the jobs and labor report and exclaimed: “The labor market is literally on fire it is so hot with job openings!”

Now, obviously, not every person is qualified for every job.  A person’s skills often don’t match up with those required for a certain job.  This may be why the unemployment rate’s 3.9 percent, not 0.0 percent.

Still, doesn’t the perfect harmony of a precise 1:1 ratio of job openings to unemployed persons strike you as being contrived?  Well, that’s because it is.

This statistic, like many of the official numbers, is fake.  It’s a fabrication.  And it doesn’t stand up to the empirical first-hand experience of broad cross-sections of the population.

Fabrications

Is the labor market really so hot with job openings that it’s literally on fire?  The Labor Department’s fake numbers say so.  Nonetheless, let’s cross check their accuracy.

To clarify, there are various ways to reduce the unemployment rate.  There are hard ways.  And there are easy ways.  Reducing the unemployment rate by increasing the number of people that are working is hard.  It take time, hard work, and discipline.  Moreover, it takes strong economic growth.

But no one likes time, hard work, and discipline.  Instead, everyone likes the opposite.  Everyone likes instant gratification, lethargy, and flexibility – especially government statisticians.

Hence, the quicker, easier, and simpler way to reduce the unemployment rate is to stop counting some of the people that fall in the unemployed category.  Make them, in effect, disappear.  Problem solved!  Here, Erik Sherman, writing for Forbes, explains how the fiction is written:

“The number of jobs increased by 164,000 in April.  But the number of unemployed dropped by 239,000 between March and April.

“That is why the employment-population ratio — the percentage of all people of working age (16 and up, including people who have stopped looking for work) that are employed — dropped from 60.4 percent to 60.3 percent.  More people disappeared from the labor rolls.”

This is how statistics are conveniently fudged and fabricated.  Of course, the disappeared unemployed didn’t actually vanish from the face of the earth.  They were merely disappeared from the unemployment rate statistics.

Still, fake numbers don’t somehow make the economy awesome.  Rather, they make the economy a constructed work of fiction.  The sole purpose of fake number is political expedience.

How to Get Ahead in Today’s Economy

Another cross check to the Labor Department’s fake numbers is wage growth.  An economy with a low unemployment rate should be an economy with high worker demand.  An economy with high worker demand should be an economy where workers have the opportunity to name their price.

In short, today’s economy – the one with an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent – should be an economy with strong wage growth.  But wage growth isn’t strong.  In fact, any wage growth there is, has been more than consumed by inflation.  People may get a raise, they may make more money in a nominal sense, but inflation eats up the extra money and then some.

How is it possible that the unemployment rate is 3.9 percent, yet wage growth is softer than a warm pile of mashed potatoes? 

Simple.  The unemployment rate is fake.

So what’s an industrious fellow to do, to get ahead in today’s economy?  Here are several options:

Option 1: Work harder and more hours, skimp and save, and stay out of debt.  Several years of this, however, and there will be no more available hours left in the day to work; though you may have squirreled away a small horde of nuts.

Option 2: Strike out on your own.  With any luck, and after a decade or two of hard work and sacrifice, you’ll be an overnight success.

Option 3: Check out of the workforce, and spend your days camped out on a portable picnic chair at the Santa Monica Public Library.  There’s free Wi-Fi!

As far as we can tell, it’s best to simultaneously do both Option 1 and Option 2.  While it may at times be masochistic, and there’s no guarantee of success, if you stay interested, and keep your sense of urgency, you’ll always have hope.

And having a little hope, no doubt, will put you ahead of nearly everyone else.

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Even as CNN is out with a new report condemning Iran for denying any responsibility or role in the latest massive exchange of fire between Israel and Syria, The New York Times has admitted (albeit buried deep in the story) that Israel was the actual aggressor and initiator of hostilities which threatened to spiral out of control overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning.

While CNN and most Israeli and mainstream media sources blame Iran for initiating an attack on Israel, on the very day of the early morning strikes (Thursday), the Times acknowledged, “The barrage [of Syria/Iran missiles] came after an apparent Israeli missile strike against a village in the Syrian Golan Heights late Wednesday.”

This is significant as Israel is seeking to cast Iran as an aggressor on its border which must be dealt with preemptively; however Syria’s response—which involved between 20 and 50 missiles launched in return fire—imposed new rules of engagement on a situation in which Israel previously acted with impunity. 

