Month: December 2020

“The gap between Xi’s confidence and the world’s grim reality is glaring,” analysis in Nikkei Asia Review recently observed. This need “to portray ‘success’ at party anniversary will be powder keg with the world.”

The analysis begins, “When it comes to statements issued after key meetings of the Chinese Communist Party, what is not written – especially what has been deleted from previous statements – often carries much more significance than the complex language that remains.”

Nikkei’s Katsuji Nakazawa has highlighted a key phrase which was indeed glaringly absent from a statement of President Xi’s released upon this year’s Central Economic Work Conference, which ran Dec. 16 through 18, focused on China’s economic management for 2021. The absence is quite telling.

The prior year’s fundamental acknowledged concern for the Chinese economy’s near and future outlook as expressed by Xi — that it faces “downward economic pressure” — was this year quietly dropped from the statement. Nakazawa observed:

A year has made a big difference. At the previous Central Economic Work Conference, which began on Dec. 10, 2019, Chinese President and party General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a warning using those words.

Looking back, the conference was held weeks before the outbreak of the new coronavirus began to terrorize the global economy. Two days before the meeting, the first virus patient in Wuhan, Hubei Province, began showing symptoms, according to Chinese authorities.

As it began to unfold, however, Chinese citizens and people around the world were left in the dark about the outbreak. Information did not surface, at least not widely, for a while.

Belatedly, by January 20, Chinese health officials went public with their findings of “human-to-human transmission” in perhaps a first dire warning to the globe of just how serious the emerging pandemic was.

In 2019 while likely having little clue as to the devastating impact of the coronavirus on both the national and global economy about to be unleashed, Xi still used those words: “downward economic pressure”… and yet now silence:

A year later, and despite China and the world going through a historic bout of economic turbulence, Xi made no mention of and ignored any “downward economic pressure.” True, the Chinese economy is recovering, but something seems off.

It hints at Xi’s desire to declare to the world that China has become “the only major economy with positive growth this year,” as the Central Economic Work Conference statement put it.

In China, the country’s fight against the virus and its success in fending off the outbreak’s economic effects are already regarded as a part of history Chinese can be proud of. There is even a virus-themed exhibition being held in Wuhan.

It was a very different world just a year ago: “When the party in 2019 talked of downward economic pressure, the biggest factor weighing on the Chinese economy was the impact of the country’s fierce economic confrontation with the U.S. and President Donald Trump.”

Interpreting Beijing’s 2020 Central Economic Work Conference offers hints of China’s post-pandemic recovery path ahead. https://t.co/mSgQUoZIcD

— The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) December 24, 2020

“The 2019 Central Economic Work Conference came one month before Vice Premier Liu He, a close aide to Xi, flew to Washington and signed the ‘phase one” trade deal,’ Nikkei observes.

And then, the “unimaginable coronavirus-related nightmares would go on to play out around the world. Trump, who leaves office in less than a month, failed to cope with the outbreak, allowing it to ravage the U.S. So far, the virus has killed more than 322,000 people in the country.” Now there’s certainly no “round two” trade talks anywhere in sight also amid a ratcheting Trump trade war and sanctions.

Something seems very “off” in Xi’s portrayal of ‘success’ observes Nakazawa. Read the rest of the Nikkei analysis here.

Authored by James Bovard via The American Institute for Economic Research,

Thanks in large part to Covid lockdowns, this year has left vast wreckage in its wake, with ten million jobs lost, more than 100,000 businesses and dozens of national chains bankrupted or closed. Up to 40 million people could face eviction in the coming months for failing to pay rent, and Americans report that their mental health is at record low levels.

But the casualty list for 2020 must also include many of the political myths that shape Americans’ lives. 

