Month: September 2019

The UK’s manufacturing sector is quickly scaling back investments and output at a time when the economy is nosediving. Jaguar Land Rover reported Thursday that it would halt car production at its factories in November for a week amid slumping economic conditions and ahead of a Brexit crisis.

Jaguar Land Rover joins BMW and Toyota in emergency preparations to help mitigate any supply chain disruptions from a no-deal Brexit.

Carmakers are also dealing with declining domestic and export orders despite a weakening pound.

The British manufacturing sector is a critical component of the UK economy, employing over 2.7 million people and accounting for 50% of UK exports.

While manufacturing has seen nearly a decade of growth, it could be all coming to an end as Brexit anxieties have pushed UK manufacturing’s output to a 15-month low earlier this year.

Manufacturing remains on a cliff-edge, which uncertainty around Brexit has pushed carmakers into becoming extremely defensive in the next several months.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said Britain would exit the EU, with or without a deal, on October 31.

Jaguar Land Rover Chief Executive Ralf Speth said emergency plans have already been enacted, production halts at four British factories will occur during the first week of November.

“I need 20 million parts a day and that means I have to make commitments to my suppliers, I have to have every and each part available and I have to have it just in time,” Speth said.

Toyota in August said it would not make cars at its British factory in the first week of November. BMW said the same as well.

Brexit developments have unquestionably exacerbated the economic slowdown in the UK. This means that the world’s fifth-biggest economy is in danger of entering a recession if the Brexit turmoil intensifies in the coming months.

Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

“Löfven, you have lost control of Sweden,” the leader of the largest opposition party, the center-right Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, recently wrote in an article in the daily newspaper Aftonbladet, in which he criticized Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for failing to solve some of Sweden’s biggest problems. According to Kristersson:

“Two areas that we [the Moderate Party] highly prioritize are law and order and integration. Because Sweden’s biggest problems are there now.

“Last year, 306 shootings occurred and 45 people were shot dead. According to the police, the number of people killed has doubled since 2014. During the same period, the number of people who have been subjected to sexual abuse has tripled according to BRÅ [the Swedish Crime Prevention Council]…

“Concrete reforms are necessary. We have proposed them – the Social Democrats say no…

At the same time, we have an integration crisis: More than half of all the unemployed are born outside of Sweden. In our exclusion areas, [utanförskapsområden] there are schools where not even half of the students pass all subjects… Many children born in Sweden hardly speak Swedish, and there is extensive repression [in the name of] honor culture. Here too we have called for reforms, but the Social Democrats say no.

“Integration and immigration are connected. Therefore, a long-term and strict immigration policy is required. Temporary residence permits and requirements of financial self-sufficiency for family reunification should be the main rule.

“Requirements for knowledge of Swedish and financial self-sufficiency [should be conditions] for a permanent residence permit.”

Kristersson’s criticism demonstrates that the political mainstream in Sweden is fully cognizant of the country’s fundamental problems. This criticism is especially significant coming from the Moderate Party: Kristersson’s predecessor, Frederik Reinfeldt, who was prime minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014 and chairman of the Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015, did not share these concerns. In 2014, Reinfeldt urged Swedes to “Open your hearts” to the refugees of the world.

“Now I ask the Swedish people to be patient with this. To have solidarity with the outside world… In the long run we create a better world in this way… It will cost money, we will not be able to afford so much else, but [these are] really people who are fleeing for their lives.”

Kristersson, unlike the current Swedish government, appears to have woken up to the realities of Sweden.

One of the realities, according to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) — the state authority for community protection and preparedness — is that terrorism is now a threat everywhere in Sweden, and therefore even smaller municipalities need to be prepared for terrorist acts to occur.

“First of all,” said Jonas Eriksson, who is responsible for security in the public environment at MSB, “you have to be aware that this can happen in smaller cities… Then you have to think about what is in the municipality that can be vulnerable and sensitive.” The statement came after police intercepted a potential terrorist act in the city of Östersund in August. The suspect was trying to drive into a crowd and run people over, according to Aftonbladet. He is also being investigated for links to Rakhmat Akilov, a terrorist who was convicted of killing five people by plowing a truck into a department store in central Stockholm in April 2017.