And though multiple international reports have pointed to strikes landing on the Israeli side, Israel has apparently been extremely careful in preventing photographs or video of any potential damage to see the light of day. According to professor of Middle East history Asad AbuKhalil, “Israel censor still hasn’t allowed any reports about casualties or damage.”

Up until recently, Assad had not taken the bait of Israeli provocation for years now in what we previously described as a kind of “waiting game” of survival now, retaliation later. But with the Syrian Army now victorious around the Damascus suburbs and countryside, and with much of Syria’s most populous regions back under government control, it appears that Assad’s belated yet firm response to the Israeli large scale attack has changed the calculus. 

Even NYT admits towards end of the article that Israel initiated the exchange of fire:

“The barrage came after an apparent Israeli missile strike against a village in the Syrian Golan Heights late Wednesday.”

So why isn’t this the lead or headline???https://t.co/P0Nw9AqkXz

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 10, 2018

Damascus has now signaled to Israel that its acts of aggression will be costly as Syrian leadership has shown a willingness to escalate. But how did this new and increasingly dangerous situation come about, and which side actually has the upper hand? 

* * *

Below is a dispatch authored and submitted by Elijah Magnier, Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai Media, who is currently on the ground in the region and has interviewed multiple officials involved in the conflict.

Israel hits Syrian and Iranian objectives and weapons warehouses again (evacuated weeks before) for the fourth time in a month. 28 Israeli jets participated in the biggest attack since 1974. Tel Aviv informed the Russian leadership of its intentions without succeeding in stopping the Syrian leadership from responding. Actually, what is new is the location where Damascus decided to hit back: the occupied Golan Heights (20 rockets were fired at Israeli military positions).

Syria, in coordination with its Iranian allies (without taking into consideration Russian wishes) took a very audacious decision to fire back against Israeli targets in the Golan. This indicates that Damascus and its allies are ready to widen the battle, in response to continual Israeli provocations.

But what is the reason why new Rules of Engagement (ROE) were imposed in Syria recently?

For decades there was a non-declared ROE between Hezbollah and Israel, where both sides were aware of the consequences. Usually, Israel prepares a bank of target objectives with Hezbollah offices, military objectives and warehouses and also specific commanders with key positions within the organization. Israel hits these targets, updated in every war. However, the Israelis react immediately against Hezbollah commanders, who have the task of supporting, instructing and financing Palestinians in Palestine, and above all the Palestinians of 1948 living in Israel. This has happened on many occasions where Hezbollah commanders related to the Palestinian dossier were assassinated in Lebanon.

Last month, Israel discovered that Iran was sending advanced low observable drones dropping electronic and special warfare equipment to Palestinians. The Israeli radars didn’t see these drones going backward and forward with their traditional radars, but were finally able to identify one drone using thermal detection and acoustic deterrence, to down it on its last journey.

In response to this, Israel targeted the Syrian military airport T-4 used by Iran as a base for these drones. But Israel was not satisfied and wanted to take further revenge, hitting several Iranian and Syrian targets during the following weeks.

Tel Aviv believed it could get away with repetitively hitting Iranian objectives without triggering a military response. Perhaps Israel really believed that Iran was afraid of becoming engaged in a war with Israel, with the US ready to take part in any war against the Islamic Republic from its military bases spread around Syria, in close vicinity to the Iranian forces deployed in Syria. Obviously, Iran has a different view from the Israelis, the Americans and even the Russians, who like to avoid any contact at all cost.

‘Israel retaliates’

The ridiculous trope that sums up ‘mainstream’ reporting on the Middle East. Israel: so often the victim, rather than the aggressor. Fake news. pic.twitter.com/bOfP0ANJmu

— Media Lens (@medialens) May 10, 2018

Regardless of how many Israeli jets took part in the latest attack against Iranian and Syrian objectives and how many missiles were launched or intercepted, a serious development has occurred: the Syrian high command broke all pre-existing rules and found no obstacle to bombing Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.

Again, the type of missiles or rockets fired by Syria against Israeli military objectives it is not important or whether these fell into an open space or hit their targets. What is important is the fact that a new ROE is now in place in Syria, similar to the one established by Hezbollah over Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border, when militants fired anti-aircraft cannons every time Israel violated Lebanese airspace in the 2000.

Basically Israel wanted to hit objectives in Syria but claims not to be looking for confrontation. Israel would have liked to continue provoking Syria and Iran in the Levant, but claims to be unwilling to head towards war or a battle. Israel would like to continue hitting any target it chooses in Syria without suffering retaliation.

