DNC Picks 20 Candidates To Join Biden & Bernie In First Democratic Debates

It sounds like the setup for a terrible gag: How many Democrats can you squeeze on to a debate stage?

Well, the DNC is about to find out.

According to Bloomberg, the DNC has unveiled the list of candidates who will take part in the first presidential primary debates of the 2020 election.

The group of 20 ‘finalist’ candidates will be split into two groups of ten, and each will perform in one of the two ‘first round’ debates to be held in Miami on June 26 and June 27. Each group will be selected ‘at random’, with a proper mix of high- and low-polling candidates.

DNC

To qualify for the debate, the DNC required candidates to show a threshold of at least 1% support in major polls, or 65,000 individual donations from at least 20 states. If more than 20 candidates qualified, the DNC would decide who to cut (which would have given them a great excuse to get rid of Bernie before things start getting out of hand like they did during the last go-round). 

Here’s the final list of contenders:

  • Joe Biden, former vice president
  • Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
  • Bernie Sanders, U.S. senator from Vermont
  • Pete Buttigieg, South Bend, Indiana, mayor
  • Kamala Harris, U.S. senator from California
  • Beto O’Rourke, former U.S. congressman from Texas
  • Cory Booker, U.S. senator from New Jersey
  • Kirsten Gillibrand, U.S. senator from New York
  • Michael Bennet, U.S. senator from Colorado
  • Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator from Minnesota
  • Tim Ryan, U.S. congressman from Ohio
  • Eric Swalwell, U.S. congressman from California
  • Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. congresswoman from Hawaii
  • Jay Inslee, Washington governor
  • John Hickenlooper, former Colorado governor
  • Julian Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development
  • Bill de Blasio, New York City mayor
  • John Delaney, former U.S. congressman from Maryland
  • Andrew Yang, entrepreneur
  • Marianne Williamson, spiritual healer

The unfortunate few who did not qualify for the debate are: Montana Governor Steve Bullock; Miramar, Fla. Mayor Wayne Messam and Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts.

Clearly overcompensating because it’s still rattled by how it shot itself in the foot by favoring Hillary Clinton over Sanders during the last go-round, the DNC insisted that its methodology for choosing the debate participants was transparent, and as inclusive as possible.

“Each candidate was invited based on the qualification criteria agreed to by the DNC and NBC News, announced publicly in February,” the committee said in a statement.

Of course, by allotting so many candidates to participate, it virtually guarantees that the party’s ‘frontrunners’ – Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden – likely won’t get as much air time and attention as they should, given their hopes for taking on President Trump, who has the media’s full attention (as well as its scrutiny).

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XaDXfx Tyler Durden

Reviews: Men in Black: International and The Dead Don’t Die

Twenty-two years after the launch of their original series, the Men in Black are back. But why? Well, yes, the Earth is still home to a plenteous undercover population of intergalactic space aliens, and they still need herding. And some of them still pose existential threats to the planet, and so require sterner attention. But as we see in this fourth MiB film, the franchise faces an existential threat of its own: irrelevance.

There have of course been insurmountable losses since the first Men in Black. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the Agent J and Agent K who powered the original film with their comedic chemistry, are gone and pretty surely not coming back. Also missing is Chief Zed, the agency boss played in the first two films by the wonderfully acerbic Rip Torn, who was replaced in the third picture by Emma Thompson’s milder-mannered Agent O (who returns here, overseeing Liam Neeson’s “High T,” head of the agency’s London branch).

Taking the approximate place of Smith and Jones are Chris Hemsworth as Agent H and Tessa Thompson as new recruit Agent M. Hemsworth’s character is a showboating veteran resting on his laurels in the London office and Thompson’s is a woman who had a childhood encounter with the Men in Black, evaded their mind-wiping neuralyzers, and is now H’s new partner. This should have been a great team—Hemsworth and Thompson’s own chemistry was clearly displayed in Thor: Ragnarok. But here they strike not a single spark—a fun-deficit that has to be laid at least in part at the feet of director F. Gary Gray (The Fate of the Furious). Gray also manages to goose the story around from Paris to Marrakech to an island off of Naples without persuading us that he’s shooting anywhere other than a studio soundstage.