Perhaps the biggest myth to die this year was that Americans’ constitutional rights are safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, governors in state after state effectively placed scores of millions of citizens under house arrest – dictates that former Attorney General Bill Barr aptly compared to “the greatest intrusion on civil liberties” since the end of slavery. Politicians and government officials merely had to issue decrees, which were endlessly amended, in order to destroy citizens’ freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of choice in daily life. Los Angeles earlier this month banned almost all walking and bicycling in the city, ordering four million people to “to remain in their homes” in a futile effort to banish a virus. 

The Rule of Law is another myth impaled by 2020’s dire developments. Courts have repeatedly struck down sweeping restrictions. Federal judge William Stickman IV invalidated some of Pennsylvania’s restrictions in a September ruling: “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” After the Michigan Supreme Court effectively labeled Governor Gretchen Whitmer a lawless dictator, she responded by issuing “new COVID-19 emergency orders that are nearly identical to her invalidated emergency orders,” as the Mackinac Center noted. How many governors and mayors have you seen on the television news being led away in handcuffs after their arrest for violating citizens’ rights this year? None.

Another myth that 2020 obliterated was the notion that politicians spending more than a hundred billion dollars every year for science and public health would keep Americans safe. 

The Centers for Disease Control utterly botched the initial testing regime, sending out bogus tests to state and local health departments and taking a month and a half to do what the Thai government achieved in one day. The Food and Drug Administration helped turn the coronavirus from a deadly peril into a national catastrophe. Long after foreign nations had been ravaged and many cases had been detected in America, the FDA continued blocking private testing. The FDA continued forcing the nation’s most innovative firms to submit to its command-and-control approach, notwithstanding the pandemic.

The benevolence and compassion of public school teachers was another myth that 2020 obliterated. Teacher unions helped barricade school doors the same way that segregationist governors in the 1950s and 1960s refused to obey federal court orders to admit black students. The Chicago Teachers Union proclaimed: “The push to reopen schools is based in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” 

Black and Hispanic students suffered much larger learning losses due to school shutdowns, leading former Education Secretary John King to warn of a “lost generation of students.” Despite a deluge of studies that showed that schools posed little risk of fueling the pandemic, teachers insisted that they were entitled to both their salaries and to stay at home as long as they considered necessary. 

This was part of the collapse of the broader myth that the rulers and ruled have common interests. Among other splits, the response to the pandemic divided Americans into those who work for a living, and those who “work” for the government. Government employees in most states and at the federal level have been the Untouchables, continuing to draw full pay even when they were no longer even required to show up for work. One exception to this trend is government tax collectors, who continue commandeering as much as ever from citizens and property owners regardless of the collapse in public services in many places this year. 

Another myth that perished in 2020 was that social media and the Internet could be a powerful propellant of free information. Instead, the biggest players pulled the most strings to suppress criticisms or dissent from the latest Covid policies promulgated by officialdom. On March 18, Twitter announced that, in response to Covid-19, it would ban tweets guilty of “denial of expert guidance” or “misleading content purporting to be from experts or authorities.” 

The World Health Organization initially overestimated the Covid fatality rate by 50-fold but they remain Twitter-approved. Facebook recently launched far more aggressive policies, including directly contacting anyone who liked or commented on a piece that was later ruled erroneous by Facebook guardians and is refusing any ads that discourages people from getting vaccinations. Will they ban WHO’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan for declaring on Monday that there was “no evidence to be confident [vaccine] shots prevent transmission” of Covid? Google sought to suppress any doubts about lockdowns: “Most users in English-speaking countries, when they google ‘Great Barrington Declaration’, will not be directed to the declaration itself but to articles that are critical of the declaration,” a Spiked-Online analysis noted. 

This year’s presidential election put a helluva dent in the credo that politicians rule with the “consent of the governed.” The pandemic provided the pretext to radically change voting procedures, spurring 65 million mostly unverified mail-in ballots. The New York Times warned in 2012 that “fraud in voting by mail is… vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting fraud that has attracted far more attention.” Many states solved that problem by “defining down fraud” and expunging the verification procedures previously used to routinely invalidate 20% or more of mailed-in ballots. The controversies around mail-in ballots, questionable software, ballot harvesting and other practices mean that a record number of Americans will doubt Joe Biden’s legitimacy even before he takes his oath of office. 