But with its latest attack, Israel’s “unintended consequences” or provocation has forced the Syrian government to consider the occupied Golan Heights as the next battlefield. If Israel continues and hits beyond the border area, Syria will think of sending its missiles or rockets way beyond the Golan Heights to reach Israeli territory.

NEW MAP: #Israel strikes multiple targets in #Syria following rocket barrage pic.twitter.com/I3af5NzVO1

— Le Beck Int’l (@LeBeckInt) May 10, 2018

Actually, Hezbollah’s secretary general Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said a few years back: “Leave Lebanon outside the conflict. Come to Syria where we can settle our differences.” Syria, logically, has become the battlefield for all countries and parties to settle their differences, the platform where the silent war between Israel and Iran and its allies is finding its voice.

In Damascus, sources close to the leadership believe Israel will continue attacking targets. However, Israel knows now where Syria’s response will be.This is what Israel has triggered but didn’t expect. Now it has become a rule.

The Israeli Iron Dome is inefficient and unable to protect Israel from rockets and missiles launched simultaneously. Now the battle has moved into Syrian territory occupied by Israel to the reluctance of Tel Aviv, and Russia. Iran and Syria are not taking into consideration Russia’s concern to keep the level of tension low if Israel is not controlling itself. Syria recognizes the importance of Russia and its efficient role in stopping the war in Syria and all the military and political support Moscow is offering.

However, Damascus and Tehran have other considerations, especially the goal of containing Israel. They have trained over 16 local Syrian groups ready to liberate the Golan Heights or to clash with any possible Israeli advance into Syrian territory.

Israel triggered what it has always feared and has managed to get a new battlefield, the Golan heights. It is true that Israel limited itself to bombing weapons warehouses never hit before. It has bombed bases where Iranian advisors are based along with Syrian officers (Russia cleared most positions to avoid the embarrassment of being hit by Israel). It is also true that Israel didn’t regularly bomb Iranian military and transport aircraft carrying weapons to Syria, or the main Iranian center of control and command at Damascus airport. This means that not all parties are pushing for a wider escalation, so far.

Can the situation get out of control? Of course it can, the question is when?!?

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Authored by Elizabeth Vos via DisobedientMedia.com,

Disobedient Media has consistently covered the work of The Forensicator over the last nine months. Our previous report focused on the first in a series of findings made by the analyst, which reveal intricate issues stemming from the Guccifer 2.0 persona’s earliest publications, as well as the establishment media’s culpability in broadcasting the documents as part of a larger Russian hacking narrative.

This article will focus on the second work published by the Forensicator in his ongoing series, titled: Media Mishaps: Early Guccifer 2 Coverage. The Forensicator sums up the results of his latest work:

Wittingly, or not, the media served a critical role in getting the message out that there were “Russian fingerprints” inside the first document that Guccifer 2 disclosed.

The media became Guccifer 2.0’s assistant by completing the long path from the original Trump opposition report to the final published PDF’s with Russian error messages in them (the so-called “Russian fingerprints”).

As described by the Forensicator, the emergence of wide public exposure to Guccifer 2.0’s first document and the Cyrillic error messages embedded within it depended solely on the work of establishment media. The outlets involved worked to make the technical details of the matter digestible for broad public consumption, and concluded that the errors in the document constituted evidence of a successful Russian-state-sponsored hack of the DNC.

While this may not represent a shocking revelation to those who have followed the lumbering progress of the Russian hacking narrative, the Forensicator’s new report indicates the degree to which there may have been active or unwitting cooperation between the Guccifer 2.0 persona and key press outlets who published the earliest reports on the alleged hacker’s publication of the ‘Trump Opposition report.’

Leading the charge in such press coverage was The Washington Post, who reported on June 14, 2016, that the DNC alleged that it had been hacked by Russian operatives. The following day, Guccifer 2.0 made his official debut.  He shared several documents with at least two media outlets: The Smoking Gun and Gawker. The outlets focused on Guccifer 2.0’s first document, a doctored version of a Trump Opposition Report that the DNC claimed had been stolen by Russian hackers. Both media outlets published Guccifer 2.0’s first publication as a PDF file on their websites.

As discussed by the Forensicator and Disobedient Media, the fact the email to which the opposition report was attached was later published in the Podesta Email collection by Wikileaks does not prove that Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks shared a source on the document. However, it does suggest that either the DNC, the operators of the Guccifer 2.0 person, or both parties had access to Podesta’s emails. This raises questions as to why the DNC would interpret the use of this particular file as evidence of Russian penetration of the DNC.