The story is a low-energy mishmash. Yet another doomsday dingus is in play, and it’s being avidly sought by an evil interplanetary outfit called The Hive, which is personified by Laurent and Larry Bourgeois, a pair of famous French hip-hop dancers. (This is a little weird, but whatever.) There’s also a guy with an alien beard (it unfurls and speaks) and a three-armed weapons dealer in a semi-Sia wig (Rebecca Ferguson) who triggers an elaborate fight scene that’s not bad. To make things almost interesting, there’s a mole inside the MiB.

Naturally, there are callbacks from the fondly remembered first Men in Black film. The gibbering worm aliens slink around MiB headquarters once more, and Frank the Pug (the dog-world Don Rickles) gets a passing line, too. There’s the usual complement of big shiny weapons (is that a Series 7 De-atomizer?) and a new chart of secretly alien celebrities (with Elon Musk and Arianne Grande replacing the old-school Danny DeVito and Sylvester Stallone). And of course those nifty neuralyzers are still being whipped out to cloud the minds of inconvenient witnesses.

But with its unfortunate combination of rote plotting and retread visual elements, the movie never attains comic liftoff. And if it weren’t for Kumail Nanjiani, who gives the film’s most entertaining performance, there’d be few real laughs. Nanjiani voices the last surviving member of a tribe of alien chess pieces, a tiny character saddled with the clunky moniker Pawny. Having lost his queen in a calamitous battle, Pawny yearns to find a new sovereign. “Are you a queen?” he asks Thompson’s Agent M. “Well,” she says, “to the extent all women are.” (Among Thompson’s duties in this movie is some light grumping about the sexism of the franchise’s title—Men in Black. Happily, Hemsworth gets to play this trite messaging—crafted by two male screenwriters—for a small laugh at another point.)

So what next for the Men in Black? Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes, who’ve produced these movies from the start, might be hoping for yet another sequel. Viewers of this film, however, may be more than ready to move on.

The Dead Don’t Die

Nothing in Jim Jarmusch’s new zombie-com is as undead as the movie itself. This is a sad thing to have to say about a film that stars Bill Murray, Adam Driver, and Tilda Swinton. Especially since Jarmusch’s previous genre exercise, the 2013 Only Lovers Left Alive, was such a wildly original piece of work. But The Dead Don’t Die is listless and dull; it’d be more fun if it were dumber, and even a little bit witty—which, believe me, it isn’t.

The movie is set in a nowhere burg called Centerville (“A Real Nice Place,” says a sign at the town limits), which is filled with barely sketched-in characters doing boring things that never tie together into an actual story. Farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi in a MAGA-style “Make America White Again” cap) is missing a chicken. Police chief Cliff Robertson (Murray) suspects the thief is forest-dwelling Hermit Bob (Tom Waits, in a role that could be excised from the movie with no disruptive effect at all). Cliff and his deputy, Ronnie Peterson (Driver), notice that their watches have stopped working and there’s no more cell-phone service and daylight seems to be lasting much longer than it should. Soon fellow cop Mindy Morrison (Chloë Sevigny) is sharing their concern.

Meanwhile, three kids at the local juvie lockup learn from TV newscaster Posie Juarez (Rosie Perez) that the earth has been knocked off its axis by “polar fracking.” Presumably for this reason, the dead in the municipal cemetery have begun rising from their graves. Two of these creatures (Jarmusch vet Iggy Pop and the director’s partner Sara Driver) make their way to the town diner, where they chow down on two employees and then avail themselves of coffee, the beverage they so loved in life. (The movie is well-stocked with film-culture references, and this notion of zombie consumerism echoes George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead—although here we have zombies wandering the streets in search of wi-fi and Chardonnay. Which is admittedly pretty funny.)

