Tag: news

Authored by Nick Cunningham via Oilprice.com,

U.S. shale executives often boast of low breakeven prices, reassuring investors of their ability to operate at a high level even when oil prices fall. But new data suggests that the industry slowed dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2018 in response to the plunge in oil prices.

A survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas finds that shale activity slammed on the brakes in the fourth quarter.

“The business activity index – the survey’s broadest measure of conditions facing Eleventh District energy firms – remained positive, but barely so, plunging from 43.3 in the third quarter to 2.3 in the fourth,” the Dallas Fed reported on January 3.

The 2.3 reading is only slightly positive – zero would mean that business activity from Texas energy firms was flat compared to the prior quarter. A negative reading would mean a contraction in activity.

The deceleration was true for multiple segments within oil and gas. For instance, the oil production index fell from 34.8 in the third quarter to 29.1 in the fourth. The natural gas production index to 24.8 in the fourth quarter, down from 35.5 in the prior quarter.

But even as production held up, drilling activity indicated a sharper slowdown was underway. The index for utilization of equipment by oilfield services firms dropped sharply in the fourth quarter, down from 43 points in the third quarter to just 1.6 in the fourth – falling to the point where there was almost no growth at all quarter-on-quarter.

Meanwhile, employment has also taken a hit. The employment index fell from 31.7 to 17.5, suggesting a “moderating in both employment and work hours growth in the fourth quarter,” the Dallas Fed wrote. Labor conditions in oilfield services were particularly hit hard.

The data lends weight to comments made by top oilfield service firms from several months ago. Schlumberger and Halliburton warned in the third quarter of last year that shale companies were slowing drilling activity. Pipeline constraints, well productivity problems and “budget exhaustion” was leading to weaker drilling conditions. The comments were notable at the time, and received press coverage, but oil prices were still high and still rising, and so was shale output. The crash in oil prices and the worsening slowdown in the shale patch puts those comments in new light.

What does all of this mean? If oil producers are not hiring service firms and deploying equipment, that suggests they are rather price sensitive. The fall in oil prices forced cutbacks in drilling activity. Oilfield service firms in particular are bearing the brunt of the slowdown. Executives from oilfield service firms told the Dallas Fed that their operating margins declined in the quarter.

In fact, roughly 53 percent of the oil and gas executives that responded to the Dallas Fed’s survey said that the recent drop in oil prices caused them to “lower expectations for capital spending” in 2019. A further 15 percent said that it was still too early to make a decision on capex changes. Only 31 percent of oil executives who responded to the Fed survey said that the oil price downturn would not affect their spending plans.

The oil rig count climbed for much of 2018, but began to level off in the third quarter. The rig count, which stood at 885 in the last week of December, has barely budged since late October when prices began to fall.

The downturn is still in its early days. It takes several months before the rig count really begins to respond to major price movements. The same is true for a string of other data – production levels, inventories, as well as capex decisions.

In other words, some early data points already suggest that the U.S. shale industry could struggle if WTI remains below $50 per barrel. But the longer WTI stays low, the more likely we will see a broader slowdown.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2RATO4d Tyler Durden

Though it might sound counter-intuitive, the minimum wage hikes that are happening across the US in 2019 aren’t the biggest employment-related threat to the restaurant industry and its bottom line. A bigger problem – surprisingly enough, given all the talk about automation displacing low-skilled workers – is a lack of willing employees.

According to Bloomberg, fast food restaurants are resorting to unorthodox and creative methods to try and boost hiring as fewer teens enter the job market and wage hikes at several big-box retailers – including Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target – combined with near-record-low unemployment make low-paid food service work seem unattractive by comparison.

Since 1968, teenage employment has plunged, with even young legal adults avoiding work as many enroll in college (perhaps because the debt burden being incurred seems so insurmountable, that it makes more sense to focus exclusively on school to try and boost their post-grad earning potential).

Ironically, while investors and the Trump administration celebrated Friday’s blockbuster jobs number, fast-food franchisees may have been one of the few groups who interpreted it as a net negative for their restaurants.

One increasingly problematic impediment for fast food restaurants is the fact that they are typically loathe to raise wages…

Many franchisees, who do most fast-food hiring, are loath to raise wages, which must be offset by higher menu prices. They count on ample pools of workers willing to accept modest pay. So the falloff in employment among postmillennials, those less than 22 years old, is particularly troublesome for restaurants that have depended on young workers since the days of soda jerks and carhops. Just 19 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds had jobs in 2018, compared with almost half in 1968, according to a Pew Research Center study published in November. It wasn’t much better for 18- to 21-year-olds: In 2018, 58 percent had been employed in the previous year, down from 80 percent in 1968, Pew says.

…So instead, they are “rethinking” their approach to hiring workers, even offering quarterly bonuses for some of their more-senior employees.

Some restaurants are throwing “hiring parties” with free food to entice young people to consider hopping into the work force. Others have launched apps that allow workers to switch shifts at the last minute.

That’s making restaurants rethink how they recruit and retain young workers. Taco Bell has started holding “hiring parties” with free nacho fries to draw prospects. Tom Douglas, vice president for operations at Golden Gate Bell, which operates 80 Taco Bell locations in and around San Francisco, has gone further: He’s started using software to connect with potential hires. The program sends prospects text messages with links to its career page, along with occasional food freebies to lure candidates. Golden Gate Bell, which employs about 1,800 and competes with Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and big-box retailers for employees, also recently started a quarterly bonus program for hourly staff.

“The traditional way of trying to hire folks just isn’t working,” says Douglas. “We’re just trying to make ourselves a little bit different and stand out from the competitors.”

Actions that increase employee retention are also getting a lot of attention in the high-turnover business. The White Castle hamburger chain is using an employee mobile app that allows hourly staff to swap shifts at the last minute when conflicts inevitably arise. And Sticky Fingers Ribhouse, an 11-store barbecue chain in South Carolina, is asking employees for their opinions. It recently surveyed staff about its new rib recipe, along with their happiness with its uniforms. “The younger labor market, they really want to feel connected to a brand,” says Will Eadie, global vice president for strategy at WorkJam, which provides training and other digital labor services through a mobile app for clients including restaurants and retailers such as Target Corp. and Shell gas stations.

Other methods include handing out “hiring cards” instead of business cards, and trying to streamline kitchen operations to require fewer workers and making jobs less strenuous so that less-than-competent workers can still succeed.

How desperate are fast-food operators to reach the right people? Instead of business cards, managers at Church’s Chicken outlets in October started handing out recruiting cards that say, “We are looking for great talent like you!” The cards include phone numbers and emails for cook and cashier prospects to get in touch.