Returning to the timeline of events surrounding media coverage of the Guccifer 2.0 persona’s debut, one recalls that the following day, on June 16, 2016, Ars Technica published an article, titled “Guccifer” leak of DNC Trump research has a Russian’s fingerprints on it.  The “Russian fingerprints” cited were the error messages, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which were included near the end of Gawker’s PDF printout of the opposition report. The errors are presented, with notation via the Forensicator, below:

Image via The Forensicator

The Forensicator’s findings describe the procedure by which Ars Technica opened Guccifer 2’s document, seeing the error messages in English despite Gawker’s PDF showing them in Russian. In response to this inconsistency, Ars Technica argued that the Russian error messages must have appeared when the file was printed as a PDF. The outlet also made the surprising claim that Gawker got its PDF file directly from Guccifer 2.0. This statement, as highlighted by the Forensicator in the following image, raises serious questions regarding the relationship between major press outlets and supposed Russian hackers.

It is important to not that the possibility that the respective outlets worked directly with those responsible for the Guccifer 2.0 persona cannot be proven, or ruled out, based on the currently available evidence.

 

It is also highly interesting that in this incredibly early Ars Technica report on the Guccifer 2.0 persona’s publication of an attachment from a Podesta email would use the term “leaker,” as opposed to “hacker,” in coverage which ultimately implied the DNC had been hacked by Russians. In fact, the article did not use the term one, but three times, including the article’s subtitle. One can only wonder if this apparent Freudian slip represented an unintentional admission of the real circumstances of the initial security breach at the DNC from which all later ‘Russian hacking’ controversy stems.

The Forensicator’s latest work provides a close reading of the metadata for the PDF’s published by The Smoking Gun and Gawker, shown in the table below. In reviewing his work, one notices that Gawker used LibreOffice and that The Smoking Gun used Word for Mac to create their PDF files.

The Forensicator’s analysis destroys Ars Technica’s speculative theory, by pointing out that Gawker‘s PDF has Russian error messages because Guccifer 2’s 1.doc was opened in LibreOffice:

If we open 1.doc in LibreOffice, the Russian error messages are visible.  They will be displayed in Russian, independent of the user’s language settings.  Why?  This behavior derives from the fact that LibreOffice handles these invalid (empty) URL’s differently than Microsoft Word for Windows.

We observe that LibreOffice does not issue an error when it encounters an empty URL inside a HYPERLINK field; it simply prints the text defined by \fldrslt.  The \fldrslt value in this case is the display text for the URL, which happens to be the Russian error message.  LibreOffice prints that Russian error message independent of the user’s current language setting; it thinks it is simply the URL’s display text.

The above explanation iterates the method by which Gawker created its PDF with “Russian fingerprints”, but leaves one wondering how The Smoking Gun produced its PDF containing Russian error messages?  The Smoking Gun did not use LibreOffice – they used Word for Mac instead.  The Forensicator runs this down, writing:

“Surprisingly, Word for Mac behaves differently from Word for Windows, when it encounters an empty URL.  Word for Mac behaves similarly to LibreOffice; it quietly accepts the empty URL and simply displays the hyperlink text (defined by the \fldrslt function code) inside the document.  This text happens to be a Russian error message, written in Cyrillic.”

The Forensicator points out that if both media outlets had opened Guccifer 2’s 1.doc in Word for Windows, the error messages would have appeared in English, and there would never have been any “Russian fingerprints” – and therefore Russian hacking – story.  Given that the vast majority of users have Microsoft Word for Windows, it is especially surprising that both Gawker and The Smoking Gun used a different word processing application.

In his previous report, the Forensicator explained the multi-step complex process used to embed the Russian error messages into 1.doc, in other words, the Guccifer 2.0 persona’s side of the operation in producing the initial Russian hacking ‘evidence.’  Now, we learn from his newest report, that a final critical final step was needed to have those Russian error messages appear in the published PDF’s – the journalists had to print those PDF’s with either LibreOffice or Word for Mac. Given this, the Forensicator makes this critical summary point:

“The media became Guccifer 2’s assistant by completing the long path from the original Trump opposition report to the final published PDF’s with Russian error messages in them (the so-called Russian fingerprints).”