What else? Well, everybody is weirdly wild about the movie’s title song, a country fiddle ballad by Sturgill Simpson that keeps turning up on random CDs and car radios. We see gas station owner and comic-book connoisseur Bobby Wiggins (Caleb Landry Jones) trading zonked dialogue with deliveryman RZA and acting as oddly as you might expect from a character played by Caleb Landry Jones. Over at the Moonlight Motel, three youths (Selena Gomez, Austin Butler and Luka Sabbat) are fearfully bracing for the zombie apocalypse. And out on the road, Deputy Ronnie is getting all meta with Chief Cliff. (Asked how he knows this story won’t turn out well, as he keeps predicting, Ronnie says, “Jim showed me the script.”)

Then there’s the incomparable Tilda Swinton, who plays Zelda Winston, Centerville’s samurai undertaker (let’s leave it at that). Swinton is never boring, and she’s not boring here, either. But while I’ve always thought she could redeem even the lumpiest, unworthiest movie…after seeing this one, I’m not so sure.

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A ‘Win’ For Hong Kong’s Protesters? City Council Weighs ‘Pause’ On Controversial Extradition Bill

Are Hong Kong’s student demonstrators winning the battle to kill the hated extradition bill?                                                                        It’s starting to look that way…

According to the South China Morning Post, the city’s largest English language newspaper, the city council are considering ‘pausing’ their plans to pass the bill – which would likely slow, but not stop, the process.

This comes after dozens were injured and nearly one dozen arrested on Wednesday, the most violent day of the protests so far. The city’s advisors are reportedly “torn”, with some advocating that city executive Carrie Lam offer a sop to the protest movement that has badly shaken the city, while others believe the government must push ahead with its plans.

Bernard Chan, the counsel’s non-official convenor, said it would be “impossible” to rush the amended legislation through, while city executive Carrie Lam Ching-choi and Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun have both advocated taking a step back.

Map

Advisors also said they had underestimated the backlash from the business community over the bill and the public’s violent reaction, which brought the city to a standstill as thousands occupied critical motorways.

Of course, nobody wanted to see the city’s legislature “paralyzed” by a single piece of legislation either.

“What happened on Wednesday is saddening and is not something that we would want to see,” Chan said in a radio phone-in programme.

“We indeed need to review what to do.”

“Our first task right now is on how to mollify the public to avoid more clashes in future.”

A group of 22 former lawmakers, meanwhile, sent Lam a letter imploring her to withdraw the unpopular bill immediately, and exhorting her advisors to resign if it isn’t abandoned. In the letter, the former lawmakers asked Lam to listen to Hong Kong’s “future generation” – that is, the students who have been flooding the streets and getting embroiled in scuffles with police.

Signatories included former secretary for security Peter Lai Hing-ling, former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang, former deputy secretary for economic services Elizabeth Bosher and former Legco Senior Member Allen Lee Peng-fei. Ultimately, the letter asks why the bill must be rushed through the process when so many are asking for more time for the legislature to review it.

“This is our future generation to be cherished, how can anyone with a heart not be pained to see the treatment they received?” the statement read.

“A deeply divided society, serious concerns of the international community – are these the sacrifices to be made to satisfy the will of the chief executive? What great public interest is supposed to be served by the hurried passage of this Bill?”

“We call on the chief executive to yield to public opinion and withdraw the Bill for more thorough deliberation. We call on her governing team, including all principal officials and members of the Executive Council to do their duty to advise her so to do. Should their advice be ignored, we call upon them to resign.”

      The former security secretary who drafted the existing extradition law, meanwhile, said both sides needed to take a step back and reassess and cool down. Withdrawing the bill temporarily would be one way to accomplish this.

Of course, with Beijing breathing down its neck, the notion that the city council will simply ‘back down’ in the face of public pressure seems a little far-fetched, no matter how violent the protests become.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2MOstL1 Tyler Durden

UK Labour Party Supports 10-Hr Work-Week (With Pay Cuts) To Halt Global Warming

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

UK Labour party Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, wants to slash the work week and pay by 75% to save the planet.

A number of sources confirm this Onion-like story.

Sun: Labour Aides Discuss Plans to Combat Climate Change by Cutting Work to Ten Hours.

Metro: Plan for 10-hour working week with 75% paycut under Labour

Those are Tabloids, but even Bloomberg is in on the act with a less controversial but similar idea: Jeremy Corbyn’s Four-Day Week Is Not Such a Bad Idea.