Meanwhile, Applebee’s, a dining chain owned by Dine Brands Global Inc., is trying to offset rising wage costs with kitchens that are easier for workers. No longer are cooks hand-cutting steaks, and it’s adding other foods that take less prep, Chief Executive Officer Steve Joyce said in December. “It’s hard to find quality folks to work in the restaurants,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make every other part of the restaurant as efficient as possible.”

Still others are focusing more on retirees and senior citizens to fill jobs once held by teenagers (which is hardly surprising given that many elderly Americans are broke).

Increasingly, chains are hedging their traditional bets on younger workers by boosting hiring pitches toward much older workers. Both McDonald’s Corp. and Church’s have said senior citizens will be a focus area to build out their ranks in 2019. Other chains including Bakers Square and Village Inn are paying to list jobs on the AARP website.

Setting aside all of the pressure exerted by the “Fight for $15” crowd, the shortage of low-skill laborers is expected to persist. Which means we’ll likely be seeing more of these in the very near future.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2VDUi8X Tyler Durden

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

The long-running joke about Brazil is that it is the country of the future, and always will be. If Jair Bolsonaro is able to follow through on the tone he has set at the start of his presidency, however, it may not be long until the future becomes the present. 

Officially sworn into office at the start of the year, the Bolsonaro administration has already captured international attention. Having been portrayed for years by Western media as a sinister threat to Brazilian democracy, in spite of being a successful populist candidate embraced by a diverse electorate, the same outlets have been quick to depict the new government as a hostile threat to minority rights. The real story, however, is Bolsonaro’s apparent commitment to the sort of ideological revolution that is desperately needed for his country to thrive. While history shows we should never trust a politician to deliver on lofty promises of liberty and freedom, the initial days of his presidency have moves deserving of praise. 

To start, his inaugural address, Bolsonaro vowed to follow through on his campaign message of dramatically changing a government plagued by corruption and economic crisis:

I stand humbled by the honor to address you all as President of Brazil, and stand before the whole nation on this day as the day when the people began to liberate themselves from socialism, from the inversion of values, from state gigantism and from political correctness…

Our flag will never be red. It will only be red if we need to bleed over it to keep it green and yellow.

He followed this up with a tweet vowing “to tackle the Marxist garbage in our schools head on.”

What’s encouraging here is that Bolsonaro is identifying that the true enemy of his administration is not simply a political rival or a series of bad policies that must be reformed, but the socialist ideology that has caused so much misery throughout the world and Latin America in particular. Correctly identifying the underlying problem is the best way to go about finding a solution. 

This aligns well with Ludwig von Mises’s views about the importance of ideas in society. He wrote extensively about how the ultimate deciding factor to the success or failure of civilization has less to do with the politicians and institutions that have been built, but the underlying ideas that direct them. As he wrote in Economic Policy:

Everything that happens in the social world in our time is the result of ideas. Good things and bad things. What is needed is to fight bad ideas. We must fight all that we dislike in public life. We must substitute better ideas for wrong ideas…

Ideas and only ideas can light the darkness.

Of course, a true ideological revolution requires more than simply political rhetoric and rousing speeches, the question will be how he is able to follow through with pro-market policies that will actually allow Brazil to succeed. 

Luckily what most of the Western media has completely ignored is that the rise of Bolsonaro isn’t as simple as populist politics sparked by the corruption of presidents past, the country has seen a remarkable rise in pro-market and libertarian scholars within its intellectual class. 

Thanks to organizations such as Mises Brasil, Instituto Rothbard, Students for Liberty and more, the works of great thinkers such as Mises, Murray Rothbard, Frédéric Bastiat, and more have been translated and dispersed throughout the country. President Bolsonaro has even been photographed with Portuguese copies of Bastiat’s The Law and Mises’s Economic Policy. 

This is important not only because it highlights the growth of these ideas beyond the narrow lens of politics, but also because it demonstrates that Bolsonaro has a talent pool to be able to tap into for his administration. In the words of Mises Brasil president Helio Beltrão, the new president has put together a “remarkable team and with noble intentions.” This includes scholars affiliated with various free market and libertarian organizations, including Mises Brasil, have been tapped for positions within the administration — including Bruno Garschagen, host of their popular podcast. The new Minister of Education, Ricardo Velez Rodrigues, was himself a guest of the show. 

Naturally, when taking over a huge government bureaucracy that has long been under socialist control, removing bad actors is every bit as important as bringing in new talent. While Donald Trump brought the term “the Deep State” into the American mainstream, his administration has been damaged by failing to truly drain the swamp of its long-standing political professional class. Here too is another area where Bolsonaro’s administration is showing true promise. 

On January 3, Chief of Staff of the Presidency, Onyx Lorenzoni, announced that the Bolsonaro government will be removing communist-sympathetic officials from positions of public administration. While headlines about “communist purges” from a “right-wing Latin American leader” are designed to evoke images of the bloody policies of Augusto Pinochet and Jorge Videla, firing bureaucrats is hardly comparable to “right-wing death squads.”

Of course, one of the best ways to follow through with Bolsonaro’s anti-Marxist vision would be to leave many of these vacated positions open as part of a general reduction of the Brazilian government. Hopefully, the administration will also pay heed to Helio Beltrão’s suggested plan for de-bureaucratization of the nation’s economy. 

Another promising sign that has come from Lorenzoni is that he has instructed all government ministers to inventory the properties under their control so they can identify what assets are better off being privatized. The hope is that the Bolsonaro administration will follow through on the statements made by Paulo Guedes, the new Minister of the Economy, to “privatize everything that is possible.” Not only will such sales help to work down the countries debt (currently at $1.6 trillion, or 81.4% of GDP), but allow assets and companies to operate more efficiently free of the strangulation of government central planning. 

While there are many signs of optimism from the early days of Bolsonaro’s government, it would be unwise to ignore the challenges that still face the country. As Leandro Roque has noted, the administration is inheriting numerous challenges, including the rising costs of retirement programs and an aging population. Will an elected populist be willing to make the painful reforms necessary? We shall see.

Also, it would be a mistake to confuse anti-Marxist rhetoric for a genuine embrace of liberty and free markets. America’s own history has shown how some of the loudest opponents of communism have enacted some of the worst policies domestically. Will Bolsonaro’s team of classical liberals be able to stand strong with the pressures of public office, or end up being a disappointment like so many others have been before? Only time will tell.

What is encouraging is to see the rise of a popular politician willing to use his platform to openly call out the dangers of Marxist ideology. If Brazil can maintain a course of Menos Marx, Mais Mises, then it will finally be able to live up to its long acknowledged potential. 

via RSS http://bit.ly/2FeHh02 Tyler Durden

The Venezuelan government “has only brought hunger, misery and destruction to the country” as a “failed state” — admitted a Venezuelan Supreme Court justice and longtime government loyalist who is now making headlines by his shocking and unprecedented defection to the United States. “I’ve decided to leave Venezuela to disavow the government of Nicolas Maduro,” the former powerful judge, Christian Zerpa, told reporters. “I believe Maduro does not deserve a second chance because the election he supposedly won was not free and competitive.”

