Since the economic crisis of 2008, Spain has seen a steady trend of increasingly fewer births. In the first half of 2016, 12,998 more people died than were born in Spain and the number of newborns fell by 4.6%.

Put simply, as El Pais reports, Spain’s population is shrinking at a rate of 72 people per day, essentially due to a historically low birthrate, according to a study released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The survey also found that there were fewer deaths (7.8% less) and fewer marriages (2.7% less) in the first half of 2016 than in the first half of 2015.

 

The dearth of newborns was especially acute in Catalonia and Aragón, as well as in the exclave city of Melilla. In the first half of 2016, Catalonia had 9% fewer births, Melilla saw a baby decrease of 7.4% and Aragón had 6% fewer births than in the first half of last year.

 

On the other hand, the Balearic Islands, Ceuta and Asturias all saw slight increases in the number of births – between 0.6% and 1.5%.

“Spain has sailed through the 20th century in a complete blank when it comes to demographic policies, and there is no hint that this will be corrected,” Julio Vinuesa, a demographer at Madrid’s Autónoma University, warns, adding that “we are witnessing a rapid decline in births and it seems that nobody cares. In the short term it is a relief because it means less spending for families and for the state, and nobody is complaining because no one stops to think about the future consequences.”

Those consequences include slower growth (or absolute contraction)…

As El Pais notes, British economist Paul Wallace, author of Agequake, which investigates the causes and effects of population aging, has argued that the major investment for any society must be in its own replacement. In this case, Spain has failed, with a major driver seemingly that the percentage of young people between 25 and 29 who still lived with their families at home, often unemployed or holding precarious jobs, exceeded 60 percent, compared with ratios below 20 percent in Germany, France and Britain.

*  *  *

In any event, the experts say that Spain isn’t getting any younger. By
2066, Spain’s population, currently around 46.4 million, will have
shrunk by around 5.4 million, suggests another study released by the INE
in October… think what that would mean for economic growth!!

via http://ift.tt/2hysLnr Tyler Durden

One can almost sense that unforeseen events could bring chaos to America, warns SHTFPlan.com's Mac Slavo…

Debts and economic catastrophes could play out, terrorism could strike, wars could spark to life, disaster may hit, and much more. While many have been optimistic about the promises of a new president, and a brighter spot for the free market, global affairs are complicated, and often bite from both ends. With Trump, no one really knows what to expect, and regardless, one man cannot steer all world events in his direction.

 

 

There are indeed rocky times ahead, and 2017 could be the year that goes dark. Prepare during this calm before the storm.

A Storm is Coming: Preppers Must Stay Vigilant in 2017

Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne)) via ReadyNutrition.com,

While many believe the shift in government leaders in 2017 will bring us back to better times, one can never be too sure. As my father always said, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” These are still uncertain times, and as Jeremiah Johnson emphasizes in this article – with that uncertainty, we must continue to be ever vigilant in our preparedness endeavors.

ReadyNutrition Fans, this piece is an important exhortation to you – a sort of plea, if you will – to not lose your focus in preparations and your readiness-stance during these times.  With the Dow-Jones Industrial skyrocketing, the Christmas Holidays in full gear, Donald J. Trump about to be inaugurated, and the glow of a new patriotic dawn, everything seems OK, right?  Wrong.  This is not alarmist, but pragmatic.  We cannot allow a burst of patriotic positive fervor to dull the perception of the last 8 years.

Losing our focus is what allowed those 8 years in the first place.

The Unemployment Rate

The welcoming of a new President brings renewed hope in our government system; however, there is a lot of road to travel before the country is fixed. While many preppers feel relieved and are slowing their preparedness endeavors down, many preparedness experts are stressing the importance of not giving up. As preppers, we must keep an eye on indicators like the economy and unemployment. Bear in mind that unemployment is deliberately under-reported.  The economy is in bad shape.  Everyone is focusing on the happy times of Christmas cheer and family festivities.  I adjure to your intellects: do not relent in your focus or your activities to prepare for what is still around the corner.

They’re not celebrating festive, happy shopper days in Venezuela, where women are cutting off their own hair and selling it just to buy loaves of bread, or where a whole shopping bag full of Venezuelan Bolivars will not even buy a few days’ worth of essential supplies.

The Economy

The economy of the United States will take quite some time to recover.  You can continue in the true economy that you have started: the acquisition of supplies, materials, and resources that always hold their worth and have an intrinsic value.  Gold, silver, and precious metals…in physical form…these have worth and lasting, intrinsic value.  For an excellent analysis of just where the United States is economically, I highly recommend an article written by Shaun Bradley on December 8, 2016 entitled “Cash is No Longer King: The Phasing Out of Physical Money Has Begun,” and downloadable for your files.

Another article worth mentioning was written by Susan Duclos of All News Pipeline, entitled “We are Facing the Most Important Battle of All at the Most Dangerous Moment in History,” released on December 10, 2016.  Here is an excerpt from that article:

“We at ANP are noting a lot of optimism from investors with stocks soaring,  to economic confidence reaching new highs, to small business owners, to household spending and even prepping has hit a “multi-year low,” all the articles I am reading are crediting the election of Donald Trump as reason for all this optimism, but as much as I hate to rain on everyone’s parade… now is the most dangerous time in history, not a time to assume just because one man was elected, all the wrongs will be made right, the failing economy will automatically just magically fix itself.”

These timely and sagacious words show that the battle is not over yet.  In this vein, do not lose focus!  Don’t allow the holiday cheer and festive atmosphere to leave you blindsided and thinking that the battle is over!  Other blogsites have reported that sales of emergency equipment and supplies have been drastically on the decline since the election was finished.  Remember: North Korea, Russia, and China still pose a viable threat in several areas of the world, the world economy is quite bad, and the U.S. has by no means recovered from the nightmare of two consecutive Obama terms.

Stay the Course for 2017!

Stay focused.  Gear your shopping and holiday activities to always take a back seat to awareness of the overall situation.  Stock up on your precious metals and long-term food supplies and water procurement capabilities.  Continue to locate and obtain the tools, medicines, and equipment you and your family will need.  Just because the “Captains” are about to change does not mean that the ship will change its course…the one taking it toward a wreck on the reefs.  Don’t let that reef loom up and blindside you to take you unawares.  Enjoy your holidays, but do so with one eye on the festivities and another one on the horizon…aware of what is going on around you.  Do not stop the preparations for even one minute.  Happy holidays, and keep up that good fight!  JJ out!