From the beginning of 2019 to the end of July, there were 120 bombings in Sweden, according to police statistics. The figure represents an increase of 45% over the same period last year, when 83 bombings took place. The south of Sweden has been particularly badly hit, with 44 bombings.

“At present, one can only really speculate on the reasons why. We have an increased problem with crime and exclusion,” said Petra Stenkula, chief investigator at Police Region south. “It is possible that the supply of dynamite is good, whereas the supply is somewhat more limited when it comes to weapons today compared to before.”

In the southern Swedish city of Landskrona alone — a place of roughly 35,000 inhabitants — since December 2018, there have been seven explosions or bombings. In August, the entrance to Landskrona’s city hall was blown up.

“Those who do this want to disrupt organized society; we will not let that happen”, said municipal council member Torkild Strandberg from the Liberal Party.

In August, another city in the south of Sweden, Linköping, experienced its second blast this year. Police found an object that they suspected was explosives. When it was destroyed by the national bomb protection squad, a powerful explosion occurred. It destroyed a police storehouse and damaged several other buildings. In early June, also in Linköping, an explosion blasted through a residential building. Miraculously, no one was killed, but 20 people were wounded. The police suspect that the incident was gang-related.

The constant insecurity that these incidents produce means that the demand for security guards and other security services has dramatically increased. Both private companies and municipalities have been asking to hire more security guards. According to Hans Tjernström, press manager at the Swedish Trade Association, an average grocery store spends around 600,000 kronor ($62,000) per year on guards and other items that have to do with security. According to a security industry source, over the next three years, security companies will need to recruit 5,300 more employees.

Rape and sexual assault also continue apace. In Uppsala alone, a picturesque Swedish university town, where 80% of girls do not feel safe in the city center, four rapes or attempted rapes took place in early August within four days. In Stockholm, two rapes occurred during the “We are Stockholm” youth festival in August, in addition to about a dozen other sexual offenses. At the “Piteå Dances and Laughs” summer festival in Piteå, another rape, involving ten men, took place.

In a recent op-ed in Aftonbladet, a member of parliament for the Moderate Party, Josefin Malmqvist, appealed to Morgan Johansson, who serves as Minister of Justice and Minister for Migration Policy, to “Stop the rapes – you are letting the women down.” In her article, Malmqvist wrote:

“Exposure to sexual crimes has risen sharply during Morgan Johansson’s (S) time as Minister of Justice: for the third consecutive year, the number of reported rapes in 2018 increased to 20 reported rapes per day. So far this year, the number of reported rapes has increased by 14 percent… In Sweden — one of the world’s most equal countries — women’s freedom is diminishing. That women do not have the same opportunity to move freely in the streets and squares without having to worry about being exposed to crime, is a serious restriction on women’s freedom and self-determination. While more women are reporting sexual offenses, the rate of resolved rapes is still frighteningly low. A review of the rapes reported in recent years shows that only 5 out of 100 reported rapes lead to conviction.”

She concluded:

“Now is the time to stop talking and start acting. The Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats’ budget raised funding for the police, but more needs to be done. In May 2018, a majority in Parliament approved the Moderate Party’s motion to tighten the penalty for rape. Since then, nothing has happened. It is high time for the Minister of Justice (S) to begin acting for Sweden’s women.”

Another population group that has been suffering under the lack of law and order in Sweden is children. According to BRÅ, there has been a significant increase in robberies against young people in recent years. In just a few years, the number of reports of robberies against people under 18 has significantly increased, from 1,084 reported robberies in 2015 to 1,896 in 2018 — an increase of 75%. There have already been 1,247 reports of robberies against young people in 2019 so far. According to Sven Granath, a criminologist with the Swedish police, the increase in robberies against young people could be because it has become harder to rob older people or to steal from shops. “It has become harder and then they go after a group that cannot protect itself as well. They also have what other youths want, such as mopeds, phones and jewelry” said Granath.

