Hong Kong Tourism Plunges 40%, Most Since 2003 SARS Outbreak
As the protests in Hong Kong drag on into their fifteenth week, Bloomberg reports that the city’s tourism industry has taken its biggest hit since the 2003 SARS outbreak.
Tourist arrivals in the city declined almost 40% in August from a year earlier, according to Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who published the figures in a blog post published Sunday.
That’s the biggest yoy decrease in visitor numbers since May 2003, when arrivals sank almost 70% in the midst of the disease outbreak that ultimately claimed hundreds of lives in the city, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
“Social issues in the past few months, especially the continued violent clashes and blockading of airport and roads, have seriously impacted Hong Kong’s international image as a safe city,” Chan said in his post, which was written in traditional Chinese.
“The most worrying thing is that the situation is not likely to turn around in the near future.”
The city’s tourism, retail and hotel industries have been seriously hard hit, Chan said. The occupancy rates of hotels in some districts declined by more than half, while nightly rates decreased 40% to 70%.
Many meetings and business trips have been postponed or moved to other places, he said.
The protests have already had a serious impact on Hong Kong’s economy. Retail sales by value dropped 11.4% in July, the first full month impacted by the protests, while sentiment among small businesses has hit record lows.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s economy contracted 0.4% during Q2 from the previous period, raising the risk of a recession.
Based on figures from August 2018, a 40% drop would mean the city received about 3.5 million visitors, the lowest level in more than seven years.
UK Parliament Rejects PM Johnson’s Early Election, Now What?
After an hour of to- and fro-ing, jeering and yelling, guffawing and gaslighting, the UK parliament has finally voted on PM Johnson’s request for an early election on October 15th.
BoJo reiterated that he’s prepared to leave the European Union without an agreement if necessary, and that he “will not ask for another delay,” enraging opposition lawmakers, who complain he’s refusing to acknowledge the legislation that passed into law earlier blocking a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31.
Johnson lambasted the Labour Party for “preposterous cowardice” for not voting for the early election.
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn responded to Johnson’s statement by accusing the prime minister of pursuing a no-deal Brexit with no mandate to do so, and calling the government’s negotiations with the European Union a “sham.”
And Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson said her party would revoke Article 50 – keeping the U.K. in the European Union – if it was elected to government.
It was raucous to say the least.
This is parliament at its sickening worst
From Tory benches, the braying & bullying, the shouting & jeering is just disgusting
This isn’t a game – it’s about real people’s real lives, about the rule of law & about democracy
But, after all the bluster, as expected, MPs voted against the early election. He needed two-thirds of MPs – 434 of them – to vote for this but only 293 agreed (notably less that last week when he got 298), with 46 voting against and the rest abstaining.
“Once again, the opposition think they know better,” exclaimed Johnson after the failed vote.
There is no reaction in cable to this news.
And so, what happens next?
Quite frankly, no one knows but the following flowchart from Statista is the clearest illustration of what is to come we have found so far…
One doctor and medical school professor at the University of Southern California is reportedly responsible for guiding some 1,000 children into transgender identities, according to a Reutersnews report.
Johanna Olson-Kennedy is an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine as well as the medical director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. Olson-Kennedy has advocated “gender affirming treatment” for significant numbers of children who claim transgender identities, comparing them to diabetic patients who need insulin.
She has also advised that the minimum age for cross-sex hormones treatment can be as young as 8-years-old.
According to Reuters, Olson-Kennedy has worked with about 1,000 children and youths, assisting and affirming them as they adopt a transgender identity. Writing on Olson-Kennedy’s work helping transgender youth with “social transitions,” the news service reported: “Of some 1,000 patients [Olson-Kennedy] has dealt with, only one switched back to the natal gender.”