It’s the Labour party shadow chancellor, McDonnell, who supports 10 hours.

Vital Contribution

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who has previously backed a four-day working week, said: ‘This is a vital contribution to the growing debate around free time and reducing the working week.’

Leo Murray, adviser to Shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis, said: ‘I like this take a lot.’

More About McDonnell

From Wikipedia, John McDonnell

Socialism with an iPad

Following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader in 2015, he appointed McDonnell as his Shadow Chancellor. Alongside Corbyn, McDonnell has been seen as a key figure on the left-wing of the party. As Shadow Chancellor, McDonnell pledged to increase spending on infrastructure and research, describing his vision for the economy as “socialism with an iPad“.

An Honest Marxist

In 2006, McDonnell said that “Marx, Lenin and Trotsky” were his “most significant” intellectual influences. Footage emerged of McDonnell in 2013 talking about the 2008 global financial crisis and stating, “I’ve been waiting for this for a generation! We’ve got to demand systemic change. Look, I’m straight, I’m honest with people: I’m a Marxist.”

Green Revolution

Inspiration

The inspiration for this obviously mad work time limit is a publication by Philipp Frey: The Ecological Limits of Work.

Supposedly, a “1 percent decrease in working hours could lead to a 0.8 percent decrease in GHG emissions.

That is not enough to save the planet, but a 75% net reduction reduction in hours worked, varying by country, along with other improvements, allegedly will.

Politics of Time

Sweden needs to reduce hours worked by about 70%, Germany by about 86%, and the UK by about 75%.

The study claims “Actual working hours levels vastly exceed the levels that might be considered sustainable.”

Unfortunately, “Working time reduction as an isolated policy by itself will likely be insufficient to combat climate change.”

The report concludes “In addition to shortening the working week quantitatively and pushing for a substantial reconfiguration of the economy, a more qualitative approach to a politics of time might also be needed.

Just when you thought the global warming madness could not quickly get any nuttier, it quickly got nuttier.

If you support Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who praises the economic model of Venezuela or McDonnell, a Marxist who embraces a 10-hour work week, your head is not screwed on straight.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Xg4GaA Tyler Durden

Brickbat: Take It Off

Female defense attorneys in Jackson County, Missouri, say they suddenly have been told to take off their underwire bras before jailers at the detention center will allow them in to see their clients. It’s part of a new security protocol imposed by Sheriff Darryl Forte. Public Defender Ruth Petsch says her office was not given any warning about the new requirements.

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Apple Smartphone Sales Crash In Europe As Huawei Outshines Competition

A new report from the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) latest Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows Chinese smartphone makers are solidly outperforming Apple and Samsung across European markets.

Huawei and Xiaomi, two of China’s top smartphone producers, recorded YoY unit sale increases for all regions across Europe in 1Q19, while all other major smartphone companies experienced declines.

Huawei’s unit shipment in Europe jumped 66% YoY in 1Q19, while Xiaomi increased 33% YoY. During the same period, Samsung’s unit shipments dropped 7%, while Apple’s unit sales plummeted by 23%.

“In brands, Huawei continued to make incremental advances, and so did Xiaomi, while Apple had a tough quarter, with its 23% market share across Europe the lowest Q1 result in five years,” said Marta Pinto, research manager at IDC EMEA.

“The market has been changing in the last few quarters in relatively predictable ways,” said Pinto. “Shipments have slowed as consumers hold on to devices for longer, Apple has been challenged with its latest devices, and Chinese manufacturers have been making strides each quarter.”

Simon Baker, program director at IDC EMEA, said, “Europe has been a global focus of vendor concentration in recent quarters, with some of the smaller players under a lot of pressure. Looking ahead, it is no longer possible to see clear trends as before. The blacklisting of Huawei in the U.S. on May 16 is creating so many unknowns, and uncertainty is the new keyword in the industry as global geopolitics — unconnected directly with Europe or EMEA — becomes the single most important factor in how the market will develop over the rest of the year.”

