Escobar: US And Iran Stuck At Negotiation ‘Ground-Zero’

Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,

All bets are off in the geopolitical insanity stakes when we have the President of the United States (POTUS) glibly announcing he could launch a nuclear first strike to end the war in Afghanistan and wipe it “off the face of the earth” in one week. But he’d rather not, so he doesn’t have to kill 10 million people.

Apart from the fact that not even a nuclear strike would subdue the legendary fighting spirit of Afghan Pashtuns, the same warped logic – ordering a nuclear first strike as one orders a cheeseburger – could apply to Iran instead of Afghanistan.

Trump once again flip-flopped by declaring that the prospect of a potential war in the Persian Gulf “could go either way, and I’m OK either way it goes,” much to the delight of Beltway-related psychopaths who peddle the notion that Iran is begging to be bombed.

No wonder the whole Global South – not to mention the Russia-China strategic partnership – simply cannot trust anything coming from Trump’s mouth or tweets, a non-stop firefight deployed as intimidation tactics.

At least Trump’s impotence facing such a determined adversary as Iran is now clear: “It’s getting harder for me to want to make a deal with Iran.” What remains are empty clichés, such as Iran “behaving very badly” and “the number one state of terror in the world” – the marching order mantra emanating from Tel Aviv.

Even the – illegal – all-out economic war and total blockade against Tehran seems not to be enough. Trump has announced extra sanctions on China because Beijing is “accepting crude oil” from Iran. Chinese companies will simply ignore them.

Okay With ‘OK Either Way’

“OK either way” is exactly the kind of response expected by the leadership in Tehran. Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran confirmed to me that Tehran did not offer Trump a “renegotiation” of the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, in exchange for the end of sanctions: “It’s not a renegotiation. Iran offered to move forward ratification of additional protocols if Congress removes all sanctions. That would be a big win for Iran. But the US will never accept it.”

Dehghan: U.S. bases would be targeted. (Wikimedia Commons)

Marandi also confirmed “there is nothing big going on” between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and tentative Trump administration negotiator Sen. Rand Paul: “Bolton and Pompeo remain in charge.”

The crucial fact is that Tehran rejects a new negotiation with the White House “under any circumstances,” as expressed by Hossein Dehghan, the top military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Dehghan once again made it very clear that in case of any sort of military adventure, every single base of the U.S. Empire of Bases across Southwest Asia will be targeted.

This neatly ties in with Iran’s by now consolidated new rules of engagement, duly detailed by correspondent Elijah Magnier. We are well into “an-eye-for-an-eye” territory.

And that brings us to the alarming expansion of the sanctions dementia, represented by two Iranian ships loaded with corn stranded off the coast of southern Brazil because energy giant Petrobras, afraid of U.S. sanctions, refuses to refuel them.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a fervent Trump groupie, has turned the country into a tropical U.S. neo-colony in less than seven months. On U.S. sanctions, Bolsonaro said, “We are aligned to their policies. So we do what we have to.” Tehran for its part has threatened to cut its imports of corn, soybeans and meat from Brazil – $2 billion worth of trade a year – unless the refueling is allowed.

This is an extremely serious development. Food is not supposed to be — illegally — sanctioned by the Trump administration. Iran now has to use mostly barter to obtain food — as Tehran cannot remit through the CHIPS-SWIFT banking clearinghouse. If food supplies are also blocked that means that sooner rather than later the Strait of Hormuz may be blocked as well.

Beltway sources confirmed that the highest level of the U.S. government gave the order for Brasilia to stop this food shipment.

Tehran knows it well – as this is part of the “maximum pressure” campaign, whose goal is ultimately to starve the Iranian population to death in a harrowing game of chicken.

Chokepoint: The Strait of Hormuz. (Flickr)

How this may end is described by an ominous quote I already used in some of my previous columns, from a Goldman Sachs derivatives specialist: “If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the price of oil will rise to a thousand dollars a barrel representing over 45 percent of global GDP, crashing the $2.5 quadrillion derivatives market and creating a world depression of unprecedented proportions.”

At least the Pentagon seems to understand that a war on Iran will collapse the world economy.

And Now for Something Completely Different

But then, last but not least, there’s the tanker war.

Dutch analyst Maarten van Mourik has noted significant discrepancies involving the UK piracy episode in Gibraltar – the origin of the tanker war. The Grace 1 tanker “was pirated by the Royal Marines in international waters. Gibraltar Straits is an international passage, like the Strait of Hormuz. There is only 3 nautical miles of territorial water around Gibraltar, and even that is disputed.”

Mourik adds, “The size of the Grace 1 ship is 300,000 MT of crude oil, it has a maximum draught of about 22.2 meters and the latest draught via AIS indicated that she was at 22.1 meters, or fully laden. Now, the port of Banyas in Syria, which is where the offshore oil port is, has a maximum draft of 15 meters. So, in no way could the Grace 1 go there, without first having to offload elsewhere. Probably a very large quantity to get within max draught limitations.”

Zarif (r.) negotiating nuclear deal with then US Secretary of State John Kerry in July, 2015. (Wikimedia Common)

That ties in with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif refusing on the record to say where Grace 1 was actually heading to, while not confirming the destination was Syria.

The tit-for-tat Iranian response, with the seizure of the Stena Impero navigating under the British flag, is now evolving into Britain calling for a “European-led maritime protection mission” in the Persian Gulf, purportedly to protect ships from Iranian “state piracy.”

Observers may be excused for mistaking it for a Monty Python sketch. Here we have the Ministry of Silly Seizures, which is exiting the EU, begging the EU to embark on a “mission” that is not the same mission of the U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign. And on top of it the mission should not undermine Britain’s commitment to keep the JCPOA in place.

As European nations never recede on a chance to flaunt their dwindling “power” across the Global South, Britain, Germany and France now seem bent on their “mission” to “observe maritime security in the Gulf,” in the words of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. At least this won’t be a deployment of joint naval forces – as London insisted. Brussels diplomats confirmed the initial muscular request came from London, but then it was diluted: the EU, NATO and the U.S. should not be involved – at least not directly.

Now compare this with the phone call last week between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and French President Emmanuel Macron, with Tehran expressing the determination to “keep all doors open” for the JCPOA. Well, certainly not open to the Monty Python sketch.