It would appear that Prime Minister Löfven has indeed lost control of Sweden.

The end of the age of fossil fuels is not yet in sight in Europe. As Statista’s Martin Armstrong illustrates in the following infographic, there are still a number of countries that generate a very large proportion of their electricity from coal.

You will find more infographics at Statista

At the same time, not all countries have announced a date for phasing out its use. This applies in particular to those countries that have a high proportion of coal-fired electricity. Despite recent efforts to transition to renewable energy, Germany still lies in the upper quarter of the country comparison, behind countries such as Poland, Czechia, Greece and Bulgaria. The government is aiming to phase out coal by 2038.

Scientists are demanding a move away from electricity generation from coal. The prevention of climate change can only be achieved by a complete abandonment of fossil fuels. In addition, electricity from renewable energies can be produced more cheaply than electricity from fossil fuels – taking into account the resulting costs of health and climate damage. In Poland, for example, many people suffer health problems from the consequences of high levels of air pollution. Nevertheless, there is no prospect of a swift turn away from coal. One reason for this is that jobs in the five-digit region depend on coal production.

Global coal production has risen again recently, with around 8 billion tonnes of coal mined in 2018. Countries such as China, Russia and the USA contributed to the increase.

Authored by Andrew Ash via The Gatestone Institute,

The latest twist in the UK’s ongoing battle to leave the European Union has — unsurprisingly — reached yet another impasse. The supreme court has ruled that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suspending of Parliament was unlawful because it “had the effect of frustrating parliament.” He was also accused of giving unlawful advice to the Queen in asking her for permission.

As is routine for a newly appointed PM, Johnson suspended Parliament in order to announce his domestic agenda with a Queen’s Speech. Furious Remainers claim that he shut it down to prevent Parliamentary scrutiny of his plans to leave Europe — with or without a deal. The suspension, which infuriated his foes, was the latest move in an ongoing battle to deliver Brexit — in spite of the opposition’s determined refusal to accept the will of the people.

Johnson’s detractors, inevitably, have leapt upon the decision, passed by a panel of eleven judges, to void his decision to prorogue — or suspend — Parliament. The Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, have called for Johnson’s resignation, and demanded a new election. Mr Johnson — who is currently in New York on his first UN summit — has steadfastly refused to stand down.

The ruling comes as a blow to the PM, who has set a deadline of October 31 to leave the European Union. The opposition camp, having already succeeded in obstructing Britain’s exit from the EU for three years, have now won themselves extra time in which to block the path of democracy.

As a result of the judges’ decision, MPs have now been called to return to the House of Commons “as a matter of urgency” by one of Johnson’s most staunch opponents, Speaker of the House John Bercow, who “welcomes” the Supreme Court’s judgement.

Bercow, a former Conservative, along with his anti-Trump rhetoric, has thrown his all into preventing Brexit from happening ever since the referendum result in 2016, even going so far as to display a “Bollocks To Brexit” sticker on his car.

Shadow PM Jeremy Corbyn, clearly revelling in the latest turn of events, which come at the start of the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton, said after the ruling, “I invite Boris Johnson to consider his position and become the shortest serving PM there has ever been.”

European Union members, somewhat inevitably, have also expressed their unbridled joy at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Johnson’s suspension of Parliament, and once again thwart the democratic rights of the people of Britain.

Member of European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt, oblivious to the irony of his statement, commented:

“At least one big relief in the Brexit saga: the rule of law in the UK is alive & kicking. Parliaments should never be silenced in a real democracy.

“I never want to hear Boris Johnson or any other Brexiteer say again that the European Union is undemocratic.”

Mr Johnson, however, insists that the suspension was not obstructive, but necessary, and insisted that MPs were only losing “four or five days of parliamentary scrutiny, when parliament has had three years to discuss the issue.”