Overall EMEA shipments reached 83.7 million units in 1Q19, a 3% drop YoY — confirming the smartphone slowdown isn’t just gaining momentum as the world continues to cycle down through summer, but Chinese smartphone makers have displaced Apple and Samsung as the top players in Europe.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2RoQQ0x Tyler Durden

Brickbat: Take It Off

Female defense attorneys in Jackson County, Missouri, say they suddenly have been told to take off their underwire bras before jailers at the detention center will allow them in to see their clients. It’s part of a new security protocol imposed by Sheriff Darryl Forte. Public Defender Ruth Petsch says her office was not given any warning about the new requirements.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2wPSdM4
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What Happens If Salvini Goes Mini-BOT On The EU?

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Since the idea was first floated there has been rampant speculation about how/when Lega Leader Matteo Salvini would introduce the Mini-BOT parallel currency to assist Italy’s fiscal situation.

Mike Shedlock has a great post on the subject that brings up a number of points about this subject. Well worth the read. Let’s go back and start at the beginning.

The mini-BOT or Mini-Bill of Treasury, is a small denomination bond that the treasury can sell which can be used by businesses and people as an alternative domestic currency.

As Mike brings up, without mandating their usage Italy skirts the letter of EU law prohibiting any country from issuing its own currency.

The big question is, will there be a bid for these mini-BOTs? Very likely. Relative to the Italian economy the euro is over-valued, it is too strong. But the euro would be under-valued relative to a mini-BOT trading at par to the euro.

And Gresham’s Law tells us that under-valued currencies are driven from the market and hoarded while over-valued ones circulate. It’s important to dispense with the “bad money drives out good money” idea. It clouds the analysis.

And with the Italian government then saying that they will take the mini-BOT or euros for payments of taxes and fees, now they have a bid. They can then circulate within the Italian economy while scarce euros are preferentially put to use in settling international trade.

The EU is, of course, dead set against this and ECB President Mario Draghi called this proposal illegal. But that’s irrelevant. The real threat to Salvini’s plans here, which is what Italy needs, is within his own government.

Mike rightly points out that Salvini’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is a technocrat. I’ll go one further and remind you what I wrote last week, that Conte, President Sergei Mattarella and Finance Minister Giovanni Tria represent a Troika of Technocrats that work for Brussels and not Rome.

Where I disagree with Mike in his analysis is the political fallout, not the economic analysis.

Salvini did very well in the European parliament elections and many speculate he will trigger elections soon to get rid of di Maio and Conte.

For now, we have the strange case of deputies Salvini and di Maio at odds with Conte and the Economy Minister, Giovanni Tria.

Conte threatened last week to resign last week and he could do so at any time. “I want a clear, unequivocal and speedy response,” Conte said, calling for “loyal collaboration” from all ministers.
This government won’t last long.

The Italian Troika will be the ones who take down the current government if they do it at all. And if the mini-BOT proposal gains steam within the Italian parliament and is forced onto Tria’s table at the Finance Ministry, something has to happen.

Salvini will not take this government down. Salvini has ruled that out as long as Five Star Movement (M5S) goes along with his part of their shared agenda. They got their major plank with Universal Basic Income. Now it’s Salvini’s quid to their quo.

With Di Maio surviving a leadership vote the coalition is strong. The hardliners within M5S who would give Salvini a harder time have been beaten back.

Salvini’s best play here is to let the traitors hang themselves and let Brussels overplay their hand. Both of these things continue to happen while he keeps coming across as someone intensely interested in solving Italy’s domestic problems and leaving the bigger political problems to themselves.

So it will not be Salvini that takes down this Italian government. It will be Conte, Tria and Mattarella who will do so if they think they can get a hung parliament vote out of the Italian populous, forcing Salvini to ally with a minor party, like Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which would have the whip hand in coalition talks.

And that could happen with the new electoral law which only appoints two-thirds of the seats via vote proportion while the other are all chosen via first-past-the-post. I don’t have a good feel for how that would shake out.

But here’s the rub. Just like in the U.K. you’ll notice Jeremy Corbyn not calling for a no-confidence vote in the Tory/DUP government. And we don’t see the DUP pulling out of the failing coalition. Why?