That was duly confirmed by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said Iran will “not allow disturbance in shipping in this sensitive area,” while Iranian vice-president Eshaq Jahangiri rejected the notion of a “joint European task force” protecting international shipping: “These kinds of coalitions and the presence of foreigners in the region by itself creates insecurity.”

Iran has always been perfectly capable, historically, of protecting that Pentagonese Holy Grail – “freedom of navigation” – in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran certainly doesn’t need former colonial powers to enforce it. It’s so easy to lose the plot; the current, alarming escalation is only taking place because of the “art of the deal” obsession on imposing an illegal, total economic war on Iran.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31305Hh Tyler Durden

For The First Time In 6 Years, No Central Bank Is Hiking

The global central bank experiment with renormalization is officially over.

After roughly half the world’s central banks hiked rates at least once in 2018, the major central banks have returned to easing mode, and as the chart below shows, for the first time since 2013, not a single central bank is hiking rates.

Commenting on the violent reversal away from tightening financial conditions which emerged following the Q4 2018 selloff, Goldman’s Jan Hatzius writes that “The FOMC looks set to cut the funds rate next week, the ECB today sent a strong signal that action in September is likely, and China has resumed easing policy after a spring pause. With global growth running at a below-trend rate of 2¾%—down from about 4% a year ago—a synchronized tilt towards easing looks like a natural response to a weaker outlook.”

Yet even Goldman can’t help but ask just why the Fed is rushing to commence the first easing cycle in years, pointing out that “the US economy is in decent shape, with a tight labor market, inflation close to target and— in our forecast— growth running a little above 2% both this year and next. We are modestly above consensus because we expect the negative inventory cycle to end and final demand to continue growing robustly on the back of easier financial conditions.”

This, according to the Goldman economist, should limit Fed easing to two 25bp insurance cuts, one next week and another in September, although the bank, which until very recently did not expect any rate cuts at all, fails to justify just why the Fed is doing what it is about to do, unless of course Powell is merely folding to Trump pressure.

But if the Fed’s upcoming rate cut remains a mystery, what the ECB is about to do is relatively straightforward, as the European picture has continued to deteriorate, and as Draghi defined it yesterday, the outlook is “getting worse and worse.” Following the weak manufacturing flash PMIs, Goldman’s Current Activity Indicator for Europe in July stood at just +0.5% on an area-wide basis, and at -0.6% in Germany. Underlying inflation remains stuck at 1% “and the slide in inflation expectations points to risks of de-anchoring.” Moreover, fears of a “no deal” Brexit have re-intensified and volatility is likely to return in Italy as the 2020 budget is prepared. Therefore, Goldman expects forceful action from the ECB in September, “including a 20bp deposit rate cut (flanked by a move to a tiered reserve system), a return to QE (including corporate and sovereign debt) and a further strengthening of forward guidance.”

Elsewhere the picture is similar, and after what looked like a strong Q1 rebound, Goldman notes that Chinese growth has slowed again to the bottom end of the government’s 6-6½% target range, with the “slower growth and the threat of trade war escalation have persuaded policymakers to return to a gradual easing path.” As a result, short-term interest rates remain in the mid-2% range, fiscal borrowing has stepped up, and credit growth beat expectations in June. Finally, with the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic coming up in October, Goldman expects policy settings to stay supportive in coming months, “likely easing slightly further on the margin.”

Additionally, in a world where China has long become the marginal source of growth for much of the emerging world, EM growth outside of China remains sluggish as well, and most large EMs are growing below Goldman’s estimates of long-term potential, and well below policymakers’ aspirations, to wit:

Exports have decelerated sharply (mainly due to weak DM growth) and domestic demand has disappointed (reflecting tighter financial conditions, especially where policy tightened in 2018). That said, we see slightly brighter prospects for the second half, as low inflation and a dovish Fed will allow EM policymakers to ease policy and support growth.

And visually:

Finally, the risk of a no deal Brexit has returned to center stage as Boris Jonson took over as Prime Minister, pledging that the UK will leave the EU by October 31 with “no ifs, no buts” according to Hatzius, who expects the tail risks to intensify into Q4 and raised Goldman’s odds of a no deal Brexit to 20%. Even so, Goldman thinks PM Johnson will, on balance, seek to avoid a general election before having delivered Brexit. The only way to avoid a general election may be to avoid a no deal Brexit, and the only way to avoid a no deal Brexit may be to deliver Brexit with a deal. From this perspective, the scope for the new Prime Minister to depart from his predecessor looks very limited, and Goldman’s base case remains a negotiated Brexit deal (with a 45% probability).

 

So with the entire world now in easing mode, it is relative easy to predict that Goldman expects smooth sailing. As Hatzius summarizes, “following the sharp rally in most asset prices this year, our near-term market views are fairly neutral.

  • On the rates side, we see scope for a further duration rally as the ECB over-delivers relative to current market pricing, but ultimately see rates drifting higher again as the Fed only delivers two insurance cuts and returns to tightening policy after the presidential election.
  • Pressure on the Euro looks likely in the near term, but we do not expect a large move given that the Euro is already undervalued relative to long-run fundamentals.
  • On the equity side, the S&P 500 trades near fair value relative to interest rates, although we believe policy uncertainty and negative revisions to 2020 earnings forecasts will limit the upside from here.
  • Finally, we see commodity prices stuck in a mid-cycle pause, with no strong near-term direction.

And now we look ahead to next week’s historic catalyst: the Fed’s first rate cut in over a decade… just as the S&P closes at 3,205 – a new all time high.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JXf7bR Tyler Durden

IRS Sends 1000s Of “Fishing” Letters To Crypto Users

Authored by Marie Huillet via CoinTelegraph.com,

The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is sending letters to crypto investors to apparently scare them into accurately reporting their crypto-related income.  

Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.

The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics. We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations.”

‘Don’t Panic’

According to a Forbes report by crypto tax attorney Tyson Cross, published on July 26, a number of Cross’s clients have received a letter “6174-A” from the IRS, threatening “future civil and criminal enforcement activity” if they fail to fully comply with reporting requirements.

IRS Letter 6174-A. Source: Tyson Cross via Forbes

While Cross notes that the letter may give the impression that it is a personally targeted enforcement action, he argues that it is much more likely to be a generic mailing campaign intended to encourage voluntary compliance — one year after the IRS first launched its cryptocurrency compliance push. 