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By Chris at http://ift.tt/12YmHT5

There are two things I’ve not done in a while.

The first of them is to answer some of the questions that come pouring in. My apologies to all those unanswered – lack of response due to volume, not bad manners.

Hey Chris,

 

would you mind if I too throw a question at you?

 

I’m thinking about this for a while now, but never went ahead and actually asked anyone, so here we go: how do you learn all this stuff?

 

I mean, I don’t have a finance background. I studied philosophy and political science at university, so I’m used to thinking about stuff (from the former, PolSci was mostly BS).

 

Later this month I’ll turn 28. I work for myself as basically a web developer in the insurance sector and have put away money for a while now. I took notes whenever I saw stuff in the markets for the last two or three years and would’ve been right often enough, but never trusted my judgement and only really invested twice (once in a friend’s company, once in some Mongolian companies just before they went down 90% around 2014).

 

When a friend introduced me to some people in Mongolia a few years ago and I started consulting in the financial services sector there I asked him if there’s anything I should read to fix my lack knowledge of in finance, but he replied that it was mostly just common sense. I’ve also talked to your friend Kuppy a few times when I was in UB and got a similar impression: that it was just about thinking stuff through.

 

On the other hand, there’s shitloads of numbers and terms and metrics I don’t know. Most of them are probably irrelevant, but I guess some of them are important I don’t yet know which is which. And you guys do have analysts, right?

 

When this year I told my aforementioned friend that I wanted to get a CFA to understand the lingo, he told me that all stuff didn’t matter anymore and I think I remember reading something similar in one of your emails a few months ago.

 

So I’m wondering, how would you go about learning this stuff?

 

For me, the obvious thing is thinking stuff through, reading financial history, keep earning money from work, slowly migrate it into making money from money through small trial and error steps. I’m wondering though whether I’m missing the quant part. And at the same time I’m worried of getting myself into the sway of dumb non-functioning economic theories and missing the stuff that’s of real importance if I were to focus on the quant part.

 

I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

 

– D

Answer:

Let’s start with what a friend and business partner loves to say: What equation are you trying to solve?

I’m going to suggest it’s the following: You’re wanting to know how to evaluate things in order to be comfortable with your investment decisions. Sound fair?

It’s one problem with our education system. It doesn’t teach us how to think, how to critically examine and question, test and retest in order to find the truth.

Kuppy is right when he says just think stuff through. So let’s take two real world examples which come to mind.

Example 1:

I was just having a discussion with an associate about my belief that we’ve seen the top of the bond market and I think rates are going higher (something I’ve written a lot about). My friend’s in private equity and we had the discussion which he’d not thought about.

Let’s say you’re an asset manager with a few billion to allocate. What happens to your base case assumptions on asset allocation in a rising rate environment? Well, private equity, which is nuts at the moment anyway, has been competing against fixed income. Easy! How hard is it to beat zero?

So take away some of the zero and on a relative basis you get capital shifting. This doesn’t require you to understand Black-Scholes pricing, risk parity, foreign exchange flows, or any other “financial” knowledge. Think stuff through and take it beyond first level thinking. Do it lots, do it regularly, and you start training your brain. It’s just a muscle, after all.

Example 2:

I’m trying to make sure my kids aren’t completely ignorant. The other day we were at a mall, and I bought them an ice cream in a food hall. Their purpose was to eat an ice cream and mine to get them to think. So there were a dozen food outlets. I asked them to tell me which one they’d buy and why.

The responses were typical from a 10 and 11-year old. They picked their favourite foods. I told them to pick the one that will make them the most money. So how do you figure that out?

Basic math and metrics. Shop size (some are bigger than others). Those with larger footprint have higher lease costs but potentially more traffic. So I told them to spend a few minutes and tell me which one is getting the most traffic. Easy: It was McDonald’s.

Next question. Who’s second? Easy. Sushi place.

Then a trickier question. I told them to tell me which one is getting the most traffic relative to size. Done. Sushi place. After doing some napkin math with them and making it easy at 50% size difference (it wasn’t but this was teaching them how to evaluate the world and think).

Next: What’s the average dollar spend at the sushi shop and what’s the average dollar spend at McDonald’s? So they had to do some math, a bunch of guessing, and so on. They guessed the average dollar spend at McDonald’s was about $12 and about $18 at Sushi.

Back to size of shop. Sushi shop is about half the footprint so probably half the lease costs.

Staffing was only 2 at Sushi shop and about 8 at McDonald’s (as far as we could tell). That’s the biggest cost (labour). So McDonald’s has about a double on lease costs and a 4x on labour costs, and the average dollar spend is $12 compared to Sushi place at $18.

Our guesstimates where that McDonald’s runs about 30% more traffic so we can level the playing field by saying that Sushi place gross dollar spend isn’t $18 but 30% less (due to 30% less traffic) so this is $12.60. Easy. Now factoring in half the lease costs and a quarter labour costs my kids quickly figured out that they’d buy Sushi place.

Sitting there doing my own math on it, if you put a gun at my head and told me to buy one I’d buy Sushi place and I reckon I’d be correct, and that’s without ever touching their financial statements.

Now, obviously you wouldn’t go out and buy Sushi place based on these variables and based on sitting and eating an ice cream for 10 minutes at a food hall. That would be sillier than blindly buying a low volatility ETF right now but when you do this regularly, fast, and repeatedly (I have trouble not doing it – just a defect, I guess), then you’ll find you’re pretty good at quickly rapidly analysing the world around you.

Hi there

 

Thanks for all the great content. I was just wondering if you knew of any great books etc that really explain the global financial system/geopolitics in depth that you have come across or would recommend?

 

I’m fascinated by all this stuff now but I’m finding that because I lack some of the basic understanding, I’m unable to distinguish between “doom porn merchants/permabears” etc and intelligent analysis (I don’t doubt that you’re the latter btw lol).

 

Thanks in advance, will continue to listen/read and have introduced a few friends to your work.

 

All the best, Rob. (London, UK)

Answer:

I used to read a ton of financial books in my twenties but not much anymore. I tend to read about science, history, and philosophy more now.

I’d recommend any of Soros’ books, not because I like the guy (or even agree with some of his thinking) but he has a very different and extremely valuable way of assessing risk and understanding market dynamics.

I honestly hesitate to suggest books because I feel like you can gain something from most any of them but the critical components are making sure you think for yourself as mentioned in the answer to the previous question above. Otherwise you’re just left taking in information and believing it no matter how poor it may be.