That rate of successful “transition” is staggering when compared to the purported average. At PsyPost, writing on numerous studies analyzing the long-term experiences of transgender youths, clinical psychologist James Cantor writes that “the majority of kids cease to feel transgender when they get older.” Cantor cites research indicating that the rate of “desistance” in transgender children ranges from 54 percent to around 90 percent, depending on the study. The desistance rate for Olson-Kennedy’s patients appear to be around 0.1 percent.
Olson-Kennedy, the Keck Medical School and the Center for Transyouth Health and Development all declined to comment for this story. Olson-Kennedy initially indicated a willingness to speak to The Fix about transgender clinical practices; later the professor wrote: “I have been advised by my PR people to pass on this.” Olson-Kennedy did not respond to further queries about the 1,000-patient number cited by Reuters.
Extensive work with transgender youth
Some of Olson-Kennedy’s critics point to a seven minute recording from 2017 in which the professor relates a story about dealing with a purported transgender student.
At one point during the recording, Olson-Kennedy is heard relaying a story about a young patient who was struggling with gender confusion:
I said, “Do you ever eat pop tarts?”
And the kid was like, oh, of course.
And I said, “well you know how they come in that foil packet?”
Yes.
“Well, what if there was a strawberry pop tart in a foil packet, in a box that said ‘Cinnamon Pop Tarts.’? Is it a strawberry pop tart, or a cinnamon pop tart?”..
The kid’s like, “Duh! A strawberry pop tart.”
And I was like, “so…”
And the kid turned to the mom and said, “I think I’m a boy and the girl’s covering me up.”
“It was an amazing experience,” Olson-Kennedy told her audience.
The doctor provides a wide variety of transgender-related services to children as the Medical Director of the Center for Transyouth Health and Development.
“We work with mental health providers who engage in individual and group therapy with transgender youth, as well as a network of mental health providers in the community who we believe are outstanding resources for these young people,” Olson-Kennedy told the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
“We also have case management here. Young people often need assistance with paperwork with legal-name changes, gender changes, etc,” Olson-Kennedy added.
Via @MLaidlawMD : In 2017, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy informed the @NIH that minimum age for cross-sex hormones was now reduced from 13 to 8.
Despite the sheer number of kids the professor has assisted in “transitioning,” Olson-Kennedy is apparently unable to explain how to tell if a kid is actually trans. The doctor toldthe Human Rights Campaign:
“In much of the current research about this, there isn’t a clear consensus in the community or among providers.”
“The truth is that we don’t really know whether that child who is gender non-conforming in childhood is going to go on to have a trans identity in adolescence or adulthood.”
Border Arrests Plummet 60% Since May As Trump Immigration Crackdown Gets Results
US immigration authorities arrested 64,000 migrants at the southern border in August – approximately 22% fewer people than July, and a 60% decrease from the 130,000 apprehensions in May, according to a Monday statement by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan.
Perhaps immigrants are rethinking an uncertain future in an ICE detention center after a sweltering trek through Mexico?
“The president has made it very clear that he’s going to use every tool available to him and this administration to address this unprecedented crisis at the southern border,” said Morgan during a White House briefing.
As The Hill notes, while border crossings tend to decrease during the hot summer months, this year’s precipitous drop is significant.
Trump threatened in June to impose tariffs on Mexican goods if the country did not take stronger actions to curb the flow of migrants headed for the U.S. border. Trump backed off the tariffs after Mexico said it would do more to address immigration.
In the months since, Trump has often praised Mexico for its enforcement measures, and Morgan said Monday that the Mexican government has apprehended roughly 134,000 people so far this year, up from 83,000 in all of 2018.
“The government of Mexico has taken meaningful and unprecedented steps to help curb the flow of illegal immigration to our border,” said Trump, who has made immigration a central issue to his administration – wall or not. Moreover, Trump has attempted to limit asylum claims while pressuring other countries to take in more migrants.
“In 22 years of patrolling our Southern Border, I have never seen Mexico act like a true Border Security Partner until President Trump got involved, and now they are stepping up to the plate and doing what they need to do.” Brandon Judd, National Border Patrol
And as Politico notes, “The decline in border traffic — if sustained — could amount to a major victory for Trump as he heads into the 2020 election,” adding “Perhaps more important, the experimental measures taken by his administration could reshape immigration enforcement for years to come.”