Perhaps the saddest casualty of 2020 is the myth that average Americans cherish their personal freedom. Politicians continually shifted the rationale for lockdowns – from flattening the curve, to ending “community spread,” to reducing cases to near zero. Regardless of the proclaimed rationale, most people submitted without a fight, and usually without even a whimper. Politicians and bureaucrats fanned mass fears which quickly ripened into hatred of anyone who did not comply with the latest edict.

States and cities across the country set up snitch lines that were soon deluged with complaints of people outside without a mask, meeting friends, or having more visitors in their homes than could fit in a phone booth. Many, if not most, people quickly acquiesced to the “new normal” where any government hack who recited the phrase “science and data” became entitled to rule their lives with an iron fist. 

As the Harvard International Review warned, “The very methods that liberal democracies are currently using to effectively fight the virus are the same tactics that authoritarian leaders use to dominate their people. The tools that have been temporarily deployed in the fight against a once-in-a-lifetime disease may become permanent.” That was written on May 23, more than 15 million Covid cases ago – proof of the failure of lockdowns and pervasive restrictions to make Covid-19 vanish. But the miserable batting average of officialdom will vanish into the Memory Hole if politicians launch a campaign to make Covid vaccinations mandatory, complete with boundless vilification of anyone who balks at the injection. 

Perhaps it has long been a myth that we live in a self-governing republic rather than a Leviathan Democracy where citizens merely make cameo appearances every few years at the voting booth. It is still possible that the catastrophic and pointless losses imposed by Covid crackdowns will finally awaken enough people to their growing subjugation. But the most dangerous myth is that Americans will finally become safe after they cease making any efforts to leash their rulers.

The Trump White House has on multiple foreign policy fronts of late attempted to “box in” the incoming Biden administration – limiting its ability to roll back Trump policies – particularly on Iran and China.

President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are now poised to do the same on Cuba. This after it’s been widely reported in the past weeks that Biden’s team will seek for greater ‘normalized’ relations with the communist-run Caribbean country, which would involve rolling back current restrictions on travel, investment, and remittances.

The New York Times has cited two US officials in a report Tuesday who say the US is preparing to once again place Cuba on the state sponsor of terrorism list. 

Cuba had been formally delisted under Obama in 2015 during his attempt at rapprochement, which also saw a number of sanctions briefly removed. 

A proposal for a return to naming Cuba as a ‘state sponsor’ has reportedly been prepared under the aegis of the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, but for it to actually go through insiders say that the Counterterrorism Bureau would have to sign off.

The other major hurdle would be the timeline, given the Trump admin is now running out of time to push it through, as CNN underscores:

Whether Pompeo will approve the plan remains unknown, but a Biden administration reversal of the move could take months, the Times reported. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism can trigger sanctions including “restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions,” according to the State Department.

But the problem could go the other way too, as The Hill on Wednesday notes of the original NYT report, “While Biden could quickly move to remove Cuba from the list upon taking office, the Times reported that this could require a months-long formal review process.”

Confirmed: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is looking to designate Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in the coming days, complicating Biden’s intentions of engaging with Havana, and once again working to erase a key Obama policy. Story coming.

— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) December 30, 2020

But this appears part of the Trump strategy to begin with: create enough massive hurdles for Biden with weeks just left as to disrupt plans to continue Obama’s policy of restored normalized relations.

Previously any positive gains in restoring relations under Obama, which included the US embassy’s reopening in Havana in 2015, were reversed when in 2017 Trump barred Americans from traveling to Cuba and other punitive economic measures.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Authorities in Victoria, Australia have banned kissing and hugging on New Year’s Eve despite the fact that there have been no new cases of COVID-19 in two months.

State Premier Dan Andrews said hugging and kissing should not take place during celebrations between anyone but immediate family members.