For example, I’d suggest reading work by that pillar of stupidity, Paul Krugman. Why? Because understanding how he and many of his ilk think is valuable but not because it’s sound reasoning. I mean, I’m all for immortalising Paul Krugman. Make a statue out of him, if only so the the pigeons can poop on him for eternity.

The second part of the question is around distinguishing wheat from chaff.

Ok, so this question I get all the time.

Do your due diligence. Most of the stuff you’re referring to will be one of the publishing sites which use “professional” marketing firms to write copy and then flog something based around hype. Just go look for previous marketing they’ve done and then see whether any of it worked out.

It’s pretty easy to spot.

If you’re being told that “there is some catastrophic event that is coming on X date and go here to learn how to protect yourself.” Or that some “secret” meeting in a dark room with an “un-named man” has just been revealed and riches/catastrophe await. Or some special code designed in a bunker in World War II that has now revealed the most incredible information and you, some unknown dude on the internet, get to find out.

Because if you did find something that was truly going to make you a billionaire that’s the first thing you’d do, right?

I mean you wouldn’t tell your loved ones and set yourself up. No, you’d immediately set up a website and hire a bunch of marketing copywriters and you’d spam people about it. That’s what you’d do. For sure!

You get the picture. Any variation of that theme and you’re about 99% probability it’s full of nonsense.

Here is the thing: Information is actually free. What’s valuable isn’t information per se, it’s knowing how to synthesise that information and execute on it. I know that sounds boring because everyone wants some magic wand or some guru with a crystal ball to tell them what to do. I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve two balls and I assure you neither are crystal.

And that brings me to the end of today’s post.

I mentioned at the beginning there were two things I’d not done in a while.

And the second is taking a break. And since it’s the silly season I’m going to do just that for the next week so you won’t hear from me.

I do wish you joy, happiness, and money because, well, this is Capitalist Exploits.

– Chris

“Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.” — Winston Churchill

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Drudgereport.com was the number 1 source of information during the elections. It was and always has been, or at least for the past decade or so, the single most popular destination for news — especially during elections. On the same day that the Obama administration announced sanctions again Russia, Drudge goes down.

Coincidence?

Drudge ponders aloud on Twitter.

Is the US government attacking DRUDGE REPORT?

Biggest DDoS since site’s inception. VERY suspicious routing [and timing].

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 30, 2016

Attacking coming from ‘thousands’ of sources. Of course none of them traceable to Fort Meade…

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 30, 2016

One of my favorite interviews ever was when Drudge showed up to the Alex Jones show for a chat.

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

via http://ift.tt/2iedp8v The_Real_Fly

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The English language Russian news agency, Sputnik, reports that former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is advising US president-elect Donald Trump how to “bring the United States and Russia closer together to offset China’s military buildup.” 

If we take this report at face value, it tells us that Kissinger, an old cold warrior, is working to use Trump’s commitment to better relations with Russia in order to separate Russia from its strategic alliance with China.

China’s military buildup is a response to US provocations against China and US claims to the South China Sea as an area of US national interests. China does not intend to attack the US and certainly not Russia.

Kissinger, who was my colleague at the Center for Strategic and International studies for a dozen years, is aware of the pro-American elites inside Russia, and he is at work creating for them a “China threat” that they can use in their effort to lead Russia into the arms of the West. If this effort is successful, Russia’s sovereignty will be eroded exactly as has the sovereignty of every other country allied with the US.

At President Putin’s last press conference, journalist Marat Sagadatov asked if Russia wasn’t already subject to forms of foreign semi-domination: “Our economy, industry, ministries and agencies often follow the rules laid down by international organizations and are managed by consulting companies. Even our defense enterprises have foreign consulting firms auditing them.” The journalist asked, “if it is not time to do some import substitution in this area too?”

Every Russian needs to understand that being part of the West means living by Washington’s rules. The only country in the Western Alliance that has an independent foreign and economic policy is the US.

All of us need to understand that although Trump has been elected president, the neoconservatives remain dominant in US foreign policy, and their commitment to the hegemony of the US as the uni-power remains as strong as ever. The neoconservative ideology has been institutionalized in parts of the CIA, State Department and Pentagon. The neoconservatives retain their influence in media, think tanks, university faculties, foundations, and in the Council on Foreign Relations.

We also need to understand that Trump revels in the role of tough guy and will say things that can be misinterpreted as my friend, Finian Cunningham, whose columns I read, usually with appreciation, might have done.

I do not know that Trump will prevail over the vast neoconservative conspiracy. However, it seems clear enough that he is serious about reducing the tensions with Russia that have been building since President Clinton violated the George H. W. Bush administration’s promise that NATO would not expand one inch to the East. Unless Trump were serious, there is no reason for him to announce Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as his choice for Secretary of State. In 2013 Mr. Tillerson was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out, a global corporation such as Exxon has interests different from those of the US military/security complex. The military/security complex needs a powerful threat, such as the former “Soviet threat” which has been transformed into the “Russian threat,” in order to justify its hold on an annual budget of approximately one trillion dollars. In contrast, Exxon wants to be part of the Russian energy business. Therefore, as Secretary of State, Tillerson is motivated to achieve good relations between the US and Russia, whereas for the military/security complex good relations undermine the orchestrated fear on which the military/security budget rests.

Clearly, the military/security complex and the neoconservatives see Trump and Tillerson as threats, which is why the neoconservatives and the armaments tycoons so strongly opposed Trump and why CIA Director John Brennan made wild and unsupported accusations of Russian interference in the US presidential election.

The lines are drawn. The next test will be whether Trump can obtain Senate confirmation of his choice of Tillerson as Secretary of State.

The myth is widespread that President Reagan won the cold war by breaking the Soviet Union financially with an arms race. As one who was involved in Reagan’s effort to end the cold war, I find myself yet again correcting the record.

Reagan never spoke of winning the cold war. He spoke of ending it. Other officials in his government have said the same thing, and Pat Buchanan can verify it.

Reagan wanted to end the Cold War, not win it. He spoke of those “godawful” nuclear weapons. He thought the Soviet economy was in too much difficulty to compete in an arms race. He thought that if he could first cure the stagflation that afflicted the US economy, he could force the Soviets to the negotiating table by going through the motion of launching an arms race. “Star wars” was mainly hype. (Whether or nor the Soviets believed the arms race threat, the American leftwing clearly did and has never got over it.)

Reagan had no intention of dominating the Soviet Union or collapsing it. Unlike Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, he was not controlled by neoconservatives. Reagan fired and prosecuted the neoconservatives in his administration when they operated behind his back and broke the law.