“I think that they are getting exactly what they said they would get, by forcing the hand of Mexico,” said pro-migrant group Alianza Americas executive director, Oscar Chacón, who added “But the question is, ‘Is it sustainable?'”
“People know that if they come into Mexico, they have to respect the Mexican law,” said Mexican Ambassador to the US, Martha Bárcena in a statement to Politico, adding that migrants looking to enter the US now realize that it’s “not as easy as they were told it was going to be.”
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence will meet in Washington with Mexcian Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard along with other officials to discuss the immigration strategy between the two countries, according to Mexican officials.
Mexico’s delegation will press the U.S. to process asylum cases faster, as migrants from Central America and elsewhere pile up in Mexican border towns. It will also push for increased aid to Central America and efforts to stop the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico.
The Mexico agreement followed threats from Trump to impose across-the-board escalating tariffs on Mexican goods that would likely have resulted in severe economic costs on both sides of the border. When the agreement was announced, it was widely interpreted as a fig leaf that would allow Trump to back down but wouldn’t likely have much impact on migration.
But the deal’s components appear to have contributed to the steep drop in border arrests, according to interviews with six former officials and advocates both for and against greater levels of immigration, as well asa POLITICO analysis of enforcement data. –Politico
The deal between the US and Mexico is centered around two main goals; heightened enforcement by Mexico – which yielded a three-fold y/y increase in arrests in June of 32,000 migrants, and an expansion of the “remain in Mexico” program – a.k.a. the Migrant Protection Protocols.
Mexico’s National Guard, meanwhile, has established a stronghold along their southern border with Guatemala – including key migrant crossing points in the city of Ciudad Hidalgo in the Mexican state of Chiapas. 6,000 troops have been committed to the anti-migration effort.
“They really have made it harder to cross where people were crossing before,” said Andrew Selee, president of the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, who called Mexico’s actions an “all-out enforcement effort like we’ve never seen before,” according to Politico.
Mexican officials have also stepped up enforcement in the city of Tapachula – roughly 45 minutes north of Ciudad Hidalgo.
“Particularly in the area around the Suchiate River at the Ciudad Hidalgo crossing, it seems like it is almost impossible to cross in a balsa boat as an undocumented migrant and not get detained by a National Guard agent,” according to Maureen Meyer – director for Mexico and migrant rights with the Washington Office on Latin America.
“Leaving the Tapachula area has also become more complicated given enforcement at different checkpoints in the highways around the city.”
The State of Illinois recently reported its biggest annual financial loss ever. Instead of clear reporting on that, we’ve seen perhaps the most glaring example yet of how the state’s finances can be misunderstood, misreported and intentionally distorted.
The loss of $47 billion for the state’s 2018 fiscal year, shown in audited financial statements released late last month, is an astonishing number. For some perspective, that’s about $7 billion more than the entire, current annual budget.
But most of the regular press downplayed or entirely ignored the loss. Many even saw good news. A Reuters headline, for example, read “Illinois budget deficit shrank to $7.8 billion in FY 2018.” You can find similar headlines from across the state.
Why would media coverage differ so drastically from what the audited financial statements really said? Which is right?
Two factors account for the difference, and both should be understood. This is a lesson in how misunderstanding of our financial crisis is created and propagated.
First, the loss was shrugged off because it stemmed mostly from an accounting change, which we will explain below. But that’s only a partial excuse. In truth, the accounting change exposed a huge liability that has been all but ignored in the past.
Second, most media reports seem to have blindly repeated a very misleading press release by the Illinois Comptroller that accompanied the financials.