Considering such a powerful and high level former regime loyalist has just safely fled to Florida with his family, could gaping fissures now surface within the Caracas government and begin to grow, resulting in more defections to come?  

Zerpa told reporters while speaking from Florida on Sunday that he could no longer stomach Venezuela’s highest court being a mere appendage of Maduro’s ruling inner circle, complaining that since 2015 only handpicked insider loyalists were appointed to the bench. As Maduro is set to enter his second, six-year term in an oath of office ceremony on Thursday, Zerpa cited that “he didn’t want to play a role legitimizing Maduro’s rule when the Supreme Court swears him in,” according to the AP.

“We are in the presence of an autocracy that has condemned to death any opposition to this particular vision of power,” Zerpa told a Miami-based news broadcast. Western leaders and international rights organizations have condemned the latest presidential election, noting important opposition leaders and parties were banned, or in some cases boycotted the election knowing they would be pressured or forced out. 

Zerpa’s defection has been confirmed by Venezuelan officials and official media , which have started an apparent smear campaign claiming the supreme court justice was facing multiple sexual harassment charges by women he worked with. He now says he’s ready to work with US investigators into corruption and human rights inquiries in Venezuela, even after being under sanction by Canada, but not yet by the United States. 

In early media statements made after fleeing his home country, Zerpa described abuses ranging from receiving directives from first lady Cilia Flores on how to rule in cases that are politically connected, to finding legal means and creating loopholes in order to block opposition representatives from taking key swing vote seats in Congress. 

One bombshell confession made by Zerpa related to his role on the court, involves his personally taking steps to ensure Maduro maintained total control of Venezuelan congress. The AP report describes this as follows: 

As a newly installed justice, he recounted being summoned to the court and told to sign off on a key ruling without first reviewing its details. It disqualified three elected representatives of Amazonas state from taking their seats in congress following the opposition’s sweep of legislative elections in 2015.

The outcome prevented the opposition from amassing a two-third super majority that would have severely curtailed Maduro’s power.

He further related he had flee because he would be jailed for coming forward, and is now apologizing to the public for “propping up” the Maduro government. 

He apologized for propping up Maduro’s government, saying that he feared being jailed as a dissident where his life would be put at risk.

Meanwhile, other dissenters have recently fled the country amidst a collapsed economy, runaway inflation, and an extreme food and medicine shortage after two decades of socialist rule. One such opposition lawmaker, Julio Borges, who previously fled the country fearing for his life, urged Latin American leaders on Monday to intensify pressure on Maduro, saying, “The inhuman arrogance of this dictatorship led by Nicolas Maduro personally challenges the heads of state of the region.”

He added further in a blistering critique of Maduro personally: “It’s not fair that a whole country should perish to satisfy one man’s lust for power.”

Indeed the situation continues to be dire as the socialist country suffers from a perfect storm of starvation, disease, a lack of healthcare and extreme violence, with tragic reports of children dying from hepatitis and malaria. 

“There is a human catastrophe in Venezuela. There is a resurgence of illnesses that were eradicated decades ago. Hundreds have died from measles and diphtheria. Last year, more than 400,000 Venezuelans presented malaria symptoms. Up to now, there are over 10,000 sick people from tuberculosis,” said Caracas mayor and former political prisoner Antonio Ledezma, who founded the opposition party, Fearless People’s Alliance. He added provocatively of the dire medicine and healthcare situation amidst a collapsed system: “People have been doomed to death. More than 55,000 cancer patients don’t have access to chemotherapy. Every three hours a woman dies due to breast cancer.”

As the country continues its downward spiral, certainly to be exacerbated by at least another six years of Maduro’s failed policies, Zerpa’s high level defection is likely the start of more to come. 

via RSS http://bit.ly/2RhRPCP Tyler Durden

Authored by Paul Driessen, originally published at CFACT.org

The climate crisis industry incessantly claims that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global economies, health and living standards possible.

Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

However, as France’s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world is not prepared to go down that dark path. Countries worldwide are expanding their reliable fossil fuel use, and families do not want to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we’ve experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.

More importantly, the CCI “solutions” would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.

Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats – to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would be grossly insufficient for humanity’s needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels – and some of the mining involves child labor.

How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don’t. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone “who denies climate change science” is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.

“Rebuttals” to my recent “We are still IN” article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their “reliable sources” and claimed: I’m “associated with” several “right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change.” One of them “received $582,000 from ExxonMobil” over a 14-year period, another got “$5,716,325 from Koch foundations” over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave “at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science” in 20 years, my detractors claimed.

These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively – to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues … not just energy and climate change.

But let’s assume for a moment that money – especially funding from any organization that has any kind of financial, regulatory or other “special interest” in the outcome of this ongoing energy and economic battle – renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.

Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies – who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?

Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.

Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $181 million in grants – and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.

During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.

Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups – to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.

As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:

* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama’s first term.

* That didn’t include the 30% tax credits/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year – plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive “green” energy.

* Worldwide, according to the “progressive” Climate Policy Initiative, climate change “investment” in 2013 totaled $359 billion – but this “falls far short” of the $5 trillion per year that’s actually needed.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy.

Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per year was already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we’re easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.

The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change “science” … $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D … and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That’s $20 million per day!

At the September 2018Global Climate Action Summit, 29 leftist foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this “is only a down payment”!

And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests … questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos … and raising inconvenient facts and questions about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.

Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance “studies” that supposedly show “surging greenhouse gases” and “manmade climate change” are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.

Let’s apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard all these organizations and researchers.

Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly – and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America’s and the world’s energy and economic future.

At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.

via RSS http://bit.ly/2Tyad6U Tyler Durden

WikiLeaks is sick and tired of mainstream media outlets publishing inaccurate and at times defamatory claims about its founder, Julian Assange. So in a recent email to journalists who regularly cover the organization, Wikileaks described 140 “false and defamatory” claims about its founder, who has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 2012.

According to Reuters, WikiLeaks accused the Guardian of publishing a false report about Assange, though it was not immediately clear what specific report prompted the warning. The Guardian has refused to comment on the allegations.

The 5,000 word email claimed it was defamatory to suggest that Assange had ever been an “agent or officer of any intelligence service,” or that he had ever been employed by the Russian government, or that he is – or has been – closely connected with the Russian state.

