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As 1000s of Women’s March protesters gather in cities across America on the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, a class taught this spring at Ohio State University will review a parade of reasons why white heterosexual masculinity is allegedly problematic, tackling the topic from the constructs of racial issues, bullying, pop culture, societal expectations and much more, according to its syllabus.

As The College Fix’s Amanda Tidwell reports,  the syallbus states that masculinity simultaneously harms yet privileges men.

The course, “Be a Man! Masculinities, Race and Nation,” includes a variety of readings to that end, including its required textbook “Dude, You’re a Fag!” by C.J. Pascoe, which analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process, but sexual one, its Amazon description states.

Other assigned reading excerpts include: “Masculinity as Homophobia” by Michael Kimmel; “Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity” by Jackson Katz; “Dude Sex: Dudes Who Have Sex with Dudes” by Jane Ward; “Looking for My Penis” by Richard Fung; “Sodomy in the New World” by Jonathan Goldberg; and “Teaching Men’s Anal Pleasure” by Susan Stiritz.

The class is also expected to screen “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” the dashcam footage of Philando Castile’s murder, Key & Peele’s “Hoodie Skit,” and an episode of “The New Normal.”

 

The course is ultimately presented as a study in “feminist masculinity” that seeks to explain how ideas about masculinity “simultaneously harm yet privilege” men, the syllabus states. It also aims to explain how “beliefs regarding masculinity serve to justify certain kinds of violence by men against others, and violence against particular groups of men.”

Before outlining any academic criteria of the course, the syllabus states that the class meets “on land taken by force from Native Americans.” On the first day of the “Be a Man!” class in early January, students went over a “male privilege checklist,” according to the syllabus.

The course was created and is taught by Jonathan Branfman. Branfman is a doctoral candidate in Ohio State’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a recent recipient of a 2017-18 Presidential Fellowship, the most prestigious award given to students by the OSU Graduate School, according the the department’s website.

Branfman is also author of the new children’s book “You Be You!” intended for 7- to 12-year-olds that gives parents a “simple and accessible way” to introduce children to gender and sexual identity “in hopes of decreasing stigmas associated with the LGBTQ community,” the Lantern campus newspaper reports.

“It was really a result of teaching women’s, gender and sexuality studies classes at OSU,” Branfman told the Lantern.

“I often found myself thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got really clear, unstigmatized information about gender and sexual diversity at a young age instead of them having to unlearn all kinds of harmful false ideas when they’re 12 instead of when they’re 20?’”

Branfman did not respond to requests from The College Fix seeking comment.

“The goals of this course are both scholarly and practical. On a scholarly level, students will trace the scholarly debates about masculinity, and understand how these questions have emerged out of feminist and queer research. On a practical level, this knowledge may help students to understand the ideologies they encounter in daily life. In turn, this understanding may help students to navigate the pressures, exclusions and violence they face in order to enhance their own wellbeing and others,” the syllabus states.

Never one to shy away from expressing his feelings, Paul Craig Roberts recently opined: Americans – especially white people who are the target of the deadly ideology of Identity Politics and are placed by the ideology in the same position as Jews in Nazi Germany and capitalists in Soviet Russia – are unaware of the extent to which Identity Politics is now the dominant force in American culture.

Initially, white males – such as the University of Virginia history professor on NPR who obligingly demonized the white males who do not accept their second class status – survive by mouthing Identity Politics and crawling on their knees. But this is a temporary respite.

For Identity Politics the only acceptable white heterosexual males are those who admit their gender and sexual preference guilt and accept their punishment for being the victimizers of women, blacks, and homosexuals.

As anti-white male propaganda is apparently the only mental activity of which the liberal/progressive/left is capable, America, broken into pieces by Identity Politics, is heading into civil war.

I wonder which side will control the nukes and bio-chemical weapons.

If the white heterosexual males lose, I wonder who will protect the white women. Are they destined for the same rape and butchery as befell German women from the Russians and Americans once the Wehrmacht surrendered?

Of course, this is an impermissible question.

Identity Politics always leads to violence, and Americans will not be spared.

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It appears Billionaire Clintonite Tom Steyer is surprised that the nationwide ad campaign he bankrolled to urge members of Congress to impeach President Trump hasn’t yielded results by now.