Although the agency could feasibly have identified tax cheats and sent the letter to specific individuals, Cross notes that over a dozen of his clients — all of whom accurately reported their crypto-derived income — had received the letter. 

Much more likely, he claims, is that the IRS has used its list of taxpayers identified in 2017 by Coinbase and conducted a blanket campaign to exert psychological pressure on investors. He notes: 

“This would seem to indicate the IRS is sending these letters to taxpayers as a fishing attempt without any real belief that each recipient has under-reported.”

Cross writes that several other tax professionals have revealed to him that their own clients — despite accurate reporting — had also received Letter 6174-A.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

The IRS hopes to tighten the noose

Cross advised investors not to panic should they receive the letter, but to thoroughly ensure the accuracy of their tax returns, given that at the very least it means they are on the agency’s radar. 

As previously reported, data released ahead of the close of the preceding tax year indicated that just 0.04% of tax filers were reporting capital gains from crypto investments to the IRS.

Back in July 2017, the IRS had required that major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase hand over detailed information on every one of its then 500,000+ users in an attempt to prevent tax evasion. However, a court order in November 2017 reduced this number to around 14,000 “high-transacting” users, which the platform later reported as 13,000.

An alleged presentation by the agency earlier this month reportedly revealed that the IRS hopes to use Grand Jury subpoenas on firms such as Apple, Google and Microsoft to check taxpayers’ download history for crypto-related applications.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Yw8ViU Tyler Durden

US Fertility Rates Plunge To ‘All-Time Low,’ CDC Warns

Something isn’t right in the “greatest economy ever,” as the general fertility rate continues to drop in the US, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

“The 2018 general fertility rate fell to another all-time low for the United States,” the report said.

Researchers used data from the National Vital Statistics System, discovered that the general fertility rate dropped 2% between 2017 and 2018 among females aged 15 to 44.

Overall fertility dipped to 59.1 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. In non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black women, it fell 2% in 2018, while a 3% drop in rates was observed in Hispanic women.

Teen pregnancy rates plunged to record lows, the report revealed. The rate dropped 7% from 2017 to 2018, falling from 18.8 per 1,000 to 17.4 per 1,000. Teen births in non-Hispanic black teenagers declined 4% in 2018, and 8% in non-Hispanic white and Hispanic teenagers.

NCHS stated in a separate report that the total fertility rate continues to dip underneath the level of what is needed to sustain a healthy population.

We have routinely suggested why Millennials are delaying marriage and childbirth. And in our view – this life choice is tied explicitly to economics.

Insurmountable student loans, credit card debt, and auto loans have delayed starting a family for many.

A typical child costs $14k per year, or $234k from 0 to 17, the Department of Agriculture said, money that millennials would instead use to service their debts and or use it on life experiences, like vacations.

So if the economy were so great, millennials would be able to start families, buy homes, and continue living the American dream like generations before them. But in reality, the dream died after the 2008 financial crisis, their standard of living was abruptly thrown into reverse, history will look by at millennials as the “lost generation.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Zdu8v3 Tyler Durden

Epstein’s Not The Only Predatory Sex Offender In The News: Here’s How Shockingly Prevalent This Has Become

Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

Lately, the news has been flooded with horrifying updates about the case of registered sex offender and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

You can read our Epstein coverage at the following links:

An Unbiased Look at What We Know About the Epstein Scandal So Far

More CONFIRMED Information on Jeffrey Epstein, His Homes, and His Powerful Friends

These Prominent People Must Be PANICKING About What the Epstein Case Will Reveal

Singer R. Kelly, 52, is being held without bond in Chicago on charges that include producing child pornography and coercing minors to engage in sex. He faces similar federal charges in New York.

Unfortunately, Epstein and R. Kelly are not the only alleged sexual predators in the news.

Reader discretion is advised. This article contains information that may be upsetting for some people.

Here are various reports of recent sexual abuse cases in the US.

Colorado

More than three dozen suspected online child sex offenders were arrested in Aurora, Colorado, during Operation Broken Heart. The nationwide operation was led by the US Department of Justice and resulted in nearly 1,700 arrests during April and May. On June 11, 2019, the DOJ announced that its “task forces identified 308 offenders who either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse, and 357 children who suffered recent, ongoing or historical sexual abuse or were exploited in the production of child pornography.”

The operation targeted suspects who: (1) produce, distribute, receive and possess child pornography; (2) engage in online enticement of children for sexual purposes; (3) engage in the sex trafficking of children; and (4) travel across state lines or to foreign countries and sexually abuse children. (source)

The Colorado Sentinel reports 32-year-old Raymond Fredericks was sentenced to 22 years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty to a felony sex trafficking charge in May.

Florida

Todd Bush, a 42-year-old former teacher, was arrested in an undercover sting on July 18 after agreeing to pay $100 to who he thought was the mother of an 11-year-old girl for sex with her daughter, authorities said. He was charged with human trafficking of a child, obscene communication, and traveling to meet a minor for sex. Bush was already a registered sex offender and was on probation for a 2011 incident when he was busted in the sting last week.

Maryland

On July 18, a federal jury in Baltimore convicted Ryan Russell Parks, 26, on two counts of sex trafficking a minor and one count of using the internet to promote a prostitution business.

Parks faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison for each of the two counts of sex trafficking a minor, and a maximum of five years in prison for using the Internet to promote a business enterprise involving prostitution.

The case was investigated by the FBI-led Maryland Child Exploitation Task Force (MCETF), created in 2010 to combat child prostitution, with members from 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies. (source)

Minnesota

A two-day undercover operation in Minneapolis–Saint Paul earlier this month resulted in the arrests of 11 people on sex trafficking charges:

Three people were arrested for sex trafficking and promotion of prostitution while eight people were arrested for solicitation of a minor or solicitation of prostitution under 16 years of age.

In the operation, 18 trafficking victims were recovered from trafficking situations and offered help through victim services. (source)

Nebraska

A former first-grade teacher at an Omaha elementary school has been given 50 to 100 years in prison for sexually assaulting students. Douglas County District Court records show that 31-year-old Gregory Sedlacek was sentenced Tuesday. He’d pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault of a child.