Some background before we elaborate: The new financial statements are in the state’s recently released, long overdue CAFR — the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year that ended in June 2018. The $47 billion loss is shown in the statements as a drop in “net position,” which is the government’s rough equivalent of net worth that you commonly see in the private sector. Changes in it are comparable to net income. As the CAFR itself says, “Over time, increases and decreases in net position measure whether the State’s financial position is improving or deteriorating.”
The big loss was overwhelmingly due to an accounting change that had a $42 billion impact. That change was for healthcare costs owed in the future to state retirees, called OPEBs (other post-employment benefits). In Illinois, those benefits are constitutionally protected just like pensions. Unlike pensions, however, they are entirely unfunded. New accounting rules now taking effect require full disclosure of that liability, which the CAFR says totals $55 billion.
But should we dismiss the massive loss as a bookkeeping quirk? Hardly.
While the $42 billion loss didn’t occur in one year, it’s a growing monster that has been hidden for many years, unknown to most reporters and the public. Including it now as part of the state’s financial report card is an admission about how deficient previous reporting has been. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board couldn’t keep a straight face any longer as it watched governments like Illinois hide OPEB obligations, so it issued a new standard requiring better disclosure, which is now fully in effect.
The simple is fact is that the state’s true condition is indeed a full $47 billion worse than most Illinoisans were told a year ago. That’s because the regular media, like the accountants, have long ignored OPEB liabilities. If you know about them it’s probably only because you read about them here or in other alternate sources, or have expertise in the area.
The chart below shows the full story properly over time. Since 2002 the state has lost $178 billion. The big jump down in 2015 was also due to an accounting change. There have been other, smaller ones. However, had the proper accounting rules been in place from the start, the line would still end in the same place. Its downward slope would only have been less jagged.
The second reason why the 2018 loss wasn’t reported properly was misleading spin put on by Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza when she released the CAFR. Her press release starts as follows:
ILLINOIS CUT ITS DEFICIT IN HALF IN FISCAL YEAR 2018, ANNUAL CAFR SHOWS
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) released today shows Illinois cut its general funds deficit by $6.849 billion — from a deficit of $14.612 billion in fiscal year 2017 to a deficit of $7.763 billion in fiscal year 2018. That is largely because of a refinancing of state debt from high-interest to low-interest repayment.
In truth, Mendoza cherry-picked an extremely unrepresentative element of the CAFR. Note that she referred only to the “general funds” to claim the deficit reduction. The general funds are only part of the picture, and they effectively count borrowed money as if it is income!
It’s like claiming you cut your losses in half by putting that half on a credit card. During the year, Illinois sold bonds to pay down $6.5 billion of its huge backlog of unpaid bills. Refinancing from one debt to another in that manner has little genuine impact, aside from some interesting savings that, for 2018, would be a tiny portion of the supposed deficit reduction.
This is a common trick politicians use. I checked in with Sheila Weinberg, CEO of Truth in Accounting, about the Illinois CAFR issue. She repeated what she has long taught: “General fund accounting is incomplete and misleading, for many reasons including the fact that bond proceeds are accounted for as income.” (For those interested in the details, see the page from the CAFR reproduced below listing all the items ignored in the Governmental Funds, which include the general fund, which is why it is so misleading.)
Mendoza certainly had a different lens on CAFR numbers two years ago when we had a governor she didn’t like, Bruce Rauner. Her press release for the 2016 CAFR started as follows, focusing on the entire net position instead of just general funds:
With no relief in sight, Illinois’ finances deteriorated at an alarming rate in fiscal year 2016 as net deficit totals spiked to a staggering $126.7 billion…. The State’s [CAFR] paints a worsening outlook for the State’s financial future on this unsustainable path. Mendoza said the CAFR findings reflect a lawless fiscal climate.
Well, that “staggering” negative $126.7 billion is now negative $184 billion. It had worsened by $5.8 billion under that “lawless fiscal climate,” which is about the same as last year if you ignore the OPEB loss. No moral outrage now from Mendoza, however.