“Just as Christmas was a little different this year, New Year’s Eve will be too,” the Victorian Government said.

“Take some hand sanitiser with you, don’t share drinks with others and [new year] kisses and hugs should [only] be shared with those in your immediate family.”

Quite how authorities expect to enforce such a measure is unfathomable.

Kissing banned on NYE. The elites are just pissing themselves laughing at us now. pic.twitter.com/IFuWL76wsS

— Garbage Human (@GarbyJooman3) December 28, 2020

There have been no new cases of COVID-19 in Victoria for two months, but the New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Melbourne has been cancelled.

As we previously highlighted, Australians were subject to one of the most draconian lockdowns in the developed world.

A pregnant woman was arrested in her own home for promoting a lockdown protest on Facebook while authorities also made home visits to people planning to attend.

A new law would have also given police the power to arrest coronavirus “conspiracy theorists” if it was thought they may commit a crime in the future.

In October, we also highlighted how four newborn babies in Adelaide, Australia died after being denied life-saving heart surgery due to coronavirus travel restrictions.

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The Covid-19 vaccine isn’t even in the hands of most Americans yet and already CNN is prepping the masses for the idea of a “vaccine passport”, which it says could be needed to travel, and even “shop and go to the movies again”. 

“In order to do those activities, you may eventually need something in addition to the vaccine: a vaccine passport application,” an article from this week proudly proclaims. “Rest assured, the nerds are on it,” CNN playfully writes, possibly hoping to distract readers from the idea of authoritarian globalization with a joke or two. 

The article notes that several technology companies have begun developing apps to upload details of vaccinations – as if the tech giants didn’t have enough of your data or enough information about you. These companies could require you to show your “credentials” at “concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.”

But don’t worry, the article notes, the Common Trust Network, “an initiative by Geneva-based nonprofit The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum” has partnered with several airlines to help with the project. Their app allows you to upload medical data that will generate a QR code for travel. Because nothing says “secure” quite like the World Economic Forum having access to your medical records. 

Thomas Crampton, chief marketing and communications officer for The Commons Project, said: “You can be tested every time you cross a border. You cannot be vaccinated every time you cross a border.”

IBM, possibly bored and looking for something to involve itself in other than gaming its annual effective tax rate and buying back stock, also developed its own app called “Digital Health Pass”.  It allows you to keep your credentials in a mobile wallet.

Jenny Wanger, who leads the exposure notification initiatives for Linux Foundation Public Health, told CNN about challenges early on in coordinating a digital notification response to Covid-19: “I think where exposure notification ran into some challenges was more of the piecemeal implementation choices, lack of federal leadership … where each state had to go it alone and so each state had to figure it out independently.”

The Linux Foundation has also partnered with IBM and CommonPass to help develop “universal standards” for a vaccine app. 

Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Linux Foundation, said: “If we’re successful, you should be able to say: I’ve got a vaccine certificate on my phone that I got when I was vaccinated in one country, with a whole set of its own kind of health management practices… that I use to get on a plane to an entirely different country and then I presented in that new country a vaccination credential so I could go to that concert that was happening indoors for which attendance was limited to those who have demonstrated that they’ve had the vaccine.”

He concluded: “It should be interoperable in the same way that email is interoperable, the same way that the web is interoperable. Right now, we’re in a situation where there’s some moving parts that get us closer to that, but I think there’s a sincere commitment from everybody in the industry.”

“A point of entry — whether that’s a border, whether that’s a venue — is going to want to know, did you get the Pfizer vaccine, did you get the Russian vaccine, did you get the Chinese vaccine, so they can make a decision accordingly,” Crampton concluded.

And we’re sure the front of the line to help lobby for these new draconian rules will look something like this:

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The State Department approved a potential sale of Boeing-made precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia worth an estimated $290 million. The Trump administration notified Congress of the deal on Tuesday.