Because they know they would get stomped in a general election to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. And then they would lose their best chance to scuttle Brexit before the Tories regroup under Boris Johnson later this summer.

The same calculus is on the table for Mattarella, et. al. Would a new election gain them an advantage over a re-jiggered Lega/M5S government with Salvini as the senior partner? If the answer is no then the Italian Troika will hold the line for Brussels and use their positions to sabotage Salvini at every turn.

They will only threaten to take down the government if it strengthens their hand. In fact, I think Conte already tried that and Salvini flipped him off, Italian-style.

Moreover, I think taking down the government to keep Brussels happy is political suicide. It will only strengthen Salvini’s hand. And if Lega and M5S campaign on the same issues in parallel they could sweep in with 60+% of the vote between them and then run the table on the Italian Troika and Brussels.

Remember, Mattarella way over-stepped his authority last year when he vetoed Salvini’s first choice for Finance Minister, Paola Savona. Impeachment was discussed. Eventually Salvini gave in, nominated Tria and Conte to satisfy Mattarella and formed the government.

If a new election were to leave Lega/M5S in a stronger position and Mattarella tries to usurp power again, he could get impeached and removed from office. And that would change the entire dynamic.

Italy needs the mini-BOT or to leave the euro entirely. Salvini is right that German Austerity is killing the country, strangling it. And don’t kid yourself, that is the plan.

This is why the EU is threatening Italy with unprecedented budget fines for what amounts to $3 to $4 billion. It’s ludicrous and it shows the weakness of their hand if they are willing to go this route over such a small thing.

But that’s where their only leverage is over the government, through their hand-picked finance minister.

Mike is right that the mini-BOT is a Trojan Horse. In more ways that one. It is the issue that can force the current unstable structure of Italy’s government to its crisis point and the Italian people can then decide who really works for them.

*  *  *

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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/31u3TSM Tyler Durden

Party Foul: The London Metals Exchange Has Banned Drinking During The Workday

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Daytime drinking, which we previously reported had become a point of contention at Lloyd’s of London, has now been banned for metals traders at the London Metal Exchange. What used to be a staple of the open outcry pit at the LME is no longer, according to Bloomberg.

In a meeting on Thursday, the LME notified its open outcry dealers that it is now expecting a zero tolerance alcohol policy for floor traders, who are responsible for setting the global benchmark prices for metals like copper and aluminum. The exchange said that they could impose fines and trading bans on individuals for breaking the rules.

The LME already bans what Bloomberg called “engaging in drunken behavior” (like buying equities?) on the floor, but this policy would go further to break the long-held correlation with open outcry traders and heavy drinking that stretches back to Victorian times.

For instance, Nigel Farage, who started his career on the trading floor before politics, has often recounted details of “his booze fueled exploits” during his career in London. It is just one account that has helped perpetuate the image of drinking being associated with being a metals trader.

Many member firms of the LME have also sought to clean up the industry’s reputation. The exchange added rules in April that would prohibit members from holding “sleazy parties” at venues such as strip clubs and casinos – because the LME isn’t a casino in and of itself, right? The ban was part of a new code of conduct, which we’re sure will likely be ridiculed as it’s passed around the table over pints at lunch by long established metals traders.

The ban also follows the zero-tolerance policy announced by Lloyd’s of London that we wrote about months ago, after Bloomberg Businessweek reported a “deep-steated culture of sexual misconduct” in the UK capital’s insurance market. The LME was previously located on the same road as Lloyd’s, and metals traders often frequented the same pubs as Lloyd’s dealers.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2wSiXeT Tyler Durden

The Hitlerization Of Jeremy Corbyn (Among Others)

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

Every time you think the corporatocracy’s manufactured anti-Semitism hysteria cannot possibly get more absurd, they somehow manage to outdo themselves. OK, stay with me now, because this is a weird one.

Apparently, American Hitler and his cronies are conspiring with some secret group of “Jewish leaders” to stop British Hitler from becoming prime minister and wiping out all the Jews in Great Britain. Weird, right? But that’s not the weird part, because maybe American Hitler wants to wipe out all the Jews in Great Britain himself, rather than leaving it to British Hitler … Hitlers being notoriously jealous regarding their genocidal accomplishments.

