Bombing operations by the United States military against the Horn of Africa state of Somalia have escalated during the course of 2018.
Once the administration of President Donald Trump came into office nearly two years ago, purported “restrictions” placed on …
The post Africa in Review 2018: Imperialist Militarism and the Quest for Reconstruction appeared first on Global Research.
Bombing operations by the United States military against the Horn of Africa state of Somalia have escalated during the course of 2018.
Once the administration of President Donald Trump came into office nearly two years ago, purported “restrictions” placed on …
The post Africa in Review 2018: Imperialist Militarism and the Quest for Reconstruction appeared first on Global Research.
Social media giant takes no action against violent rhetoric.
January 2, 2019
By Sujata Rao
LONDON (Reuters) – World shares started 2019 on a downbeat note, oil prices and bond yields skidded lower and the Japanese yen strengthened on Wednesday as data from China to France confirmed investors’ fears of a global economic slowdown.
The U.S. S&P500 and Dow Jones index futures were down 1.5 percent and Nasdaq futures fell 2.3 percent, signaling Wall Street would open in the red on the first trading day of the New Year after closing 2018 with the worst annual loss since 2008.
Weak manufacturing-activity surveys across Asia were followed by disappointing numbers in the euro zone, sending MSCI’s index of world shares 0.4 percent lower .
China in particular was in focus, after factory activity contracted for the first time in over two years. The gloom continued in Europe, where the Purchasing Managers’ Index for the euro zone reached its lowest since February 2016. Future output PMIs were at a six-year low.
The data suggests there will be no respite for equities or commodities after the losses of 2018
GRAPHIC: How global markets did in 2018 – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Ss8qjS
A pan-European share index recovered some earlier losses to stand 0.7 percent lower. The Paris bourse led losses with a 1.5 percent fall, as France’s PMI fell in December for the first time in two years.
“It’s a continuation of the worries over growth. You can see them in the Asian numbers, which all confirm that we have passed peak growth levels,” said Tim Graf, chief macro strategist at State Street Global Advisors.
The knock-on effects from China’s slowdown and global trade tensions were rippling across Asia and Europe, he said.
“I don’t think the trade story goes away, and Europe, being an open economy, is still vulnerable,” Graf said.
Copper, a key gauge of world growth sentiment, fell to 3 1/2-month lows , while Brent crude futures fell 1 percent after losing 19.5 percent in 2018 [O/R].
Commodity-driven currencies also lost ground, led by the Australian dollar. Often used as a proxy for China sentiment, the Aussie fell as much as 0.7 percent to its lowest since February 2016 at $0.70015.
There were also renewed fears in Europe over the clean-up of Italy’s banks, with trading in shares of Banca Carige suspended. Carige failed last month to win shareholder backing for a share issue that was part of a rescue plan. An index of Italian bank shares fell 2.5 percent.
SAFETY FIRST
The stock market rout drove investors into the safety of bonds from countries such as the United States and Germany. The 10-year German Bund yield slumped to 20-month lows of 0.18 percent, its biggest one-day fall in two years.
GRAPHIC: Biggest rally for German Bunds in two years – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Sz60jd
Gold and the yen were the other beneficiaries.
While gold topped six-month highs, the yen extended its rally against the dollar to seven-month highs around 108.9. It strengthened to a 19-month peak against the euro.
“Traditional safe-haven type flows are going into the yen. As we see increased volatility (on world markets), the Japanese (investors) are probably repatriatriating foreign assets,” said Charles St Arnaud, senior investment strategist at Lombard Odier Investment Managers.
GRAPHIC: Japan’s yen, stocks set for some turbulence – https://tmsnrt.rs/2S8LwOk
However, the dollar inched up against a basket of currencies and rose half a percent against sterling, which is being undermined by Brexit uncertainty.
The greenback has come under pressure from a fall in U.S. Treasury yields as investors wager the Federal Reserve will not raise rates again.
While the Fed itself still projects at least two more hikes, money markets <0#FF:> now imply a quarter-point cut by mid-2020.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell may comment on the outlook when he takes part in a discussion with former Fed chairs Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke on Friday, while the manufacturing survey and the December payrolls report should shed more light when they emerge on Thursday and Friday respectively.
Yields on two-year debt have tumbled to 2.49 percent, just barely above the cash rate, from a peak of 2.977 percent in November. Ten-year yields have dived to their lowest since last February at 2.69 percent.
The spread between two- and 10-year yields has in turn shrunk to the smallest since 2007, a flattening that has been a portent of recessions in the past. The German 2-10 yield curve is the flattest since November 2016
“What is clear is that the global synchronized growth story that propelled risk assets higher has come to the end of its current run,” OCBC Bank told clients.