Some of the claims were more bizarre, like claiming that Assange was a pedophile, rapist, murder or a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Others pertained to personal hygiene, like that Assange bleaches his hair, or has poor grooming habits. They also said it was defamatory to claim that Assange is a hacker or that he is not an Australian citizen.

Assange has remained in the embassy for fear that he could be extradited to the US to face charges stemming from violations of the Espionage Act. According to reports from late last year, the DOJ is preparing to file an indictment of Assange. Meanwhile, speculation that Ecuador could soon withdraw its offer of asylum has been simmering since President Lenin Moreno took over from the seemingly more sympathetic Rafael Correa.

Though the email was marked “not for publication,” a copy leaked online in its entirety.

Read the full text below:

* * *

CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION
NOT FOR PUBLICATION.

Julian Assange has published the largest leaks in the history of the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the government of Saudi Arabia, among many others, as well as saving Edward Snowden from arrest. Predictably, numerous falsehoods have been subsequently spread about WikiLeaks and its publisher.

Falsehoods have also been spread by third parties: media competitors, click-bait sites, political party loyalists, and by those linked to the governments WikiLeaks or Julian Assange are litigating or have litigated (U.K., U.S., Ecuador, Sweden), which seek his arrest (U.S., U.K.), expulsion (Ecuador), or who have formal criminal investigations (U.S., Saudi Arabia, Australia), or who have banned or censored WikiLeaks (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China).

Since Mr. Assange’s unlawful isolation and gagging on March 28, 2018, the publication of false and defamatory claims about him has accelerated, perhaps because of an incorrect view that Mr. Assange, due to his grave personal circumstances, can no longer defend his reputation.

These defamation efforts have reached a new nadir with the recent front page fabrication by Guardian newspaper, which falsely claimed that Julian Assange had multiple secret meetings with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, right down to a made up description of latter’s pants at the fabricated meetings (“sandy coloured chinos”) [see https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-vira…].

It is clear that there is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in otherwise ‘reputable’ media outlets. In several instances these fabrications appear to have the intent of creating political cover for his censorship, isolation, expulsion, arrest, extradition and imprisonment.

Mr. Assange’s isolation, ongoing proceedings and pending extradition also increase the legal and ethical burden on journalists, publishers and others to get their facts straight.

Consequently journalists and publishers have a clear responsibility to carefully fact-check from primary sources and to consult the following list of defamations to ensure they do not spread and have not spread falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The purpose of this list is to aid the honest and accurate and to put the dishonest and inaccurate on notice.

Defamation List v1.3
the absense of any claim from this list does not imply that the claim is not false or defamatory

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, charged with an offence by the United Kingdom or Sweden [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, an agent or officer of any intelligence service [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks is, or has ever been alleged by the U.S. government to be, a State “foreign intelligence service”.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever been contacted by the Mueller investigation.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that there is any evidence that the U.S. charges against Julian Assange relate to the Mueller investigation.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or Wikileaks is, or has ever been alleged by the U.S. government to be: Russian, Russian owned, a Russian subsidiary, contracted by Russia, Russian staffed, based in Russia, “in league” with Russia, an “arm of Russia” or a “Russian cutout” [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government claims that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks directed, conspired, colluded or otherwise engaged in a crime, to obtain information from the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta [in fact, the government has made no such claim].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Democratic National Committee has claimed that Julian Assange directed, conspired, or colluded to hack the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta [in fact, the DNC makes no such claim: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/WikiLeaksDNC…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks was alone in publishing allegedly hacked Democratic Party materials in 2016 [in fact, most U.S. media organizations did so: Politico, the Hill, The Intercept, Facebook, WordPress and Twitter, and every major press outlet, including CNN and the New York Times, republished, see https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/WikiLeaksDNC…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever met or communicated with Paul Manafort [see https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-vira…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever met or communicated with George Cottrell [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1068475150314676225].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange privately provided information about its then pending 2016 U.S. election-related publications to any outside party, including Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, Donald Trump Jr., Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., Cambridge Analytica, or Rebecca Mercer [it is defamatory because it falsely imputes that Julian Assange acted without integrity in his role as the editor of WikiLeaks, associates with criminals, or has committed a crime].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever colluded with or conspired with, or compromised the integrity of its journalism for, any political campaign or State [in fact, published communication records show WikiLeaks doing exactly the opposite: rejecting approaches by Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign for information on its pending publications, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was in communication with Roger J. Stone during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election [in fact, the only message sent from WikiLeaks was a demand that Mr. Stone cease falsely stating that he had “communicated” with Julian Assange].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was a “back channel” between Julian Assange and Roger J. Stone during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Nigel Farage met with Julian Assange during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the purpose of Nigel Farage’s meeting with Julian Assange in 2017, after the U.S. election, was in any way improper or not journalistic.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange timed the publication of its series on John Podesta to conceal the Access Hollywood “grab them by the pussy” video of Donald Trump [in fact, it is well documented that the video release was moved forward three days to be on the day of WikiLeaks’ publication, see https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/19/inside-wikileaks-working-with-the…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is “anti-American” or “anti-U.S.” [in fact, he has an abiding love for the United States, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/julian-assange-wikileaks-has-th…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have not published critical information on Russia, Syria or Donald Trump [in fact, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents on Russia, millions on Syria, and thousands on Donald Trump, see https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/, https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=russia%7Cputin%7Cmoscow#results, https://wikileaks.org/syria-files/ & https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=trump#results].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever worked for, or has ever been employed by “Russia Today”, “RT” or the Russian government.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was “given a show”, “made a host”, or “hosted a show” on RT [in fact, in 2012, he and two British companies, Dartmouth Films and Journeyman Pictures conceived, produced and distributed “The World Tomorrow”, which was licensed to a dozen broadcasters and newspapers, only one of which was RT].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks “works with RT” or “works with Russian State media” [in fact, only once, for one publication in 2012, was RT part of a consortium of nearly two dozen re-publishers of WikiLeaks’ series on the private surveillance industry, the SpyFiles].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks arranged for Edward Snowden to go to Russia [in fact, WikiLeaks gave legal assistance to Mr. Snowden to obtain asylum in Ecuador, but the U.S. government cancelled Mr. Snowden’s passport mid-flight, stranding him in a Moscow transit lounge for 40 days [see https://edwardsnowden.com/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange applied for a Russian visa in 2010 or obtained a Russian visa in the year 2010 or subsequently.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was a “Russian plan” to “smuggle”, or to otherwise remove, Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London or that Fidel Narvaez, or anyone else, was in contact with the Russian embassy in London in relation to such a claimed plan [see https://therealnews.com/stories/ecuadorian-ex-diplomat-report-claiming-…].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was made an Ecuadorian diplomat to Russia [in fact, his diplomatic credentials were lodged to the government of the United Kingdom and he was appointed as an Ecuadorian diplomat to the United Kingdom; at no point were they lodged with Russia].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange claimed that any person or entity was their source for WikiLeaks’ 2016 U.S. election publications [it is defamatory because Julian Assange’s professional reputation is substantially based on source protection].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks does not have a perfect record of accurately verifying its publications.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government has ever denied the authenticity of a WikiLeaks publication.