Last week, the Trump administration moved forward with a plan to issue a license to Raytheon that would enable the weapons dealer to directly sell the Saudis a package of “smart” bombs worth approximately $478 million.

President Trump has continued to arm the Saudis despite opposition to the sales in Congress. The opposition is mainly due to the US-backed Saudi-led war in Yemen, where the coalition frequently targets civilian infrastructure with US-made bombs. The coalition’s siege tactics have caused widespread disease, food shortages, and mass starvation.

In 2019, Congress passed legislation to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which President Trump vetoed. The president also used his veto powers that year on a bill that called for an end to US involvement in the war in Yemen.

The incoming Biden administration is expected to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship. Joe Biden has said he will cut off arms sales to the Kingdom. But there is some concern that weapons sales will continue due to Biden’s pick for secretary of defense, Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who sits on the board of Raytheon.

One major goal of these rushed arms sales is to bind the US national security establishment ever closer to the tyrannical regime in Saudi Arabia, creating a knot of deals and military ties that will be incredibly difficult for any future admins to unravel https://t.co/O0299Mo7Ik

— Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) December 30, 2020

While Austin could be expected to advance the interests of the arms industry, it’s worth noting that he strongly opposed the Saudi’s intervention in Yemen in 2015 while he was the head of US Central Command. Austin opposed the intervention because Yemen’s Houthis were an intelligence-sharing partner of the US in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

The Trump administration also notified Congress on Tuesday of a potential sale to Kuwait of Apache helicopters and spare parts for the Patriot missile system worth an estimated $4.2 billion.

The Trump administration is declassifying a US intelligence report that China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American forces, according to Axios, citing two senior administration officials.

Amusingly, Axios prominently disclaims the intel as ‘unconfirmed’ in their headline – a word which somehow escaped the MSM’s vocabulary when a nearly identical report came out in June regarding alleged Russian bounties on American soldiers, which remains — unconfirmed.

According to the report, Trump was briefed on the ‘as-yet uncorroborated’ Chinese bounty intelligence on December 17, and discussed it with national security adviser Robert O’Brien the same day according to officials.

“The U.S. has evidence that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempted to finance attacks on American servicemen by Afghan non-state actors by offering financial incentives or ‘bounties’” and said the National Security Council “is coordinating a whole-of-government investigation,” one official told Axios, who would not say if he was referring to the Taliban or other ‘non-state actors.’

The same person said that the Trump administration received earlier intelligence regarding “PRC weapons illicitly flowing into Afghanistan.”

The British and U.S. governments have previously complained about Chinese-made weapons being used by the Taliban.

• The interest in Afghanistan stems in part from Beijing’s desire to prevent Chinese Muslim separatist groups from using the country as a base.
• Afghan security officials recently discovered an alleged Chinese spy ring operating in the country apparently seeking to target Uighurs there, according to a Dec. 25 report from the Hindustan Times. -Axios

It’s unknown if members of Congress or President-elect Joe Biden have been briefed, however Biden currently has access to the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). When contacted for comment, the Chinese embassy in D.C. didn’t respond to the news outlet, while President Trump is not believed to have discussed it with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Also unclear is when the alleged bounties were offered – though the source says it happened sometime after late February after the United States struck a deal with the Taliban.

One senior official involved in the latest China discussions told Axios “Like all first reports, we react with caution to initial reports,” adding “any intel reports relating to the safety of our forces we take very seriously.”

Following up on the briefing, officials conducted a Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) meeting to discuss the intelligence. The meeting had two objectives; gain more insight from the intelligence community to verify the initial reports, and to consult with the intelligence and defense communities involved in the force protection posture for the remaining US forces in Afghanistan.

More via Axios:

Behind the scenes: The intelligence was included in the president’s briefing on Dec. 17, and Trump was verbally briefed on the matter by National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, officials said.

• Administration officials across multiple agencies are currently working to corroborate the initial intelligence reports.
• Axios was not able to visually inspect any reports detailing the intelligence. A summary was described by phone by the officials.