“Inexorably flattening yield curves … have poured cold water on further policy normalization going ahead.”
GRAPHIC: US yield curve – https://tmsnrt.rs/2GsaHd2
(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney and Abhinav Ramnarayan in London; editing by Larry King)
January 2, 2019
By Tom Finn
LONDON (Reuters) – The Japanese yen rose sharply across the board on Wednesday as investors grew cautious on the first trading day of 2019 about spluttering global growth and volatile equity markets.
In a bleak start to the year, the mood was wary in currency markets with perceived riskier currencies such as the Australian dollar and the euro down across the board while the yen climbed to a seven-month high versus the dollar.
The yen often benefits during geopolitical or financial stress as Japan is the world’s biggest creditor nation and sees inflows during periods of heightened global market volatility.
Japan’s currency has strengthened for three straight weeks and was among the few gainers in 2018 against a resurgent dollar. In the last four days alone, it has gained 2.2 percent.
“If you embrace the idea of the U.S. slowdown gathering momentum and the Federal Reserve cutting rates, then the yen is the currency for you,” said Kit Juckes, chief FX Strategist at Societe Generale.
As expectations for more U.S. rate increases have gradually been whittled away in markets in recent weeks, financial markets now expect no rate hikes this year and traders are focusing on the dollar’s vulnerabilities.
“It (the yen) is cheap on most metrics, is not currently undermined by a weakening Chinese yuan and isn’t dependent on economic or policy surprises in Japan,” Juckes added.
He said the correlation between the yen and U.S. interest rates had returned after being largely non-existent in early 2018.
Volatile stock markets have also boosted the safe-haven appeal of the yen. The CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX>, a widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility for U.S. stocks, has nearly doubled to 28 from 16 at the start of December.
The yen could extend its gains if hedge funds decide to unwind large short positions on the currency which, according to positioning data, is close to 5-year highs.
The dollar fell 0.8 percent against the yen to 108.71, its lowest since June 1. <JPY=EBS>. The dollar index <.DXY> was little changed at 96.224.
Weak manufacturing data from Spain, France, Italy, and Germany weighed on the euro, which weakened 0.2 percent against the dollar to $1.1438.
Traders expect the single currency to remain under pressure as both growth and inflation in the eurozone remain below the European Central Bank’s expectations.
The euro lost 4.4 percent of its value against the dollar in 2018.
Fears of a global slowdown were aggravated on Wednesday by a survey showing China’s factory activity contracted for the first time in 19 months in December as domestic and export orders continued to weaken.
While the dollar has been relatively stable going into the end of 2018, a flagging equity boom, waning cash repatriation by U.S. companies, and the possibility that the U.S. Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates as many times as it previously signaled now pose challenges for the greenback.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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(Natural News) Research has shown that antioxidants help keep the immune system healthy, preventing serious diseases like cancer. Now, a new study review has shown that antioxidants are especially potent against kidney cancer. The review of studies, which was published in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), found that eating plenty of antioxidant-rich foods… |
Facebook is suspending the accounts and hiding the posts of anyone who dares to post information about the illegal alien killer who gunned down Corporal Ronil Singh.
It looks like in the crusade to ‘protect’ the community from the truth, pointing out that an illegal alien, who bragged about his gang connections and had already been charged with crimes, is against ‘policy’ and must be censored.
Apparently, Facebook thinks users are too stupid to think for themselves, and if they saw that the murderer was here illegally, and that he wantonly gunned down a legal immigrant living the American dream, users might change their minds on the globalist open borders agenda.
Corporal Ronil Singh was murdered within 100 miles of Facebook’s headquarters.
Gustavo Perez Arriaga fatally shot Cpl. Singh during a predawn traffic stop on Wednesday, leading to a massive multiagency manhunt, which culminated in his capture on Friday morning.
Arriaga is an illegal alien, a term that is used by the government of the United States to indicate a person who has entered and is living in the country against the law.
The criminal killer has self-promoted his status as a member of the Sureno street gang, and has two prior drunk driving convictions in Madera County, Sheriff Christianson reported.
“This suspect, unlike Ron – who immigrated to this country lawfully and legally to pursue his lifelong career of public safety, public service and being a police officer – this suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He’s a criminal,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said during a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
One sheriff’s deputy posted this image, which was promptly removed and his account suspended:
Facebook user Dana Marie reported that she didn’t even post a picture of the killer when she got flagged for “hate speech.”