It is false and defamatory to deny that DNC Chair Donna Brazile and Senator Elizabeth Warren admitted that Julian Assange was, in fact, correct and that the DNC had indeed “rigged” the 2016 primary election in favour of Hillary Clinton [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/926250463594516480 and https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/926094515261378561].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that John Podesta or Donna Brazile deny the authenticity of emails about them published by WikiLeaks [in fact, Brazile confessed that WikiLeaks was correct and she had indeed shared debate questions with the Hillary Clinton campaign https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/843216277225308161].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the French government found that “MacronLeaks” were hacked by Russia [in fact, the head of the French cyber-security agency, ANSSI, said that they did not have evidence connecting the hack with Russia, see https://wikileaks.org/macron-emails/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks “targetted” the French presidential election of 2017 and published “MacronLeaks” during that election [in fact, WikiLeaks published MacronLeaks after the election].

It is false and defamatory to suggest any of the MacronLeaks published by WikiLeaks are inauthentic or that President Macron attempted to make such a claim after the publication by WikiLeaks.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever stated that Russia was not behind the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal [in fact, Julian Assange stated that it was “reasonable” to view Russia as “the leading suspect”].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever stated it was not appropriate to expel Russian diplomats and spies over the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Ecuador isolated and gagged Mr. Assange due to his comments on Sergei Skripal [in fact, he was isolated over his refusal to delete a factually accurate tweet about the arrest of the president of Catalonia by Spain in Germany, along with U.S. debt pressure on Ecuador. The president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno admitted that these two countries were the issue, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

————————————————————————————————–

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange does not have political asylum or is merely “seeking asylum” [in fact, he won his asylum case in relation to U.S. government moves to prosecute him on August 16, 2012 and was granted formal refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange “fled” to the Embassy of Ecuador [in fact, he walked into the embassy and lodged an asylum claim; it was not until 10 days later that the UK government issued a warrant for his arrest. see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has been, “hiding” in the embassy [in fact, his location is well known and his formal legal status is “political refugee”; it is incorrect to suggest that refugees, by virtue of being in the jurisdiction of refuge, are “hiding”].

It is false and defamatory to deny that Julian Assange has been formally investigated since 2010 and charged by the U.S. federal government over his publishing work [it is defamatory because such a claim falsely imputes that Mr. Assange’s asylum is a sham and that he is a liar, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that such U.S. charges have not been confirmed [in fact, they have, most recently by Associated Press (AP) and the Washington Post in November 2018].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government denies the existence of such charges.
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is not wanted for extradition by the U.S. government [in fact, public records from the Department of Justice show that the U.S. government says it had been intentionally concealing its charges against Mr. Assange from the public specifically to decrease his ability to “avoid arrest and extradition”].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government has not publicly confirmed that it has an active grand jury, or pending or prospective proceedings, against Julian Assange or WikiLeaks, each year since 2010.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange’s asylum is “self-imposed” or that he is “free to walk out any time he likes” [in fact, the UK government states that he will be immediately arrested, the U.S. government seeks his extradition and the exits to the embassy are under 24-hour surveillance; it is self-evident that refugees, having been compelled by the risk of persecution to seek asylum are not “free” to return to the area of risk, any more than one is free to leave a house with a bear on the porch, see https://defend.wikileaks.org].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange applied for political asylum over “sex allegations” or “extradition to Sweden” or to “avoid questioning” [in fact, he formally applied for and received political asylum over the U.S. grand jury proceedings against him; the UN and the Swedish courts found that Sweden was improperly refusing to question him, not the other way around, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is merely a “guest” of the embassy and does not have refugee status, including under the 1951 Refugee Convention, or that the UK is not a party to the Convention, or that Julian Assange received only “diplomatic asylum” or that his refugee status is, in any sense, improper or incomplete [it is defamatory because it suggests that Julian Assange committed a crime by applying for asylum, which is false, see https://defned.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange, as a political refugee, does not have the right to voice his political opinions or a right to communicate them [it is defamatory because it falsely suggests Mr. Assange is a liar when he states he has never agreed to be gagged and when he asserts that it is a fact that refugees have the legal right to express political opinions and because his reputation is to a significant degree based on the accuracy of his statements and in being the world’s best-known free speech proponent and practitioner].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange did not have the right to apply for asylum or committed an offence in doing so [in fact, he has not been charged with an offence in the UK at any time and a “reasonable excuse” is a complete defence against any hypothetical future charge of “failing to surrender” under UK law and there has been no legal finding that his defence is invalid, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the terminated Swedish preliminary investigation started prior to the U.S. grand jury proceedings [in fact, the U.S. grand jury proceedings started in June 2010, three months before the Swedish preliminary investigation].

It is false and defmatory to suggest that the dropped Swedish preliminary investigation against Julian Assange ever had any legitimacy whatsoever [in fact, already by August 2010, the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm found that “no crime at all” had been committed, and SMS messages from the alleged complainant showed that she “did not want to accuse Assange of anything”, that she felt “railroaded by police and others around her”, and that “police made up the charges”; documents from the UK government prove serious impropriety by the State, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD)found Sweden’s conduct to be illegal, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and potentially defamatory to suggest that the UN WGAD decision finding Julian Assange to be unlawfully detained in the UK is not legally binding [in fact, the UN has released two statements in response to such false reporting, stating that the decision is “legally binding” https://twitter.com/UN_SPExperts/status/1076107846629158914].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever been charged with, or committed, an offence in the United Kingdom.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever “breached his bail”, “jumped bail”, absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has a sentence to serve or has ever avoided serving a sentence.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange fled Sweden [in fact, the State prosecutor granted him permission to leave, he was not wanted for arrest or charged with an offence at the time he left Sweden, and he left for a publicly scheduled talk in Geneva, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has been accused by any person of raping them [in fact, both so-called Swedish “complainants”, who were falsely reported to have made such an accusation, denied that they had been raped, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Swedish preliminary investigation was closed due to an inability to proceed caused by Mr. Assange or a statute of limitations [in fact, the prosecution abandoned the entire preliminary investigation, the arrest warrant was dropped, and the file closed and destroyed as the direct result of Julian Assange filing a case against the government of Sweden for its abuse of legal due process; the UN WGAD also twice found that Sweden had acted unlawfully, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was never interviewed by Swedish officials or has ever attempted to avoid being interviewed by Swedish officials [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was ever a charge, case or prosecution against Julian Assange in Sweden [in fact, the matter never reached beyond the “preliminary investigation” stage].