New Hampshire

Yesterday, New Hampshire’s attorney general launched an investigation into the state youth detention center after two former counselors were charged with raping a teenage boy 82 times, at least once at gunpoint, in the late 1990s.

New York

Last month, the head of a sex cult was found guilty on multiple charges in New York, reports NPR:

The leader of NXIVM, a group that espoused a philosophy of self-improvement but was accused of recruiting, grooming and even branding an inner circle of female sex slaves, was found guilty Wednesday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Keith Raniere, who was known as “Vanguard,” was convicted on all charges, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, human trafficking and multiple counts of racketeering — including sexual exploitation of a child. (source)

North Carolina

The victims of sexual assaults by a former North Carolina teacher are filing a class-action lawsuit against the school district:

News outlets report the victims of Michael Kelly filed the complaint Tuesday against him, the New Hanover County Board of Education and others.

Kelly pleaded guilty last month to child sex charges. Investigators say Kelly abused nearly 20 victims. He’s worked for New Hanover Schools since 1992. (source)

Ohio

Earlier this month, two concurrent Human Trafficking Task Force operations were conducted in the Cleveland region. A total of 49 arrests were made, and some of the individuals are facing felony charges of Attempted Unlawful Sexual Conduct with a Minor, Importuning, Possess Criminal Tools, and Attempting Corruption with Drugs, reports Richland Source.

You can read more about recent arrests on the DOJ’s dedicated page: Human Trafficking.

Cases of child sexual abuse by clergy continue to be reported.

Thousands of allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, nuns, and members of religious orders have been made over the last few decades. Many investigations, trials, and convictions – and revelations about decades of attempts by Church officials to cover up reported incidents – have resulted. These offenses are not limited to clergy in the US – cases have occurred all over the world.

I think it is important to note here that my family is Catholic, so I know how painful this subject can be for some followers.

According to a 2009 report, the founder of a religious order that treats Roman Catholic priests who molest children concluded decades ago that offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to ministry:

As early as the mid-1950s, decades before the clergy sexual-abuse crisis broke publicly across the U.S. Catholic landscape, the founder of a religious order that dealt regularly with priest sex abusers was so convinced of their inability to change that he searched for an island to purchase with the intent of using it as a place to isolate such offenders, according to documents recently obtained by NCR.

Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paracletes, an order established in 1947 to deal with problem priests, wrote regularly to bishops in the United States and to Vatican officials, including the pope, of his opinion that many sexual abusers in the priesthood should be laicized immediately. (source)

Yesterday, a Florida minister and registered sex offender was arrested after authorities found child pornography on his home computer, reports the Associated Press:

Sarasota County Sheriff’s officials tell news outlets that 66-year-old Charles Andrews was arrested Tuesday. He’s charged with 500 felony counts of possession of child pornography and three counts of failing to meet sex offender requirements.

Andrews is a pastor at Osprey Church of Christ. Andrews also is a registered sex offender who was convicted in 2006 of second-degree sexual abuse in Alabama. Now he’s in jail, his bond set at more than $5 million. (source)

The Associated Press has a Sexual Abuse by Clergy page that is dedicated to coverage of cases.

Here is a sampling of recent cases they have documented:

  • In Kansas, state authorities have opened more than 70 investigations into alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy after receiving over 100 abuse reports in less than six months, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.

  • Also in Kansas, a priest has been charged with one count of possessing child pornography.

  • St. Norbert Abbey in Wisconsin has released the names of 22 priests who faced “credible” allegations of sexually abusing minors. The abbey says an independent review deemed more than 40 allegations credible.

  • Last week, a former Alabama youth pastor was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing a young girl.

  • The Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota has reached a $5 million settlement with 15 people who were children when they were sexually abused by priests.

  • Texas jury has sentenced a former Roman Catholic priest to 18 years in prison for sexually assaulting an altar server over several years.

  • Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has charged a 57-year-old Detroit-area priest with sexually abusing a minor.

  • Last Monday, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, released a list of clerics, religious order priests and deacons it deems to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

  • In Illinois, a priest was removed from pastoral duties in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse that took place two decades ago.

The Vatican has been in the news this week for a very disturbing reason.

A genetics expert retained by the family of a girl who went missing in 1983 said Saturday that a cavernous underground space near a Vatican cemetery holds thousands of bones that appear to be from dozens of individuals, both “adult and non-adult.”

The expert, Giorgio Portera, said the “enormous” size of the collection under the Teutonic College was revealed when Vatican-appointed experts began cataloguing the remains, which were discovered last week .

“We didn’t expect such an enormous number” of bones and other remains which “had been thrown into a cavity,” Portera said. “We want to know why and how” the bones ended up there. (source)

Victims of abuse by religious and institutional authorities (priests, ministers, bishops, deacons, nuns, coaches, teachers, and others) can find support here: SNAPBishopAccountability.org has an Abuse Tracker page that provides links to media coverage of clergy abuse.

How prevalent is child sexual abuse?

While Epstein’s arrest has increased awareness of predatory behavior by the elite, the wealthy and powerful are not the only ones committing such heinous acts.

According to The National Center for Victims of Crime, the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) is difficult to determine because it is often not reported. Experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities.

Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that 9.2% of victimized children were sexually assaulted (page 24).

Studies by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that:

  • 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;

  • Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident;

  • During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;

  • Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;

  • Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.

According to Darkness to Light, a non-profit committed to empowering adults to prevent child sexual abuse, only about one-third of child sexual abuse incidents are identified, and even fewer are reported.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children operates the CyberTipline, a national mechanism for the public and electronic service providers to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation.

In 2018 the CyberTipline received more than 18.4 million reports, most of which related to:

  • Apparent child sexual abuse images.

  • Online enticement, including “sextortion.”

  • Child sex trafficking.

  • Child sexual molestation.

Since its inception, the CyberTipline has received more than 48 million reports.

Those statistics are grim.

Sex trafficking is a serious global issue.

There are various types of sex offenders and sex crimes, and that topic is beyond the scope of this article. Because sex trafficking and the vulnerability of minors are crucial issues, we will focus on them here.

US federal law refers to sex trafficking as any commercial sex act that is “induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”

A recent report from Insider sheds light on just how many people are victims of sex trafficking.