Marie posted images of Corporal Singh and his family, with the content, “This is officer Singh. He was killed by an ILLEGAL ALIEN 5 hours after he took this picture with this beautiful wife, baby and k9! This is precisely why we need to #buildthatwall! RIP hero.”
Of course, that would also cause people to think, so Facebook swiftly shut it down.
Many people are asking why anyone would willingly continue to interact on a platform that is clearly bent on thought control.
Are people so dependent on the social network that these massive abuses of free speech are just shrugged off?
Some people are comparing the censorship that Facebook wields to the sort Stalin and Goebbels enforced during the last century. Are people really so willing to accept the shackles of slavery? Is getting ‘likes’ and comments worth jettisoning liberty?
The fact is an illegal alien savagely murdered a father and officer who was a citizen of the United States and doing his best to serve the country.
Apparently, the liars at Facebook has a problem with that fact, and is doing everything they can to silence it.
January 1, 2019
By Rory Carroll
(Reuters) – The World Anti-Doping Agency on Tuesday said that Russian authorities had failed to provide access to laboratory doping data by their year-end deadline and it will consider sanctions against the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).
RUSADA was stripped of its accreditation in 2015 after a WADA-commissioned report found evidence of widespread state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics. But it was conditionally – and controversially – reinstated in September.
“I am bitterly disappointed that data extraction from the former Moscow Laboratory has not been completed by the date agreed by WADA’s (executive committee) in September 2018,” said WADA President Craig Reedie.
“Since then, WADA has been working diligently with the Russian authorities to meet the deadline, which was clearly in the best interest of clean sport. The process agreed by WADA’s ExCo in September will now be initiated.”
WADA’s Compliance Review Committee (CRC) will meet Jan. 14-15 to review the situation and make a recommendation to WADA’s executive committee on how to proceed.
If the CRC recommends declaring RUSADA non-compliant and the executive committee agrees, the Russian agency will have the right to challenge in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, who will hear the case and take the final decision.
Reedie said WADA had written to Pavel Kolobkov, Russia’s minister of sport, and Yury Ganus, the director general of RUSADA, to notify them of the situation and to remind them of the next steps in the process.
Kolobkov on Saturday said Moscow and WADA were discussing a date for WADA experts to visit and receive laboratory data in the hopes of avoiding another suspension.
Last month WADA said an inspection team visiting the Moscow laboratory was denied access to raw data after Russian authorities said that the inspection team’s equipment was not certified under Russian law.
IOC President Thomas Bach on Tuesday suggested the IOC was ready to move on following Russia’s ban from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February.
“In Pyeongchang, we sanctioned the systematic manipulation of the anti-doping system in Russia during the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014,” he said in a New Year’s message.
“With its suspension from the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018, the Russian Olympic Committee has served its sanction.”
But critics of Russia urged WADA to take a hard line against the nation for missing the deadline.
“The situation is a total joke and an embarrassment for WADA and the global anti-doping system,” Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said on Tuesday.
“In September, WADA secretly moved the goal posts and reinstated Russia against the wishes of athletes, governments and the public.
“In doing this, WADA guaranteed Russia would turn over the evidence of its state-supported doping scheme by today.
“No-one is surprised this deadline was ignored, and it’s time for WADA to stop being played by the Russians and immediately declare them non-compliant for failing yet again to meet the deadline.”
(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Mayor warns constituents against allowing incident to taint view of asylum seekers
(ZHE) — Hundreds of Yellow Vest protesters gathered outside France’s BFM TV station for week seven of nationwide protests.
The protesters chanted various versions of “Fake news journalists come down,” and “Macron out!” at the TV station which one protester told RT France spreads false information about the movement, while purposefully understating the size of its demonstrations.
Saturday’s protesters were met with tear gas and a heavy police presence, which has become part and parcel to the violent demonstrations of weeks past.
Police fired tear gas at “yellow vest” demonstrators in Paris on Saturday but the turnout for round seven of the popular protests that have rocked France appeared low.
Several hundred people wearing the symbolic hi-visibility vests had gathered near the offices of France Televisions and the BFM TV channel in the centre of the capital shouting “Fake news” and calling for the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron. – France24
Protesters reportedly torched several cars next to the TV station, with the smoke visible against the Eiffel Tower.
Separately, French police deployed tear gas in the city of Rouen in Normandy during a tense stand-off with demonstrators.
The entrance to the Banque de France has been engulfed by flames and other fires have also been started. Again, in Rouen. #GiletsJaunes #ActeVIIpic.twitter.com/MTwo8BcYtP
— Jordan
(@Jordan_SP1) December 29, 2018
Find out how to stand up against liberal control freaks.
by Frank Camp, Daily Wire: On Thursday, attorneys for 27-year-old Deon “Strawberry” Hampton announced that their client, a biological male who identifies as a female and is serving a ten-year prison sentence for residential burglary, would be transferred from a men’s correctional facility to a women’s correctional facility. Hampton filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Department of […]
The post Biologically Male Transgender Inmate Moved To Women’s Facility After Yearlong Legal Battle appeared first on SGT Report.