——————————————————————————————–

It is false and defamatory to deny that WikiLeaks is a media organization [in fact, WikiLeaks has won many media awards, is registered as a media organization, has been repeatedly found to be a “media organization” by the UK courts, and employs top journalists who (including Julian Assange) are members of their respective media unions, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to deny that Julian Assange is an award-winning editor, journalist, publisher, author and documentary maker who has won the highest journalism award in his country, among many others. [https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/]

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever, through intent or negligence, revealed a source [in fact, in the case of alleged source Chelsea Manning, the allegation by the State is that Manning spoke, in a knowing breach of WikiLeaks’ security rules, to a reseacher for Wired magazine, Adrian Lamo, who promised him journalistic confidentiality, only to then inform on him to the FBI].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks is a “group”, that it has “members” or that Julian Assange is a “member” of WikiLeaks [in fact, WikiLeaks is a publication and a publishing organization; it has a highly accomplished salaried staff, not members; it is not al-Qaeda].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever directed, conspired, or colluded in a criminal manner with its sources.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange claimed “informants deserve to die” [in fact, Der Spiegel signed a statement refuting a false claim that he did, see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/762711823216996352].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has asserted that the Syrian government did not conduct chemical attacks during the war in Syria [in fact, WikiLeaks has published millions of documents from the Syrian government, including Bashar al-Assad’s personal emails https://wikileaks.org/syria-files/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks publications have caused deaths [in fact, the Pentagon’s General Robert Carr, who was assigned to look at their impact, admitted under oath in the trial of Chelsea Manning that the U.S. government had not been able to find any such incidents].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks recklessly published unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables [see https://wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that any of WikiLeaks’ claims about its 2017 CIA leak, Vault 7, “were later retracted” [the series had no retractions].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange ever published millions of records about female voters in Turkey [see https://wikileaks.org/10years/distorted-facts.html].

——————————————————————————————-

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is not an Australian citizen.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a “hacker”.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was charged with an offence at any time by Bermuda.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever extorted the United States government.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange filed a lawsuit against Ecuador over trivialities [in fact, he filed an injunction to force the state to cease illegally gagging and isolating him since March 28, 2018 and moving to void his asylum after his publication of the largest leak in CIA history. Contrary to false reports, his cat hasn’t even been at embassy since well before the inunction was filed, see https://justice4assange.com/Protection-Action.html and https://defend.wikileaks.org/].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever neglected an animal or has ever been asked by a state to take “better care” of an animal [see https://justice4assange.com/Protection-Action.html].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever called to overthrow the Spanish state by calling for the independence of Catalonia [in fact, he never called for the independence of Catalonia].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange’s reporting on the violence and censorship inflicted against Catalans in any way connected to Russia [in fact, the managing editor of El Pais, David Alandete, was fired for spreading this false claim].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Catalan government, or any other entity, paid Julian Assange to report on the violence and censorship inflicted against Spain’s Catalan minority, or to otherwise support their right to self-determination [in fact, Spanish prosecutors confirmed that there were no records of Mr. Assange receiving such payments contrary to what had been falsely reported].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is “far right”.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a racist.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a paedophile.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a rapist.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a murderer.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever proposed that he not publish, censor or delay a publication in exchange for any thing.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever agreed to do anything or to not do anything as a condition of his asylum.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that the administration of President Rafael Correa imposed any conditions in exchange for his refugee status or asylum.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a criminal or has a criminal record [in fact, his convictions for offences as a teenager in Australia have been expunged].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange called the Panama Papers “a Soros-funded attack against Putin” [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717810984673484800].

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever published, uttered or tried to promote a “conspiracy theory”.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever suppressed materials critical of Israel, Russia or any other State.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks possessed unpublished leaked material on the Trump campaign or the GOP or Russia and surpressed it.

It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever hacked the state of Ecuador.

 

via RSS http://bit.ly/2C4y9YA Tyler Durden

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

On the first of April last year I published an article titled “Ignore The Words Of US Presidents. Watch Their Actions Instead.”, about Trump’s claim that his administration would be pulling troops out of Syria “very soon”. Watching the actions and ignoring the words is a personal policy I’ve found very useful in dealing with top government figures who understand that power has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with narrative control, and in that particular case the president’s claims were quickly memory holed after a highly suspicious chemical weapons allegation in Douma a few days later. The president’s words said the troops were leaving, and what actually happened was the US bombing the Syrian government for a second time in a year while troops remained where they were.

Everyone completely lost their shit last month when the president once again made the claim that US troops will be brought home from Syria. Establishment loyalists of the political/media class went into full meltdown, Mattis handed in his resignation, and #Resistance Twitter pundits who’d never typed the word “Kurd” in their lives suddenly became self-appointed experts on the geopolitical dynamics between the Turkish government and the YPG. Support for the president’s words also rushed in from anti-interventionists and anti-imperialists everywhere, as well as from a few surprising places like Democratic Representative Ted Liu and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren.

So there was a very strong reaction to Trump’s words about Syria. But what have his actions been? If we look at this administration’s actual behavior with the narrative soundtrack on mute, what we see is a significant increasing of the number of troops in Syria, bombing the Syrian government twice, committing war crimes in Raqqa, providing full-throated support for hundreds of Israeli air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, and a steadily increasing number of indications that the troops won’t be coming home at all.

Trump: We’re leaving Syria.
Bolton: We’re not really leaving Syria.
Trump: We’re leaving Syria very slowly.
Graham: Very, very slowly.
Bolton: Or maybe never.
Trump: When ISIS is completely gone.
Bolton: And Iran.
Trump: I hired Bolton and regret nothing.https://t.co/v5flv6cbSe

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) January 6, 2019

“I never said we’d be doing it that quickly,” press were told on Sunday by the president, who has indeed previously used the words “now” and “quickly” to describe the pace of troop withdrawal.

“We won’t be finally pulled out, until ISIS is gone,” Trump added.

National Security Advisor John Bolton has also announced additional conditions which will need to be met before there’s a full withdrawal of US forces from Syria, including the seemingly indefinite need to counter Iranian activity in the region, and the need for an agreement to be reached between the US and Turkey to protect Kurdish militias in northeastern Syria.

Bolton said the Kurdish factions are being advised by the US to “stand fast now” and refrain from brokering an agreement with the Syrian government or Russia to protect them from Turkey, a deal which has been on the table and seriously contemplated by the Kurds for many months. Such an agreement would help unify a fragmented Syria, would deter an attack from Turkey, and would remove any need for the US to protect its YPG “allies” (read: assets), so naturally the servants of endless war are working against it.