Why it matters: If this intelligence were to be confirmed, it would represent a dramatic strategic shift for China, and sharply escalate tensions between China and the U.S. If the intelligence does not prove accurate, it raises questions about the motivations of the sources behind it as well as the decision to declassify it.

• China has long played a quiet diplomatic role in Afghanistan, inviting Afghan Taliban officials to Beijing to discuss plans for a peace deal and encouraging an Afghan-led solution, though Chinese-made weapons and financing have at times also flowed into the conflict there.
• It seems “incongruous” that China would take such a provocative action in Afghanistan, Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who specializes in China-Afghanistan affairs, told Axios.
• Pursuing peace in Afghanistan is “one of the extremely rare areas where the US and China still have a willingness to work together on an area of importance,” Small said. “They know the drawdown is taking place. We’re not in the context where anything else needs to happen to US troops in Afghanistan. There is no reason to create additional pressure on US forces.”

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

Lest people think that 2020 was only about Covid-19, lockdowns, and economic disaster, don’t forget about the protests, riots, and escalating exhibits of rage.

The triggering event was the death of George Floyd. He was killed during an arrest on May 25th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The entire thing was caught on video. It had all the potential to be a turning point with regard to police brutality and race – the nation was riveted and outraged.

But then, as often occurs, the protests were co-opted. Extremists took over, extremists on the other side took umbrage, and  Mr. Floyd became a footnote.

2020 devolved into ongoing violence in American streets that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes. Distinct sides were chosen, lines were drawn, and those who saw the middle ground were quickly shouted down while America burned.

May

Minneapolis immediately erupted into violent riots that turned deadly.

Rioters set the police station on fire.

Within a week of Mr. Floyd’s death, demonstrations had spread to 30 cities across the United States, many turning from peaceful protests to riots.

Riots in Denver:

Seattle was the site of particularly destructive and violent riots.

In fact, protestors took over a six-block area in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, driving out police and maintaining their presence there for months. They even strategically changed the name of the area to make it part of a bigger movement.

June

The National Guard was deployed to cities across the country in an attempt to quell the violence.

Seattle:

Atlanta:

Los Angeles and Hollywood:

In this article, a National Guardsman shared a personal account of what was really going on during the Seattle riots.

July

In July, police and rioters in cities across the country were engaged in violent clashes.

Federal police squared off with rioters in Portland.

August

On August 23, fuel was added to the raging inferno when Jacob Blake was shot and killed by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At this point, the facts of the shootings were no longer relevant – any police violence against a black suspect was going to result in riots.

By that evening, Kenosha was on fire.

The destruction of Kenosha, a moderate-sized town, was shocking.

We ran the first-person account of a Kenosha resident who said, “Everyone in the city was getting ready for a war.”

Looting and rioting broke out in Chicago after another police shooting and the “Magnificent Mile” was trashed by angry mobs.

It got so bad that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered the drawbridges raised.

Interestingly, activists attempted to justify the looting as “reparations.”

September

By September 1st, riots occurred for the 95th consecutive day in Portland.

Violence also erupted in Louisville, Kentucky when the Grand Jury declined to charge the officers accused of killing Breonna Taylor, a local paramedic, with homicide.

These protests also spread across the nation.

Some of those arrested in the New York City riots were entitled kids from wealthy families who were “enacting their revolutionary strategy.”.

October

In October, Walter Wallace was shot sixteen times by Philadelphia police during a mental health call after he refused to drop a knife.

Looting soon followed the rioting.

November

While America braced itself for riots based on the outcome of the hotly contested US presidential election, these fears did not come to fruition. In fact, the violence has slowed down since the outcome (which is still being argued by attorneys for President Trump.)

Did police shootings suddenly cease? Did racially-motivated violence end? Did the justice system radically evolve? Did everyone finally agree and settle their differences amicably?

It’s almost enough to make a person ask questions about the widespread violence from May through October.