The statistics are alarming and heartbreaking:

It’s estimated that there are around 4.5 million victims of sex trafficking across the world. And though it’s difficult to know just how many people are involved in sex trafficking in the US, the Polaris Project, a non-profit dedicated to ending human trafficking, received more than 34,000 reports of sex trafficking on its Human Trafficking Hotline between 2007 and 2017.

End Slavery Now, an anti-human trafficking and slavery organization, estimates many of those trafficked into the US come from countries like Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, Honduras, Guatemala, India and El Salvador. But experts say that plenty of sex trafficking victims are from the US, too. (source)

The conclusion of the Insider report is chilling:

But the millions sex trafficked around the world don’t look like they do in movies. These people, often minors, can lead normal lives and pass through normal places, jobs, and homes.

The sex trafficking that goes on in the US largely takes place in a criminal underbelly ubiquitous in US cities and communities, which millions of Americans, for whatever reason, turn a blind eye to daily. (source)

There are various factors that motivate sexual predators.

Power, anger, and revenge are common motivators for sex offenders, according to Criminal Justice School Info:

It is mistakenly believed that sexual offenders are solely motivated by sexual gratification when they commit their crimes. Dr. Nicholas Groth developed three typologies to describe the motivations of rapists, two of which suggest sexual gratification is secondary. Anger rapists are fueled by rage towards their victims and rape is their way of seeking violent revenge. According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), these rapists may actually be extremely discontent with another area in their lives and thus take out their frustration on their victims. “Anger rapists tend to use a significant amount of physical force when they subdue their victims – in most cases, far more force than is necessary to perpetrate the abuse,” adds the CSOM. Verbal abuse is also a common component of these types of violations that are generally impulsive – not planned.

Power rapists on the other hand are less impulsive and rely on psychological manipulation more so than physical violence to subdue and sexually assault their victims. “The power rapist was motivated by his need to control and dominate his victim, and inversely, to avoid being controlled by [the victim],” describes Dr. Lisak. Those who rape their domestic partners are often characterized as power rapists. There are also sadistic rapists who receive sexual or erotic gratification from exerting power and control over the victims they rape. “Because they have an erotic response to power and control, extreme violence and torture often characterize their assaults,” says the CSOM. “In many cases, victims of sadistic rapists are murdered during the assaults”. The CSOM adds that these types of rapes are least common and account for between 2% and 5% of cases in the United States. (source)

Repeat sex offenders do not necessarily target only one category of victim or offend in the same manner, that report explains:

Dr. Lisak explains that a proportion of sexual offenders are ‘non-specialists’. “Multiple studies have now documented that between 33% and 66% of rapists have also sexually attacked children; that up to 82% of child molesters have also sexually attacked adults; and that between 50% and 66% of incest offenders have also sexually attacked children outside their families,” states Dr. Lisak.

Additionally, many of us tend to think a sex offender will keep on offending until he or she is caught. While in reality, recidivism does happen, it may not be as common as we think. According to Arkowitz and Lilienfeld, approximately 14% of sexual offenders reoffend within a five to six year period and 24% within a 15 year period. While this suggests recidivism is less often the case, it does suggest the longer it takes law enforcement to track down a sexual predator or criminal, the more likely he or she will reoffend. (source)

Not everyone who sexually abuses children is a pedophile, as Darkness to Light explains:

Child sexual abuse is perpetrated by a wide range of individuals with diverse motivations. It is impossible to identify specific characteristics that are common to all those who molest children. Situational offenders tend to offend at times of stress and begin offending later than pedophilic offenders. They also have fewer victims (often family), and have a general preference for adult partners.

Pedophilic offenders often start offending at an early age and often have a large number of victims (frequently not family members).

70% of child sex offenders have between one and 9 victims, while 20% have 10 to 40 victims. (source)

Often, sexual predators are people you know and trust.

It is important to understand that there are people who have or will sexually abuse children in churches, schools, and youth sports leagues, as Darkness to Light explains:

Abusers can be neighbors, friends, and family members. People who sexually abuse children can be found in families, schools, churches, recreation centers, youth sports leagues, and any other place children gather.

Significantly, abusers can be and often are other children.

About 90% of children who are victims of abuse know their abuser. Only 10% of sexually abused children are abused by a stranger.

Approximately 30% of children who are sexually abused are abused by family members. The younger the victim, the more likely it is that the abuser is a family member. Of those molesting a child under six, 50% were family members. Family members also accounted for 23% of those abusing children ages 12 to 17.

About 60% of children who are sexually abused are abused by the people the family trusts. (source)

Here’s how to keep your loved ones (and yourself) safe.

Sexual abuse is a challenging topic to discuss. It can be even more difficult when you’re talking about protecting your own children. Families can take steps to keep their children safe and give them the tools to speak up when something isn’t right.

Here is a list of resources that can help you keep your family safe.

Essential Self-Defense Tactics ANY Woman Can Learn

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence

Child Safety resources from Gavin de Becker and Associates

National Resources for Sexual Assault Survivors and their Loved Ones

Darkness to Light – End Child Sexual Abuse

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking

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“There’s No End In Sight”: Hong Kong Protests Spark Comparisons To France’s Yellow Vest Movement

Similarities are starting to be drawn between Hong Kong’s mass rallies and France’s Yellow Vest movement: according to Bloomberg, both are “hard to pin down” and both are evolving. It’s a “recipe for trouble” for each country’s respective government. 

The Hong Kong protests that started against legislation that would enable extradition back to the mainland have now grown to include cries for Lam’s resignation and investigations into police abuse during the protests themselves. 

One anonymous 28 year protester in Hong Kong said: 

“We have to continue to protest until our demands are met. There is no end in sight.”

Hong Kong is bracing for more protests on Friday while Chief Executive Carrie Lam tries to decide whether or not to make concessions, like French President Emmanuel Macron did, to take the wind out of the sails of some of the protests. 

Hong Kong opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo said about the French protesters:

 “We find them very inspiring. The most direct similarity is the continuation of actions. The most dissimilar is the looting. I just cannot imagine anyone looting shops, cracking cars or burning taxis to make a point—that’s not Hong Kong.”

Even though Lam shelved the bill that spurred the protests in March to begin with, rallies have evolved and expanded to additional grievances. Both Hong Kong and France are not strangers to street protests. Student protests in France in 1968 “defined the era” and the Yellow Vest protests drew comparisons with their intensity. 