Steyer went off on both Republicans and Democrats Friday after a House vote on articles of impeachment garnered a paltry 66 votes.

“This vote is not a reflection of whether or not Trump has passed the threshold for impeachment, which he did months ago,” Steyer said Friday in a press statement after the vote. “It is a failure by members of Congress to do what’s right to keep the American people safe.”

Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager from liberal California, launched his ‘Need to Impeach’ movement in October of 2017. While more than four million people have signed his petition, Democrats aren’t particularly happy with the initiative. Democratic leaders believe pushing for impeachment could hurt their party’s chances in the midterms later this year. Steyer underscored his campaign by sending copies of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” to every lawmaker.

 

Nancy Pelosi has criticized an impeachment campaign as being impractical and suggested it distracts from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Steyer, who supported former Secretary for State Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, backs the Mueller investigation but thinks there is an “open and shut case that [Trump] has met the criteria for impeachment” – though he has yet to produce specific evidence of this.

According to the Daily Caller, there was speculation that Steyer was using his $20 million impeachment drive to run for office. But he rebutted this earlier this month during a press conference in Washington. Steyer said he will spend 2018 dumping millions of dollars into campaigns to unseat Republicans instead of campaigning for California’s open gubernatorial seat.

But regardless of whether Steyer ultimately runs, this cringe-worthy video he made to kick off the “Need to Impeach” campaign will live on the Internet forever…

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Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,

Oops, they’re already rising.

The US government bond market has further soured this week, with Treasuries selling off across the spectrum. When bond prices fall, yields rise. For example, the two-year Treasury yield rose to 2.06% on Friday, the highest since September 2008.

In the chart, note the determined spike of 79 basis points since September 8, 2017. That was the month when the Fed announced the highly telegraphed details of its QE Unwind.

September as the month of the QE-Unwind announcement keeps cropping up. All kinds of things began to happen, at first quietly, without drawing much attention. But then the trajectory just kept going.

The three-year yield, which had gone nowhere for the first eight months of 2017, rose to 2.20% on Friday, the highest since October 1, 2008. It has spiked 82 basis points since September 8:

The ten-year yield – the benchmark for financial markets that most influences US mortgage rates – jumped to 2.66% late Friday.

This is particularly interesting because the 10-year yield had declined from March 2017 into August despite the Fed’s three rate hikes last year, and rising short-term yields.

At 2.66%, the 10-year yield has reached its highest level since April 2014, when the “Taper Tantrum” was winding down. That Taper Tantrum was the bond market’s way of saying “we’re shocked and appalled,” when Chairman Bernanke dropped hints the Fed might eventually begin tapering what the market had called “QE Infinity.”

The 10-year yield has now doubled since the historic intraday low on July 7, 2016 of 1.32% (it closed that day at 1.37%, a historic closing low):

Friday capped four weeks of pain in the Treasury market. But it has not impacted yet the corporate bond market, and the spread in yields between Treasuries and corporate bonds, and particularly junk bonds, has further narrowed. And it has not yet impacted the stock market, and there has been no adjustment in the market’s risk pricing yet.

But it has impacted the mortgage market. On Friday, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) for top-tier borrowers, according to Mortgage News Daily, ended at 4.23%, the highest in nine months.

But historically, 4.25% is still very low. And likely just the beginning of a long, uneven climb higher.

And the impact on mortgage payments can be sizable. When rates rise for example from 3.5% to 4.5%, the payment for a $250,000 mortgage jumps by $144 to $1,267 a month. This can move the payment out of reach for households that have trouble making ends meet.

A one-percentage-point increase takes on larger proportions in a place like San Francisco, where it might take a mortgage of $1.25 million to buy a median home. At 3.5%, the monthly payment is $5,613. At 4.5%, it jumps to $6,334, an increase of $721 a month and an increase of $8,652 a year.

A mortgage rate of 4.5% is still very low! And it is likely headed higher.

Since the Financial Crisis, the ultra-low mortgage rates were among the factors that have caused home prices to soar. But as rates are heading higher, the housing market is in for a big rethink. These higher rates are going to be applied to the now prevailing sky-high home prices.