The Forensicator mentions that his analysis depends on the assumption that both Gawker and The Smoking Gungenerated their own PDF’s.  If instead, they received their PDF documents from those behind the construction of the Guccifer 2.0 persona or a third party and didn’t inform their readers of this ‘chain-of-custody’ of their evidence, serious questions as to the integrity of their reporting process are inevitably raised.

In this way, the respective media outlets can be said to have taken an active role (wittingly or not) in advancing the “Russian fingerprints” narrative. They achieved this by describing Guccifer 2.0’s publication of the Trump Opposition report as an incident related to Russian hacking, and most importantly, by using the required operating systems and settings to create Cyrillic error messages used to substantiate these claims. Placing the intent of the journalists involved and the ominous reference by Ars Technica to a ‘leaker’ aside, Gawker and The Smoking Gun can be said to have acted as final messengers of the Guccifer 2.0 persona and those behind it. 

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The value of all the bitcoins sitting in underground bunkers owned by wealth-management startup Xapo has been the subject of intense speculation ever since the company first allowed journalists into the catacombs where the family offices of the world’s wealthiest people stash their digital gold.

Now, Bloomberg – after conversations with two purported clients – has produced a figure: Somewhere around $10 billion. Several sources said that number would be “a good approximation” – though the price can still be volatile.

Interestingly enough, with its reputation unmatched by other firms, Xapo has in effect created something more than just a bitcoin vault. It’s essentially the first private bank for rich bitcoiners.

Because in addition to its security offerings, Xapo also provides customers with a bitcoin debit card and access to a bitcoin trading desk.

Already, the company’s holdings – which constitute roughly 7% of the global bitcoin supply – are higher than 98% of the 5,670 banks in the US.

“Everyone who isn’t keeping keys themselves is keeping them with Xapo,” said Ryan Radloff of CoinShares, which has more than $500 million of Bitcoin stored at Xapo. “You couldn’t pay me to keep it with a bank.”

Founded by Argentine entrepreneur and PayPal board member Wences Casares, who is widely credited with turning the Valley’s VC billionaires on to bitcoin, the company has amassed a network of underground vaults, including a decommissioned Swiss military bunker.

Thanks to Cesares’ reputation, Xapo has managed to attract venture investments from some of the Valley’s biggest names, including LinkedIn Corp. co-founder Reed Hoffman and former Wall Street trader Mike Novogratz, who is, of course, is in the process of setting up his own crypto “merchant bank” that might end up competing with Xapo.

It also has relationships with major crypto investment firms, such as Grayscale and CoinShares.

Xapo’s clients aren’t limited to wealthy individuals. First Block Capital, one of Canada’s first registered crypto firms, chose Xapo to be its custodian – the first sign that the institutional market for crypto custody could some day dwarf Xapo’s private business.

“Every part of their DNA is geared to security,” said Sean Clark, First Block’s founder, who noted the vault’s fingerprint scanners were equipped with a pulse reader to prevent amputated hands from being used. “Whenever we make big transfers they FaceTime us, we have duress words, if it’s big enough they’ll fly out to see us.”

To pursue institutional investors, Xapo President Ted Rogers hired Peter Najarian, a veteran of emerging-market trading at UBS Group and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, to oversee outreach to pension funds, private banks, assets managers, family offices and hedge funds.

The perceived lack of an institutional-grade custodial solution for Bitcoin has been one of the sticking points for many money managers looking to try the asset class. Xapo says its already offering precisely that solution. If it persuades them of its merits, the implications for Bitcoin would be profound.

“A fraction of that kind of institutional money flowing into the space would be a tidal wave,” Najarian said.

However, there’s one factor that could limit Xapo’s growth, particularly as the crypto market outside of bitcoin grows (assuming the alt-coin universe hasn’t already reached its zenith). The company only works with bitcoin because of Cesares’ belief that it alone will succeed. 

For everybody who’s not wealthy enough (or too cheap) to pay a third party for an elaborate private-storage scheme, individuals can always store their private keys – the tool that gives them access to their bitcoin – on a hard drive that’s air-gapped from the Internet.

Of course, no solution is 100% safe from hackers and thieves. And at the end of the day, that reality might be enough to indefinitely stave off the “mainstream adoption” that bitcoiners say is just around the corner.

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Did the tide just change? Yesterday, we detailed The Wall Street Journal’s extraordinary claims that The FBI hid a mole in the Trump campaign and the ongoing debacle playing out between House Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), the Department of Justice, and the Mueller investigation concerning a cache of intelligence that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refuses to hand over.