The movement was organized by social media groups and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people each Saturday to protest fuel prices, before evolving into protests on the French state. Fringe elements of the group engaged in burning cars, looting and torching shops. The Arc de Triomphe was even vandalized during riot battles with police. 

In Hong Kong last week, protesters targeted the liaison office of China’s central government in the center of the city and, as we reported, Triad members attacked pro-democracy protesters in a train station. 

Kenneth Yeung, a doctoral student from Hong Kong with a focus on social movements at the Université Paris Diderot said: “It’s about the pent-up anger that’s accumulated in the five years since Occupy. Today, even those who have never participated in any movements are thinking they must do their part.”

The lack of unified leadership between both protests is an element that could be prolonging them. Leaderless movements “adapt and evolve” using encrypted messaging apps. 

“The lack of a leader is the reason the movement is still continuing,” Yeung said.

France’s protests differ from Hong Kong’s in terms of motivation. France’s protests started as “an anti-globalization movement that saw in Macron a symbol of an out-of-touch elite that had let them down.” Hong Kong’s protests center around China, the territory’s China-picked leader, Lam.

Macron eventually gave in, addressed the nation, and initiated a platform where citizens could vent their frustrations. On December 10 he announced $11.1 billion in tax cuts and increased pension and welfare spending, in addition to organizing a national debate inclusive of 10,500 town hall meetings. His response helped quell the movement.

Lam doesn’t have such flexibility, as she must appease both her citizens – and Beijing. 

James Shields, professor of French politics at the University of Warwick said: “Most of those people now stay home. But their yellow vests are still in their cars, ready to be worn again if Macron presses on with a reform agenda that hits ordinary French citizens in their pockets.”

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Johnstone: How To Inoculate Yourself From Establishment Bullshit

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

In a recent interview with CBS This Morning host Gayle King, former First Lady Michelle Obama contrasted her husband’s presidency with that of his successor by claiming that unlike Trump, the Obama family had had “no scandal”.

“I had to sit in [Trump’s inauguration] audience, one of a handful of people of color and then listen to that speech, and all that I had sort of held onto for eight years, watching my husband get raked over the coals, feeling like we had to do everything perfectly, you know, no scandal,” Obama said.

“Yeah,” King responded.

“No nothing,” Obama said “No nothing!”

“Yes. No scandal,” King said.

You hear this claim a lot from Democrats. There was a viral tweet with tens of thousands of shares shortly before the 2016 election which read, “8 years. No scandals. No mistresses. No impeachment hearings. Just class and grace, personified.” It’s a very common refrain which resurfaces in memes and tweets periodically, usually as criticisms of the sitting president.

Of course, the only reason anyone can attempt to claim that Barack Obama had “no scandals” is because in our bat shit crazy world, murdering, oppressing and exploiting large numbers of people isn’t considered scandalous.

In a sane, healthy world, a presidency like Obama’s would be looked upon with abject horror. Actually in a sane, healthy world a warmongering Wall Street crony like Obama would never have been elected in the first place, but if you were to show the members of a healthy, harmonious society the way that president used his power to do what he did to Libya and Syria, to continue and expand all of Bush’s most evil policies, to divert the push for economic justice into a neoliberal orgy for eight years, those people would recoil in absolute revulsion.

The only reason liberals think Obama had a low-key, drama-free presidency is because that presidency was normalized for them by the establishment narrative managers of the political/media class. If that class had been shrieking about Obama’s warmongering, surveillance expansion, persecution of whistleblowers, crony capitalism etc in the way that it’s been shrieking about Trump’s nonexistent Russia ties or his obnoxious tweets, these same people would see Obama as a horrible monster. But the propagandists didn’t do that, because it would hinder the cause of bloodthirsty imperialism abroad and crushing austerity at home.

The plutocrat-owned media and the plutocrat-owned politicians have the ability to control what people view as normal and what they view as weird, just by not reacting with alarm to occurrences they want normalized and reacting hysterically to occurrences they want rejected.

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s fairly mild differences with US foreign policy orthodoxy, for example, are treated as so freakishly bizarre that you routinely see establishment pundits making fascinatingly absurd statements about her and getting away with it. The Hill’s Reid Wilson posted a tweet that got thousands of likes and shares saying “Hot take/prediction: Tulsi Gabbard is going to endorse Trump in the end.” Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden shared Wilson’s tweet with the hysterical caption, “My prediction: Tulsi runs as third party Green candidate to help Trump win. I will take bets on this.” Again, thousands of likes and retweets.

Neither of these things are going to happen. Both Wilson and Tanden know they will never happen. Gabbard is a fairly conventional center-left Democrat who just wants to scale back US warmongering somewhat; she’s so well within the establishment-authorized Overton window that she just voted in favor of a House anti-BDS bill for Christ’s sake. But because she opposes a few aspects of the forever war and says it’s a good idea to communicate with world leaders who the US government doesn’t like, establishment attack dogs are acting like Hawaii’s second congressional district is being represented by some kind of eldritch tentacle beast from the Andromeda Galaxy.

I’m highlighting some of the more glaring recent examples here, but this sort of thing is happening all the time with varying degrees of subtlety. The public’s perceptions of events are continually being distorted by an establishment narrative management machine which controls what people view as normal and what they view as abnormal. You notice this very quickly when you start cultivating your news sense and paying attention to what news stories the mass media choose to give tons of coverage to and what stories they all but ignore; you notice almost immediately that there’s very little connection between how important a story is and how much news coverage it receives. The factor that determines the extent of coverage is the advancement of establishment interests and advertising revenue, in that order. Actual newsworthiness barely registers.

The way to rob the narrative managers of their ability to manipulate our sense of normalcy is to create an image of a sane and healthy world for ourselves to hold onto at all times, and to make that image into our own personal sense of what normal is. By having a vivid picture of what a sane and healthy world would look like in your mind, the false normal that the propagandists are trying to sell you will have no purchase.

Many people want to change the world, but hardly anyone ever sits down and creates a clear, positive image for themselves of a world in which all positive changes have been successfully put into full effect. Most people tend to just look at the current hot topic debates they’re seeing in the news over healthcare, immigration policies, gun control, austerity policies, abortion, LGBTQ issues, police brutality etc, and hope that those specific issues are resolved in their preferred way. But what if you zoomed out to a much bigger picture and imagined a healthy and harmonious world in which all our major problems have been resolved, and we’ve built something beautiful together? What would that be like?