Authored by Jeff Charles via Liberty Nation,
Was Khashoggi more than a writer and activist?
A recent article published by The Washington Post seems to reveal that there was more to Jamal Khashoggi than initially suspected. The journalist and Saudi national was allegedly murdered by the Saudi Arabian government at a consulate in Turkey during October 2018. After his disappearance, contradictory accounts regarding his identity were disseminated by the media and among Washington elites.
Jamal Khashoggi
New information has potentially revealed another layer of who Khashoggi was, and the true nature of the objective he was pursuing. But more importantly, this case also demonstrates the often-overlooked role that information warfare is constantly playing out in American society.
In the wake of Khashoggi’s disappearance, he was widely portrayed as a moderate reformer, a crusader for equality and human rights. He was an activist who had emigrated and who stood against the apparent corruption of the Saudi Arabian government by writing scathing pieces in The Washington Post, excoriating the country’s leadership. Journalists, leaders, and politicians used his death to pressure the Trump administration to take action against Riyadh and the House of Saud royal family.
But it appears there may have been more to Khashoggi’s crusade than was presented to the American public. According to The Post’s recent article on the journalist, he was working with an organization supported by the Qatari government. “Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government,” the paper reported.
Of course, the Qatar Foundation denies that they were paying Khashoggi to produce content critical of Saudi Arabia’s government. But the Security Studies Group (SSG), a think tank that deals with counterterrorism and national security issues, has found that Qatar might not be telling the truth. In a piece written for The Federalist, Jim Hanson, president of the SSG, states that sources have informed the group that “documents showing wire transfers from Qatar” were discovered in Khashoggi’s apartment in Turkey. These sources claim the Turkish authorities quickly hid the documents to conceal the alleged collusion between the journalist, Turkey, and Qatar. It’s worth pointing out that nearly all of the details relating to Khashoggi’s death were provided by Turkey’s government, which is no friend to Saudi Arabia.
According to Hanson, it is possible that Khashoggi may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act if he created propaganda for Qatar’s government without filing the appropriate paperwork with the United States. One only has to look at the legal troubles of General Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort to understand the gravity of such a revelation.
People who pay attention to news and politics are aware that various players are attempting to influence policy and society through the media and other communication methods. But audiences don’t always recognize the deeper forces behind the information that is circulated on our airwaves.
It seems possible that Qatar was using Khashoggi – and possibly others – to launch an information warfare campaign against Saudi Arabia. After the journalist’s death was confirmed, many Americans urged President Trump to cut ties with Saudi Arabia over the kingdom’s human rights record– was there was a concerted effort to use Khashoggi’s murder to drive a wedge between Washington and Riyadh?
Qatar has been in the midst of a diplomatic conflict with Saudi Arabia, plus it is a strong ally of Turkey and has been strengthening its ties with Russia and Iran, two countries that are often at odds with the interests of the United States and Saudi Arabia. In light of this, it makes sense that Qatar’s government would seek to undermine diplomatic ties between Trump and the up-and-coming Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many blamed for Khashoggi’s killing.
This story demonstrates the importance of questioning the sources of the information we consume. Many may have read Khashoggi’s pieces in The Washington Post and assumed that he was a simple activist fighting against the tyranny of the Saudi Arabian government. This may be true, but it does not tell the entire story. If the recent allegations are true – and the evidence is compelling – it would appear that Khashoggi was more than an activist; he was an agent of a foreign government, fighting in an information war on behalf of Qatar. Not only that, but he was formerly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization which has spawned multiple radical Islamic terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.
To be fair, The Post claims that they did not know of Khashoggi’s alleged connection with the Qatari government, and there is no evidence proving that they did. However, the notion that actors working on behalf of hostile governments could use major U.S. news outlets to disseminate propaganda is disturbing.
Americans already have to sift through screeds of deceptive stories published by these outlets which seek to promote a left-wing agenda; the reality that consumers must also account for the possibility that foreign governments might manufacture U.S. news makes it even more difficult to discern fact from fiction.
Authored by Robert Bridge, op-ed via RT.com,
Since 2015, the proponents of neoliberalism have been pushing ahead with their plans for open borders and globalist agenda without the consent of the people. The last 365 days saw that destructive agenda greatly challenged.