And tonight, The Wall Street Journal again dares to publish an op-ed from a 33-year veteran of The FBI who reflects on the debacle above, proclaiming his “shock” at the disrespect being shown to Congress…
“When I was at the bureau, lawmakers’ requests for information got prompt responses…”

As Thomas Baker exclaims “it truly is a change in culture.”

Last week we learned that some Republican members of Congress are considering articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he doesn’t hand over certain Federal Bureau of Investigation documents. In January, House Speaker Paul Ryan had to threaten the deputy attorney general and FBI Director Christopher Wray with contempt to get them to comply with a House subpoena for documents about the Steele dossier.

I spent 33 years in the FBI, including several working in the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. The recent deterioration in the bureau’s relationship with Congress is shocking. It truly is a change in culture.

Former Directors William Webster (1978-87) and Louis Freeh (1993-2001) insisted that the FBI respond promptly to any congressional request. In those days a congressional committee didn’t need a subpoena to get information from the FBI. Yes, we were particularly responsive to the appropriations committees, which are key to the bureau’s funding. But my colleagues and I shared a general sense that responding to congressional requests was the right thing to do.

The bureau’s leaders often reminded us of Congress’s legitimate oversight role. This was particularly true of the so-called Gang of Eight, which was created by statute to ensure the existence of a secure vehicle through which congressional leaders could be briefed on the most sensitive counterintelligence or terrorism investigations.

On Aug. 27, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes asked the FBI to deliver certain documents immediately. The bulk of the documents weren’t actually delivered until Jan. 11. I can’t imagine Mr. Webster or Mr. Freeh tolerating such a delay. One of the documents Mr. Nunes requested is the electronic communication believed to have initiated the counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump in July 2016. The FBI had previously provided a redacted text of that communication, but the Intelligence Committee wanted to see more.

On March 23 the bureau essentially told the committee it wouldn’t lift the redactions. There are legitimate reasons why the FBI would want certain portions of a sensitive document redacted, such as when information comes from a foreign partner. But there are ways around such difficulties. Select members of Congress have in the past been allowed to read highly sensitive documents under specific restrictions.

Former FBI Director James Comey didn’t even inform the Gang of Eight that the bureau had opened a counterintelligence investigation into the campaign of a major-party candidate for president. He testified on March 20, 2017, that he had kept Congress in the dark about the Trump investigation because he’d been advised to do so by his assistant director of counterintelligence—due to “the sensitivity of the matter.”

The Gang of Eight exists for precisely this purpose. Not using it is inexplicable.

This isn’t the way a law-enforcement agency should behave under our system of separation of powers.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions must push Mr. Wray to get the FBI’s relationship with Congress back on track. It won’t be easy, but the American people deserve it and the Constitution demands it.

One wonders how long before Mr. Baker – a retired FBI special agent and legal attaché – is ‘probed’ for being a puppet of Putin? Or when The Wall Street Journal will be ‘investigated’ for ‘something… anything’ just to slow their roll a little on this anti-establishment tilt they seem to have taken. Either way, for now, it is a refreshing change to read some common sense.

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Russia has made an apparent U-turn on its prior signaling that it would supply the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Syria after this week’s major escalation between Syria and Israel, which involved scores of surface-to-surface rockets being fired by both sides, primarily across the contested Golan border, and some 28 Israeli aircraft firing around 60 air-to-surface missiles at Syria during the exchange.

Is this the beginning of a Russian lack of commitment in Syria? Or is this the realization that Syria can stand on its own after creating new rules of engagement with Israel? 

Russia is now indicating Syria has “everything it needs” to repel Israeli aggression. 

Reuters reports that Putin’s personal aide indicated the change in calculus: 

The comments, by Vladimir Kozhin, an aide to President Vladimir Putin who oversees Russian military assistance to other countries, follow a visit to Moscow by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, who has been lobbying Putin hard not to transfer the missiles.

“For now, we’re not talking about any deliveries of new modern (air defense) systems,” Izvestia cited Kozhin as saying when asked about the possibility of supplying Syria with S-300s.

The Syrian military already had “everything it needed,” Kozhin added.

Late last month Russian Defense Ministry officials caught the world’s attention by announcing through state-run RIA that it “plans to deliver new air defense systems to Syria in the near future” after a series of unprovoked Israeli strikes inside Syria, which Israel claims targets Iranian troops and assets. Talk of delivery of the S-300 has been a constant since President Trump ordered a massive tomahawk missile attack on Damascus and other locations on April 13th, ostensibly in retaliation for al-Qaeda linked Jaish al-Islam claims of a chemical attack on civilians by the Syrian Army. 