Despite the hyperbole from the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and John Bercow, however, the prime minister cannot be forced out of office by this week’s ruling, although it does leave him open to a potential vote of no confidence when Parliament reconvenes — which would make the likelihood of a general election far more likely — quite possibly within weeks. This tactic would be quite a gamble for the Remainers: if the Conservatives win, even if it means forming an alliance with Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, it would cause the very same “no deal Brexit” to which his detractors claim to be so opposed.

The opposition seem nevertheless willing to take the gamble: they are running out of alternative methods to hold up proceedings for much longer. Anything and everything is apparently in the cards for the obstructionists, whose true agenda appears to be not to work out a Brexit deal at all — but to ignore the referendum result, and for the UK to remain in the untransparent, unaccountable and un-unelectable EU.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”

The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no “ongoing investigation” has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations.

“There is no other plausible explanation” translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.

So Iran is the culprit, no evidence provided, end of story, even if the “investigation continues.”

An image taken from a video made available on July 7, 2019 by the press office of the Yemeni Shiite Houthi group shows ballistic missiles, labeled ‘Made in Yemen,’ at a recent exhibition of missiles and drones at an undisclosed location in Yemen. Footage showed models of at least 15 unmanned drones and missiles of different sizes and ranges. Photo: AFP/ Al-Houthi Group Media Office

Hassan Ali Al-Emad, Yemeni scholar and the son of a prominent tribal leader with ascendance over ten clans, begs to differ.

“From a military perspective, nobody ever took our forces in Yemen seriously. Perhaps they started understanding it when our missiles hit Aramco.”

A satellite image from the US government shows damage to oil and gas infrastructure from weekend drone attacks at Abqaig on September 15.

Al-Emad said:

“Yemeni people have been encircled by an embargo. Why are Yemeni airports still closed? Children are dying without treatment. In this current war, the first door [to be closed against enemies] was Damascus. The second door is Yemen.”

Al-Emad considers that Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayed Nasrallah and the Houthis are involved in the same struggle.

Al-Emad was born in Sana’a in a Zaydi family influenced by Wahhabi practices. Yet when he was 20, in 1997, he converted to Ahlulbayat after comparative studies between Sunni, Zaydi and the Imamiyyah – the branch of Shi’ite Islam that believes in 12 imams. He abandoned Zaydi in what could be considered a Voltairean act: because the sect cannot withstand critical analysis.

I talked and broke bread – and hummus – with Al-Emad, in Beirut, during the New Horizon conference among scholars from Lebanon, Iran, Italy, Canada, Russia and Germany. Although he says he cannot get into detail about military secrets, he confirmed:

“Past Yemeni governments had missiles, but after 9/11 Yemen was banned from buying weapons from Russia. But we still had 400 missiles in warehouses in South Yemen. We used 200 Scuds – the rest is still there [laughs].”

Al-Emad breaks down Houthi weaponry into three categories: the old missile stock; cannibalized missiles using different spare parts (“transformation made in Yemen”); and those with new technology that use reverse engineering. He stressed: “We accept help from everybody,” which suggests that not only Tehran and Hezbollah are pitching in.

Smoke billows from the Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern province after the Sept 14 attacks. Photo: AFP

Al-Emad’s key demand is actually humanitarian: “We request that Sana’a airport be reopened for help to the Yemeni people.” And he has a message for global public opinion that the EU-3 are obviously not aware of: “Saudi is collapsing and America is embracing it in its fall.”

The real danger

On the energy front, Persian Gulf energy traders that I have relied upon as trustworthy sources for two decades confirm that, contrary to Saudi Oil Minister Abdulazziz bin Salman’s spin, the damage from the Houthi attack on Abqaiq could last not only “months” but even years.

As a Dubai-based trader put it:

“When an Iraqi pipeline was damaged in the mid-2000s the pumps were destroyed. It takes two years to replace a pump as the backlogs are long. The Saudis, to secure their pipelines, acquired spare pumps for this reason. But they did not dream that Abqaiq could be damaged. If you build a refinery it can take three to five years if not more. It could be done in a month if all the components and parts were available at once, as then it would be merely a task of assembling the components and parts.”

On top of this, the Saudis are now only offering heavier crudes to their customers in Asia.