The Soviet Union did not collapse because of Reagan’s determination to end the Cold War. The Soviet collapse was the work of hardline communists, who believed that Gorbachev was loosening the Communist Party’s hold so quickly that Gorbachev was a threat to the existence of the Soviet Union and placed him under house arrest. It was the hardline communist coup against Gorbachev that led to the rise of Yeltsin. No one expected the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The US military/security complex did not want Reagan to end the Cold War, as the Cold War was the foundation of profit and power for the complex. The CIA told Reagan that if he renewed the arms race, the Soviets would win, because the Soviets controlled investment and could allocate a larger share of the economy to the military than Reagan could.

Reagan did not believe the CIA’s claim that the Soviet Union could prevail in an arms race. He formed a secret committee and gave the committee the power to investigate the CIA’s claim that the US would lose an arms race with the Soviet Union. The committee concluded that the CIA was protecting its prerogatives. I know this because I was a member of the committee.

American capitalism and the social safety net would function much better without the drain on the budget of the military/security complex. It is more correct to say that the military/security complex wants a major threat, not an actual arms race. Stateless Muslim terrorists are not a sufficient threat for such a massive US military, and the trouble with an actual arms race as opposed to a threat is that the US armaments corporations would have to produce weapons that work instead of cost overruns that boost profits.

The latest US missile ship has twice broken down and had to be towed into port. The F-35 has cost endless money, has a variety of problems and is already outclassed. The Russian missiles are hypersonic. The Russian tanks are superior. The explosive power of the Russian Satan II ICBM is terrifying. The morale of the Russian forces is high. They have not been exhausted from 15 years of fighting without much success pointless wars against women and children.

Washington, given the corrupt nature of the US military/security complex, can arms race all it wants without being a danger to Russia or China, much less to the strategic alliance between the two powers.

The neoconservatives are discredited, but they are still a powerful influence on US foreign policy. Until Trump relegates them to the ideological backwaters, Russia and China had best hold on to their strategic alliance. Anyone attempting to break this alliance is a threat to both Russia and China, and to America and to life on earth.

via http://ift.tt/2iKHcmg Tyler Durden

It is oddly appropriate that in a year everyone finally admitted markets are manipulated by central banks and broken by HFT algos, that on the last trading day of 2016, the dollar flash crashed with for no reason whatsoever.

Shortly after 6:30pm Eastern, the dollar plunged by 150 pips against the Euro, once 1.05 stops were taken out, with algos sending the EURUSD as high as 1.07 in a matter of seconds…

… while concurrently the Swiss Franc soared as much as 1.6% against the greenback, as the USDCHF tumbled from just over 1.025 to just above 1.0050 as the pair briefly flirted with parity.

What caused it? As there was no fundamental news, the answer is the same catalyst as the pound sterling flash crash: once EURUSD stops were taken out, algos all piled up on the same side of the trade and with virtually non existent market depth, it sent the world’s most actively traded currency pair soaring. Indeed, as FX traders in Asia, cited by Bloomberg said, the EUR/USD jump was partly driven by a surge of algo-buy orders after pair rose above 1.0500 in early session.

Others agreed: as Shigeki Yoshitoshi, head of Japan FX and commodities sales at Australia & New Zealand Bank said, it “seems to be no particular factor driving euro sharply higher in extremely thin volume” adding that “there wasn’t any particular news. Markets are extremely thin and perhaps position tuning occurred.”

So after the initial freak out where are markets now? Well, according to Bloomberg, after the Euro was dealt as high as 1.07 on the EBS platform, though that price level has been dismissed by banks and clients according to Asia-based FX traders, the pair is slowly returning to its pre-freakout level. As Bloomberg adds, the post-mortem of the EURUSD spike already has “traders swapping stories of clients dealing away and banks shedding tears” especially those who were stopped out by a few good stop-busting algos. 

And while funds were seen buying under 1.0500, when the pair hit 1.0540 one trader says he had to take the loss.

Finally, if any readers missed the move, fear not: with the world’s most actively traded market having become a farcical, flash crashing joke, it is only a matter of time before the next algo-driven freak out returns.

via http://ift.tt/2ijtHuC Tyler Durden

While Warren Buffett did best of all the billionaires in 2016, he was far from alone.

The biggest fortunes on the planet whipsawed through $4.8 trillion of daily net worth gyrations in 2016.

The volatility — triggered by disappointing economic data from China at the start of the year, the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union in the middle and the election of billionaire Donald Trump at the end — didn’t prevent the richest from getting richer.

Their fortunes rose 5.7 percent for the year at the close of trading on Dec. 27, or some $237 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

via http://ift.tt/2hxUhl4 Tyler Durden

Authored by Oliver Stone (via Facebook),

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

As 2016 draws to a close, we find ourselves a deeply unsettled nation. We’re unable to draw the lines of our national interest. Is it jobs and economy, is it national security, or is it now in our interest to ensure global security — in other words, act as the world’s policemen?

As the “failing” (to quote Trump) New York Times degenerates into a Washington Post organization with its stagnant Cold War vision of a 1950s world where the Russians are to blame for most everything — Hillary’s loss, most of the aggression and disorder in the world, the desire to destabilize Europe, etc. — the Times has added the issue of ‘fake news’ to reassert its problematic role as the dominant voice for the Washington establishment. Certainly this is true in the case of Russia’s ‘hacking’ the 2016 election and putting into office its Manchurian Candidate in Donald Trump. Apparently the CIA (via various unnamed intelligence officials), and the FBI, NSA, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (who notoriously lied to Congress in the Snowden affair), President Obama, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, and Congress agree that Russia, and Mr. Putin predominantly, is responsible.

Certainly the psychotic, war-loving Senator John McCain is right up there alongside these patriots, calling President Putin a “thug, bully and a murderer and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying.” He actually said this — the man whose sound judgment chose Sarah Palin as his VP nominee in ’08. And the Times followed by printing the story in its full glory on page one, clearly agreeing with McCain’s point of view. I don’t remember Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, or Reagan, in the darkest days of the 1950s/80s, ever singling out a Russian President like this. The invective was aimed at the Soviet regime, but never were Khrushchev or Brezhnev the target of this bile. I guess this is a new form of American diplomacy. If a black youth in our inner cities were killed or a Pakistani wedding party were murdered by our drones, would President Obama be singled out as a murderer, bully, thug? Such personalization is a sign of sickness in our thinking and way beneath what should be our standards.