It must also be remembered that this week’s exchange of fire began just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded the 10-hour visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and less than a day after Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu told reporters immediately after the short meeting that he didn’t expect Russia to act against Israeli forces as they continue escalating attacks on Syria, supposedly while enforcing their “Iranian red line.” 

While it’s possible that Putin may have personally given a green light for Netanyau to act (or at least discussed understood limitations and conditions), what is certain is that Syria has—given its significant response in the form of between 20 and 50 missiles launched in return fire—imposed new rules of engagement.

Though international reports have consistently pointed to hits on the Israeli side, Israel has apparently been extremely careful in preventing photographs or video of any potential damage on the Israeli side to see the light of day. According to professor of Middle East history Asad AbuKhalil, “Israel censor still hasn’t allowed any reports about casualties or damage.”

Syria’s current missile defense systems appear to have performed well. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported, citing a military source, that the army’s air defenses had “shot down dozens of Israeli missiles, preventing most of them from reaching their targets,” however, some of the rockets managed to hit radars and an ammunition depot. But beyond this, the multiple videos purporting to show direct intercepts by Syrian defenses make for a convincing case.

Could it be that Moscow understands that Syria’s current Soviet supplied S-200 system (among other integrated systems) is doing just fine against Israeli incursions, and sees no need to further escalate tensions with Tel Aviv? Israel has long promised to attack any S-300 deliveries or installation sites even before they come online. 

There’s the other possibility that Moscow has in fact decided to move forward with the S-300’s for Syria while publicly distancing itself. To train Syrians on the new system would take at least a month, according to past Russian military statements, and would initially involve Russian personnel to man the systems—all of which would further risk escalation with Israel, especially if Israel followed through on threats of striking missile locations with Russians present. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has previously warned that, “We never announced these deliveries as such. However, we said that after the strikes [by the US, France and the UK on Syria], Russia reserves the right to do whatever it deems necessary.”

The Russian-made S-300 and S-400 are widely acknowledged to be far superior in their capability and reach that Syria’s current S-200 system. If installed—something which now appears unlikely to occur anytime soon—Syria might very well become untouchable. But this is precisely what Israel worries about, as Haaretz noted recently, “With Putin’s S-300, Assad’s army could even ‘lock-on’ IAF aircraft as they take off from bases within Israel.” And as one Israeli defense analyst put it, “Israel should be worried.”

For now, however, it could be that Netanyahu’s lobbying worked. Or perhaps Israel is already worried that Syria seems to an impressive degree already deterring some of the Israeli barrage even with its current 30-year old systems. 

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Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

How many of you were wondering, as I was, what the suddenly former New York Attorney General, Mr. Schneiderman, might have looked like in a leather bondage get-up with a ball-gag stuffed in his pie-hole? Not the preferred courtroom attire, of course, and a less appetizing image of justice than, say, a blindfolded, half-naked lady holding a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. But that’s how our boy rolled, even while heaping censorious opprobrium (and indictments!) on other big shot alpha dogs for defiling the honor of women.

I sense that with Schneiderman we’ve reached the zenith in this comic phase of American cultural collapse. The same week, Vanity Fair Magazine ran this item about the pop star Rihanna:

Rihanna’s lingerie collection will drop on Friday [today], and there’s one very special addition that is making people lose their minds: her line, Savage x Fenty, will feature handcuffs. [Fenty is Ms. Rihanna’s surname.]

Just days after she reimagined the Pope at the Met Gala, Rihanna is reminding us that this is still her week. She told Vogue that it was only natural that Fenty Beauty, which launched last fall, feature a lingerie line for women who want to express agency over their own looks and bodies…. ‘Women should be wearing lingerie for their damn selves,’ Rihanna [told Vogue]. I want people to wear Savage x Fenty and think, I’m a bad bitch.’”

Well, handcuffs are fashion accessories for entering prison… and the Marquis deSade did pen much of his personal philosophy in prison… and the women’s penitentiaries are full of bad bitches… so therefore let America celebrate incarceration and sadism! And especially women expressing their personal agency by advertising themselves as… evil? Apparently, a fellow such as Mr. Schneiderman, an avatar of justice, would wish to strike a blow against evil. Thus, beset by one bad bitch after another, he laid the blows of righteous judgment upon the women in his life…! Or something like that.