This will come in addition to the rethink triggered by what the new tax law will do to the housing market.

 

There’s another aspect to this equation: Homebuyers who are willing and able to stretch to cough up those higher mortgage payments can’t spend this money on other things. Falling mortgage rates gave a huge boost to home prices and to the entire economy in numerous ways. But that process will go into reverse.

So where will it go from here? The 10-year yield is still historically low and has a lot of catching up to do with regards to the trajectory of shorter-term yields. In addition, the Fed will continue to push its buttons – gradually hiking its target range for the federal funds rate and proceeding with its “balance sheet normalization.” And as the 10-year yield rises, mortgage rates will respond, and Housing Bubble 2 will get a lot more costly to deal with.

Even the bond market’s inflation expectations now exceed the Fed’s target. Read… Bond Market Smells Inflation, Begins to React

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On Friday  we showed that according to the latest fund flow data, anecdotal speculation of a marketwide melt-up was indeed the case. As a reminder, earlier in the week, we discussed how  market optimism among both professional and retail investors had hit the highest level since just before the crash of 1987…

… with a recent E-Trade survey disclosed  that 8 out of 10 retail investors – the highest on record – were certain that stocks would continue to rise in Q1. Then, BofA calculated that the 4-week inflows into equities was not only “thundering”, it was the largest ever. This is the result of a massive $23.9bn weekly inflow into equities which brings the 4-week inflow to stocks to the biggest ever, $58bn as shown in the below…

and there was even some good news for active managers: the 4-week inflows to active equity funds was at a 4-year high, although the relentless market share theft by ETFs is unlikely to change any time soon, and certainly not if the market keeps levitating with virtually no volatility.

Now it’s JPMorgan’s turn to opine on recent market euphoria, which – in the aptly named weekly “Flows and Liquidity” report, arguably JPM’s most interesting publication – it says that as of Friday, “momentum signals have reached extreme levels for the S&P” which to JPM’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou suggests that “equities are vulnerable to near-term profit taking.“

Why? JPM observes that after revisiting the bank’s momentum-based indicators, shown in Tables A5 and A7 below which it uses to infer how CTAs and other momentum-based investors are positioned across various commodities as well as equity indices, US sectors, bond futures and currency pairs….

 

 

… JPM noted that “momentum was approaching extreme levels in the S&P 500, along with the Nikkei as well as crude oil futures.”

 

 

The tables reveal, that in the just passed week, the continued strong momentum in risky asset prices saw the z-score of JPM’s S&P signal triggering the mean reversion overlay on Thursday after pointing to longs for around a year and a half.

This means that at long last, the market “could be at levels where momentum-based investors would begin to take profit on their positions.”

Additionally, the continued sell-off in bond markets has seen z-scores for US Treasury futures shift further into negative territory, “but they remain some way away from extreme levels.” Finally, for oil, momentum retraced some of the recent strong gains after Brent oil prices declined from a peak of just over $70 per barrel, though as Chart A39 in the Appendix shows speculative.

To recap: CTAs and other momentum-factor based investors are now at and beyond levels where they traditionally take profits. This could start happening as soon as next week, especially should the market be spooked by the uncertainty surrounding the government shutdown, which as Goldman said yesterday “could last a few weeks”, and near the date of the US debt ceiling D-date, some time in early March, by which point stocks will really sell off if there still is no funding deal.

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Foreigners are being asked by their respective governments to exercise extreme caution and stay within the perimeter of their resorts in Montego Bay, Jamaica, after a wave of out of control violence has overpowered local authorities. On Thursday, the country’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, declared the state of emergency in the St. James parish to “restore public safety,” and also thwart a mass exodus of international investment and tourism.

In response, the government deployed the Jamaica Defense Forces onto the city streets in what is described as a “major military operation.”

Maj. Gen. Antony Anderson, Jamaica’s national security advisor, told CTV News Channel on Friday that authorities imposed a military lockdown of the area, following 335 homicides in 2017, and as reported by CTV that is “twice the tally of any other parish” in the country.

Anderson noted that the number of shootings and homicides have been growing for some period of time, but last year, the surge in deaths could not be ignored rolling into 2018. He said much of the problem resides on the outskirts of Montego Bay and that “Jamaica is still open for business.”