Officials on a United Nations working group specializing in monitoring the role of mercenaries in conflicts on Wednesday blasted President Trump’s pardons last week of four Blackwater contractors convicted of murdering unarmed Iraqi civilians as “an affront to justice”. 

“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, who chairs a UN working group on the use of mercenaries. “These pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.”

The committee of five UN experts further underscored that Trump’s move flies in the face of the Geneva Conventions, which obliges states to hold all war criminals accountable regardless of if they represent national forces or operate as private contractors. 

The four men opened fire on a busy traffic square in Iraq in 2007, killing 17, in what became known as the Nisour Square Massacre. Fourteen among the killed had been unarmed civilians and innocent bystanders. Twenty others suffered injuries.

Trump’s pre-Christmas pardons included Nicholas Slatten, previously convicted of first-degree murder, and Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, and Paul Slough – convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter.

The UN as well as other international critics of the pardons now fear private security contractors will be given greater license to “operate with impunity in armed conflicts”.

The example could also embolden states to use mercenaries to do their ‘dirty work’ as proxies – for example contractors operating on behalf of the Saudis and UAE in the Yemen war.

For its part the White House claimed to have had broad support from the American public in issuing the pardons, without citing any specifics to back it up.

By Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Originally published in Forbes,

The Los Angeles area comprises the Hollywood movie studios, Beverly Hills, Muscle Beach, and a previously booming economy that trailed only New York City and Tokyo. The city is also home to powerful politicians such as U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of House Judiciary Committee; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Chief Deputy Whip; and Mayor Eric Garcetti, the National Co-Chairman of Biden for President.

However, LA itself is in trouble. Whenever we open the books, the city consistently ranks among the worst tax and spend offenders.

Last year, there were 20,000 highly compensated city employees whose average pay exceeded $147,000 and cost taxpayers $3 billion. All of them made more than $100,000 and nearly 2,000 out-earned California Governor Gavin Newsom ($202,000).

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found painters making $113,943; “tree surgeons” trimming $207,058; police officers with an arresting $325,942; legislative analysts earning $399,631; firefighters hosing down $486,674; and “harbor boat pilots” swimming in $515,000.  

Mayor’s Office – Mayor Garcetti cost taxpayers $269,375 in salary – $67,000 more than Gov. Newsom. Seven “deputy mayors” earned $1.44 million with individual salaries each exceeding $200,000. Chief of staff, Ann Guerrero, made $232,205– compensation out earning the mayor of Chicago ($216,000).

Garcetti has an executive staff larger than 48 of the 50 state governors. The mayor employed 261 people last year for $20+ million in salary cost.

While permanent staff enjoy handsome salaries, Garcetti also relies on unpaid labor. Although intern positions are available in dozens of departments working on issues such as homelessness, sustainability, and immigration, those internships are not compensated.

The Police Department (LAPD) — Chief Michael Moore pulled down $590,764 last year – double dipping a $350,764 salary and a $240,000 pension. In 2018, Moore “officially” retired, but was rehired 30-days later. The golden handshake helped Moore capture a $1.27 million lump sum payout and another $170,000 check for unused sick and vacation days. Garcetti blessed the scheme.

Last year, LAPD had 14,119 employees on the payroll with cash compensation totaling $1.6 billion. 9,280 employees earned $100,000+ and 451 officers made more than $200,000. The top five police officers, sergeants, and detectives made between $300,000 and $325,000 thanks to generous overtime benefits ranging from $129,256 to $152,807.

The Fire Department (LAFD) — LAFD employed 3,934 last year and 3,409 made at least $100,000. Almost 30-percent of the payroll (1,128) made over $200,000. Generous overtime benefits spiked the pay: 540 employees made at least $100,000 in overtime alone. Extreme wildfires in the Los Angeles area in 2019, which continue in 2020, certainly contributed to the costs.