“Then,” adds a trader, “We heard that the Saudis were buying 20,000,000 barrels of heavier crudes from Iraq. Now, the Saudis were supposed to have as much as 160 million barrels a day of stored crude.  So what does this mean?  Either there was no stored crude or that crude had to go through Abqaiq in order to be sold.”

Al-Emad explicitly told me that Houthi attacks are not over, and further drone swarms are inevitable.

Now compare it with analysis by one trader:

“If in the next wave of drone attacks 18 million barrels a day of Saudi crude are knocked out, it would represent a catastrophe of epic proportions. The US does not want the Houthi to believe that they have such power through such fourth generational warfare as drones that cannot be defended against. But they do. Here is where a tiny country can bring down not only a Goliath such as the US, but also the whole world.”

Asked about the consequences of a possible US attack against Iran – picking up on Robert Gates’ famous 2010 remark that “Saudis want to fight Iran to the last American” – the consensus among traders is that it would be another disaster.

“It would not be possible to bring Iranian crude on line for the world to replace the rest of what was destroyed,” said one.

He noted that Senator Lindsey Graham had said he “wanted to destroy the Iranian refineries but not the oil wells”. This is a very important point.  The horror of horrors would be an oil war where everyone is destroying each others’ wells until there was nothing left.”

While the “horror of horrors” hangs by a thread, the blind leading the blind stick to the script: Blame Iran and ignore Yemen.

Politics can be a hot button topic in America. With rising tensions on both sides of the political spectrum, some claim that bipartisanship is dead, and as Visual Capitalist’s Imam Ghosh details in her recent research, that may well be true.

Today’s charts come from a report by the independent think tank Pew Research on the partisan divide between the two major U.S. political parties, Democrats and Republicans.

The data is based on surveys of over 5,000 adults to gauge public sentiment, tracking the dramatic shifts in political polarization in the U.S. from 1994 to 2017. The results are a fascinating deep dive into America’s shifting political sentiment.

Over Two Decades of Differences

The animation above demonstrates how the political divide by party has grown significantly and consistently over 23 years. In 1994, the general public was more mixed in their allegiances, but a significant divergence started to occur from 2011 onward.

By 2017, the divide had significantly shifted towards the two extremes of the consistently liberal/conservative scale. Median Democrat and Republican sentiment also moved further apart, especially for politically engaged Americans.

How have Americans’ feelings across major issues evolved over time?

NOTE: For brevity, any mention of Democrats and Republicans in the post below will also refer to survey respondents who “lean Democratic/ lean Republican”.

Americans on the Economy

Original charts from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 2017).

Several survey questions were designed to assess Americans’ perceptions of the economy. Surprisingly, between 60–70% of Democrats and Republicans agree that U.S. involvement in the global economy is positive, because it provides the country with access to new markets.

However, they diverge when asked about the fairness of the economic system itself. 50% of Republicans think it is fair to most Americans, but 82% of Democrats think it unfairly favors powerful interests.

Finally, 73% of Democrats think corporations make ‘too much’ profit, while only 43% of Republicans think so. Since 1994, Democrats have become more convinced of this point, gaining 10 percentage points (p.p.), while Republican impressions have fluctuated marginally.

Americans on the Environment

Original charts from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 2017).

When it comes to climate change, both Democrats and Republicans see that there is growing evidence for global warming, but they are not sold on the reasons why. 78% of Democrats see human activity as the cause, while only 24% of Republicans agree.

Americans also disagree on whether stricter sustainability laws are worth the cost—77% of Democrats think so, but only 36% of Republicans are on the same page. The position of Democrats on this issue has increased by 11 p.p. since 1994, but dropped by double (22 p.p.) for Republicans during this time.

Americans on the Government

Original charts from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 2017).

Americans are highly concerned about the U.S. presence on the global stage. Over half (56%) of Democrats think the U.S. should be active in world affairs, while 54% of Republicans think such attention should be focused inward instead of overseas.