In light of the epic events that shaped our world in 2018, it seems the Yellow Vests – the thousands of French citizens who took to the streets of Paris to protest austerity and the rise of inequality – would have been a nice choice for the Financial Times’ ‘person of the year’ award. Instead, that title was bestowed upon the billionaire globalist, George Soros, who has arguably done more meddling in the affairs of modern democratic states than any other person on the planet.
Perhaps FT’s controversial nomination was an attempt to rally the forces of neoliberalism at a time when populism and nascent nationalism is sweeping the planet. Indeed, the shocking images coming out of France provide a grim wake-up call as to where we may be heading if the globalists continue to undermine the power of the nation-state.
It is no secret that neoliberalism relentlessly pursues a globalized, borderless world where labor, products, and services obey the hidden hand of the free market. What is less often mentioned, however, is that this system is far more concerned with promoting the well-being of corporations and cowboy capitalists than assisting the average person on the street. Indeed, many of the world’s most powerful companies today have mutated into “stateless superpowers,” while consumers are forced to endure crippling austerity measures amid plummeting standards of living. The year 2018 could be seen as the tipping point when the grass-roots movement against these dire conditions took off.
Since 2015, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants into Germany and the EU, a groundswell of animosity has been steadily building against the European Union, perhaps best exemplified by the Brexit movement. Quite simply, many people are growing weary of the globalist argument that Europe needs migrants and austerity measures to keep the wheels of the economy spinning. At the very least, luring migrants with cash incentives to move to Germany and elsewhere in the EU appears incredibly shortsighted.
Indeed, if the globalist George Soros wants to lend his Midas touch to ameliorating the migrant’s plight, why does he think that relocating them to European countries is the solution? As is becoming increasingly apparent in places like Swedenand France, efforts to assimilate people from vastly different cultures, religions and backgrounds is an extremely tricky venture, the success of which is far from guaranteed.
One worrying consequence of Europe’s season of open borders has been the rise of far-right political movements. In fact, some of the harshest criticism of the ‘Merkel plan’ originated in Hungary, where its gutsy president, Viktor Orban, hopes to build “an old-school Christian democracy, rooted in European traditions.” Orban is simply responding to the democratic will of his people, who are fiercely conservative, yet the EU parliament voted to punish him regardless. The move shows that Brussels, aside from being adverse to democratic principles, has very few tools for addressing the rise of far-right sentiment that its own misguided policies created.
Here it is necessary to mention once again that bugbear of the political right, Mr. Soros, who has received no political mandate from European voters, yet who campaigns relentlessly on behalf of globalist initiatives through his Open Society Foundations (OSF) (That campaign just got some serious clout after Soros injected $18bn dollars of his own money into OSF, making it one of the most influential NGOs in the world).
With no small amount of impudence, Soros has condemned EU countries – namely his native Hungary – for attempting to protect their territories by constructing border barriers and fences, which he believes violate the human rights of migrants (rarely if ever does the philanthropist speak about the “human rights” of the native population). In the words of the maestro of mayhem himself: “Beggar-thy-neighbor migration policies, such as building border fences, will not only further fragment the union; they also seriously damage European economies and subvert global human rights standards.”
Through a leaked network of compromised EU parliamentarians who do his bidding, Soros says the EU should spend $30 billion euros ($33bln) to accommodate “at least 300,000 refugees each year.” How will the EU pay for the resettling of migrants from the Middle East? Soros has an answer for that as well. He calls it “surge funding,” which entails “raising a substantial amount of debt backed by the EU’s relatively small budget.”
George Soros has spent billions in the EU to undermine the nation state. This is where the real international political collusion is. pic.twitter.com/ANXOII7SFY
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 14, 2017
Any guesses who will be forced to pay down the debt on this high-risk venture? If you guessed George Soros, guess again. The already heavily taxed people of Europe will be forced to shoulder that heavy burden. “To finance it, new European taxes will have to be levied sooner or later,” Soros admits. That comment is very interesting in light of the recent French protests, which were triggered by Emmanuel Macron’s plan to impose a new fuel tax. Was the French leader, a former investment banker, attempting to get back some of the funds being used to support the influx of new arrivals into his country? The question seems like a valid one, and goes far at explaining the ongoing unrest.
At this point, it is worth remembering what triggered the exodus of migrants into Europe in the first place. A large part of the answer comes down to unlawful NATO operations on the ground of sovereign states. Since 2003, the 29-member military bloc, under the direct command of Washington, has conducted illicit military operations in various places around the globe, including in Iraq, Libya and Syria. These actions, which could be best described as globalism on steroids, have opened a Pandora’s Box of global scourges, including famine, terrorism and grinding poverty. Is this what the Western states mean by ‘humanitarian activism’? If the major EU countries really want to flout their humanitarian credentials, they could have started by demanding the cessation of regime-change operations throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which created such inhumane conditions for millions of innocent people.