Bolton also said that the withdrawal only applies to northeastern Syria, and that troops are expected to remain indefinitely in the southern part of the country. Bolton is reportedly expected to explain to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish president Recip Tayyip Erdogan that some of the troops who do end up being withdrawn from Syria will not be going home at all, but will rather be moved across the border to fight ISIS in Iraq.

John McCain’s testicular clone Senator Lindsey Graham announced last weekthat Trump is now slowing the withdrawal “in a smart way” after he met with the president, which knowing Graham’s relentless support for limitless war and military expansionism is perhaps not a great sign.

Empire loyalists are always calling to slow everything down when it comes to agendas which advance the interests of normal human beings, whether it’s single-payer healthcare or an end to military expansionism. Meanwhile they never slow down their attempts to ramp up the war engine and shore up control for the Orwellian oppression machine. When they demand to slow things down they’re only ever buying more time to finish constructing your cage.

Has Trump Been Outmaneuvered on Syria Troop Withdrawal? https://t.co/dhw07SCRF6 Failure to pull out the ~800 troops & equipment assigned in El Tanf that could be withdrawn across the Jordanian border w/in 24 hours suggests duplicity by foreign policy shadow government.

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) January 3, 2019

So there’s that. Trump’s rhetoric on Syria has differed from people in his administration like Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with the president tending to express more urgency on troop withdrawal and more indifference toward Iranian actions in Syria, but does it make any difference? It really doesn’t matter what noises Trump makes with his mouth if no moves to scale down interventionism actually occur. Either Trump is just saying words he knows his base wants to hear with no intention of following them through, or he is being “outmaneuvered by the Deep State” as Virginia State Senator Dick Black puts it, or he’s run into some other strategic brick wall to immediate troop withdrawal we can’t see, or maybe, perhaps, he will succeed in getting troops out of Syria.

I personally do not care about Trump’s motives. Antiwar analysts tend to put a lot of emphasis on what the president’s personal intentions are, but it doesn’t matter how Trump’s feelings feel or what kind of person he is inside, what matters is if America’s unconscionable global military expansionism gets scaled down or not. The power structure behaves the way it behaves, and if the troops don’t come home it’s because Trump is either complicit or impotent. Either way, the power structure and its behavior is what matters.

I’ll be the first to cheer if US military involvement in Syria does end, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Instead, I will continue ignoring the verbiage and watching the behavior. In a world where narrative manipulation is the key to real power, it’s impossible to take anyone close to power at their word.

*  *  *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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via RSS http://bit.ly/2CVGRKs Tyler Durden

China’s push to dominate new wireless technology will give Beijing advanced capabilities for “mayhem and mass surveillance” if they are allowed to cominate 5G networks linking billions of devices, according to retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding.

Spalding was fired from the National Security Council last February after a memo leaked in which he argued for a government takeover of the nation’s 5G mobile network – an idea lawmakers and wireless companies flatly rejected.

In a new memo written in recent days and obtained by Bloomberg, Spalding says that China’s domination of ultra-fast 5G networks – with speeds 10 – 100 times faster than current services, would “weaponize cities.” 

Commercial providers are working to develop 5G networks that provide faster links than the current fourth-generation wireless service. The idea is that dramatically higher speeds—10 or even 100 times faster than current service—will eventually help support self-driving cars, smart appliances and even surgical robots.

Spalding in his memo paints a future headed toward domination by China. Eventually, alternatives to its network technology won’t exist, because other suppliers won’t be able to compete with government-subsidized offerings from Huawei and fellow Chinese gear maker ZTE Corp., Spalding said.

Once China controls the market for internet-connected devices, it will be able “to weaponize cities,” Spalding said in the memo: “Think of self-driving cars that suddenly mow down unsuspecting pedestrians. Think of drones that fly into the intakes of airliners.” –Bloomberg

According to Spalding, the a network should be built within three years using technology which would monitor network devices and “isolate them from the adversary if they become infected.” The monitoring would rely on encryption as well as a secure supply chain, says Sapalding – as well as to “push Huawei and ZTE out of other democracies.” 

In October, an Australian spy chielf – the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, said that his cyber experts had backed the government’s call in August to ban Huawei and ZTE from building the nation’s 5G network, calling them “high-risk vendors.” 

“My advice was to exclude high-risk vendors from the entirety of evolving 5G networks,” said Mike Burgess, adding “the distinction between ‘core’ and ‘edge’ collapses in 5G networks. That means that a potential threat anywhere in the network will be a threat to the whole network.” 

The next generation of telecommunications networks will be at the top of every country’s list of critical national infrastructure, he said.

“5G technology will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day, from our health systems and the potential applications of remote surgery, to self-driving cars and through to the operation of our power and water supply,” Burgess said. “The stakes could not be higher.” –Naples Herald

Last year the wireless industry and US lawmakers protested Spalding’s plan for government regulation of 5G, with critics saying network construction should come from the private sector. Questions of course remain as to what portion of the network would be taxpayer funded and whether it would be owned by the government, a private consortium, or a hybrid of public and private entities. 

via RSS http://bit.ly/2FhwzG3 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Stephanie Pomboy of Macro Mavens

Actions have consequences.  Even for the Fed.

That’s not a reference to the market’s grumpy reaction to the central bank’s continued rate hikes and quantitative tightening.  No.  The impact of both on financial assets were as obvious as they were inexorable.  To be sure, Wall Street’s resident soothsayers had a good run spinning tales that ‘this time’ was different. A tightening Fed, we were assured, was a good thing—a ringing endorsement of the economy’s indefatigable strength. But, in the end, there was simply no way around the basic fact: Just as rate cuts and QE were designed to expand the pool of credit and incent the embrace of risk, so would rate hikes and QT necessarily beget the reverse. And so they have.

But while the impact of receding liquidity and the reduced reward for reckless speculation and risk-taking have finally begun to play out on Bloomberg screens everywhere, the real devastation has yet to be revealed.  In the ensuing weeks and months the full and lugubrious legacy of the Fed’s great monetary experiment of the last decade will finally come into view.

Beyond inflating and bursting a bubble in corporate debt (with leveraged loans acting as posterchild), the Fed’s decade-long financial repression has had a far larger and more sinister impact: It has silently bankrupted the US pension system.  

Sound overly dramatic??