No, the weird part is that everyone knows that American Hitler does not make a move without the approval of Russian Hitler, who is also obsessed with wiping out the Jews, and with destroying the fabric of Western democracy. So why would Russian Hitler want to let American Hitler and his goons thwart the ascendancy of British Hitler, who, in addition to wanting to wipe out all the Jews, also wants to destroy democracy by fascistically refunding the NHS, renationalizing the rail system, and so on?

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? In any event, here’s the official story.

In “a recording leaked to The Washington Post,” and then flogged by the rest of the corporate media, Reichsminister des Auswärtigen, Mike Pompeo, told a group of unnamed “Jewish leaders” that American Hitler (i.e., Donald Trump) will “push back” (i.e., intervene) against British Hitler (i.e., Jeremy Corbyn) to protect the lives of Jews in Great Britain if British Hitler becomes prime minister (and is possibly already doing so now). The identities of these “Jewish leaders” have not been disclosed by the corporate media, presumably in order to protect them from being murdered by Corbyn’s Nazi hit squad. Whoever they were, they wanted to know whether American Hitler and his fascist cabinet were “willing to work with [them] to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews” after Jeremy Corbyn seizes power, declares himself Führer of Communist Britannia, and orders the immediate invasion of France.

To anyone who has been closely following the corporate media’s relentless coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Nazi Death Cult (i.e., the UK Labour Party) and the global Anti-Semitism Pandemic, it comes as no real surprise that this group of “Jewish leaders” (whoever they are) would want to stop him from becoming prime minister. I doubt that their motives have much to do with fighting anti-Semitism, or anything else specifically “Jewish,” but … well, I’m kind of old-fashioned that way. I still believe there’s a fundamental difference between “the Jews” and the global capitalist ruling classes.

I realize that both the neoliberal establishment and the neo-fascist fringe disagree with me, and that both are determined (for different reasons) to conflate the two in the public’s mind, but that’s my take, and I’m sticking to it. I don’t think the world is controlled by “the Jews.” I think it’s controlled by global capitalism.

Go ahead, call me a conspiracy theorist. Here’s how the anti-Semitism panic in the United Kingdom looks to me.

After nearly 40 years of privatization and restructuring, British society is on the brink of being permanently transformed into the type of savage, neo-feudal, corporatist nightmare that the USA already is. The global capitalist ruling classes are extremely pleased about this state of affairs. They would now like to finish up privatizing Britain, so they can get on with privatizing the rest of Europe. The last thing they need at this critical juncture is Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister and start attempting to remake their nascent neoliberal marketplace into a society … you know, where healthcare is guaranteed to all, you don’t need a mortgage to buy a train ticket, and people don’t have to eat out of trash bins.

Unlike in the USA, where there is no functional political Left, and where the non-parliamentary “two-party system” is almost totally controlled by the corporatocracy, in the UK, there are still a few old-fashioned socialists, and they have taken back the Labour Party from the neoliberal Blairite stooges that had been managing the transformation of Britain into the aforementioned neo-feudal nightmare. Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of these socialists. So the corporatocracy needs to destroy him, take back control of the Labour Party, and turn it back into a fake left party, like the Democratic Party in the USA, so they can concentrate on crushing the right-wing populists. Thus, they need to Hitlerize Corbyn, so they can fold him into their official narrative, Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis.

And, see, this is what makes the corporatocracy’s War on Populism so seemingly psychotic … at least to anyone paying attention.

In the USA, the populist insurgency is primarily a right-wing phenomenon (because, again, there is no Left to speak of). Thus, the neoliberal ruling classes are focused on Hitlerizing Donald Trump, and stigmatizing the millions of Americans who voted for him as a bunch of Nazis. Hitlerizing Trump has been ridiculously easy (he almost Hitlerizes himself), but the ultimate goal is to delegitimize the populist sentiment that put him into office. That sentiment is primarily neo-nationalist. So it’s a one-front counter-insurgency op (i.e., neoliberalism versus neo-nationalism).