Note the enclosed link from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (which includes the ex-NSA reformer Bill Binney, a mathematical genius who inspired the Nic Cage character in “Snowden,” and who talks here about what hacking really means, as opposed to a ‘leak’). The Times and other mainstream media have surprisingly evaded any contrary evidence, such as that presented by Craig Murray, ex-ambassador and Wikileaks spokesman who says he was given the information in a Washington park by a Democratic ‘insider’ who was disgusted by the behavior of the DNC; Murray then gave it to Wikileaks. This was a ‘leak,’ not a ‘hack,’ and always seemed to me the likely source for this scandal (as I think the Sony leak was as well, falsely blamed on North Korea, but that’s another matter). And if this were to be properly investigated, it might very well lead to the discovery that this was Hillary Clinton’s ‘Nixon moment.’ Clearly the DNC offices were up to no good. Ironically, Clinton first made her name as one of the investigators into Watergate. See Mark Ames’s article, “Site Behind McCarthyite Blacklist,” tracking this foul play to Washington Post journalist Craig Timberg.

I remember well in the 1950s when the Russians were supposed to be in our schools, Congress, State Department — and according to many Eisenhower/Nixon supporters — about to take over our country without serious opposition (and they call me paranoid!). It was this same media who insisted on our need to go to Vietnam to defend our freedoms against the communists 6,000 miles away. And after the Red Scare finally went away for good in 1991, let us remind ourselves that It never ended. It became Hussein of Iraq with his weapons of mass destruction, and talk of the ‘mushroom cloud.’ It became a Demon, as real as any Salem Witch Trial. It was Gaddafi of Libya, and then it was Assad of Syria. In other words, as in an Orwellian prophesy, it never ended, and I can guarantee you it never will — unless we the people who can still think for ourselves in this existential matter, can say “Enough” to this demon act. “Enough,’ “go away” — laugh in their faces.

Of course, the NYT/WaPo nexus rarely will publish any of our serious dissents and thus we must take refuge in alternate media, such as ‘Consortiumnews,’ ‘The Intercept,’ ‘Naked Capitalism,’ ‘Counterpunch,’ ‘Zero Hedge,’ ‘Antiwar.com,’ ‘Truthdig,’ ‘Common Dreams.’ Yet I think we were all quite shocked (but not surprised) when recently we saw 200 websites listed as tools of the Kremlin (WaPo’s November 24, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election”).

My God, the ghost of Izzy Stone is back from the 1950s! For that matter, so is Tom Clancy from the ’80s. False thrillers will now be written about the Russians hacking the American elections. Money and TV serials will be made. I’ve never read such hysterical junk (call it what it is — “fake news”) in the New York Times, in which the editorials have become outrageous diatribes, many of them presumably written by Serge Schmemann, one of those ideologues who still finds Russians under his bed at night (called ‘White Russians’ in the old days who, like right-wing Cubans in Miami, can never live down past grievances). Schmemann is obviously riding high at the NYT edit board. We can make fun of this, but it’s an irresponsible and dangerous editorializing, which has invaded the MSM’s reporting. Their thinking has clearly influenced the Pentagon and many of our Generals’ statements. When one group-think controls our national conversation, it’s so sad, a pathetic loss of judgment, and it becomes ultra dangerous. In this spirit, I’m linking several crucial essays of new vintage, pointing out the disgrace the MSM has become.

As much as we may disagree with Donald Trump (and I do) he’s right now target number one of the MSM propaganda — until, that is, he changes to the anti-Kremlin track over, God knows, some kind of petty dispute cooked up by CIA, and in his hot-headed way starts fighting with the Russians. It wouldn’t be long then until he declares a state of war against Russia. I have no doubt then that our over-financed military ($10 to every 1 Russian dollar) will mean NOTHING against a country that right now believes the US, with the largest buildup of NATO on its borders since Hitler’s World War II, is crazed enough to prepare for a preemptive strike. In his analysis, “The Need to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable,” Robert Parry points out that this conflict ironically started in the 1980s with the Neoconservatives defining Iran as the number one terrorist sponsor in the world. How this leads to our present mess is a brilliant analysis that is unknown to the American public.

I urge you to read the following articles and stay calm in your thinking. But bring it to bear in some way.

Robert Parry, “Making Russia ‘The Enemy’,” Consortiumnews
http://bit.ly/2hz4jTI

Joe Lauria, “Russia-Hack Story Another Media Failure,” Consortiumnews
http://bit.ly/2hmndK4

Justin Raimondo, “Stop the CIA Coup,” Antiwar.com
http://bit.ly/2hgka9c

Robert Parry, “The Need to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable,” Consortiumnews
http://bit.ly/2ifNRZ3

Ray McGovern, “US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims,” Consortiumnews
http://bit.ly/2gB2yWo

Mark Ames, “Site behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist,” Naked Capitalism
http://bit.ly/2goUVT5

Robert Parry, “A Sour Holiday Season for Neocons,” Consortiumnews
http://bit.ly/2imXXVb

As a believer in what Thich Nhat Hanh says, every single one of us, even through our prayers, can add to the betterment of this world. I never thought I’d find myself at this point in time praying for the level-headedness of a Donald Trump. You might remember “The Iliad.” As Homer would have it, the gods would huddle up during each day’s battles and decide on the outcome. Who would die and who would live. Are the gods still listening?

via http://ift.tt/2hAPRf1 Tyler Durden

Coming at an awkward time, just as the US accused Russia of doing (once again, without a shred of valid proof as opposed to a report which the DHS was quick to disown) what the CIA has done to other nations for decades, earlier today everyone’s favorite volatile, vulgar and outspoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte derided U.S. ambassadors as “spies”, responding to a media report of an alleged American plot to destabilize his government, a job he said some envoys were appointed solely to do.

Quoted by Reuters, the former mayor said though had received no intelligence reports of any U.S. plan to undermine his presidency, he believed most ambassadors were in cahoots with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had a track record of meddling in other countries’ affairs. 

The reason for the latest outburst is because the Manila Times newspaper on Tuesday reported a former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines had prepared a “blueprint to undermine Duterte“, citing a document it had received from a what it described as a “highly placed source”.

The Manila Times said Philip Goldberg, who recently ended his term as ambassador in Manila, had outlined various strategies over an 18-month period to destabilize Duterte. That would include supporting the opposition and co-opting the media, the military, neighboring countries and senior government officials to turn against Duterte and isolate him economically.