This filters into what they consider the best strategy for peace—83% of Democrats believe in democracy to achieve this, while only 33% of Republicans agree, preferring military strength instead. Democrats have cemented their position on diplomacy by 17 p.p. since 1994, growing the political divide.

Americans on Their Society

Original charts from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 2017).

On several social issues, both parties have become more liberal in their opinions over the decades, especially on immigration and homosexuality. Democrats have seen the biggest advancement on their views of immigration, from 32% in favor in 1994, to 84% in 2017.

However, there’s still a wide partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on their ideas of government aid (51 p.p. gap), racial equality (45 p.p. gap), immigration (42 p.p. gap), and homosexuality (29 p.p. gap).

Americans on Each Other

Original charts from Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 2017).

It’s evident that not only does the American public hold less of a mix of liberal and conservative values, but the center of this political divide has also moved dramatically on both ends of the spectrum. In simple terms, it means that Americans are less willing to consider the other side of debates, preferring to stay entrenched in the group think of their political affiliation.

Not only this, but partisan animosity is on the rise—81% of Republicans and Democrats find those belonging to the other party equally unfavorable. In fact, both parties have seen a 28 p.p. increase in ‘very unfavorable’ views of people in the other party, compared to 1994.

Can the Rift be Repaired?

While the above data on group polarization ends in 2017, it’s clear that the repercussions continue to have ripple effects into today and the future. These differences mean there is no consensus on the nation’s key priorities.

In 2019, Republicans believe that terrorism, the economy, social security, immigration, and the military should be top of mind, while Democrats refer to healthcare, education, environment, Medicare, and the poor and needy as their leads.

With Trump’s presidential term up for contest in 2020, the lack of common ground on pressing issues will continue to cause a stir among both Democratic and Republican bases. Is there anything Americans will be willing to cross the aisle for?

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

With the “Russiagate” hoax proving to be the “most fraudulent political scandal in American history,” as Princeton Professor Stephen Cohen puts it, now we have emerging an alternative – “Ukrainegate”.

President Donald Trump is being accused of abusing his White House office to put pressure on Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to dig into alleged corrupt dealings by Joe Biden, the top Democratic candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections in 2020.

To make matters worse for Trump, he is also accused of threatening to withhold $250 million of military aid as a way to pressure the Kiev authorities to investigate Biden’s past relations with Ukraine, when he was serving as Vice President in the Obama administration. That could amount to extortion by Trump, if proven.

Democratic political opponents and the anti-Trump liberal media are renewing demands for his impeachment. They are adamant that he has now crossed a clear red line of criminality by seeking a foreign power to interfere in US elections by damaging a presidential rival.

For his part, Trump denies his conversations with the Ukrainian president were improper. He said he phoned Zelensky back in July to mainly congratulate him on his recent election. Trump does however admit that he mentioned Biden’s name to Zelensky in the context of Ukraine’s notorious culture of business corruption. The American leader maintains that Joe Biden should be investigated for possible conflict of interest and abusing the office of vice president back in 2016 in order to enhance the business affairs of his son, Hunter.

Trump’s phone call to Ukraine hit the news last week when a US intelligence officer turned whistleblower to allege that the president was overheard in a conversation inappropriately making “a promise to a foreign leader”. The identity of the foreign leader was not disclosed. But immediately, the anti-Trump US media began speculating that it was Russian President Vladimir Putin. The keenness to point fingers at Putin showed that the Russiagate fever is still virulent in the US political establishment, even though the long-running narrative alleging Russian interference or collusion collapsed earlier this year when the two-year Robert Mueller “Russia investigation” floundered into oblivion for lack of evidence.

Turns out now that Trump’s telephone liaison was not with Putin, but rather Ukraine’s Zelensky. And the anti-Trump politicos and media are getting all fired up with “Ukrainegate” – as a replacement for the non-entity Russiagate.

Trouble is that this alternative conspiracy could backfire badly for Trump’s enemies.

Because, despite the obsession with trying to impeach Trump, the renewed focus on Ukraine raises legitimate and serious questions about the past dealings of Joe Biden.