I called Abdon Pallasch, Mendoza’s press director, to comment on why I thought her most recent press release is so misleading. “It’s all in the CAFR” that was published, he said, adding that they selected the parts they did, focused on the general fund, and that those wishing to write about other aspects can look at the other sections.
Yes, literally read, Mendoza’s press release is correct. I say it’s also grossly misleading.
Keep in mind that the 2018 fiscal year was an unusually good year in the markets, which temporarily reduced the state’s deficit. Stocks returned some 14% that year, about twice what the state pensions assume they will return per year. That allowed the pensions to actually improve a bit – the net unfunded pension liability shrank by $4 billion to $134 billion. Had they deteriorated as rapidly as they typically do, the overall report would have been far worse.
Finally, if you’ve been wondering how much the recent state income tax hikes would solve, you now have the answer. Those increases took effect at the start of the fiscal year covered by the new CAFR. They obviously didn’t materially change the state’s direction downward, even if you ignore the OPEB issue.
Page 39 from CAFR, listing matters not recorded in Governmental Funds that do impact change in net position:
North Korea Test-Fires Two More Missiles Just Hours After Suggesting “Willingness To Sit With US”
Just a few short hours after North Korea said it was willing to resume denuclearization talks with the United States in late September, South Korea’s Yonhap news reports that North Korea fired unidentified projectiles toward the eastern sea twice, citing South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The projectiles were launched from the western province of South Pyongan, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Our military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture,” they said in a statement carried by Yonhap.
Choe Son-hui, North Korea’s first vice foreign minister, made the announcement in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, saying she has taken note of Washington’s repeated calls for talks.
“We have willingness to sit with the U.S. side for comprehensive discussions of the issues we have so far taken up at the time and place to be agreed late in September,” she said.
President Trump later told reporters he had seen the statement but stopped short of giving a definite answer.
“We’ll see what happens, but I always say having meetings is a good thing, not a bad thing,” he said at the White House.
And now, in what is hardly a show of good faith, North Korea tests two more missiles.
House Dems Probe Whether Trump, Giuliani Pressured Ukraine To Hurt Biden’s Campaign
Not the Onion, but astounding and absurd in its shameless bombasity nonetheless: House Democrats have launched an investigation into Biden’s glaring obstruction of a legal probe in Ukraine Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for alleged interference in Ukraine’s government.
Democrats are charging the Trump administration with pursuing “politically-motivated investigations” in Ukraine under the guise of “anti-corruption activity” in order to target and smear former Vice President Joe Biden. They allege the White House is using its influence to target Trump’s likely key Democrat presidential challenger for 2020.
On Monday The Hill reportedthat three House committees “sent joint letters to White House and State Department demanding documents related to whether Trump and Giuliani sought to pressure Ukraine to target Biden, a 2020 Democratic White House hopeful.”
Getty Images
Giuliani has long pursued the very obvious question (that we ourselves and many others have asked) as to why neither Kiev authorities nor the media have investigated then Vice President Biden’s successful attempt in 2016 to get the country’s top prosecutor removed at a crucial moment during an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings — the Ukrainian natural gas company advised at the time by Biden’s son Hunter.
A joint statement issued Monday from the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs said as follows:
“A growing public record indicates that, for nearly two years, the President and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appear to have acted outside legitimate law enforcement and diplomatic channels to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity.”
“As the 2020 election draws closer, President Trump and his personal attorney appear to have increased pressure on the Ukrainian government and its justice system in service of President Trump’s reelection campaign, and the White House and the State Department may be abetting this scheme,” they continued.
Leading the charge is Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who have demanded all documents related to their probe no later than September 16.
As the The New York Timesreported previously, during the final year of the Obama presidency, VP Biden “threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor” — Viktor Shokin — “who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite.”
Crucially last month Giuliani was reported to have again raised the issue with Ukrainian officials — which he recently indicatedhe had done in the capacity of a private citizen in order to help the country deal with corruption, according to his account in an interview.