Life in a state of emergency. #MontegoBay #JLPGovernment pic.twitter.com/FL4Rm3EI8w

— State of Jamaica (@JamaicaState) January 20, 2018

The recent crime surge in Jamaica has been driven by conflicts between criminal gangs over the control of the lottery trade, drug wars, and even turf wars.

Maj. Gen. Anderson describes the state of emergency which gives military troops “more freedom of action.”

“For instance, they can do searches without a warrant, so if they get information that something is occurring somewhere, they can respond rapidly to it. They can respond to a series of intelligence-driven operations to target and capture the people who are doing these things and generally disrupt the gangs in their activities,” he added.

Police officers in St. James have listed the top five most wanted men in the parish. They are urged to turn themselves in immediately. Call the Montego Bay Police at 953-6191, or call/text/WhatsApp information to the tip line @ 837-8888. pic.twitter.com/NHVgt3V64n

— Jamaica Constabulary (@JamaicaConstab) January 19, 2018

According to Loop Jamaica,

The entire parish of St James is now locked down by members of the military in what is being reported as a limited state of emergency that has been imposed by the Government. Soldiers are visible stopping and searching motor vehicles at various points in the parish where 335 murders were recorded last year.

There has been no let up to the bloodletting in the parish this year, with criminal attacks there moving to the point where in a daring attack by gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles, a man was killed and others injured in an incident on the roadway near the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, the parish capital and the national tourism centre, earlier this week.

Government forces are conducting door to door operations in St. James.

Police personnel search a house on Codac Lane in Flanker, St James while soldiers patrol the area where a major military operation is under way. https://t.co/R9o2Eq84Lp #glnrNews pic.twitter.com/kC3gIFTmjd

— Jamaica Gleaner (@JamaicaGleaner) January 18, 2018

Military checkpoints are situated throughout St. James.

Members of the Jamaica Defence Force at work in the parish of St. James. State of emergency limited to the entire parish has been declared. pic.twitter.com/Jp2Vn8w6TD

— Abka Fitz-Henley (@AbkaFitzHenley) January 18, 2018

The U.S. State Department issued this warning: “Expect to encounter increased police and military presence, checkpoints, searches of persons/vehicles within St. James Parish.”

#Jamaica: Effective January 18, the Government of Jamaica has declared a limited state of emergency for St. James Parish, to counter criminal activity. Expect to encounter increased police and military presence, checkpoints, searches of persons/vehicles within St. James Parish. pic.twitter.com/mt0pGLnZtZ

— Travel – State Dept (@TravelGov) January 18, 2018

“Military forces have been deployed to the area in an attempt to stabilize the situation,” reads a safety and security notice posted by Travel Canada.

FCO travel advice for British nationals living and traveling abroad in Jamaica:

#Jamaica State of Emergency declared in St James Parish which includes Montego Bay, in response to recent violence including shooting incidents. Follow local advice including restrictions in selected areas, exercise particular care if travelling at night. https://t.co/WFuJiHEW0d

— FCO travel advice (@FCOtravel) January 18, 2018

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Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Just as North and South Korea achieve important peaceful exchanges, Washington and its NATO allies appear to be moving with determination to sabotage the initiative for averting war on the East Asian peninsula.

Further, the reckless, gratuitous provocations beg the conclusion that the United States is indeed trying to start a war.

Meanwhile, unprecedented accusations this week by US President Donald Trump that Russia is supporting North Korea to evade United Nations sanctions also point to the danger that any conflict could spiral out of control to engulf world nuclear powers.

Moscow rejected the unsubstantiated claims leveled by Trump, saying that Russia is abiding by UN trade restrictions over North Korea, and that the American president’s allegations were “entirely unfounded”.

Trump’s verbal broadside suggests that Washington is trying to undermine the nascent talks between the two Koreas, talks which Russia and China have both applauded as a long-overdue diplomatic effort to resolve the Korean conflict.

Separately, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov deplored a summit held in Vancouver, Canada, earlier this week in which the US and 19 other nations – most of them NATO members – called for sharper sanctions on North Korea that go beyond the remit of the United Nations. The conference, co-hosted by Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, issued a stridently bellicose statement, calling in effect for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons or face US-led military action.