The top ten firefighters cost the city $4.3 million—an average of $428,307 each. Firefighter Donn Thompson took home $486,674 in pay with $359,416 in overtime. Fire captain Charles Boswell earned $481,020 in compensation with $329,991 in overtime. Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas took home $332,952—and was still out earned by 67 LAFD colleagues. The total department payroll cost was $654.6 million.

Housing and Community Investment Department—The agency aids people in poverty by administering Section 8 federal grants, rent stabilization policies, the housing code, and services to the homeless population with a 737-employee payroll costing $55 million. In 2020, the director, Rushmore Cervantes, brought home $254,937 and out earned the Secretary of U.S. Housing & Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, a cabinet-level position ($199,700). Furthermore, four assistant general managers earned more than $200,000.

Despite the high pay and good intentions, the number of homeless people living in LA continued to escalate. Numbers from the city’s own census show 40,000 homeless persons (2020), up 14.2 percent from last year. A voter-approved $1.2 billion bond issue in 2016 promised 10,000 new apartments for the homeless. However, the actual number of units are now projected to be around 7,600 as construction overruns and consultant fees pushed the cost of some housing units to over $700,000 apiece.

So, the problems seem to be getting much worse. Encampment complaints to city 311 reached nearly 100,000 calls in the 20 months between January 2019 and August 2020.

Port of Los Angeles – Last year, chief port pilots John Dwyer ($515,991) and David Flinn ($503,360) out-earned eleven senior pilots whose pay averaged $417,000. Port pilots help incoming ships navigate the harbor and are the most highly compensated public employees in the city. The LA port also has their own police force. Top paid police lieutenant Nathanael Blair made $307,530 including $104,082 in overtime pay. Seven more lieutenants earned between $212,759 and $277,314 last year.

The port authority has a public beach staffed by lifeguards from the county. Last year, 44 LA County lifeguards cost taxpayers $200,000 to $365,000 each – with free sunscreen allowance and other benefits. The agency responded to our comment request saying port pilot salaries are competitive with other ports; it is more costly to hire additional police officers compared to overtime costs; and the port does not pay or have authority over lifeguard staffing.

City Council — There are fifteen city council districts in Los Angeles. Each has an elected member charged with levying taxes, authorizing public improvements, and passing ordinances, among other duties.

Council members earn $207,000 annually – more than every member of the U.S. Congress except Speaker Nancy Pelosi ($223,500). Each office employs 22 to 36 aides. Last year, 58 city council aides took home over $100,000. Andrew Westall of Council District 10 was the top-paid aide ($193,886) and out-earned every state governor except Newsom.

Sharon Tso is the chief legislative analyst to the city council. Appointed in 2014, Tso was paid $283,000. Last year, Tso’s pay spiked to $399,631, making her the 20th top-paid city employee.

Public Works – In 2019, wastewater supervisor, James Pearl was paid-out $2.4 million from his judgement against the city. Pearl, a straight man, alleged sexual harassment from other men on the job at Public Works- Sanitation. The judge awarded Pearl $12 million. The city appealed the verdict; however, the award was affirmed.

In the Street Services division, we found 37 “tree surgeons” and supervisors made between $100,000 and $207,058 last year. Known as tree trimmers in most communities, these surgeons and their supervisors trimmed off a lot of overtime: the top eleven earned overtime pay between $45,206 and $86,306.

Los Angeles’s long-term financial situation looks bleak and the city is asking Congress for a $3.9 billion “coronavirus” bailout. For example, LA has guaranteed $64.3 billion in retirement benefits to public employees.

Unfortunately, $10.7 billion in retirement benefits hasn’t been funded: pensions ($7.9 billion) and retiree healthcare ($2.8 billion). Therefore, each city taxpayer owes $4,000 just to cover the unfunded liability, according to data provided by fiscal accountability organization Truth In Accounting (2019).

Los Angeles is a progressive utopia, so well-meaning fiscal hawks are going to have to cry a lot louder – or they won’t even have a voice at the table.

NOTE: Every agency mentioned in the piece received two requests for comment.