From the start the mainstream media has largely ignored the Biden scandal, opting instead to attack the messengers— even after his own very public admissions of his prior quid pro quo personal interventions in Ukraine under Obama.
For example, Biden has in the past positively bragged about many of the very things at the heart of the Burisma Holdings scandal:
“Son Of A Bitch Got Fired!” Joe Biden Brags He Forced Ukraine To Fire Key Official In Exchange For Money https://t.co/BVz6vNdl73
CNN cynically asserted it in its latest report, “the former New York mayor is making a renewed push for the country to investigate Trump’s political enemies.”
It appears House Dems are taking up where CNN left off by initiating its formal probe, all the while continuing to ignore the much more glaring original scandal.
Is Hong Kong’s Outrageously Expensive Housing Fueling Civil Unrest?
An important backdrop to the ongoing anti-government / pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong is the widening wealth gap between the city’s billionaire developers, and fed-up citizens trying to carve out an existence amid an outrageous cost of living.
To that end, Bloomberg‘s Shawna Kwan notes: “Widening inequality has long contributed to tension in the city, and nothing exemplifies the divide between the haves and have-nots better than the sky-high cost of residential property.“
Hong Kong’s real estate has for years been ranked the world’s least affordable. For example, a one-bedroom unit in Tuen Mun in the New Territories — about an hour away from Central, the main business district, by subway — costs the same as a two-bedroom apartment on New York’s upmarket Upper East Side. Prices have risen by 48% over the past five years. According to Demographia, it takes almost 21 years of an average household’s entire income to purchase a home, compared with 12.6 years in Vancouver and 8.3 years in London. Renting is hardly more palatable. Rates for apartments in the ex-British colony are higher than for similar-sized dwellings in San Francisco, New York City and Zurich.
2. Why’s it so expensive?
At first glance, it’s a simple supply-demand mismatch. Hong Kong crams 7.5 million people into 427 square miles (1,105 square kilometers) — roughly the same size as Los Angeles with its 3.9 million people. What’s more, less than 25% of the territory is developed, with 40% of it country parks or nature reserves. That makes Hong Kong one of the world’s most densely populated regions with 17,311 people per square mile. But there’s more to it than that. The city has long been a popular destination for Chinese property investors, while the constant influx of mainland immigrants has underpinned housing demand. There’s also a view among local owner-occupiers, borne out by the relentless climb of home prices, that real estate is a one-way bet.
3. How reliant is the government on real estate?
Heavily. Being a low-tax economy, land sales comprised 27% of government revenue in 2018, the biggest single source of funding. The proceeds pay for infrastructure, from building bridges and highways to rolling out IT systems. The city’s property tycoons also hold great sway in local politics. Prominent developers including Li Ka-shing and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd.’s Adam Kwok are among the exclusive 1,200-member election committee that voted for the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, in the last election. Then, some 90% of voters from the real estate sector publicly sided with Lam, the Beijing-approved candidate who has been at the center of protesters’ ire.
4. How does this fuel the protests?
While the ultra-wealthy have built their fortunes on property and live in multimillion-dollar, multi-room houses, at the other end of the spectrum are the masses squeezed into apartments barely the size of parking spots. Some people resort to dwelling illegally in industrial buildings or converted shipping containers. Young people despair they’ll never be able to own their own home, hampering their chances of marriage and having a family. Some demonstrators, filled with the sense they have little to lose, are willing to resort to ever more extreme ways to protest at the expense of the economy. A property market crash? Yes, please. Even Lam herself has said the lack of housing for the young is an underlying issue that needs addressing to resolve the crisis.
5. What’s the government doing?
To be fair, Lam’s administration has been more proactive than previous governments in increasing the supply of land for housing. It’s proposed an $80 billion plan to build four artificial islands equal to about a fifth the size of Manhattan that could house more than 1 million people but would take years to complete. Other ideas such as building on golf courses, barren farmland or open-air parking lots have been floated. Lam has also introduced more government-subsidized apartments, though the supply has come nowhere near to matching demand. But none of the measures has made getting on the property ladder any easier for the majority of people.