This failure on the part of Western capitals to speak out against belligerent US foreign policy helps to explain why a number of other European governments are experiencing major shakeups. Sebastian Kurz, 32, won over the hearts of Austrian voters by promising to tackle unchecked immigration. In super-tolerant Sweden, which has accepted more migrants per capita than any other EU state, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party garnered 17.6 percent of the vote in September elections – up from 12.9 percent in the previous election. And even Angela Merkel, who is seen by many people as the de facto leader of the European Union, is watching her political star crash and burn mostly due to her bungling of the migrant crisis. In October, after her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a stinging setback in Bavaria elections, which saw CDU voters abandon ship for the anti-immigrant AfD and the Greens, Merkel announced she would resign in 2021 after her current term expires.
Meanwhile, back in the US, the government of President Donald Trump has been shut down as the Democrats refuse to grant the American leader the funds to build a wall on the Mexican border – despite the fact that he essentially made it to the White House on precisely that promise. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that any political party that does not support a strong and viable border can continue to be taken seriously at the polls for very long. Yet that is the very strategy that the Democrats have chosen. But I digress.
I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018
The lesson that Western governments should have learned over the last year from these developments is that there exists a definite red line that the globalists cross at risk not only to the social order, but to their own political fortunes. Eventually the people will demand solutions to their problems – many of which were caused by reckless neoliberal programs and austerity measures.
This collective sense of desperation may open the door to any number of right-wing politicians only too happy to meet the demand.
Better to provide fair working conditions for the people while maintaining strong borders than have to face the wrath of the street or some political charlatan later. Whether or not Western leaders will change their neoliberal ways as a populist storm front approaches remains to be seen, but I for one am not betting on it.
Authored by JP Cortez via The Mises Institute,
The destruction of sound money over the past century stems from actions at the federal level, but there are steps which states can take —and even have already taken —to move toward real, sound, constitutional money.
As state legislatures reconvene in the next few weeks, let’s take a look at the current state of play…
Since 2016, sound money has made a splash on the state level. According to the 2018 Sound Money Index, a new ranking of all 50 states on the extent to which they have implemented the pro-sound money policies, there are currently 38 states with an exemption of sales and use tax on the purchase of gold and silver.
Since 2016, legislators in 10 different states have introduced bills, seven of which were signed into law, to restore sound money by eliminating taxes on gold and silver within their borders.
In 2017, a quarter of all states without a sales tax exemption on gold and silver introduced new measures to eliminate the tax against the monetary metals. As states continue to make inroads on the sales tax issue, Tennessee and West Virginia are expected to introduce bills to remove sales and use taxes on sound money in 2019.
Wyoming has recently emerged as a leader on the sound money front. The state legislature overwhelmingly passed the 2018 Wyoming Legal Tender Act and thereby eliminated all tax liability against the purchase, use, and exchange of gold and silver inside the state.
Wyoming joined Arizona and Utah as the three states that have also eliminated income taxation on the nominal “gains” or “losses” experienced when selling metals, and Wyoming became the 22nd state to completely remove all sales and use taxes on the purchases of any kind of gold and silver.
Rising to a number two ranking in the Sound Money Index, Wyoming hopes to overtake Utah as the top state for sound money in the country with new legislation for 2019 that would begin to secure the state’s finances with an allocation to physical precious metals.
Wyoming’s state pension and reserve funds are among the most well-funded accounts in the nation, but because of their exposure to dollar-based investments, these funds – like almost all other pension and reserve funds across America — are nevertheless subject to significant risks. Securities, bonds, stocks, and other dollar-denominated assets carry high counter-party, inflation, and interest-rate risks.
To hedge against these risks, a group of Wyoming legislators want the state treasurer to allocate 10 percent of these funds in physical gold and silver. Arizona and Idaho may consider similar measures in the coming months as well.
Meanwhile, on the federal level, new efforts have emerged in Congress.
Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced the Monetary Metals Tax Neutrality Act of 2018 to remove the federal income tax from the monetary metals. Mooney’s bill is necessary because the IRS has erroneously and unilaterally characterized gold and silver as collectibles and subject them to high taxes as though they were akin to artwork, baseball cards, and beanie babies. Subjecting constitutional money to a discriminatorily high long-term capital gains rate of 28 percent is unconscionable.
While there is still plenty of work to be done, the sound money movement continues to gain strength. More state and federal legislators are joining the battle to legalize sound money and reinstall it as the foundation of our monetary system.