I can’t envision such a world for you, because you and I will have different ideas about what a perfectly healthy and harmonious world looks like. I’m not trying to give you a specific image, I’m trying to get you to make a solid, lucid image of your own creation that can’t be replaced by the false normal the narrative managers are trying to implant in your mind day in and day out. Don’t hold back; go all the way and make the world as perfect as possible. All your ideas about what changes you might make are “realistic” or “unrealistic” are corrupted by propaganda anyway, so just create a perfect world.

This is worth setting aside an hour or two and investing some serious mental energy into. Once you’ve got a positive image of a healthy and harmonious world, and once you have a really clear image of what it would be like to live in that world, it’s kind of like you become someone from that imaginary world who stepped into this one and gets to see it for the first time. You get to see life through the eyes of someone for whom “normal” isn’t endless violence, oppression, exploitation and degradation, but for whom normal is the absence of those things. This makes all of the insanity in this world stand out like a black fly on a white sheet of paper, and gives you the ability to clearly see and describe precisely what needs to change about our situation here.

You’ve already had a taste of this if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of having to explain what war is to a small child. Nothing about war makes sense to a creature who is looking at this world with fresh eyes; the confusion and upset which immediately flashes over their face will make you feel like an idiot even if you oppose war, just for being a part of a world where grown-ups engage in such idiotic behavior. Someone who came into this world from a healthy and harmonious parallel earth would see it very much the same way.

Imagine if war weren’t normalized. Imagine if a US plane dropping a bomb on foreign soil and ripping human bodies to shreds was treated as the horrific event that it actually is and given weeks of extensive investigative coverage, instead of something that happens many times every single daywithout any mention at all. A pundit on Fox or MSNBC will tell you that you’re a delusional imbecile if you think this should cease immediately. Anyone who’s seeing our world with unindoctrinated eyes knows you’re a delusional imbecile if you don’t.

All the injustices we’re trained like dogs to see as normal are like this. Corruption. Plutocracy. Wage slavery. The way the homeless are treated. The fact that there are homeless at all. Police militarization. The drug war. Prisons for profit. Government surveillance. Propaganda. All of these things are inherently disgusting, but we lose our accurate sense of disgust because we’ve been tricked into accepting them as normal. So remove the scales from your eyes by creating a new normal for yourself.

*  *  *

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India Starts Taxing Stock-Buybacks, Could The U.S. Be Next?

Stock buybacks as a result of cheap debt in the United States have been one of the key catalysts helping ram the stock market higher without rhyme or reason for the last decade.

And it isn’t until the U.S. enters into a recession that we will find out exactly how value-destructive companies buying back their own stock at ridiculous prices will have been.

But India isn’t waiting around to find out.

This month, it imposed a curb on its companies’ share repurchases in order to close a loophole after introducing a dividend tax two years ago. The goal is to make sure that companies wind up paying something, no matter how they return cash to shareholders, according to Yahoo Finance. India has been taxing its markets for about 15 years, after it put a duty on most financial transactions.

The taxes haven’t stopped the growth of India’s equity market, which now exceeds $2 trillion. This makes it three quarters of the size of the country’s economy. There has been some protest from the industry, both in India and echoing on Wall Street, that the taxes do more harm than good.

Nilesh Shah, who helps oversee $25 billion in assets at Kotak Asset Management Co. said:

 “We need to reduce taxation on markets rather than increase it. Trust in the market is missing in every way. India’s government treats market players as speculators, not investors.”

Of course, share buybacks and dividends are nearly as old as the capital markets themselves and are two ways to return value back to shareholders. The argument is that taxing hurts entrepreneurialism and ultimately the investment that policymakers want in the first place.

Jeffrey Pontiff, a finance professor at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management said: “The big assumption that people are making in the background when they talk about preventing or limiting repurchases is, well, if shareholders get this money they are going to drink champagne. In reality people are going to invest it in other ideas.”

  • Regardless, the 20% levy went into effect on July 23. Some companies had already abandoned their plans for share repurchases after the plan was announced on July 5. 

Meanwhile, India already had the following financial levies:

  • A long-term capital gains tax of 10% on stock appreciation of more than 100,000 rupees ($1,449)

  • A 15% tax on companies distributing dividends, with a 10% levy on payouts exceeding 1 million rupees

  • A 10% tax on dividends paid out by equity mutual funds

  • A 0.1% tax on both the buyer and the seller in equity transactions. Differing levels of duties apply to transactions in bonds, mutual funds, commodities and stock derivatives

  • To help further address income inequality and fund the budget, the Modi administration this month unveiled plans to ramp up fees on the super-rich, with an income-tax surcharge on the highest earners more than doubling to 37%. The niggle there is that the move also affected some foreign investment vehicles. Perhaps not coincidentally, overseas investors pulled $1.8 billion in funds from Indian equities this month.

Samir Arora, the Singapore-based founder of Helios Capital Management said simply: “Forget about raising animal spirits — you have scared people.”

And these sentiments are echoing in the United States, too, as Republican Senator Marco Rubio has blasted the Trump administration for its tax cuts. Rubio has stated that the cuts benefit companies more than workers at a time where buybacks are at their highest in decades.

Alberto Manconi, a professor at Bocconi University in Milan said: “From both sides of the political spectrum, there are accusations that companies spend a lot of money on buybacks, and they invest less. That is an argument that is very puzzling to an academic. Whatever way you look at it, it is not clear the buyback is subtracting any money from the economy that could be used in a useful way.”

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“California Is Being Overrun By Rodents” – And We’re Not Talking About The Politicians

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

California is being hit by a “plague of rats”, and some commentators are suggesting that this is exactly what they deserve.  In fact, some have even gone so far as to suggest that the name of Los Angeles should be formally changed to “Los Ratas” because the rat problem is so severe there.  From Crescent City in the north all the way down to Chula Vista in the south, the rats are seemingly everywhere.  There are millions of them, and the more poison that people put out the more they seem to multiply.  The state of California has never seen anything like this before, and it is getting worse with each passing month.

At this point, things are already so bad that many are calling for Governor Newsom “to declare a public health emergency”

Pest control and public health experts are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a public health emergency over what they say is a sharp rise in the state’s rodent population.