6. So there’s no short-term fix?
Not really. And with the government’s authority being eroded by the months-long protests, it’s less likely to put forward any controversial policies, such as the artificial islands. Nearly 6,000 people protested after Lam detailed the project in 2018. Adding to the general unhappiness is the theory outlined by some lawmakers that the government avoids taking land from developers and the indigenous communities in the New Territories because it would be too politically damaging. Those groups are traditionally pro-government.
US Extracted Top Spy From Kremlin In Secret 2017 Operation
The United States successfully extracted one of its highest-level spies from the Kremlin in 2017, according to CNN, citing “multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge.”
Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on May 10, 2017
According to the report, the decision to carry out the extraction was driven in part by concerns that Trump or his administration might contribute to exposing the spy – after telling Russia about a plot by the Islamic State uncovered by Israel. Considering the source, however, this may require a few grains of salt.
The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel.
The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.
At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset. An extraction, or “exfiltration” as such an operation is referred to by intelligence officials, is an extraordinary remedy when US intelligence believes an asset is in immediate danger. –CNN
So, according to CNN, Trump’s disclosure of an ISIS plot, which “does not appear to have been illegal” according to the New York Times, sent the US intelligence community into such a panic that they exfiltrated their high-level Kremlin spy.
The CIA’s director of public affairs, Brittany Bramell, slammed CNN in a statement – saying “CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.”
“CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger,” said White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
According to the report, there was already speculation in the media that the US had such a covert source,” prior to the exfiltration – which “poses risks to the safety of anyone a foreign government suspects may be involved.”
The removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress.
Those concerns continued to grow in the period after Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov. Weeks after the decision to extract the spy, in July 2017, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg and took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter’s notes. Afterward, intelligence officials again expressed concern that the President may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community’s response to the Trump-Putin meeting.
Knowledge of the Russian covert source’s existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies. According to one source, there was “no equal alternative” inside the Russian government, providing both insight and information on Putin. –CNN
In other words, CNN is also implying that the confiscation of Trump’s interpreter’s notes after the Putin meeting in Hamburg may be connected to the covert operation. The network also claims: “CNN is withholding several details about the spy to reduce the risk of the person’s identification.”
Trump was reportedly told of the extraction, along with a small number of senior officials. The current location of the spy and details of the extraction itself remain secret.
In short – the United States is without this (and perhaps the only) high-level Kremlin source because the US intelligence community thought Trump might spill the beans after revealing an ISIS terror plot to Russia.
This year America is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the NFL. Every week, millions of us will gather around our televisions to watch extremely well paid young men throw a football around. I love football myself, and I am hoping for a really good season. But while these highly paid teams are playing in some of the most beautiful sports stadiums in the entire world, the cities that they represent are rapidly falling apart all around them. From coast to coast, major U.S. cities are rapidly being transformed into rotting, decaying hellholes, and it is getting worse with each passing year.
Let’s start by looking at Baltimore. On Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens absolutely crushed the Miami Dolphins 59-10, and Lamar Jackson looks poised to have an absolutely fabulous season.
But meanwhile, the city of Baltimore itself is a drug-infested nightmare that could potentially set a new all-time record for homicides in 2019. President Trump recently made national headlines for calling it a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess”, and it is being reported that he will actually visit the city on Thursday…
Just weeks after lambasting Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” President Trump will visit the Maryland city to huddle with congressional Republicans — a gathering that could draw local protests and reignite an ugly feud between the White House and the black-majority locality.
The White House confirmed Sunday that Trump would address House Republicans at their biennial retreat this Thursday. Republican lawmakers and aides — who chose the city for their three-day gathering before Trump decried it as “the Worst in the USA” — weren’t sure the president would want to attend.