Duterte has previously called Goldberg a “gay son of a bitch” and referred to him in three successive live television interviews on Thursday, as Washington’s “superstar” with a track record of trying to undermine governments.

He may well be right: Goldberg was expelled as ambassador to Bolivia in 2008 by then President Evo Morales, who accused him of siding with his rightist opponents and of orchestrating street protests. The United States rejected that and said his expulsion was a “grave error”.

“Maybe he will deny it but it’s not good,” Duterte said of Goldberg’s alleged blueprint, which he said was plausible because of Goldberg’s history.

The U.S. State Department, which has yet to admit on the record that it is in the government overthrow business, naturally described the allegations as “false.”

Duterte, however, had a more cynical view: “most of the ambassadors of the United States, but not all, are not really professional ambassadors. At the same time they are spying, they are connected with the CIA,” Duterte said in a television interview.

He added that “the ambassador of a country is the number one spy. But there are ambassador of the U.S., their forte is really to undermine governments.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Daniel Russel dismissed the Manila Times report.

“No such blueprint exists,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The United States respects the sovereignty of the Philippines and the democratic choices made by the Philippine people.”

Sure it does, and just to “prove” it here is a paper which showed that between 1946 and 2000, the US intervened in foreign elections “only” 81 times, of which 65% were covert.

via http://ift.tt/2hxNoA6 Tyler Durden

 This article by David Haggithwas first published on the Great Recession Blog: 

President Obama’s UN declaration that Israeli settlements are illegal says this duck isn’t lame. It was not the finale of Obama’s closing months as president but the prologue to years ahead, pushing his legacy to where it can be carried out at the UN. Congressional leaders say Obama is already plotting further action on Israel before he leaves office, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center put Obama’s refusal to veto the UN resolution at top of its annual list of anti-Semitic acts. One has to acknowledge, regardless of his or her position about Israeli settlements, that Obama is choosing to create an unusual whirlwind of controversy as he leaves office. The resolution (#2334) states that Israel’s settlement activity “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” and calls for an end to all construction beyond the boundaries that existed in 1967 prior to the Six Day War.

Rightly or wrongly, he is certainly kicking the hornets’ nest inside the White House as he heads out the door. It is highly unusual for an outgoing president to initiate a major upheaval in diplomatic relations that runs directly opposed to the direction the incoming president has already said he will take. Trump had insisted that Obama not move the US in this direction. So, the wild ride of the 2016 presidential campaign has become even wilder after the campaign.

Secretary of State John Kerry kicked the controversy with Israel up a notch with his own speech when he said,

 

If the choice is one state … Israel can either be Jewish or democratic…. It cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace. (The Washington Examiner)

 

In defending the Obama administration against critics of its UN move, Kerry also said,

 

Critics “failed to recognize that this friend, the United States of America, has done more to support Israel than any other country. This friend that has blocked countless efforts to delegitimize Israel, cannot be true to our own values, or even the stated democratic values of Israel and we cannot properly protect and defend Israel if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.”

 

And then he took the battle even higher when he said,

 

Washington could not “protect or defend” the country should Tel Aviv continue to balk at two-state peace plans with Palestinians. His comments drew swift and sharp rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who chided Mr. Kerry by saying Israelis did “not need to be lectured” about peace by the outgoing administration, while President-elect Donald Trump weighed in even before the speech was given with a strong support for Mr. Netanyahu and Israel, and vowing his incoming administration would take a sharply different approach. It was an … extraordinarily public division between two longtime allies, one that could have lasting and incalculable consequences for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Washington’s traditional role as an honest broker and the main outside power in the Middle East peace process. (The Washington Times)

 

President Obama divides and conquers

 

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says he fears Obama’s actions have emboldened extremists on both ends. While Netanyahu is digging back by withdrawing diplomatic relations with nations that approved the resolution and by withdrawing UN funding, and Palestinians are pushing forward with moves to force a two-state solution, Obama’s move has initiated a diplomatic international war. The US congress, with some bipartisan support, has indicated it could cut off all UN funding in retaliation against the UN. Trump has indicated the same thing. While UN members that cut off funding lose their voting privileges, the United States is the UN’s biggest supporter, so cutting off UN funding will have serious implications at the UN if it happens.

Congress could also choose to expel diplomats of nations that backed the resolution from the US, as Israel did, which may include stripping Palestinians of diplomatic privileges. Congress may also be more supportive of Trump’s initiative to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

 

“The disgraceful anti-Israel resolution passed by the UNSC was apparently only the opening salvo in the Obama administration’s final assault on Israel,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told the Free Beacon…. “President Obama … should remember that the United States Congress reconvenes on January 3rd, and under the Constitution we control the taxpayer funds they would use for their anti-Israel initiatives…,” Cruz said, expressing his desire to work with the incoming Trump administration to reset the U.S. relationship with Israel.

 

The Free Beacon, quoted above, also reported that one congressional member has said,

 

Members on both sides of the aisle are furious, so our response will be swift and forceful…. With a Trump administration in place, any nation that seeks to delegitimize the Jewish state will need to answer to the United States.

 

So, a powerful conflict between the US and the UN with fighting terms such as we have not seen before is likely on. Trump will find he has a congress that is largely ready to push back, while Trump’s statements of unequivocal support for Israel and pressure on Palestinians have been clear. However, Obama may have greatly widened a split in Democrats, which traditionally have been as pro-Israel as Republicans. Even liberals like Ted Kennedy were solidly on Israel’s side at every juncture.

 

Our alliance with Israel is an alliance based on common democratic ideals and mutual benefit. We must never barter the freedom and future of Israel for a barrel of oil — or foolishly try to align the Arab world with us, no matter what cost. (Ted Kennedy)

 

The congressional divide began to materialize when Netanyahu, in the opinion of many (to the delight of Republicans and disdain of Democrats) poked the Democratic president in the eye by sidestepping him in a unique move to take his Iranian petition directly to congress. Until Netanyahu’s highly unusual move, Israel had worked long and hard to stay out of US politics in order to do all it could to maintain bipartisan support for Israel; and this is why. Netanyahu was strongly criticized at home by many who feared the risk would lead to something like this.

As a result of Netanyahu’s agreement to accept Speaker Boehner’s speech invitation, sixty Democrats, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, VP candidate Tim Kaine, and likely future presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren boycotted that congressional meeting. Senior senator Sen. Patrick Leahy from Bernie’s home state, called Netanyahu’s speech a “tawdry and high-handed stunt.” Charlie Rangel, who was was a Democratic representative from New York at the time, tweeted, “Bibi: If you have a problem with our POTUS’s foreign policy meet me at AIPAC but not on the House floor.”