“California is being overrun by rodents – and without immediate emergency action by state and local government, we face significant economic costs and risk a public health crisis,” said Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California, at a news conference Tuesday at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

It would be difficult to overstate the severity of this crisis.  According to a recent survey of California pest control companies, rat service requests are up “as much as 60% in the last 12 months”.

If you have ever lived some place where you can literally hear rodents crawling in the walls and in the ceiling, then you know how deeply unsettling it can be.

And in some instances, rodents are literally starting to fall out of the ceilings in California.  Just consider this example

Maggots and mice have fallen onto inmates’ dining tables at a California state prison where holes in the roof also allow rain and bird droppings to seep through and streak the walls, according to an inmate lawsuit that charges the state isn’t moving fast enough to repair deteriorating prisons.

California has committed $260 million over four years to repair leaking roofs and clear dangerous mold at more than two dozen deteriorating prisons where the cost of overdue maintenance is pegged at more than $1 billion.

A similar incident occurred at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Los Angeles last month while a customer was trying to order her dinner

Customers at a Los Angeles, Calif., Buffalo Wild Wings were in for a stomach-churning incident when a rat reportedly fell from the ceiling and landed on a table.

Alisha Norman, who was visiting Los Angeles from Texas, was getting ready to order at the chain restaurant when she heard something crawling above her, she told FOX35. Soon after, a rat fell and landed on a menu on the table.

This isn’t some third world country that we are talking about.  The state of California is the wealthiest state in the entire country, and they are being absolutely overrun by rats.

Of course it certainly doesn’t help that many California cities have a major trash collection problem.  The following was published by NBC Los Angeles earlier this year

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city’s most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA’s busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

As a result of all the trash and filth, even Los Angeles City Hall has become overrun by rats

Officials at Los Angeles’ City Hall are considering ripping all of the building’s carpets up, as rats and fleas are said to be running riot in its halls.

A motion was filed by Council President Herb Wesson on Wednesday to enact the much needed makeover amid a typhus outbreak in the downtown area.

Wesson said a city employee had contracted the deadly bacterial disease at work, and now he’s urging officials to investigate the ‘scope’ of the long-running pest problem at the council building.

When there is a huge problem like this that gets national attention, it is inevitable that California legislators will throw a lot more money at the problem, but that hasn’t worked so well in other cases.

For instance, two years ago New York Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a 32 million dollar program to fight the rat problem in his city, but that didn’t help.  In fact, the number of rat complaints actually increased by 38 percent last year…

New York, like other metropolitan cities including Philadelphia and Chicago, faces a major rat problem.

According to the New York Times, rat complaints have risen from 12,617 in 2014 to 17,353 last year. That’s a 38% jump citywide — and comes even after Mayor Bill de Blasio allocated $32 million in 2017 to reduce the number of the rodents.

And things are particularly bad on the Upper West Side.  They may have mountains of money over there, but they just can’t seem to keep the rats away

OpenTheBooks.com analyzed the number of calls for rats to 311 and found that, according to the Post, “the rats are running wild in this fancy area.”

A local publication called West Side Rag agreed that the Upper West Side has an extreme rat problem. “We’re like the Tom Brady of rats. All we do is win,” an article reads.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we cannot even handle the rats.

Somehow it seems fitting that the rat epidemic is most severe in the areas that are on the cutting edge of America’s social decline.  In life, you can try to run from the consequences of your actions, but they will catch up with you eventually.

As I have discussed previously, under ideal conditions rats can multiply very, very rapidly.  In fact, it has been estimated that two healthy rats could potentially become 482 million rats in just three years.

Perhaps Californians should just give up and let the rats take over.  After all, they couldn’t possibly do any worse than the politicians in the state are currently doing.

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

As Accusations Of Fraud Swirl, Rep. Ilhan Omar Busts A Move And Splits From Husband

After a three-year investigation by journalist David Steinberg resulted in a House ethics complaint against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) calling for probes into potential crimes committed by Omar and her brother, the far-left Congresswoman has left her husband for the second time, and are heading for yet another divorce according to the Daily Mail.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), husband Ahmed Hirsi

Omar has now dumped her current husband Ahmed Hirsi – who she first married in a religious ceremony in 2002 and divorced in 2008 – and moved into a penthouse apartment in one of Minneapolis’s trendiest neighborhoods, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

But Hirsi, is also spending time at the apartment, which is in the Mill District sector of Minnesota’s largest city, when she is out of town.

‘Wow,’ said Hirsi, when approached about the split by DailyMail.com outside the complex. ‘I can’t comment on that.

I’m sorry, I just can’t say anything,‘ he added before driving off in his BMW car. –Daily Mail

Of note, Omar married UK citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, who has been identified as her brother. The two divorced in 2017, after which Omar married Hirsi again in 2018. 

Timeline of Omar’s two marriages via the Daily Mail

Omar has three children with the 39-year-old Hirsi, who has been seen going in and out of the $2,860 per month rental.

“He only goes there when Ilhan is in DC,” said one family friend. “When she’s in Minneapolis he sleeps at his house.”

Hirsi was noticeably absent when Omar returned to a hero’s welcome at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport last week after being attacked by President Donald Trump.

At the time, he was sitting morosely in a Starbucks coffee shop close to the now-overgrown home that he and Omar shared during their marriage, sources tell DailyMail.com.

Omar told supporters at the airport she would continue to be Trump’s ‘worst nightmare.’

‘His nightmare is seeing a Somali immigrant refugee rise to Congress,’ she said. ‘His nightmare is seeing the beautiful mosaic fabric of our country welcome someone like me as their member of Congress home to Minnesota. –Daily Mail

The split with Omar may come at a great time for Hirsi, as his wife is currently the subject of much speculation. According to the Congressional complaint filed against her by Judicial Watch, “Substantial, compelling and, to date, unrefuted evidence has been uncovered that Rep. Ilhan Omar may have committed the following crimes in violation of both federal law and Minnesota state law: perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, state and federal tax fraud, and federal student loan fraud.” 

“The evidence is overwhelming Rep. Omar may have violated the law and House rules.  The House of Representatives must urgently investigate and resolve the serious allegations of wrongdoing by Rep. Omar,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “We encourage Americans to share their views on Rep. Omar’s apparent misconduct with their congressmen.” 

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