Australia, Canada, France, US fight back against globalist movement
The revolt against globalism accelerates.
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(Natural News) The changes taking place mostly against our collective freedom of speech, religion, and health choice are now happening so quickly that keeping up with it all has become a full-time job. But leave it to investigative journalist and independent news voice Robert Scott Bell to keep us all informed and primed for action… |
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(Natural News) The next time you hear a conservative news organization claim that the social media behemoths are biased against them, you should believe it. Not only has a number of studies and analyses proven the claim, but there is also a boatload of anecdotal evidence building as well. Take the case of April Glaser,… |
Following China’s ‘reactions’ to the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, and the ongoing (and escalating) tensions between Washington and Moscow over Crimea among other things, The Guardian reports that Russia has detained a US citizen in Moscow accused of spying.
FSB HQ in Moscow
According to a statement from the FSB security service (Russia’s domestic agency), the American was detained on Friday “while carrying out an act of espionage” and a criminal case has been opened.
“The investigation department of the Federal Security Service of Russia initiated a criminal case against a US citizen under article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The investigation is underway,” the statement continued.
Article 276 is espionage.
The statement identified the American in Russian, using a name that appeared to translate as Paul Whelan. No other details were immediately available.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow could not immediately be reached for comment.
If found guilty, Whelan faces 10 to 20 years imprisonment, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS reported.
The President of Kazakhstan has authorized officials to chemically castrate over 2,000 convicted pedophiles in an attempt to curb the child rape epidemic sweeping the country.
A Turkestan child rapist, whose identity remains anonymous, will be the first to receive the injection under the supervision of Kazakhstan’s health ministry, Yahoo News reports.
Newsweek.com reports: The country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev has allocated $37,000 (RM111,735) to fund around 2,000 castrations. “At the moment there has been one request for chemical castration in accordance with a court ruling,” Lyazat Aktayeva, the Kazakhstan’s deputy health minister, said. “Funds have been allocated for more than 2000 injections.”
Earlier this year, the country passed a new law allowing for chemical castrations. At the time, Senator Byranym Aitimova revealed that the “temporary” castration will come in the form of a “one-time injection.” The treatment is intended to prevent an offender from committing sexual violence.
Most chemical castrations do not last a lifetime and are considered to be reversible. The drug, Cyproterone, is an steroidal anti-androgen that was originally created for cancer patients.
When administered through injection, it will dramatically reduce a person’s sex drive and libido but effects to dull sexual urges could wear off in time, reported News.com.au. Critics have warned that the procedure is not guaranteed to prevent repeated sexual assaults.
The castrations in Kazakhstan will be executed at regional psychoneurological clinics across the country.
Kazakhstan has reportedly experienced a dramatic rise in sexual crimes committed against children over the past few years. Between 2010 and 2014, underage rapes doubled to around 1000 per year.
Chemical castrations have been used in several countries around the world – including Australia, South Korea, Russia and Poland – to curb sexual offenders. Usually they are granted in exchange for lighter prison sentences.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo passed a controversial law allowing the practice to be performed on convicted pedophiles in 2016, following a high-profiled case where a 14-year-old girl was brutally gang raped and murdered.
Before the law was passed, two opposition parties objected to the notion during intensive debates in parliament.
Human rights groups have also denounced the procedure, claiming that it will not result in the intended effect.
“Other countries that have chemical castration have not seen a reduction in sexual crime against children. Also it’s a very expensive procedure and what we should be spending and investing our money in is services to support and help the victims,” Azriana, the head of the National Commission for Women, said.
South Florida officials are pleading with the public to put their guns away for New Year’s Eve, according to WFOR-TV.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson are asking the public to keep their guns at bay for the upcoming holiday.
Suarez, Edmonson, and other law enforcement officials made the plea at the semi-annual “One Bullet Kills the Party” media event, which took place Thursday at Hadley Park in Miami.
The event is held twice a year — typically before the Fourth of July holiday — and picked up steam after an errant bullet came down on a party “years ago” in Miami neighborhood Overtown, according to the station.
According to the event’s website, “The aim of the event is to urge the public to refrain from celebrating New Year’s Eve with gunfire and, more importantly, to refrain from senseless gun violence resulting in the loss of life of our children.”
“We do not need to celebrate by shooting guns in the air,” Edmonson said during the event. “Because when a bullet goes up, it must come down.”
Suarez added, “We want to let people know that we have a gunfire detection system now that covers 80 percent of the city. If you do do it, we will catch you, and we’re going to hold you responsible because we believe the risk to life is too great.”