Netanyahu and Obama both denied that this incident had damaged their relationship and Israel’s bipartisan support in the US, but anyone could plainly see from their body language the icy barrier that had frosted its way between the two from that point forward. Now Obama has tapped the ice wedge a little deeper, knowing full well that Democrats in congress wish to oppose Trump wherever they can anyway.

This may be a divide-and-conquer move that will further imperil the once fully bipartisan congressional support Israel has long enjoyed. Many in Israel who worried that Netanyahu had poisoned relations with the president by that move now say this appears to be payback time … to the extent that the White House has had to formally deny that it is.

As for Trump, he tweeted, “Stay strong Israel. January 20th is fast approaching!”

The Israeli ambassador to the US responded to Trump’s various statements of support by saying that Israel…

 

was very heartened that President-Elect Trump was against this move at the UN Security Council — that he wants to work closely with Israel moving forward to strengthen this alliance….. I do not think there will be daylight between the US and Israel, and we look forward to having that conversation and seeing what we can do to reverse this resolution. (Fox News)

 

Once Trump is president, backing Israel 100% is one campaign pledge he is likely to keep. Notes, the Washington Examiner,

 

White evangelicals, who supply about a third of the Republican vote in presidential elections, are more than twice as likely than Jews to believe God gave Israel to the Jewish people. Only Orthodox Jews are slightly more likely to believe this.

 

Many liberal Jewish organizations, on the other hand, side with Obama, believing the only way for Israel to move forward at this juncture is to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians. One thing is certain, cracks are deepening all over the American political landscape regarding support for Israel and how it is best shown, but Christian conservatives would like to quickly repair the growing divisions in Israel’s best interest:

 

“Our hope at Faith and Freedom Coalition is that reasonable Democrats like Sens. Menendez, Schumer, Manchin, Casey and others will reject these feckless flailings of an expired political regime on its way out of office,” said Tim Head, executive director of a pro-Israel Christian conservative group. “These latest antics at the U.N. are little more than the waning afterglow of a setting foreign policy agenda that soon will be corrected and discarded. But it will take a unified effort by Republicans and Democrats alike to rehabilitate the global reputation of the United States.” (The Washington Examiner)

 

That may prove to be a bit naive or wishful at best because Netanyahu’s approach already badly grated on Democrats, and Netanyahu has only become even more outspoken against the Democratic president in the aftermath of this UN resolution. (As Schumer said, positions are becoming more extreme on both sides.)

 

Netanyahu’s Obamabattle

 

Netanyahu claims Israel will present solid proof to the new Trump administration after the inauguration that the Obama administration took a very active role in forming the new UN Security Council resolution. Pushing the issue defiantly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says,

 

We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated its versions and insisted upon its passage.

 

Israel claims it has “ironclad” information from Arab sources about the Obama administration’s overt efforts to push this agenda in the UN. Reports in a couple of Middle Eastern newspapers seem to corroborate Netanyahu’s claims, according to the Times of Israel:

 

An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure. In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Palestinians that the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security council, Israel’s Channel 1 TV said, quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper. Also present at the meeting according to the report were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service. White House national security council spokesman Ned Price on Wednesday told the Times of Israel that no such meeting took place. “The ‘transcript’ is a total fabrication,” he said…. Israel fears that Kerry, who is slated to give a speech Wednesday on the subject, will then lay out his comprehensive vision for two-state solution at a Paris peace conference planned for January.

 

An article in the Israeli Daily Ha’aretz, however states that…

 

Britain Pulled the Strings and Netanyahu Warned New Zealand It Was Declaring War: A call from Netanyahu to Putin triggered a real drama at the UN HQ just one hour before the vote.

 

And a more recent Times of Israel report states,

 

UK officials have stepped up in recent days to say the resolution was theirs, not the White House’s. The Jewish Chronicle quoted an unnamed senior British political source Thursday saying that by the time the text reached the 15-member body, it was “in effect a British resolution.” A day earlier, The Guardian reported Britain “played a key behind-the-scenes role” in ensuring the resolution passed. Another British source told the Chronicle that the “yes” vote for the resolution was part of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s new strategy toward Israel, according to which the Jewish state’s friends have to take a stand against settlements to garner favor with the Palestinians.

 

In response, Netanyahu has cancelled a meeting he had scheduled with Theresa May — a move which the British called in their usual understated way, “disappointing.”

As Netanyahu waits for the Trump administration to take the reins in the US before he divulges his own information about the Obama administration, he is taking the battle to other nations. One alternative Israeli news site has given an extensive but unconfirmed report that states Vice President Biden called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to put diplomatic pressure on Ukraine to vote in the security counsel for the resolution. Biden’s office acknowledges the phone call but denies that anything was said about the UN resolution.

Netanyahu tried to push back ahead of the resolution with his own ineffective calls to Ukraine. The Ukrainian vote has set Ukrainian relations with Israel reeling. Ukraine has a large Jewish population. Even its new prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish, but his first official state visit with Israel next week was just cancelled by Israel in retaliation for Ukraine’s vote.

To retaliate domestically, Netanyahu has ramped up settlement approvals in the territories, threatening thousands of new homes in east Jerusalem.

If Israel is right that Obama intentionally rammed this resolution through the UN in his twilight days as president, Obama has effectively stripped Trump of any ability to reverse this action. Reversing it would require getting China, Russia and others on the Security Council who have long wanted something like this to withhold their own Security Council veto on any measure put forward by the US to rescind the resolution. There is almost zero chance of getting Russia AND China to backpedal on this. Obama has effectively eliminated any possibility for Trump to repair the situation to Israel’s liking.

 

Is Obama preparing to become Secretary General of the UN?

 

These sudden moves in the final month of a lame-duck presidency are the most extraordinary all-out rush to get new diplomacy solidly in place before the president-elect gets into office that I’ve ever seen. There would be no point in doing any of this unless Obama believes he can rapidly accomplish something irreversible.

 

An Israeli spokesman warned that last week’s anti-Israel U.N. resolution may be only the beginning. David Keyes, spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his government is concerned that the Obama administration is scrambling to put its stamp on Israeli foreign policy before President-elect Donald Trump takes office…. We actually believe this may be the first of another series of pushes before the Obama administration leaves office…. Mr. Netanyahu fears that Secretary of State John Kerry may seek a Security Council resolution to enshrine the administration’s vision for an Israeli-Palestinian accord before Mr. Trump takes office. (The Washington Times)

 

On January 15th, seventy nations will converge in Paris to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry will be there, and there is no question that his seventy-minute speech this week set the table for his plans at that summit.