Significantly, and pointedly, China and Russia were not invited to the Canadian summit.

 

Most of the attending states were part of the original US-led military force which fought against North Korea during the 1950-53 war. A war which killed as many as two million North Koreans.

Russia admonished that the conference was “harmful” to current peace talks between North and South Korea. China rebuked the Canadian event as being stuck in “Cold War thinking”.

The anachronism of countries like Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Norway attending a conference on the Korean crisis while Asia-Pacific powers Russia and China being excluded was noted by Russia’s Sergei Lavrov. The anachronism is not only absurd, he said, it reprises a provocative “war summit” message.

Disturbingly, what the Vancouver gathering demonstrated was the willingness by the US and its allies to circumvent the United Nations Security Council and the previously established regional Six-Party forum involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

At the Vancouver event, Tillerson laid out a belligerent agenda that was endorsed by the other attendees. The agenda included the precondition of North Korea giving up its nuclear program unilaterally; and it also flatly rejected the proposal made by Russia and China for a “freeze” in all military activities on the Korean Peninsula as a step to get comprehensive settlement talks going.

Tillerson made the following sinister ultimatum:

“We have to recognize that that threat [of North Korea’s nuclear weapons] is growing. And if North Korea does not choose the path of engagement, discussion, negotiation, [that is, surrender] then they themselves will trigger an option [US military action].”

The US diplomat also warned that the American public must be “sober” about the possibility of war breaking out. Tillerson said the risk of such a war on the Korean Peninsula “continues to grow”. This was echoed by President Trump a day later in an interview with the Reuters news agency in which he also warned of possible war. It was the same interview in which Trump blamed Russia for aiding and abetting North Korea.

This sounds like US leaders are intensifying the conditioning of the American public to accept use of the military option, which they have been threatening for the past year in a pre-emptive attack on North Korea.

The Vancouver summit also called for proactive interdiction of international ships suspected of breaching UN sanctions on North Korea. That raises the danger of the US and its allies interfering with Russian and Chinese vessels – which would further escalate tensions.

These reprehensible developments are a reflection of the increasingly Orwellian worldview held by Washington and its partners, whereby “war is presented as peace” and “peace is perceived as war”.

Just this week, North and South Korea held a third round of peace negotiations in as many weeks. Even Western news media hailed “Olympic breakthrough” after the two adversaries agreed to participate in the opening ceremony of the forthcoming winter games next month as a unified nation under a neutral flag.

After two years of no inter-Korean talks and mounting war tensions on the peninsula, surely the quickening pace of peace overtures this month should be welcomed and encouraged. Russia, China and the UN have indeed endorsed the bilateral Korean exchange. Even President Trump said he welcomed it.

Nevertheless, as the Vancouver summit this week shows, the US and its NATO allies appear to be doing everything to torpedo the inter-Korean dialogue. Issuing ultimatums and warning of “military options” seems intended to blow up the delicate dynamic towards confidence and trust.

Two reports this week in the New York Times conveyed the contorted Orwellian mindset gripping Washington and its allies.

First, there was the report: “Military quietly prepares for a last resort: War with North Korea”. The NY Times actually reported extensive Pentagon plans for a preemptive air assault on North Korea involving a “deep attack” manned by 82nd Airborne paratroopers and special forces. The paper spun the provocative war plans as a “last resort”. In other words, war is sold here as peace.

Which raises the question of who is trying to wreck the Olympic Games being held in South Korea in February. For months, Western media have been warning that North Korea was intending to carry out some kind of sabotage. Now, it looks like the sabotage is actually coming from the US, albeit sanitized by the NY Times.

The second report in the NY Times had the telling headline: “Olympic détente upends US strategy on North Korea”.

So, let’s get our head around that display of dubious logic. A peaceful development of détente between two adversaries is somehow presented as a pernicious “upending of US strategy on North Korea”. In other words, peace is sold here as war.

Take for example this choice editorial comment from the NY Times in the second report:

“This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in Washington that Pyongyang is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.”

And what, one wonders, would that “far-reaching agenda” entail?