In March 2014, Biden’s son Hunter was slung out of the Navy Reserve for his cocaine habit. Then a month later, the younger Biden ends up on the executive board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. This was all only weeks after the Obama administration and European allies had backed an illegal coup in Kiev against the elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Vice President Joe Biden was the White House’s point man to Ukraine, supporting the new regime in Kiev by organizing financial and military aid. Biden even boasted how he personally warned Yanukovych that the game was up and that he better step down during the tumultuous CIA-backed street violence in Kiev during February 2014. “He was a dollar short and a day late,” quipped Biden about the ill-fated president.

The appointment of Biden’s washed-up son to a plum job in Ukraine should have merited intense US media scrutiny and investigation. But it didn’t. One can only imagine their reaction if, say, it had been Trump and one of his sons involved.

Moreover, in 2016, when Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was conducting a probe into allegations of corruption and sleaze at the gas company Burisma, among other businesses, it was Vice President Joe Biden who intervened in May 2016 to call for the state lawyer to be sacked. Biden threatened to withhold a $1 billion financial loan from Washington if the prosecutor was not axed. He duly was in short order and the probe into Burisma was dropped.

Potentially, Joe Biden, the current top Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidency, could see his chances unraveling if “Ukrainegate” is pushed further. The dilemma for his supporters among the political establishment is that the more they try to beat up on Trump over his alleged horse-trading with Ukraine, the more the heat can be turned by him on Biden over allegations of graft and abuse of office to further his family’s business interests.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is this week calling for an investigation into Biden’s conduct in Ukraine.

“Joe Biden said everybody’s looked at this and found nothing. Who is everybody? Nobody has looked at the Ukraine and the Bidens,” Mr. Graham told Fox News.

“There is enough smoke here,” Graham added. “Was there a relationship between the vice president’s family and the Ukraine business world that was inappropriate? I don’t know. Somebody other than me needs to look at it and I don’t trust the media to get to the bottom of it.”

Ukrainegate could turn out to be even far more damaging to the Democrats. Because there is evidence that it was the US-backed Kiev regime which helped seed political dirt on Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager. Manafort is facing jail time for fraud and tax offenses unearthed by the Mueller probe. Mueller did not find any link between Manafort and a “Kremlin influence campaign”, as was speculated. However, because Manafort did work previously as a political manager for the ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovcyh, he was seen as a liability for Trump. Was Russiagate always Ukrainegate all along?

Apart from Biden’s potential personal conflict of interests in Ukraine, the country may turn out to be the key to where the whole Russiagate fiasco was first dreamt up by Democrats, Kiev regime operatives and US intelligence enemies of Trump.

Ukrainegate has a lot more political skeletons to tumble from the wardrobe. Those skeletons may bury Democrats and their liberal media-intelligence backers, rather than Trump.

According to a new report from Business Insider, Watertown-Fort Drum, New York; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; and Hinesville, Georgia, were the top three out of a list of 20 cities that had some of the highest negative net migration trends between 2010 and 2018.

Business Insider used data from the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates program to formulate the list of US metropolitan areas with the most negative net migrations between 2010 and 2018.

The report noted that many of these areas observed tremendous outflows of their population, with very low inflows, but also all areas were already suffering from depressed population totals.

And here’s the list of the top 20 US cities everyone is leaving:

20. Brownsville-Harlingen, Texas, had a net population loss from migration of 20,487 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.0% of the metro’s 2010 population of 406,220.

19. Charleston, West Virginia, had a net population loss from migration of 12,194 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.4% of the metro’s 2010 population of 277,078.

18. Saginaw, Michigan, had a net population loss from migration of 10,863 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.4% of the metro’s 2010 population of 200,169.

17. Flint, Michigan, had a net population loss from migration of 23,255 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.5% of the metro’s 2010 population of 425,790.

16. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, had a net population loss from migration of 7,980 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.6% of the metro’s 2010 population of 143,679.

15. El Centro, California, had a net population loss from migration of 9,701 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.6% of the metro’s 2010 population of 174,528.