Forgive me here. I’m trying to imagine how the proverbial Man From Mars might interpret doings in America these days from reading our popular press. Frankly, the part I like best is “reimagining the Pope,” as though it was a great feat of innovation, akin to one of the triumphs of Elon Musk, or Innocent III’s rewrite of canon law — when it was just an act of dress-up. The Met Gala, by the way, an annual costume party thrown by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, proclaimed its theme this year as “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” — an invitation, if there ever was one, to mingle the sacred and the profane.

Rihanna in Pope get-up

The Martian in me sees America turning into something like a Fellini movie, a panorama of fabulous excess and sinister fantasy, with the more malign forces of commerce propelling the garbage barge to ever darker extremes at the edge of a flat earth. On one part of the edge stands President Trump, all greatness and little goodness; and on the other edge stand characters like Eric Schneiderman and Harvey Weinstein, deposed champions of social justice – now cultural blood-brothers in the Sexual Predators Hall of Infamy.

Mr. Schneiderman was all set to drag Mr. Weinstein, figuratively speaking, over several miles of broken glass and old Gillette blue blades in the state courts, and now it looks like the former NY AG himself may submit to a death of a thousand cuts by civil litigation, or maybe even a trip to one of his old criminal courtrooms, if the ever-vengeful Governor Andrew Cuomo has his wicked way.

If America were an X-rated billiard parlor, I’d think it had run the table on political sex stories, with nothing but the eight-ball of doom left on the table, and a wrathful deity – the Pope’s boss, shall we say – standing there chalking up his cue stick. When he sinks that last shot, a new game will get underway. I believe it will have to do with financial markets and currencies, and a lot more will hang on the outcome. The break itself should be a doozy – all those colored balls banging into each other and dropping into oblivion.

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A significant manufacturing error on the U.S. Navy’s newest multi-billion dollar nuclear-powered aircraft carrier abruptly ended the vessel’s shakedown cruise at the beginning of this year, Bloomberg reports.

In January, the $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) aircraft carrier experienced a propulsion system failure, during a period of intense performance tests. The shakedown cruise simulates working conditions for the vessel, which is typical for new ships. According to an internal Navy memo obtained by Bloomberg, the ship’s crew noticed a temperature increase of “92 degrees Fahrenheit above the trust bearing temperature setpoint.”

A thrust bearing is a critical component of the propulsion system of a vessel. It transfers the propulsive energy from the propeller to the ship’s hull, allowing the propeller to push the boat forward. According to the memo, “after securing the equipment to prevent damage, the ship safely returned to port.”

In other words, the +90,000 ton, nuclear-powered vessel experienced a catastrophic failure of its propulsion system. Luckily, the failure occurred on a shakedown cruise and not in enemy waters, because, the ship would have been a sitting duck. The memo said “prevent damage,” that is an indication that engineers advised the captain to shut off the propeller that was connected to the malfunctioning thrust block. This would have resulted in a tremendous reduction of speed as the vessel returned to port.

Interesting enough, the breakdown occurred in Janurary, but recently disclosed after Bloomberg uncovered an internal memo from Naval Sea Systems Command.

“Navy officials didn’t disclose the problem during budget hearings before Congress in recent weeks and House and Senate lawmakers didn’t ask about it,” Bloomberg observed.

According to the memo, Huntington Ingalls, the shipbuilding company responsible for manufacturing USS Gerald R. Ford, expressed to the Navy that the propulsion system breakdown was triggered by a “manufacturing defect” and “not an improper operation” by the crew aboard the ship. Huntington Ingalls declined to state who was responsible for the defective thrust bearing, but Bloomberg noted that an inspection of the parts inside the affected thrust block show that poorly machined gears were manufactured at GE’s facility in Lynn, Massachusetts as the “root cause.”

A representative from GE said the company halted all production of the internal components of the thrust block for the USS Gerald R. Ford, which leaves us with many unanswered questions… The memo said the parts are reportedly “out of spec,” and would need to be repaired or completely replaced. As we mentioned above, there are four propellers with four thrust blocks, which if GE poorly manufactured one thrust bearing, then, are the other three comprised as well?

During the “post-shakedown availability” phase, improvements are generally made while the ship is in drydock. Bloomberg fails to note the extent of the damage nor the turnaround time in bringing the world’s most expensive aircraft carrier back to full operational capacity. There is a reason why the Navy has kept this failure a secret for many months — because it is a complete embarrassment. If the Navy went out of their way to hide this failure, what else are they hiding from taxpayers?

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