Again the NY Times elaborates:

“White House officials warn that the ultimate goal of [North Korean leader] Mr Kim is to evict American troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a single flag… For the United States, the fear has been that North Korea’s gestures will drive a wedge between it and its ally, South Korea.”

Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would an initiative to calm tensions and build peaceful relations be construed as something to “fear” and be opposed to.

Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would peaceful dialogue provoke plans for pre-emptive war.

 

But that is precisely the kind of dystopian world that Washington and its lackeys inhabit.

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After the biggest two-week drop since 2011, cryptocurrencies continue their post-futures-expiration comeback with Bitcoin testing $13,000…

And Ripple up 80% off its lows…

Once again some headlines from South Korea were full of contradiction as there are reports that both Bithumb & Korbit, the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, are disabling Kookmin Bank deposits and withdrawals. Instead, they will allow Shinhan Bank (second largest bank) deposits and withdrawals. That means, Shinhan Bank will process payments for traders, and implies there is no ban looming.

For now prices are rising once again but yet another establishment type – though to be fair, he is a little less biased than most – Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Shiller, predicts the cryptocurrency will either implode or drag on, and – as always – compares the rise of Bitcoin to the tulip craze in the 17th century.

“It has no value at all unless there is some common consensus that it has value,” Shiller, who is also Yale professor, told CNBC. The 2013 Nobel laureate in economics says while “other things like gold would at least have some value if people didn’t see it as an investment,” he doesn’t know “what to make of bitcoin ultimately.”

“It reminds me of the Tulip mania in Holland in the 1640s, and so the question is did that collapse? We still pay for tulips even now and sometimes they get expensive,” Shiller went on, referring to an economic bubble in the Netherlands in 1637, when after prices frantically grew the market suddenly fell apart.

“[Bitcoin] might totally collapse and be forgotten and I think that’s a likely outcome but it could linger on for a good long time, it could be here in 100 years,” Shiller said.

The economist has previously spoken of bitcoin on numerous occasions, calling it a “fad” and saying the “story” behind bitcoin drives enthusiasm for it.  “A new form of money that… sounds extremely revolutionary and involves a very clever use of cryptography” has inspired interest among people.

Notably, Bitcoin’s slump this week has partially recovered to challenge $13,000, making it worth over 170 percent more than when Shiller made his previous bubble claims in early September, 2017.

Mike Novogratz remains extremely bullish, noting on Twitter that he has just finished 55 investor meetings in 6 days.

“I am very optimistic on the future of the Blockchain/Crypto space. Markets will trade up and down with events and sentiment shifts. regulators are coming which is a good thing. the revolution isn’t turning back. Long term bull.“

 

 

 

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Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

As my readers at home and around the world know, I supported giving Trump a chance as Trump, and only Trump, addressed the two most important issues of our time for both all of humanity and for Americans:

(1) avoiding nuclear Armageddon by normalizing relations with Russia, and

(2) restoring the American middle class, on whose success political stability in the United States depends, by stopping the offshoring of US jobs and bringing those offshored home.

Inattentive people have mistakenly characterized Trump as the ruling Oligarchy’s candidate from day one. They dismiss the idea that he was sincere about either goal. There are many large problems with their dismissing of Trump’s sincerity. One is that if he were the Oligarch’s candidate, why did all their money go to Hillary? The other is that if Trump was insincere about normalizing relations with Russia, why did the military/security complex, specifically the CIA and FBI, invent Russiagate and why is Russiagate being used in an effort to impeach Trump or to drive him from office if Trump is the Oligarch’s candidate? The presstitute media is owned by the Oligarchs. If Trump is the Oligarchs’ candidate, why is the presstitute media trying to drive Trump from office?

These most obvious of all questions do not get asked or answered. I have asked them now for more than a year. Instead of answering me, I, like Trump and Stephen Cohen, get branded a “Putin stooge.”

Stephen Cohen knows more about Russia and Putin than everyone in the Trump, Obama, George W. Bush, and Clinton regimes added together and multiplied by one million. Yet, it is the most knowledgeable person who is branded a stooge. The fact of the matter is that Washington and its presstitutes know that neither Trump nor I nor Stephen Cohen are Putin’s stooges. What they also know is that they do not want any truth introduced into their portrayal of their false picture of “the Russian threat” and its American collaborators.