In the UK, things are not that simple. There, the neoliberal ruling classes are waging a counter-insurgency op against populist forces on two major fronts: (1) the Brexiters (i.e., nationalism); and (2) the Corbynists (i.e., socialism). They’re getting hit from both the left and right, which is screwing up the official narrative (according to which the “enemies of democracy” are supposed to be right-wing neo-nationalists). So, as contradictory and absurd as it sounds, they needed to conflate both left and right populism into one big scary Hitlerian enemy. Thus, they needed to Hitlerize Corbyn. Presto … Labour Anti-Semitism crisis!

Now, anyone who is isn’t a gibbering idiot knows that Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and the Labour Party is not a hive of Nazis. It’s a testament to the power of the corporate media that such a statement even needs to be made … but, of course, that’s the point of the smear campaign the neoliberal corporate media have been waging for the last three years.

Smear campaigns are simple and effective. The goal is to force your target and his allies into proclaiming things like, “I am not an anti-Semite,” or “I’ve never had sex with underage boys,” or whatever smear you want to force them to deny. You don’t have to prove your target guilty. You’re just trying to conjure up a “reality” in which every time someone thinks of your target they associate him with the content of your smears.

The corporate media have done just that, to Jeremy Corbyn, to Donald Trump, to Putin, and to assorted lesser figures. They did it to Sanders in 2016. They are doing it now to Tulsi Gabbard. The goal is not only to smear these targets, but also, and more so, to conjure a “world” that reifies the narrative of their smears … a binary “good versus evil” world, a world in which whatever they want to accuse their targets of being linked to (e.g., terrorism, fascism, racism, or whatever) is the official enemy of all that is good.

Since the Brexit referendum and the election of Trump, the ruling classes have conjured up a world where “democracy” is perpetually under attack by a global conspiracy of “Russians” and “Nazis” (just as they previously conjured up a world where it was perpetually under attack by “terrorists”). They have conjured up a post-Orwellian reality in which “democracy” (i.e., global capitalism) is the only alternative to “neo-fascism” (i.e., anything opposed to global capitalism).

And this is why Corbyn had to be Hitlerized, and why Putin, Trump, Assad, Gabbard, Assange, the “Yellow Vest” protesters in France, and anyone else opposing global neoliberalism has to be Hitlerized. Socialism, nationalism … it makes no difference, not to the global capitalist ruling classes. There are always only two sides in these “worlds” that the ruling classes conjure up for us, and there can be only one official enemy. The official enemy of the moment is “fascism.” Therefore, all the “bad guys” are Hitler, or Nazis, or racists, or anti-Semites, or some other variation of Hitler.

The fact that this “reality” they have conjured up for us is completely psychotic makes it no less real. And it is only going to get more insane until the corporatocracy restores “normality.” So, go ahead, if you consider yourself “normal,” and try to force your mind to believe that…

Jews are no longer safe in Great Britain, or in Germany, or France, or the USA,

and that Donald Trump is a Russian asset,

and is also literally Adolf Hitler,

and an anti-Semitic white supremacist who is conspiring with Israel and Saudi Arabia in their campaign to destroy Iran and Syria,

which are allies of his Russian masters, as is Venezuela, which he is also menacing,

and that Jeremy Corbyn’s secret plan is to turn the UK into Nazi Germany,

with the support of Trump,

who is trying to destroy him,

and that the Yellow Vests are Russian-backed fascists,

and that Julian Assange is a rapist spy who conspired with Russia to get Trump elected,

which is why Trump wants to prosecute him,

just as soon as he finishes wiping out the Jews,

or protecting them from Jeremy Corbyn,

or from Iran,

or brainwashing Black Americans into reelecting him in 2020 with a handful of Russian Facebook ads.

Go ahead, try to reconcile all that … or whatever, don’t.

Just take whatever medication you happen to be on, crank up CNN, MSNBC, or any other corporate media channel, and report me to the Internet Police for posting dangerous “extremist” content. You know, in your heart, I probably deserve it.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WJv8df Tyler Durden