According to France’s i24News,

 

Kerry would propose the recognition of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, and after land exchanges that would allow about 80% of the Jewish residents of the settlements to remain under Israeli sovereignty. The Palestinians will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and Israel will have to recognize the Palestinian state and its capital, East Jerusalem. Kerry is expected to submit this proposal next month, just before the change of administration.

 

Certainly sounds like an all-out last-minute press to establish solid facts on the ground before Trump can do anything about them. The Guardian reports,

 

White House races to save Middle East peace process before Trump takes office:… The parameters outlined by Kerry are expected to draw international endorsement at a meeting of foreign ministers on 15 January, just five days before Trump moves into the White House. The meeting is supposed to reinforce a strategy of isolating Netanyahu…. The Israeli government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself as the victim of an international conspiracy…. Meanwhile, Israel’s defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, portrayed the Paris conference as a new “Dreyfus trial”, referring to an outburst of French antisemitism more than a century ago, and urged French Jews to move to Israel…. Aaron David Miller, a former US negotiator on the Middle East and now a scholar at the Wilson Centre thinktank, said Obama’s 11th-hour attempt at legacy building on the Israeli-Palestinian issue could trigger a backlash. “It risks the incoming administration walking away from whatever has transpired in December and early January, and not just walking away from [but] sending unmistakable signals to the Israelis that it would support and favour acts on the ground that go beyond what we’ve seen,” Miller said. “The odds that Netanyahu will now press and Trump will respond positively to a move to push the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I think have gone up.” He said that if the highly emotive issue of Jerusalem’s status became the focal point of Israeli-Palestinian friction once more, “then I think the prospects for a serious, significant confrontation are high….” Amir Oren, a liberal Israeli commentator, argued that the UN resolution could save the government from itself by bringing closer an end to settlement construction. “Santa Obama delivered a wonderful Christmas present to Israel when the United States opted not to veto Friday’s United Nations security council vote condemning settlement policy,” he wrote in Haaretz. “The passage of the resolution won’t result in the immediate dismantling of any West Bank settlements, but the world is beginning to come to the rescue and try to save Israel from itself.”

 

Indeed, it appears to be a move in the direction of the world helping Israel save itself (whether it turns out to be “helpful” or not), and I don’t think Obama is just going to throw that on the world stage and then walk away, feeling his legacy is complete. I think he’s putting it there now, while he can, so that he can take it up in the global theater when he is out of office.

The Egyptian article alluded to above — denied by the Obama admin. — quotes Kerry as saying he could present his ideas for a final-status solution if the Palestinians pledge they will support the proposed framework.  Obviously he hasn’t got much time to present them officially to other nations for action outside of this one January 15th meeting.

While a move by Obama to gain the Secretary General position at the UN would be a major blow to Angelina Jolie’s aspirations, I think there is evidence Obama is moving in that direction now that he has no hope of any political power as high as he has become used to.

Given how Obama’s trans-Pacific trade pact set to strip the US of sovereignty by handing many trade regulatory powers to the UN, I believe Obama was already using his final months of the presidency to diminish US presidential powers and increase UN powers in order to prepare the way for a move to becoming UN Secretary General. The same can be seen in his negotiations to diminish US control over environmental regulations, putting regulatory power more in the hands of the UN. He needed to diminish US powers while he could in order to create a more powerful international position for himself in the future with less interference from the US.

Obama has made it clear that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major legacy item for him. With his days now too short in the presidency to accomplish much, he needs to push power to the UN if he is to continue working on that legacy issue. By getting this resolution passed through the Security Council now, Obama reduced some of Trump’s veto power over what the UN can impose on Israel in the future. The resolution, for example, strengthens the UN General Assembly’s ability to place sanctions on Israel that don’t need to go through the security council and are, therefore, are not something Trump would be able to veto. They also give the UN a firm basis for taking Israel to international court at the Hague if any further settlement activity continues.

Since Trump will try to reverse all of this, Obama must think he will be in a position at the UN to catch the ball he is now passing in order to keep running it forward. If nothing else, this action will ingratiate him at the UN, making his friends there feel he has finally earned that Nobel Peace Prize he received for getting elected in 2008.

 

Other twilight maneuvers by Obama

 

The Washington Post has announced,

 

The Obama administration is close to announcing a series of measures to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election, including economic sanctions and diplomatic censure, according to U.S. officials… The administration is finalizing the details, which also are expected to include covert action that will probably involve cyber-operations.

 

Apparently, Obama intends to start a cyberwar with Russia before Trump gets in office in order to establish more facts on the ground that move Russian relations away from Trump’s stated aims before he even gets started:

 

Administration officials would also like to make it difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to roll back any action they take.

 

Does that mean “do enough damage to the Russians that they have to retaliate in a mutual cyberwar before Trump takes office?” Start a war and leave it for the other guy to finish? That is from the fake-news-hating, Obama-loving, liberal Post, not the conservative Washington Times.

 

Besides his actions with Israel and the UN and the upcoming Paris meeting about Israel, Obama has by executive order locked out major areas of the Arctic for oil drilling in a move that is seen as likely irreversible by Trump because of how congress long ago wrote up the law that allows this executive action. (It would take an act of congress to override the president’s move to designate these lands as perpetually off the table for oil drilling.)

 

The Obama administration has dismantled the legal framework Trump could have used for vetting Muslim immigrants. (Not sure how easily Trump can reinstate that or put something better in its place.)

 

Presidents like to save their most controversial pardons for their last day in office. Will Obama offer Hillary Clinton a pardon that exempts her from prosecution for any crimes committed prior to the date of the pardon? The precedent for pardoning someone before they are even formally charged with a crime was established by President Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon, as his first act in office, before Nixon was even impeached or taken to trial.

Could that be why Trump is backpedaling now on his pledge to put “crooked Hillary” in jail? Is he hoping that, by appearing he won’t go after Hillary, Obama will not pardon her, an action that implicitly says Hillary did something wrong and that Hillary might have to accept in order for it to be effective. Obama may prefer not to pardon if Trump appears to prefer not to prosecute because a pardon would be regarded by many as tacit admission that there was some kind of wrong-doing to pardon her from.

 

Trump, of course, is all atwitter about Obama’s end-of-term efforts to cut off his options:

 

Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements an

via http://ift.tt/2iKn6IG Knave Dave