Samantha Quarterman, who attended the event, said, “If you shoot a gun, it just don’t hurt one person. Even if they’re not the intended target — it hurts a whole family. It hurts a community.”
The station reports that discharging a firearm into the air within county limits is a first-degree misdemeanor with penalties such as fines and jail time.
Lasers for everyone in the Air Force? We take a look…
The Air Force will one day fire high-tech laser weapons from drones and fighter jets to destroy high-value targets, conduct precision strikes and incinerate enemy locations from the sky.
The first airborne tests are expected to take place by 2021, Air Force officials have said. The developmental efforts are focused on increasing the power, precision and guidance of existing laser weapon applications with the hope of moving from 10-kilowatts up to 100 kilowatts. Air Force weapons developers are also working on the guidance mechanisms to enable laser weapons to stay on-track on a particular target.
Air Force leaders have said that the service plans to begin firing laser weapons from larger platforms such as C-17s and C-130s until technological miniaturization efforts can configure the weapon to fire from fighter jets such as an F-15, F-16 or F-35. Given the state of current technology, cargo planes are better equipped in the short term to transport the requisite amount of mobile on-board power needed for airborne lasers.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is already working on a program to develop laser weapons for drones and manned aircraft to arm air platforms by the mid-2020s. When it comes to drone-fired lasers, there does not yet appear to be a timetable for when they would be operational weapons – however weapons technology of this kind is moving quickly.
Future laser weapons could substantially complement existing ordnance or drone-fired weapons such as a Hellfire missile. Laser weapons allow for an alternative method of destroying targets, rapid succession of fire, reduced expenditure of dollars and, quite possibly, increased precision, service officials have explained. For instance, a key advantage of using laser weapons would include an ability to melt or incinerate an incoming missile or enemy target without necessarily causing an explosion.
A 2016 Air Force Research Laboratory report, called “Speed of Light to the Fight by 2020,” details how laser weapons can be used to deliver “scalable” effects. These include ways a 30kW laser can create “denial, degradation, disruption and destruction from UAS (drones) to small boats at a range of several kilometers,” the report states.
“More powerful lasers have counter-air, counter-ground, and counter-sea applications against a host of hardened military equipment and vehicles at significant range,” the AFRL report writes.
A Congressional Research Service report from earlier this year on Directed Energy Programs, also details some of the key advantages and limitations of fast-evolving laser weapons.
“DE (directed energy) could be used as both a sensor and a weapon, thereby shortening the sensor-to-shooter timeline to seconds. This means that U.S. weapon systems could conduct multiple engagements against a target before an adversary could respond,” the Congressional report states.
Lasers also bring the substantial advantage of staying ahead of the “cost curve,” making them easier to use repeatedly. In many instances, low-cost lasers could destroy targets instead of expensive interceptor missiles. Furthermore, mobile-power technology, targeting algorithms, beam control and thermal management technologies are all progressing quickly, a scenario which increases prospects for successful laser applications.
At the same time, the Congressional report also points out some basic constraints or challenges associated with laser weapons. Laser weapons can suffer from “beam attenuation, limited range and an ability to be employed against non-line-of-sight targets,” the report says.
The AFRL report reinforces this, explaining that laser weapons need to enable precise timing, tracking and pointing amidst the aero-mechanical jitter induced by vibrations during flight.
The essay also mentions the importance of engineering light-weight exportable electrical power sufficient to support a fighter-jet mounted weapon. Temperature, the report says, is also of great significance.
“System temperature much be controlled via the dissipation of wast, heat and high-speed aerodynamic flow must be mitigated to avoid aero-optical disturbances,” the AFRL document writes.
Ground testing of a laser weapon called the High Energy Laser, or HEL, has been underway at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., service officials said. The High Energy Laser tests are being conducted by the Air Force Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.
The service is now pursuing two concurrent laser-weapons programs; the Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) is designed to prepare airborne lasers and the Demonstrator Laser Weapon System (DLWS) is geared toward ground-fired weapons.
Given the complexity of laser weapons integration, the AFRL report details a three-pronged approach to development; the phased approach begins with subsystems engineering, then moves toward low-power laser testing and them conduct extensive air and ground tests.
Another advantage of lasers is an ability to use a much more extended magazine for weapons. Instead of flying with six or seven missiles on or in an aircraft, a directed energy weapons system could fire thousands of shots using a single gallon of jet fuel, Air Force experts explained.
“The total number of shots they can fire is limited only by the fuel available to drive the electrical power source,” the AFRL report says.
Kris Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army – Acquisition, Logistics& Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist for National TV networks. He has a Masters degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
This first appeared in Warrior Maven here.