14. Elmira, New York, had a net population loss from migration of 4,950 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.6% of the metro’s 2010 population of 88,830.

13. Sierra Vista-Douglas, Arizona, had a net population loss from migration of 7,484 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.7% of the metro’s 2010 population of 131,346.

12. Rockford, Illinois, had a net population loss from migration of 20,375 between 2010 and 2018 — 5.8% of the metro’s 2010 population of 349,431.

11. Albany, Georgia, had a net population loss from migration of 9,674 between 2010 and 2018 — 6.1% of the metro’s 2010 population of 157,308.

10. Vineland-Bridgeton, New Jersey, had a net population loss from migration of 10,118 between 2010 and 2018 — 6.4% of the metro’s 2010 population of 156,898.

9. Decatur, Illinois, had a net population loss from migration of 7,220 between 2010 and 2018 — 6.5% of the metro’s 2010 population of 110,768.

8. Danville, Illinois, had a net population loss from migration of 5,455 between 2010 and 2018 — 6.7% of the metro’s 2010 population of 81,625.

7. Lawton, Oklahoma, had a net population loss from migration of 11,422 between 2010 and 2018 — 8.8% of the metro’s 2010 population of 130,291.

6. Fairbanks, Alaska, had a net population loss from migration of 8,736 between 2010 and 2018 — 9.0% of the metro’s 2010 population of 97,581.

5. Farmington, New Mexico, had a net population loss from migration of 11,873 between 2010 and 2018 — 9.1% of the metro’s 2010 population of 130,044.

4. Hanford-Corcoran, California, had a net population loss from migration of 14,567 between 2010 and 2018 — 9.5% of the metro’s 2010 population of 152,982.

3. Hinesville, Georgia, had a net population loss from migration of 8,248 between 2010 and 2018 — 10.6% of the metro’s 2010 population of 77,917.

2. Pine Bluff, Arkansas, had a net population loss from migration of 11,360 between 2010 and 2018 — 11.3% of the metro’s 2010 population of 100,258.

1. Watertown-Fort Drum, New York, had a net population loss from migration of 14,329 between 2010 and 2018 — 12.3% of the metro’s 2010 population of 116,229.

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

The Democrats know that there is no impeachable offense. What they intend to do is to use the investigation to look into every aspect of Trump’s life and try to make dirt out of things unrelated to his talk with the Ukrainian president. This “impeachment investigation” is a political act to help their candidate win the next presidential election.

Democrats themselves describe it in this way. For example, here is how Rob Kall, the director of one of the progressive Democrat websites, described the purpose of the investigation:

“The idea should be to keep the impeachment going as long as possible, with new testimonies and new releases of disclosures of alleged corruption and treason on a regular basis.

“Looking at impeachment as a process for removing the president is the wrong way of thinking about it. Looking at it as a key that gives access to investigative tools is the smarter, more strategic, way of looking at it.

“Ideally, it will get so bad for Trump that the Republicans will end up putting up someone else to run in the general election.

“But keeping him under investigation, at least through the November election, will increasingly erode the support of both Trump and the Republican party brand, making a Democratic takeover of the Senate and the White House, and an increased control of the House even more likely.”

In other words, it is a political power play.

The outcome depends on whether Americans see the impeachment investigation as another orchestrated hoax like Russiagate or whether they fall for the hoax as they initially did with the Russiagate investigation.

The United States does not have a media. It has a propaganda ministry that helps the ruling elites control the explanations that Americans are given. Polls show that Americans have lost confidence in the media. If so, the impeachment investigation will backfire on the Democrats.

The ultimate purpose of the constant attacks on Trump is to teach the American voters that electing a president who is disapproved by the Establishment is futile. The Establishment simply will not permit any change and will frustrate and destroy any president not selected by them as a candidate.

This is the real way so-called “American democracy” works. The establishment guides the selection of the Democrat and Republican candidates. Whichever wins, the Establishment wins. This didn’t happen in Trump’s case, and so he has to be prevented from altering the Establishment’s agendas.