Today, Baltimore has literally become one of the most dangerous areas on the entire planet. In fact, there is only one country in the entire world that has a higher per capita homicide rate than Baltimore…
Only one country in the world has a higher per capita homicide rate than the city of Baltimore.
According to WorldAtlas, the murder capital of the globe is Honduras — where there are 90.4 homicides per 100,000 people.
Baltimore, with 56 homicides per 100,000 people, edges out the number two spot ahead of Venezuela, where there are 53.7 homicides per 100,000 people.
Of course Baltimore is definitely not alone.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers (that still doesn’t sound right to me) both won their first games, but the city they represent is literally degenerating right in front of our eyes.
Thanks to a rapidly growing homeless population and the worst rat epidemic the city has ever seen, health authorities are having to deal with outbreaks of typhoid fever and leprosy…
With typhoid fever and even the return of the bubonic plague already big concerns, increasing homelessness in Los Angeles could also spark an increase in leprosy.
According to a new study, more leprosy cases are starting to emerge in Los Angeles County, with Dr. Maria Teresa Ochoa of the University of Southern California urging the public to “fight the stigma.”
Leprosy, which is spread through the air but must involve close contact, can cause permanent blindness, severe damage to the body’s skin, nerves, and mucous membranes, as well as deformities.
Once upon a time, Los Angeles was one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but now Dr. Drew Pinsky is warning that “rats have taken over the city”…
Celebrity physician Dr. Drew Pinsky calls it a health crisis, something not seen “in this country for 100 years.” Pinsky even compared downtown LA to a third world country because of its public health problems and lack of sanitation.
“Rats have taken over the city, it’s not consistent with civilization, how many must die before we change direction?” Pinsky said.
You would think that the lawmakers in Sacramento would do something to help clean up Los Angeles, but Sacramento itself is quickly turning into a cesspool.
When salon owner Liz Novak went on Twitter and explained why she felt forced to relocate her business, it quickly got the attention of quite a few national media outlets…
‘I just want to tell you what happens when I get to work. I have to clean up the poop and the pee off of my doorstep. I have to clean-up the syringes. I have to politely ask the people who I care for, I care for these people that are homeless, to move their tents out of the way of the door to my business,’ she said in a video posted on Twitter, which gained the attention of Fox News and other national media outlets.
‘I am angry about it. I wouldn’t be relocating if it wasn’t for this issue,’ Novak added.
I have to say that I agree with her.
If people were pooping and peeing on my doorstep, I would move too.
Speaking of human poop, there is so much of it in the streets of Philadelphia that it has fueled an alarming outbreak of Hepatitis A cases.
The Eagles may have beaten the hapless Redskins on Sunday, but the city that they represent is literally becoming a toilet…
Philadelphia usually sees no more than six cases of Hepatitis A annually, said Abernathy. City officials count 117 confirmed cases this year to date, with more under investigation.
The Kensington, ground zero of the region’s opioid crisis, where many people struggling with addiction live on the streets, has grappled with poop on the street, in parks and on porches for years. Hepatitis A spreads primarily through contact with fecal matter.
It is easy to pick on Philadelphia, because it is one of the poorest run major cities in the entire nation.
“There’s so much human feces on the ground it’s unbelievable,” said Jacelyn Blank, a board member of the East Kensington Neighbors Association and the co-founder of the group Philly Tree People, which plans and cares for trees in the city’s many leaf-deprived neighborhoods.
Of course the same thing is happening in just about every other major city around the country. The “worst drug crisis in American history” has resulted in hordes of homeless addicts mindlessly wandering about as they search for a way to get their next fix. As a nation, we need to fundamentally reject the way that we have been doing things, and we need to start running in the other direction as fast as we can.
Sports has an important role to play in our society, but when just a handful of people are paid millions of dollars to play while millions upon millions of other citizens are wallowing in poverty, despair and addiction, that is a sign that things have gotten very seriously out of balance.
Our nation is deeply broken, and it is getting worse with each passing day. If we ever want to fix things, we need to wake up and start focusing on the things that really matter.