Here are the numbers from no lesser authority than the institution responsible for this destruction itself: the Federal Reserve.   By their calculations, at the end of the 3rd quarter, the funding shortfall of U.S. pension plans (public and private) stood at -$6.18t.  That’s trillion, with a capital ‘t’.  To put that in perspective, that’s roughly 30% of GDP:

But that’s not even the scary part.  The scary part is that this is the funding deficit NOW…after a decade of rampant financial asset inflation and a 10-year economic expansion. One shudders to imagine what the picture will look like as these tailwinds reverse.  If the last two cycles are any indication, it won’t be pretty. The DotCom bust sent the cumulative deficit from -$1.2t to -$3.1t and the GFC saw it swell from -$2.9t to -$5.3t.  Split the diff’ at a doubling of the deficit and we’d be looking at a hole of $12t before you can blink.   

The numbers are hard enough to fathom, much less figure a way out of.  No amount of fancy accounting footwork can bring these obligations into a realm where they can possibly be fulfilled.  Nor, I regret to add, does the standard operating procedure – blow it off and hope that time solves the problem.   With our rapidly-aging population, more and more retirees are knocking on the door to collect their benefits every day.  

At its enormous size, even the effort to begin shoring-up these pension deficits (rendered newly urgent by the market meltdown) will have a material economic impact.  At the state and local level, balanced budget mandates are such that any monies directed to pensions will need to be diverted from spending and/or conjured via higher taxes.  And for corporations, freshly turned-out of the credit markets, the dough will come out of hiring and capex and/or share buybacks.  In the (likely) alterative that these untenable pension obligation are renegotiated and/or reneged upon instead, the saving onus would simply be passed from employer to employee.  And newly disenfranchised day laborers would be forced to ramp-up saving, by cutting spending.  Either way, the economy will take a material hit.  

It’s true that the mushrooming of these deficits has occurred by dint of the Fed’s low interest rates over these last several years, which swelled the present discounted value of future obligations.  However, as the recent market action (and the experience of the last two times the Fed tightened into a bubble of its own making) makes plain, higher rates are hardly going to act as a cure…far from it.  At the risk of spilling any state secrets, the only way pension managers had a chance to meet 8% return assumptions in a 1% risk-free world was to stretch into the deepest corners of risk assets, now blowing up.  

Sigh.  This was all totally foreseeable.  For the 3rd time in as many decades we are being reminded that the solution for excess debt is not, in fact, to incent economic and financial agents to borrow MORE.  Inflating financial assets in the hopes that, one day, the economy rises to meet them is a dangerous exercise—one that isn’t rendered any less perilous by a Fed that (incredibly) imagines it can ratchet-up rates and tighten the credit upon which both rest without consequence ?!!  

After 9 ½ years of expanding economic activity and a decade of rising asset prices and falling volatility, it’s a reality which investors had altogether forgotten (and which the Fed obviously never recognized in the first place).  But it’s one that is about to come into sharp focus.

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The head of Thailand’s immigration police said Monday that an 18-year-old Saudi woman was detained by Saudi officials at a Bangkok airport, as she attempted to reach Australia to seek asylum.

Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, remained barricaded in a tiny airport hotel room Monday while sending out dozens of tweets for help.

Alqunun began tweeting late Saturday after her passport was confiscated at Bangkok airport on a flight from Kuwait.

I’m the girl who run away from Kuwait to Thailand. I’m in real danger because the Saudi embassy trying to forcing me to go back to Saudi Arabia, while I’m at the airport waiting for my second flight.

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 5, 2019

سأقوم الان بنشر احد الأدلة التي املكها على احتجازي قسراً، رغماً عني بالرغم من كوني إنسانه بالغه لم ترتكب أي جريمة، واحتجازهم لجواز سفري قسراً، بدون موافقتي pic.twitter.com/eyINhODJpa

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 6, 2019

This is a copy of my passport, Im shering it with you now because I want you to know I’m real and exist. pic.twitter.com/6yzVyFifp7

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 6, 2019

I’m still in the hotel room inside the airport! pic.twitter.com/8J931g9yQs

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 6, 2019

On Sunday, she pleaded for refugee status from the United Nations refugee agency and anyone else who could help, said AP.

https://t.co/T9TwMu1NM8

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 6, 2019

Video from @rahaf84427714 just sent from her hotel room at the #Bangkok airport. She has barricaded herself in the room & says she will not leave until she is able to see #UNHCR. Why is #Thailand not letting @Refugees see her for refugee status determination? @hrw #SaveRahaf pic.twitter.com/3lb2NDRsVG

— Phil Robertson (@Reaproy) January 7, 2019

Official from @KuwaitAirways is at Rahaf’s door but she’s refusing to leave #SaveRahaf pic.twitter.com/TcRf3p7Dys

— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) January 7, 2019

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published a statement Monday morning saying it was closely following the case and would assess Alqunun’s need for international protection.

The Thai authorities have granted UNHCR access to Saudi national, Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun, at Bangkok airport to assess her need for international refugee protection and find an immediate solution for her situation.

Our statement: https://t.co/FVVGdUmHMu

— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) January 7, 2019

Maj. Gen. Surachate Hakparn, the chief of Thailand’s Immigration Police, said Monday that Alqunun would not be transferred anywhere against her will. 

On Twitter, where Alqunun’s following base has rapidly increased in the last several days, alleges that she is in “real danger” if forced to return to her family under pressure from Saudi authorities and had claimed in media interviews that she could be killed.

Alqunun told Human Rights Watch she fled the constant abuse from her family, including regular beatings and death threats from her male relatives who forced her to remain in her room for six months. 

Asked why she was seeking refuge in Australia, she said: “Physical, emotional and verbal abuse and being imprisoned inside the house for months. They threaten to kill me and prevent me from continuing my education.”

Alqunun added: “They won’t let me drive or travel. I am oppressed. I love life and work and I am very ambitious but my family is preventing me from living.”

Australian Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said on Monday that her country would do everything they could to assist the young women with safe passage. 

“Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun fears for her life and is facing deportation to Saudi Arabia, but we can help. We understand she has a visa and needs emergency travel documents to be brought safely here,” Hanson-Young said in a statement.

“I have called on the Liberal Government to act urgently to ensure Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has safe travel to Australia. She has denounced Islam and is fleeing a forced marriage.”

Alqunun has used Twitter to publicize her unique situation. In the last several days, she has shared countless pictures and videos of the room she is detained in, and of the men guarding her door.

She reached out to major media outlets, who have shared her story on their social media channels. 

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, shared one such video on Monday where Alqunun claimed men were outside her hotel room door, while she waited for a meeting with the UN refugee agency. 

I wil still here until UN helps me https://t.co/HUFiSodcFC

— Rahaf Mohammed رهف محمد القنون (@rahaf84427714) January 7, 2019

Young Saudi women runaways have increasingly turned to social media to amplify their calls for help.

Two years ago, Dina Lasloom triggered a social media firestorm when she was stopped en route to Australia where she planned to seek asylum. She was forced to return to Saudi Arabia and has not been heard from since. 

*This story is still developing… 

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