What they are doing is protecting the $1,000 billion annual budget, and associated power, of the military/security complex and the West Coast and northeastern coast’s control over the White House. This small geographical area has a disportionate amount of population and electoral votes and rejects interference with its rule by scarcely populated “flyover America.”

Truth and all respect for truth has disappeared from American political discourse. Truth is no longer even respected in academia or courts of law. The entire purpose of the US system and its subsystems is to achieve selfish aims that are at the expense of truth, justice, and other peoples.

Trump has created himself as the Twitter President.

He believes, as many before him have, that he can combat powerful ruling vested interests with words, as I attempt to do. However, a President of the United States has powers in addition to words, and Trump does not use them. Indeed, Trump has assembled a government that prevents him from using the powers of the presidency to achieve his two goals. This reduces him to a captive who hyperventilates on Twitter while he is forced to abandon his goals to those of private interest groups more powerful than the US president.

My opinion is this: President Trump might have some chance of delivering on the two promises that got him elected — (1) normalize relations with Russia, and (2) stop the offshoring of US jobs and bring those offshored back home — if he would appoint to his government people who share his goals instead of people opposed to them.

Moreover, Trump’s constant, off-the-wall threats against Iran and North Korea undermine people’s belief that he ever intended to normalize relations with Russia. President Trump presents himself as a warmonger in league with the Neoconservatives, and his obvious service to Israel is humiliating for proud Americans.

President Trump is also undermining his support by permitting corporate polluters to further despoil the environment and the diminishing wildlife of America.

The presstitute media is deplorable, but Trump cannot make a success of himself by beating up on the media, which is controlled by Trump’s own military/security complex.

Why beat up on a corrupt media when you can terminate the government corruption that the media serves? And when you can use the Sherman Anti-trust Act to break up the concentrated media?

If Trump is real, he will arrest Mueller, Comey, Brennan, Hillary, Obama, the DNC, and break the presstitute media monopolies into a thousand pieces. He might also arrest senators and representatives who are engaged in a campaign to overthrow the elected government of the United States. Abe Lincoln provided the precedent by exiling a US Representative and arresting 300 northern newspaper editors.

If President Trump fails to defeat the agenda of those driving the world to nuclear war with Russia (and China), he will be the US President who failed humanity and snuffed out life on earth.

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The new year is barely three weeks old and already the US Navy’s “freedom of navigation” operations are eliciting furious threats of retaliation from the Chinese military.

Since President Donald Trump took office one year ago, the Navy and Air Force have increasingly sought to test the Chinese military response in the Pacific by sailing or flying within a certain perimeter – usually 12 miles – of one of China’s disputed territorial holdings in the South China Sea, according to RT.

In the latest clash, the USS Hopper missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Huangyan Dao, a tiny island claimed by China, on Jan. 17.

 

 

As is common during US “Freeops,” the US destroyer didn’t solicit Beijing’s permission for entering the waters and was subsequently intercepted by the Chinese Navy, with China’s Foreign Ministry accusing the US of violating “sovereignty and security interests” as well as posing a “grave threat” to its forces stationed in the area.

“China is strongly dissatisfied with that and will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said in a statement on Saturday. He also warned US forces against further “provocative moves” for the sake of“China-US relations and regional peace and stability.”

The spokesman added that China has “indisputable” control over the territory, which is also claimed by Taiwan (itself the subject of a sovereignty dispute with the mainland) and the Philippines.

China’s Defense ministry echoed Lu’s tone in a separate statement on Saturday, stressing that the military will step up vigilance against air and sea patrols to defend national and regional peace and stability.

The US and Chinese militaries have had frequent standoffs in the South China Sea. Despite Washington having no territorial claims in the area – unlike China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei – it has always stressed the necessity for freedom of navigation in the area and opposed China’s claims.

Short of directly challenging Beijing in the highly-contested, resource-rich region, the US has been increasingly flexing its muscles there, staging joint drills with Japan and South Korea amid growing tensions with Pyongyang. Meanwhile, China has carried out threatening exercises of its own, sending squadrons of fighter jets flying through Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese airspace without warning.

 

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